On being salt in Japan

Where my wife and I are currently living is on the lower slopes of Mt Hirai. This means that every year we are guaranteed at least some snow and that snow on the road down from the estate to the town of Wani makes driving conditions quite dangerous. In fact, were it not for the fact that cars were trying to drive up and down it, it would make a good sledging run!

For this reason there are some salt boxes at the side of the road, so that you can do a DIY gritting job of the worst bits. In practice most of us don't, we just put on snow chains. Making roads safe is, I have always assumed, one of the current uses for salt, so I was surprised to find that here in Japan they are ordinarily more likely to pour water on potentially icy roads than they are to spread salt! Major roads in snow vulnerable areas have a fountain/spray system fitted both in the central reservation and on each side of the road. Instead of sending out a gritting truck, someone, somewhere, just turns on a tap.

How then is salt used in Japan? Like us, they do of course use it on food. The other uses it has attribute special powers to the salt. Should you attend a funeral you are likely to be given a packet of salt to bring home with you. This is to protect you from the influence of any bad spirits associated with the dead person's world. In fact a small pot of salt can be found in front of traditional small restaurants and even some houses, where it is believed to work to prevent bad spirits coming into the premises. One person even told me, although it was something they had only seen in practice on TV Soaps, that if you threw salt out the front door after a particularly loathsome guest has left, it should help prevent their return! Although the image coming to your mind so far may be primarily one of salt protecting, the Japanese would actually describe it as cleansing or purifying. This can be seen most clearly in the use of salt in the Sumo wrestler's world. Various ceremonies take place to dedicate and purify the "douhyo," or "ring" throughout each tournament. In addition to this, before each bout, as part of their preparation, each of the two wrestlers will throw about three handfuls of salt, all to ensure that the ring stays pure and clean. Also in the name of keeping the "ring" pure, they have a rule that forbids any woman from entering the ring and so defiling it. Even during the final prize giving ceremony, only men are allowed to enter the ring. Whatever purifying powers Japanese attribute to salt they seem to be, at least in this example, insufficient to cope with women!

Hebrews 10:11-14 speaks of constant ceremony to obtain purification, and contrasts it with purification obtained by Jesus for each of us.

Day after day every priest stands and again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God... for by one sacrifice he has made perfect for ever those who are being made holy.

We don't need to be constantly throwing salt to purify and re-purify things. Nevertheless Jesus does speak of His people as being the "salt of the earth." (Matthew 5:13 ) He then emphasises that salt is only recognised as being such, whilst it remains "salty." Non-salty salt is, "no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out." Stepping aside of any theological debate on what this says about the security of the believer, we can nevertheless recognise that Christians have a role to play, not in purifying, but in "flavouring" the world around them as we point to the true source of purity.