Last week we had a meditative devotion on Matthew 5:13-16. Throughout the service the verse on “the salt of the earth” was read several times and we were asked us to reflect on “saltiness.”

You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.

Matthew 5:13

The wording caught my attention. Different thoughts would have come to mind if I had been asked about “salt.” But when I heard “saltiness” my mind went to… Tears. Blood. Sweat.

On Monday last week the Executive Director of Mennonite Central Committee shared with us the foundation scripture of the agency. It was not, as many of us guessed, the Sermon on the Mount. It was Lamentations.

They cry out to their mothers, “We need food and drink!” Their lives ebb away in the streets like the life of a warrior wounded in battle. They gasp for life as they collapse in their mothers’ arms.

Lamentations 2:12

The parched tongues of their little ones stick to the roofs of their mouths in thirst. The children cry for bread, but no one has any to give them.

Lamentations 4:4

We hunt for food at the risk of our lives, for violence rules the countryside.

Lamentations 5:9

The seed that grew into Mennonite Central Committee was planted a century ago not by well-intended Mennonites living in North America but by desperate Mennonites living in famine and war in Russia and the Ukraine. Despairing, they sent pleading letters to Mennonite churches in North America that echoed the cries of Lamentations.

“Dear Brethren, help us, we are perishing! The famine is raging more and more and suffering is increasing daily, yes hourly. Every day we must behold starving, ragged, helpless persons, with haggard faces and swollen hands and feet, standing on the streets or dragging themselves about, looking for food; rarely they find anything, so they are obliged to return to their starving families at home with the message of despair, ‘We can get nothing for you to eat.’ ”

Letter from South Russia, 1921

“God only knows, who of us will live till the next harvest. It appears as though there may be but few, since from the 13,000 inhabitants of our village, there are now only 6000 living. All the others lie covered with the cold earth, most of them having died for want of food.”

Letter from Saratow, 1921

Mennonite churches in the United States heard this desperate cry for help and decided to respond. In doing so they were changed.

At the railroad stations the sight was appalling. The moment the train halted it was besieged by living skeletons. From their bony frames hung filthy rags in place of clothing. The feet also were wrapped in rags. Not with a rush did they come, but slowly, weakly; too starved to hurry, too famished even to demand…but the eyes haunted by fear like those of a hunted animal, and full of hopeless beseeching that wrung one’s heart dry; from out the rags were lifted their bare arms…the wasted fingers extended towards the car windows in entreaty for food; slowly, haltingly, piteously muttering the one sentence that was being wailed despairingly by millions in Russia…“Bread, in God’s name, bread!” The words that resounded day after day in the ears of American relief workers; that haunted their sleeping hours and woke them with a revulsion of fear and agony, the muscles quivering, the heart beating wildly, the body bathed in perspiration, until the nerves of some broke down completely.

Feeding the Hungry, Russia Famine 1919-1925, A.J. Miller

To coordinate the relief effort, the various Mennonite relief organizations gathered in Elkhart, Indiana on July 27, 1920 and formed a temporary central committee. The relief effort was not limited to Mennonites but also supported their neighbors – Russians, Ukrainians, German speaking Lutherans and Catholics, Bashkirs, and others.

It was a Christmas gift such as none of them, or us, had ever seen before. Not candies, or sweets, or nuts, or fruits, or toys; but that for which every man, woman and child in those villages was most earnestly wishing. That for which they had been hoping in agony and despair; that for which they had been praying almost without faith—BREAD! Just Bread! It came almost miraculously from far away America, from friends they had never seen or known, from some one who wished them well. It was Love reaching out its strong hand across the waters and the plains; across oceans and continents.

Feeding the Hungry, Russia Famine 1919-1925, A.J. Miller

It has been a wonderful experience in spite of the problems and difficulties, discouragements, but one won’t know until later what it all meant.

Arthur Slagel, Dairy, ca. 1923

100 years later the temporary Mennonite Central Committee founded to respond to famine in the Ukraine and Russia now provides “relief, development, and peace in the name of Christ” in more than 50 countries around the world.

Circling back – I think that Mennonite Central Committee has retained it’s vigor for a century by staying connected to salt. Tears. Blood. Sweat. Again and again, when the people involved heard lamentations, they did not turn away but instead turned towards those cries. In doing so they were changed.

For everyone will be tested with fire. Salt is good for seasoning. But if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again? You must have the qualities of salt among yourselves and live in peace with each other.

Mark 9:49-50