13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
Matthew 5:13-20
14 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
My sermon from the 5th Sunday after Epiphany (February 8, 2026) on Matthew 5:13-20.
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There’s an old skit on Saturday Night Live centered on a self-help guru named Stuart Smalley. Stuart was the star of his own self-help show and regularly interviewed celebrities without realizing how famous they actually were. He never identified himself as a licensed therapist and used his own earnestness as a way to express all kinds of motivational phrases. A big part of what made him funny was his catch phrases which included one where he’d stare into a mirror and affirm: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.” There’s a lot of power, I think, in giving ourselves daily affirmations because adding a little positivity into the world is one of the ways we fight against the chaos and the turmoil. Taking a moment to count our blessings; to name what we’re thankful for; and to intentionally find joy is how we notice the light when the shadow becomes too much. These affirmations can be as big as when we look up to the heavens after scoring a touchdown during the Super Bowl. But they can also be just for us when we, for example, notice a slight smile on someone’s face after holding the door open for them while leaving a store. Affirmations feel like they’re too easy, too silly, and too simple to make a real impact on our life. Yet recognizing who we are in an honest, human, and authentic way shapes how we treat ourselves and others. An affirmation cannot be the kind of compliment we give to ourselves to claim we’re always going to be the hero of our own story. They’re meant to be big enough to include how imperfect we are. And while most of the stories we hear in the Bible are the opposite of looking into a mirror and affirming we’re okay; our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew has Jesus affirming that you are who God declares you to be.
And to unpack a little bit of what Jesus was getting at, we need to remember where we are in the story. Jesus’ public ministry is, in Matthew, brand new and before he calmed a storm or fed thousands with a few loaves of bread, he preached a long sermon to his disciples. This sermon on the mount is the initial bookend helping to describe everything Jesus was up to. Last week, we took time to notice the start of the sermon – focusing on those “blessed ares” that invite us to realize how important peacemaking and mercy are to God’s vision for our lives. Jesus, then, immediately follows up with what we heard today – talking about salt, light, fulfilling the law, and how our righteousness needs to be over the top to have any chance of entering the kingdom of heaven. There are, within this text, several affirmations that really do make a difference in our lives. But that last statement we heard can make us wonder if we have any chance at being with our God at all. Now we Christians have, for almost two thousand years, used Jesus’ words about the Pharisees and scribes as an excuse to discriminate and demonize Jewish people. We often forget that when Jesus’ ministry began, his movement was an inter-Jewish conversation that took a few generations before becoming what we might consider a separate religion. Our preaching and theology can act as if those who challenged Jesus were either sinister, hypocritical, and clueless, or so wrapped up in what is meant to be holy, their embrace of the divine was rigid, exclusionary, and unattainable. We assume Jesus’ words fit the entire Jewish community since the scribes, Pharisees, and others were actual groups that existed in Jesus’ day. We use those words to affirm our own antisemitism, hatred and sin. Painting the Jewish community with that kind of broad brush distorts who they actually are and harms our own sense of self as followers of Jesus Christ. What we need to do, instead, is to recognize how Matthew wasn’t trying to transcribe everything that he heard about Jesus like a newspaper or history book. Rather, he used Jesus’ tradition of story telling as a way to reveal spiritual truths. Jesus would regularly use hyperbole and bold statements to get our attention. And he complained about the Pharisees and scribes in one speech while praising them in another. Who Jesus was calling out where those have no “interest in true righteousness or the will of God. They desire only a facade that glorifies themselves and helps them maintain coercive power over others.” It’s a way of being in the world that even those who say they follow Christ embrace as their own. Yet if those are the ones Jesus identified as the folks we’re supposed to compare ourselves to, then the kingdom of heaven isn’t only for those who are holier than the most faithful, kind, and caring person you know. God’s kingdom also has a place for you.
And that is something we can trust because of the other affirmations made at the start of today’s reading. Jesus leaned into two metaphors pointing to who God has made you to be. Salt, in the ancient world, was used in a lot of different ways. Salt adds flavor to the food we eat, was used to preserve meat since refrigerators hadn’t been invented yet, and was a part of religious ceremonies around sacrifices and the making of a covenant. Salt is necessary for our life and our health but could also be a weapon of war since armies who spread salt on farmland as a way make it unusable for future generations. Light, for Jesus, was more than making visible to the naked eye what was hidden by the shadows. Being a light in the world was, throughout scripture, often served as a description for God or for God’s messenger or even for Jesus himself. Yet you as an individual and all of us as the church, are called to be God’s light for the world. And one of the interesting things about Jesus’ words is how he doesn’t his affirmation isn’t hedged. He doesn’t say “If you believe in me; if you go to church; if you say your prayers; if you listen to me; if you give me money; or if you follow me” – then you are the salt and the light. All he does is say: “you are.” You really are part of what God is bringing about in the world. And I trust that Jesus has come into your life so that everyone can discover what God’s reign of love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, and grace is all about. Your life isn’t about being better than everyone else or even getting everything right. It’s not about being good enough or smart enough or being the most popular person at school. You, because of God, get to serve like Jesus serves; to bring hope to others like Jesus does; to work for peace in our nation; and to feed, welcome, and to embody a mercy that shows how others are part of what God is up to too. And while we will never get everything right when it comes to living out the kingdom of God, even the least of those who let God’s way rather than our ways of competition, chaos, intimidation, and power shape how we treat ourselves and our neighbors – even they have their place with God. You are salt. You are light. You are a beloved child of God. And if that is who Jesus affirms we are, then we get to be part of His mission to affirm the value, dignity, and worth of everyone and everything that makes up God’s creation.
Amen.