Letting the Love of Christ Shine

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
Sermon for February 8, 2026

My friends, I speak to you today in the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.

Good morning, Epiphany. We’re diving straight in today. Much like last week, the gospel text this week sort of speaks for itself this morning. These have been two easy-ish weeks of sermon writing; it’s hard not to just take what Jesus offers all the gathered people in his Sermon on the Mount and repeat it for us today… it is a sermon after all. This text is straightforward. It is not especially difficult or caged in tricky or confusing metaphors that need to be interpreted. And, in these first two verses, these are images that still resonate, that connect with us. I’m jumping straight into the Gospel this morning because there’s no real need for additional personal examples… here it is, the Gospel of the Lord.

The first of the two clear and relatable metaphors Jesus uses here is salt. I’ll only spend a bit of time with salt this morning, but Jesus says, “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.” This one, Jesus frames mostly in the negative for his hillside congregation, warning them that if they have lost their saltiness, well, they’re not worth much, they’re not capable of much. I don’t love that framing, really, but the message is clear that Jesus needs salt to realize that it is salty, so that it will do what it is intended to do. Salt does many things, of course… it melts ICE, we need salt on our roads these days. Salt also preserves, a much more important task in the first century than today. Roman soldiers were essentially paid in salt: we get the word salary from the word salt. Salt was necessary back then, it didn’t just do what we know it for today… which is add much needed flavor. I love salt… salty pretzels, chips, I put salt in everything, in my morning eggs… or at least I did until this high blood pressure thing turned up back in December. Now I just miss salt; you miss salt when you know your food really needs it.

There are good correlations here, when Jesus says, “You are the salt,” but we’ll come back to them because the better image here, in my opinion, the one that still connects and has inspired countless songs and sermons and Hobby Lobby pillows, is that of light. I won’t say it’s the “Live, Laugh, Love” of the Christian world, but it may be close. “You are the light of the world,” Jesus says. “A city built on a hill cannot be hidden… let your light shine before others so they may see your works and give glory to God in heaven.” Jesus loves the light metaphor, he calls himself “the light of the world” too, in John chapter 8. That Gospel begins in part by saying “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overtake it.” It says that John the Baptist comes as “a witness to testify to the light,” too, but here, this morning, we have: “You are the light of the world.”

Light, clearly, as you all know, it serves many purposes. Plants need sunlight to grow, humans need light to see, light helps regulate our sleeping cycles, and yes, even in the gray parts of Michigan, we need sunlight for vitamin D. If you haven’t seen the sun in a while, friends, you should probably buy some supplements. (Ha.) I worked night shift at a homeless shelter while living in gray and cloudy Seattle for a while… I promise you from personal experience, we all desperately need the light, lest we go crazy. As we age too, it’s difficult to read or see much of anything without good light. We all need the light.

Salt and light, these two images are how Jesus describes the identity of the people around him. He does not say be good so that you can become light in dark places, nor do right and help the poor so that you can become salt; there is no earning this status here. It is simply who they are. You are the salt; you are the light. Jesus identifies them simply as such. Contemplative writer and Canadian-Anglican Ian Mobsby writes, “Before any teaching and direction, this is a metaphor about what already exists in our identity… In a world that constantly asks us to prove our worth, Jesus begins by telling us who we already are... We are not asked to earn our place by shining brightly; we shine because we already belong to it.” You are the salt. You are the light. No qualifiers needed.

Here, Jesus is preaching this to the Jewish community gathered around to hear him; he was connecting their scriptures, their tradition, with their present day. This morning, we read Isaiah 58, where the prophet tells the people “Your light shall break forth like the dawn,” and “your light shall rise in the darkness.” In both cases, Isaiah connects their light with doing the will of God: sharing bread with the hungry, bringing the homeless into their homes, satisfying the needs of the afflicted. Light features in the Psalm we sang too, “Light shines in the darkness for the upright, the righteous are merciful and full of compassion… happy are they who have given, given to the poor.” Their light, it is not something they can hide, it will show itself in how they live… though given the negative framing for salt, Jesus was probably saying they weren’t doing a great job of living this. But they do not earn it; that light is simply clear when it shines, not hidden under bushels. It is clear when salt is salty. And the world desperately needs this light; it needs this salt.

And Ian Mobsby is right too: this is for us. Jesus was not just talking to the people on that mountain, he is talking to us today. Jesus follows his statement of their identity with a reminder that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, to live the law in full, a life of love so radical that they’d begun to see it as impossible requirement. But through his lived example, we see that Jesus came to open this covenant to all people. We should know then that this call, this life, this is for us, this is our identity too. We are salt, we are light. This is not a job description, this is a reminder that we are beloved children of God, made in God’s image, that we are salty, if we let ourselves be, that we are shining light, if we live it. It is through us who realize this and who live into being beloved that the whole world will be blessed, and all of us are invited into that realization, into that life of love.

When we live as salt, as light, when we live in love, we are fully alive. We participate in the life of the world, and we change the world with our loving participation. Rooted in the divine, in our identity as image bearers of God, we actively bring heaven to earth; we are a city on a hill that cannot be hidden, we are light that refuses to be hidden under a bushel because it is so different from the world around us and because it changes the world for the better. We know that love changes the world. Why would we hide it?

I was reminded of this metaphor while watching the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics this week. Each Olympic Games starts, as you likely know, with torch bearers lighting a cauldron that stays lit throughout the Games. I saw the cauldron in Vancouver in person during their Winter Olympics in 2010… it is a powerful symbol, a constantly burning fire, one that they say, “represents peace, friendship, hope, and the Olympic spirit of excellence.” Their fire, their light, it then moves after the games end through a relay around the world to the location of the next games… the flame came through southwest Michigan in 1984 before the games in Los Angeles. The symbol shines brightly, marking the Olympic ideals across the world. Participating in the Olympic relay is quite an honor, holding that torch aloft for just a few minutes, letting that light of peace and hope shine.

The call and connection here should probably be clear, and introverts may be concerned I’m going to call us all to a Christian torch run or something, where we have to yell about Jesus as we run down the road. I promise that’s not it. Instead, our call to be the light in the darkness – our call to be Christ’s torchbearers, not hiding our light but letting it shine – this call is simply to be the image bearers of God that we already are, to live into that, to love as God loves and to love boldly, to engage the world fully as a result, to be the salt that has not lost its saltiness, to be the light in the darkness, to show the world a God who loves all that God has created and a God who calls us to love our neighbor well.

When people look at us, may they see that light, God’s light, the light of God shining out from us like a lamp on a lampstand, like a city on a hill, like a cauldron full of flame, giving light to everyone in the house, in the region, in the world. And may we be bold, truly bold, in our love, with acts of kindness, acts of generosity.

This morning, we need only put God’s unending love for us… and our own love for God and for our neighbors… we need only put them on a lampstand, and let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Amen.