Loading...As [most of] you are aware, I am from Minnesota. There are plenty of jokes about how our preferred spices are salt and pepper and that ketchup is considered spicy. That may have been true at one time, but I think as people moved to Minnesota from places all over the world, our northern European palates have shifted. We really do use more than just salt and pepper, and we’ve learned that ketchup is not spicy.
However, the primary spice combination used when I was growing up was salt and pepper. In my parents’ home, the shakers were, and still are, a mainstay on the dinner table, just in case whatever food mom makes isn’t salty enough.
I suspect that practice came from her upbringing. It may have had something to do with the price of alternative spices and the limited availability of anything they may have considered “exotic.”
When we think about the purpose of salt in our lives, we know that it is necessary for so many things, including cooking and baking both to enhance flavors and to impact processes like leavening, but also for wound care, for melting ice from our streets and sidewalks, as salt water to gargle when we have a sore throat, bathing in salted water to soothe muscles and reduce swelling. Salt is needed—in the right measure—for our survival. Too much or too little, and our health can be threatened.
It seems to me, when I think about how many ways we need and use salt in our daily lives, that it is extremely necessary for our lives.
Jesus tells his audience, “YOU are salt.” “You ARE salt.” “You are SALT.” No matter where he puts the emphasis, the point is, we aren’t striving to become, or working toward, or thinking about it. WE ARE SALT.
Lutheran educator and theologian Richard Swanson put it this way: “… in its ancient Jewish context, the salt of the earth is the preservative, available in sea and soil, that keeps things from rotting. You are the preservative that is essential to life.”[1]
Writer and Episcopal seminarian Debi Thomas expresses it this way: “…it’s a statement of our identity. We are the salt of the earth. We are that which enhances or embitters, soothes or irritates, melts or stings, preserves or ruins. For better or for worse, we are the salt of the earth, and what we do with our saltiness matters. … whether we are intentional about it or not, we impact the world we live in.”[2]
Matthew Myer Boulton, on the aptly named SALT Blog, said it like this: “Jesus isn’t giving his listeners a new role to play here; rather, he’s naming who we already are. We don’t have to work to become salt and light. God made us this way, blessing us with gifts that can bless the world. But we do have to claim and embrace and live out these gifts. We do have to actually be salty and luminous, fulfilling and embodying what our gifts make possible. We do have to be who we truly are.”[3]
And finally, the Rev. Chelsea Harmon, the regular commentator on the appointed Gospel readings from the Center for Excellence in Preaching website says it like this: “Salt can be worth its weight in gold, especially because of its preservation properties. There are even historical references that describe certain kinds of salts being poured over embers of a fire at the end of the day, preserving the heat so that the next morning it would be easy to get a new fire going. Salt keeps the fire of life going!”[4]
If we take all these quotes to heart, we learn that we truly are salt, called to preserve life in the name of God. We don’t earn our saltiness; we live because we are salt. And if we are salt, if we are Jesus Followers, who walk the Way of Jesus, we live in ways that show others what it means to love God and to love others.
In the same way, Jesus says we are light. And again, if we are light, if we are Jesus Followers, who walk the Way of Jesus, we live in ways that show others what it means to love God and to love others. And we don’t just show it, we intentionally shine that light on what love looks like, through our actions and our words.
Jesus also says in this Gospel that he did not come into the world “to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” Jesus teaches those who trusted in God, that he came into the world to help them remember to put God first.
Our lesson from Isaiah this morning helps to define what was expected of God’s people. It begins with a tongue-lashing about how our behaviors might be more self-serving than truly following God’s laws. It takes a turn when it says:
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
The writer of Isaiah goes on to remind us of what will happen when we follow the law of love:
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
Jesus calls us salt and light and, in those attributes, we are expected to be agents of God, called, as it says in the final verse from Isaiah, to be the repairer of the breach and the restorer of streets to live in.
Our lives are not meant to be comfortable. We are called to be salty—to stand for and with our neighbors when injustice and poverty and racism prevail. We are called to shine a light on what harms others and denies them dignity and justice in the name of all that is holy.
Being salt means, we are to preserve hope, peace, justice, kindness, and the belovedness of all God creates.
Being light means we are to bring out into the open, or in other words, expose those things we do not want to see or talk about, to bring attention to these moments when all that we are striving to preserve is being denied.
As salt and light, we are called, as Christians, as Jesus Followers, as disciples and evangelists, to live into our divine purpose to love God by loving others without any kind of asterisk, without any caveat, without saying “but,” or “what about.”
All of humanity is made in God’s image. Every single person deserves dignity, to be treated with justice, kindness, and mercy. Through all the stories of Jesus we are told to pay attention to those who are being denied basic human rights based on some fill-in-the-blank reason.
From the start of his ministry, Jesus teaches his followers what this means. Last week, we heard the Beatitudes, the “blessed are they” and “blessed are you” verses identifying the depth of our humanity. Today the gospel points to our ability to serve, to make a difference in the lives of those on that list.
I appreciated Lutheran theologian Karoline Lewis’s 2017 commentary where she wrote: ‘What Jesus needs from us, evidently, is a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. “No!” we might say, “Jesus didn’t really mean that.” But what if Jesus did? What if Jesus’ intention was for us as disciples to imagine and live into a righteousness that makes the kingdom of heaven possible?’[5] What if Jesus really did mean that?
Conversely, what happens when we don’t believe that Jesus meant what he said?
When we lose our saltiness or hide our light, Jesus says we aren’t fulfilling our purpose. We aren’t following him. We aren’t repairing the breach or restoring our communities to wholeness. We are not respecting the dignity of every human being.
Harsh, salty, illuminating words from Jesus are sometimes necessary to help us see who we are meant to be, to learn what it means to be a Christian, to live the commandment to love God and show it by the way we treat all people created in God’s image.
Last Sunday we were asked in our annual meeting what we plan to do to welcome people of color, immigrants, folks who might speak a different language (and I might include use more spices than just salt and pepper,) to worship, serve, and fellowship with us in our church community.
It is a great question that needs intentional conversation, planning, and people willing to talk about our radical, real and honest welcome with an invitation to come and see what God is doing here at St. James’.
I’m looking forward to delving into questions like this when we begin to look at who we have been, who we are, and who we strive to be as lovers and servers of people when we have parish meetings later this year.
I look forward, through that process, to finding new opportunities to live in ways that express the salt and light that Jesus says we are to our neighbors and our community.
You are salt. You are light. Don’t ever doubt either of these statements. But do take some time to think about what these mean for you in your own life. Think about all the ways you preserve God’s love with your salt; about all the ways you illumine God’s love with your light. And consider how each of these parts of you are making a difference in repairing the breach, of making the world we live in a world of holy, life-giving love.
Amen.
[1] https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2026/01/26/a-provocation-fifth-sunday-after-the-epiphany-matthew-513-20-february-8-2026/ Retrieved 2/4/2026.
[2] Thomas, D. (2022). Into the mess and other Jesus stories: Reflections on the life of Christ. Cascade Books, page 165.
[3] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/2/3/salt-and-light-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-epiphany-5-h8zfm Retrieved 2/4/2026.
[4] https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2026-02-02/matthew-513-20-4/ Retrieved 2/4/2026.
[5] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-matthew-513-20-2 Retrieved 2/7/2026.
