February 8, 2026

Epiphany 5 Year A

Matthew 5:13-20

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Nine years and three days ago, back when I was just a kid, I stood right here for the first time as your pastor and I preached on this text from Matthew. I read that sermon this week to see if nine years ago me had much to say to nine years later you. I made a few cute comments about Calgary, where I grew up, and Winnipeg, where Val grew up, and tried to get a few laughs out of that. Talked about how it’s always so tempting to prove that we’re right and they – whoever they are, Calgary or Winnipeg or my group or yours – are wrong. And I tried to make the point that being righteous does not mean being right. I kind of hope that point has stuck, and I’ve tried to make the point again every now and then.

I talked a bit about being salt and light, because Jesus told his disciples – that’s us – that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Salt preserves, salt brings out the flavour, salt adds to the flavour. I even made the witty crack that salt can raise blood pressure, but I tried to let the whole preserving and bringing out the goodness and flavour be the main point. There was something about light too, about how it shines in shadowy places, and helps us to see clearly, and sometimes it reveals the things we don’t want to be seen. And light provides comfort; it can be scary when there’s no light.

Then I wrapped up the whole thing with a paragraph that began with the words, “I look forward to being salty with you.”

After nine years I’ve learned something about what salt of the earth and light of the world might mean, and it’s really not all that complicated. Salt of the earth and light of the world looks like people talking about the week’s events or whatever it is you talk about on Sundays after worship…or stop talking about when the pastor gets too close (just kidding. I hope). Salt of the earth and light of the world looks like a funeral lunch; It looks like meal teams for the Urban or food for a pantry at a school close by. Salt of the earth and light of the world looks like a Syrian family hosting a dinner; it looks like helping that family get some of their family members settled in a new home. Salt of the earth and light of the world looks like people phoning each other to say, “We’ve been asked to pray for someone,” or it looks like people phoning each other just to keep in touch when a brutal little virus kept us apart. Salt of the earth and light of the world looks like people staying apart when that was what we needed to do to keep each other safe. Salt of the earth looks like quilts and scarves and mitts being made for people we will never meet. Salt of the earth and light of the world looks like a handful of young people spending an evening at Activate, and then having a little devotion off in the corner of the lobby. Sometimes it has looked like someone working on a project, like making a sound system, or making peace where there has been conflict. Salt of the earth has looked to me like someone who is a fifth or a tenth of my age asking me how I am and I know they mean it.

Salt of the earth and light of the world looks like all the ways that you add to the flavour in your world outside of this place, at work or at home or at school.

And here’s the thing: none of us are salt and light because we try so hard to be. It’s just that Jesus says to the disciples who are gathered around on that mountain, and to disciples gathered on the prairies in a place like this, that we are salt of the earth and light of the world…sometimes we’re salt and light without even knowing it.

You are salt. You are light. Last week I suggested that we’re all sort of like apprentices, and we’re learning the craft that Jesus is passing on to us. This week maybe we’re learning that the craft Jesus is teaching is the craft of being salt and light. And everything we hear from this point on, everything in the Gospel of Matthew that we’ll be hearing our way through until late November, is teaching us about being salt and light.

So let’s look ahead for a minute: After Jesus is finished this long teaching of his – it ends up being three whole chapters, way longer than any sermon you’ve ever heard me preach – his disciples get up and start following him around, all over Galilee and then further south to Jerusalem. We disciples will go with Jesus and will see all kinds of things. He will heal the sick, and cast out demons; he’ll restore sight to someone who has never seen, and he’ll restore the health of a girl from another land. He’ll feed a crowd of thousands with too much good food, and he’ll eat and drink with friends and not-quite friends. Jesus will argue with teachers and scholars who have the greatest wisdom and experience, and he will gather up children and call them greater than the greatest. Jesus will be with people you should not be seen with in polite company, and every now and then it will look like he’s breaking all the rules for the sake of someone else’s well-being. And then one day – it’s in Matthew 22 if you want to look it up – one day we’ll look and listen while Jesus meets a teacher who knows his tradition and scripture inside and out. The teacher asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on those two things.”

Love God and love your neighbour. When Jesus says, “The law and the prophets,” he’s talking about twenty-six books in what we now call the Bible. Twenty-six books - about eleven hundred pages of the Bible that sits on my desk. An easy afternoon’s reading. Tucked into all those books is a little piece from a book called Deuteronomy – “love your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength” - joined to a few more words from a book called Leviticus – “love your neighbour as yourself.” That’s all those twenty-six books in just a few words: Love God and love your neighbour.

That’s salt of the earth and light of the world: Love God and love your neighbour.

Simple, right?

And complicated too, because loving God and loving our neighbour doesn’t just mean loving God when God is agreeable, but also loving God when we don’t understand or don’t like what we hear, and loving God when God asks us to do things that are sometimes really difficult things, like loving our neighbour. Loving our neighbour takes us into the world, where we are called to love our neighbour who is our friend and to love our neighbour who is our enemy. To love my neighbour who is just like me; to love my neighbour who seems so completely different. We’re divided so deeply in a messed up world, right? And we love our neighbour on this side and on that side of every issue and policy and position and dumb tweet.

We do we do what we do for the sake of our neighbour. That’s what salt and light are.

And maybe we can go back to everything we talked about last week, all of those “Blessed are” things, and we could start to say it like this: Being salt and light has everything to do with how we treat the meek, or those who mourn, or whose spirits are broken. Salt of the earth and light of the world has everything to do with showing mercy and not power, and with making peace instead of sowing hatred and fear.

That’s what we apprentices will spend our lives learning. That’s what we are blessed to do…to be salt of the earth and light of the world. For the sake of the world.

And now nine years ago me gets the last word. It goes like this:

I’m looking forward to being salty and lighty with you. We will be the kind of salt and light that hopes and prays and lives for the good of our neighbours, for the healing of broken relationships in our own land and in our homes and schools and streets. We will be the kind of salt and light who bear one another’s burdens and share one another’s joys. And we will live as though it’s true that God is bringing salt and light to restore a broken world.

We will trust that it will come true, because Christ is already salt for us and for all creation, and salt can’t stop being salty; We will live in the light, because Christ is already light for us and for all creation: Light that a sealed up tomb could not contain. And nothing will stop that light from shining.