2026-02-09
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
Early in my time as a pastor, one of my mentors told me to always preach the lectionary; it keeps you honest he said. The lectionary to which he referred is the revised common lectionary, the set of texts laid out more than 30 years ago by a group of mainline and Catholic bible scholars so that, over a three-year period, rather than choose our favorite passages, we work our way through most of the bible. Each week the lectionary includes an Old Testament text, a psalm, a passage from the epistles and a gospel passage.
Sometimes it stuns me how appropriate the assigned texts can be! At a time when so many of us are searching for ways to respond to the divisiveness of our world, when we are deeply troubled by the news we read and struggle to discern where we go from here, this morning, we hear words of God as shared by the prophet Isaiah: “Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet!” And then, when people try to make the case that their perfect worship and fasting should impress God, God tells them: “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?”
We are reminded, in no uncertain terms, what we, as God’s children, are called to do. We are not to be conformed to the world or to make excuses for oppressive behaviors, but to speak out and to end injustice, even when we may simply want to run and hide from the whole divided, ugly mess. When we are frozen by uncertainty, God is imminently clear on how we are to respond.
But our texts don’t end there. In our gospel passage from the Sermon on Mount, Jesus teaches that we are salt for the earth, and light for the world. As one of my favorite bible commentators, David Lose, points out, Jesus doesn’t tell us what we should be or have to be . . . but simply reminds us what we already are. Even if we don’t know it, or if we once knew it, but have forgotten, even if we have a hard time believing it, we have been given a gift of sheer blessing: we are salt and light.
I’ve struggled this week with how I could preach this proclamation because lately, in this time of name calling, division, fear and constant attacks on the most vulnerable among us, I don’t feel much like salt or light . . . or that there is much of either in our country right now. I’m guessing there are number of you who have had similar feelings.
But as I prayed and reflected on these texts, I realized I was right in the same place as most people who were in the crowd Jesus addressed as he preached Sermon on the Mount which begins with the Beatitudes. In this sermon, Jesus sets out to disorient his listeners because he wants to create a new world. He is showing us what it is to live in the realm of God. In order to do this, he has to disrupt our current assumptions, shake things up a bit and ready our hearts for this beloved community he has come to create. And so he begins with the most radical empowering line of all time. And one of the most challenging. These are hard words to hear. He says, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”
What? “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” I’m not sure even the most cocky among us are ready for those words! So do we doubt Jesus? Do we assume that Jesus could not have possibly meant us? Do we think Jesus must have been mistaken? Have we convinced ourselves that our voices can’t make a difference?
Rest assured: don’t think this is about people other than us. Jesus isn’t talking to a particular individual. He’s talking to the disciples, and the crowd that followed him, people who had come from all over to see this one they’ve heard about. They’ve come to listen and to learn, to be healed and to have they lives put back together. They’ve come in search of meaning, direction and purpose.
You and I stand among that crowd. We, too, have come to see this one we’ve heard about, to listen and to learn, to be healed and to have our lives put back together. We’ve come in search of meaning, direction and purpose. Jesus’ words are as true and applicable today as they were 2000 years ago. “You are salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”
We’re used to hearing in church that God loves us. But this is something more intense isn’t it? You’re the light of the world. This is like God is impressed with us. God thinks we’re awesome. We’re the light of the world . . . the salt of the earth. So what exactly does all this look like? How do people taste our saltiness and see our light shining? Having been empowered by Jesus, how do we make a difference?
We do it by looking our neighbor in the eye and acknowledging them as having been created in the image of God. Try that with someone who you’ve labeled as “other,” as someone in the opposing political party or some panhandler on the street corner. It means generously offering our compassion, time, and money to care for and make a difference in the lives of the poor, the hungry, the stranger and the immigrant. It means starting a conversation and rebuilding a relationship with someone when what we mostly feel toward them is indifference, pain or even anger.
Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah who speaks of loosing the bonds of injustice and letting the oppressed go free. So maybe salt and light look like a world that isn’t dependent on control and power, one that establishes a society of equality and diversity, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being.
People taste our saltiness and see our light shine when we commit to genuinely listening to others, when we choose to slow down and value presence over efficiency and productivity. It happens when we choose a life of service rather than of taking and acquiring, of vulnerability rather than defensiveness, of intimacy rather than isolation. It means we might, and probably will, get hurt. It is loving God, our neighbor, our enemy, and ourselves.
To live as salt of the earth and light of the world is to know our deepest, truest, and most authentic selves. It is the life we long for and the life God desires us to have. It is both who we are and who we are meant to be. That’s why Jesus is so adamant that we not lose our saltiness and we not hide our light.
But he doesn’t stop there. Jesus ends this section of his teaching with these words: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." The radical assertion that Jesus makes is that righteousness is not just about knowing the law as the Pharisees did, but also about living it as Jesus did. Instruction is offered not simply through words, but also by action.
Our year had gotten off to a rugged start with much contention in our nation. These are times to be bold. They are times to teach by example. It’s not enough to know right relationship with God when we see it. Rather, we must live it. Righteousness is a way of life, not a curriculum. When we feel like our light is barely visible, we need to ask ourselves why. What, or whom, do we fear? What, or whom, has silenced us? We need to remember that our actions may be met by resistance, even rejection and harm. Jesus certainly understood this. And he taught by his actions anyway.
And these days our neighbors in Minneapolis offer us incredible examples of how to act as salt and light. Regardless of your thoughts on the actions of the government there, it is impossible not to be moved by the actions of thousands upon thousands of these ordinary people, from all backgrounds, not thinking about right and wrong, not posting on social media, not trolling people who disagree with them, but going about the business of shining their own individual lights on their own streets and in their own neighborhoods. Caring for their neighbors by bringing food, protecting children and providing necessary services of daily life, despite their fears and the risk of harm. This is the righteousness that “exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees.”
The reality is, whether in Minneapolis or here in Chagrin Falls, we don’t and won’t all agree on what salt and light looks like. That’s okay because God is great enough to use us all, even when our approaches differ from one another. When we accept Jesus’ promise and gift that we are, indeed, salt and light, our differences and uncertainty dissipate. We just act. We don’t debate it. We don’t second-guess it. Like our neighbors in Minnesota, we simply follow Jesus. We honor the most vulnerable, the poor, the sick, the disabled, the very young and the very old. We welcome the immigrant, the refugee and the stranger as scripture calls us to do. We work for justice, for fairness, and for an end to oppression. We lift up all people, regardless of race, nationality, religion, gender or orientation. We live in hope and we listen closely, aware that we may be wrong, but always looking for the best in those with whom we disagree.
We do these things because we are very clear that we stand together - not just with those who are like us, but especially right now, with those who are different from us. We stand together in love . . . because that is what Jesus did. We do it because God has told us to shout out and not hold back. We do it because Jesus assures us we ARE indeed salt and light. May it be so. Amen.