Matthew 5:13-20 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Fifth Sunday After Epiphany Sunday, February 8, 2026 “Be What Jesus Has Made You”
Have you ever heard of salt that wasn’t salty? I suppose there are some chemical compounds that are technically salts but we wouldn’t use them to season our food. But salt, as we know it, as we add it to our food, the food tastes salty. The right amount tends to make foods especially tasty. Yet there’s always that bit of danger that you could use too much, and that is not a good thing. If your food doesn’t taste salty enough, it’s probably because you didn’t use enough salt, not because your salt wasn’t good enough So maybe you and I have not thought a whole lot about the scenario with which Jesus begins the portion of his Sermon on the Mount that we are considering this morning. Jesus is building on the introduction to this famous sermon that we heard last week. That was the Beatitudes, the statements of blessing. Blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the poor and hungry, blessed are you when people treat you like they treated the prophets long ago, with opposition and persecution. As we heard, all of these blessings come with a promise. We are blessed to understand that spiritual matters are truly important. We may not always recognize the joy or happiness right now, but God will bless us with lasting peace and joy and honor. And then Jesus says, “You are salt.” And maybe when some of us think about salt, what comes readily to mind is the danger that doctors will warn us against: too much salt can raise your blood pressure. I guarantee you that the people gathered around Jesus on that mountain were not worrying about that. They knew salt to a valuable thing because it provided seasoning and preservation. Having salt meant having food that was tasty enough to eat when you were needing it. Apparently, however, the salt that our Israelite audience had access to was not necessarily pure. It could happen that the salt portion of their seasoning would be accidentally washed away if it wasn’t stored and handled properly. So they sometimes came across salt that had lost its saltiness. They knew that sometimes it just needed to be thrown out. If it wasn’t what it was supposed to be and couldn’t do what it was supposed to do, it was useless. The next illustration used by Jesus probably is a little more obvious, even if our experience is not quite the same. Jesus reminds us that we don’t light a lamp only to hide it under a basket. That would be like flipping on a light switch in your room and then covering the light with a bowl. These actions counteract each other. You light a lamp in Jesus day or turn on a light by flipping a switch now in order to have light, in order to see. A lamp goes on a stand so it can shine all around. So Jesus calls you the light of the world, and he calls you the salt of the earth. And he means that he has a purpose for his followers. He has blessed them, blessed us, to be a blessing to others. He wants us to be salt. He wants us to add flavor to the world and to preserve it from the judgment it deserves. He wants us to be light. He wants us to show by our words and actions the way that others ought to understand this world and operate in it. He talks about good works. He wants us to be doing the things that best serve others. He wants us to sacrifice. He wants us to offer ourselves. He wants us to accept the possible persecution that comes from holding to the truth of his word and boldly sharing it. He wants us to listen to him and do what he says. When he calls us salt and then speaks about throwing salt away for it to be trampled on, that is a scary thought. If we are not doing the things that Christians are supposed to be doing, doesn’t that call into question whether we are Christians? And I have no doubt that we could all come up with examples of ways that we have let our lights shine before others. But would these things make up the majority of our lives? Would they extend to all aspects of our lives? Do we really live in the way that Jesus would want us to? Or are there some weeks when we leave an hour of church behind and never really consider again what was said? Are there some days when we just can’t believe that the people