Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (A)

February 5, 2023

Text: Matt. 5:13-20

            “You are the salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13; ESV).  The sacrifices of the Old Testament were to be seasoned with salt (Lev. 2:13).  Salt was a central ingredient in the recipe for incense to be burned on the incense altar (Ex. 30:35).  It was also an important component of table fellowship.  When one wanted to enter into a covenant of peace and communion with another, the parties sat down to a meal together, and passed the salt between them.  It was a covenant of salt.  The sacrifices of God are salted, and the priests eat of those salted sacrifices, thus God says of it, that it is “a covenant of salt forever before the LORD for you and for your offspring with you” (Num. 18:19).  The priests represent the whole children of Israel.  And all the children of Israel eat the sacrifice at the Passover, so God’s covenant of salt is with all Israel.  Salt, therefore, symbolizes permanence, faithfulness.  Salt preserves.  In the days before refrigeration, meat was salted for storage.  And salt, of course, flavors.  As Job says, “Can that which is tasteless be eaten without salt” (Job 6:6)?  So when Jesus says, “You,” as in y’all (it’s a 2^nd person plural pronoun), Y’all, my disciples, the Church, “are the salt of the earth,” what does that mean? 

            Or, how about this one?  “You” (again, y’all, the Church) “are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14).  Like the sacred lamp inside the Holy Place (Ex. 25-26), apart from which there would be utter darkness, fueled by the oil of beaten olives, the holy oil also used for anointing, christening, and as a symbol of the Holy Spirit.  Then, too, in ancient Israelite dwellings, which mostly consisted of one large room, the whole place could be enlightened by the little flame of a lamp.  Light dispels the darkness.  It gives sight to all within the circle of its radiance.  It exposes threats to be avoided, and messes and maladies that must be set aright.  But it also brings joy and warmth and the freedom to move about and engage in activities.  What does it mean that y’all, Jesus’ disciples, His Church, are the light of the world? 

            What is the salt?  What is the light?  The rabbis believed salt was analogous to the Torah, God’s Word.  St. Paul says, “Let your speech be always gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Col. 4:6).  That is, let your speech be seasoned with God’s Word.  It is your Christian confession.  It is the preaching of the Church.  “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,” says Paul, “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1).  Salted sacrifices.  You, who have entered an eternal covenant of salt with God as you feast on the Sacrifice He lays out for you on His altar, become one with that Sacrifice, and offer yourselves as sacrifices, in life and in death.  To do what?  Speak God’s Word.  Confess Jesus Christ.  Serve Him by serving your neighbor.  In doing this, you salt the world, preserving it (the reason our Lord delays His coming is so that the Gospel may be preached, and more people thereby come to faith in Christ), and flavoring it (true joy, enduring and eternal joy, can never come from the things that the world offers, or Satan proffers, but from the Gospel alone, that our Lord Jesus has reconciled us to God, and gives us eternal and abundant life). 

            And what about light?  It is the same thing.  It is the proclamation of the Gospel and works of love done for the good of the neighbor.  Jesus Christ is the Light of the world (John 8:12), the Light no darkness can overcome (John 1:5).  “(A)t one time you were darkness,” Paul says, “but now you are light in the Lord” (Eph. 5:8).  You are baptized into Christ, immersed in His Light.  By hearing and learning His Word, you dwell in the circle of His radiance.  And the Light is in you.  You eat it and drink it.  The oil of the Anointed One, Jesus, is on you, and in you, the Holy Spirit, who fuels the flame so that it shines bright.  Your Christian confession, your proclaiming the Lord’s death until He comes (1 Cor. 11:26), good works done in mercy and love, these shine, not your own light, but the Light that is Jesus Christ into all the darkness of this world, dispelling it, exposing demonic threats and calling to repentance over the sinful messes we make and maladies with which we are infected, bringing the joy and warmth and freedom of sins forgiven to all who will come into the Light. 

            Now, this is profoundly good.  Christians should do good works.  Words (confession, preaching).  Deeds (love, mercy).  After all, what good is salt that isn’t salty?  What good is light that is smothered by a basket?  (Hide it under a bushel?  No!  … as you love to sing in your favorite hymn.) 

            But don’t for a moment think that your righteousness consists in your salty and illuminating good works.  Because that method of justification, that righteousness, is, at best, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.  And your righteousness must exceed theirs, or you’ll never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 

            Of course, the scribes and Pharisees are really good at good works.  You’ll never beat them at their own game.  If righteousness by their best efforts still falls short, you haven’t got a prayer.  You will never reach God’s perfect and exacting standards by your doing.  Thank God, your righteousness does not consist in that.  Your righteousness, your justification, consists in Jesus Christ alone. 

            Now, He doesn’t justify you by abolishing the Law, whether we mean by the word “Law,” the whole Old Testament (which is what Jesus means in our text, the Law and the Prophets [Matt. 5:17]), or the moral Law of the Ten Commandments contained within the Old Testament.  The Law shall not perish, not one iota or dot, not one jot or tittle, not one yod or hook of the beautiful Hebrew text.  Jesus doesn’t abolish the Law.  He fulfills it.  That’s just the point.  He fulfills all the types and prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures (the whole Old Testament, the whole Bible, is about Him, and gives us Him!).  And He fulfills all of God’s demands.  He does the Law perfectly.  This is what we call in theology, His active righteousness.  This, beloved (Jesus’ righteous fulfillment of God’s Law), is credited to us.  And He takes all of our failure to fulfill the Law, all our sin, all our darkness, all our breaking of the covenant of salt, upon Himself, and makes atonement for it by His death on the cross.  He covers it with His blood.  He is salted with the fire of God’s wrath.  He suffers it, what we call in theology, His passive righteousness.  All in our place.  Our righteousness is not our works.  Our righteousness is Jesus Christ, and Him alone.  And that far exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.  Jesus comes to us, to give us His righteousness, in His Word and Sacraments.  We receive Him and His righteousness by faith.  We do not do works of salt and light in order to become righteous.  We do works of salt and light because we are righteous on account of Christ.  Or, as Paul so memorably puts it, “by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8-10).  Christ is your righteousness.  You are righteous by grace through faith in Him.  Now go be salty and shine His Light.

            Pass the salt.  Speak His Word, and so bring others into the Lord’s salt covenant.  And don’t, by the way, relax any of His commandments to “make it easier” for others to come in.  The Greek word for “relax” comes from the same root as the word for “abolish”… when you relax God’s Word, you actually abolish it!  That is what the Church is doing in so many places where we conform to the world, capitulating on life issues, and sexual issues, soft-pedaling the Commandments, trying not to offend by our confession of Christ, tailoring our message so that it is acceptable to the unbelieving world.  Wherever we are guilty of that, let us repent.  And wherever our brothers and sisters in other denominations are guilty of that, let us shine the Light of God’s Word upon them and call them to repentance.  Abolishing God’s Word is un-saltiness.  It is the stuff of darkness.  We are to make disciples of all nations by baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever the Lord has commanded (Matt. 28:19-20).  Anything less, and anything other, leads the nations, not to life, but to eternal death.  Proclaim Christ and His Word faithfully, as He has given us His Word in Holy Scripture.  We do not come proclaiming the wisdom of the world, but the foolishness of God, our crucified and risen Lord.  We know nothing among those to whom we preach but “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). 

            And then, works of love and mercy.  Living sacrifices, seasoned with salt.  What God says to us in the Prophet Isaiah:  Loose the bonds of wickedness.  Repent of your sins and forgive those who sin against you.  Relieve oppression.  Share your bread with the hungry.  Give shelter to the homeless.  Clothe the naked.  There many ways to do these things… But do them!  Have mercy, dear brothers and sisters.  Have mercy.  And in this way, “your light” (the Light of Jesus) “shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing” (the healing of Jesus) “shall spring up speedily; your righteousness” (that’s Jesus) “shall go before you; the glory of the LORD” (again, Jesus) “shall be your rear guard” (Is. 58:8).  Christ before you, Christ behind you, Christ all around you, you shining Christ.  Or, as Jesus Himself says it in our Holy Gospel, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).

            The LORD has made an eternal covenant of salt with you.  Come and eat of His Sacrifice, the Lord Jesus, that you may be salty.  The LORD has poured out the oil of His Spirit upon you.  The Light is now in you.  Let that Light burn bright.  And know that your righteousness exceeds that of the most scrupulous scribe or Pharisee.  For your righteousness is Jesus Christ.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.