“What it means to be salt and light”
A few weeks ago we heard a prophecy from Isaiah that a light would dawn for those living in the shadow of darkness. Darkness is associated with evil, danger, grief, loss and death. Zebulun and Naphtali, among the northern most regions of Israel, would be in darkness and gloom when the political superpower of the time, the Assyrian empire, invaded and oppressed them. When you see tiny Zebulun and Naphtali in contrast to the shadow of the Assyrian Empire hovering above, we can see just how appropriate the imagery of darkness is in Isaiah’s prophecy.
Matthew quoted Isaiah’s prophecy when Jesus began his ministry in Galilee. With the arrival of Jesus, a great light had dawned on the people as he brought freedom from foes even greater than political powers. It was many centuries later, but the people are still living under the shadow of darkness; living in the gloom of suffering, sickness, death, and oppression by the kingdom of Satan.
This is humanity’s natural condition since Adam and Eve turned aside from God, introducing the pandemic of sin to the whole human race, bringing spiritual blindness and paralysis to us all. By nature we are imprisoned by the flesh, and captives to the kingdom of darkness, under the power of the devil, led by him and the human will curved in on itself to do evil. Jeremiah would say: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
And so the wages of sin is death. Death is the way God puts a limit to the destruction people can do. The trajectory of illness and frailty towards our final breath is different for everyone, but the end result is the norm from the moment we are conceived. Our wrongdoing will not continue forever, because we will finally stop sinning when we die.
That’s a rather gloomy picture, isn’t it?! That’s the point—it’s the same miserable, gloomy reality the people of Galilee lived in. They knew the depths of brokenness with their frailty, diseases, disabilities, and spiritual oppression. They could not heal themselves or make themselves whole. They could not loosen the grip of death or free themselves from their bondage to decay. They could not break free from demonic affliction. They were poor in spirit—in spiritual poverty; spiritual bankruptcy. They were in gloom over their own hopelessness, and the evils of others that impacted them.
Matthew showed Jesus as the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy. By his ministry of preaching the Good News, people came to see Jesus as the way, the truth and the life. By trusting in him, those who groaned in bondage to decay were freed from death. Jesus demonstrated his authority and power to reverse the old order of things by healing people and freeing them from demonic powers.
Jesus had come as the light so the people could see the way to salvation; life with God, even as he said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12).
But when Jesus speaks of light for the world in today’s Gospel reading, he does not refer to himself, but his people: “You are the light of the world…”
Do you think of yourself as God’s light?
We too know what it is like to live under the shadow of darkness. Global political instability hovers around like a great shadow. Like little Zebulun and Naphtali, we might feel quite vulnerable as little Australia in the face of today’s political superpowers. We know the darkness of the world around us, which delights in violence, disorder, greed, rage, malice, lies and slander. We know what living in the shadows is like as we struggle with our own illnesses, frailty and limitations. We know the shadow of spiritual oppressors, as the devil constantly tempts us to think and live by the flesh, rather than by the Spirit of God. With glee he troubles our conscience by raking up our past failings, and delights in condemning us…and others can be quick to do that too.
So how is it that Jesus can say we are the light of the world?
Because our light is not of ourselves. When Jesus had arrived, the light God promised that would shine in the darkness had come. Then Jesus calls his disciples: “Come follow me.” As they followed Jesus in a dark world, they were reflecting his light to those they lived and worked with.
Jesus does not say you will become light. He says: “You are the light of the world.” You are light for the sake of the world that is unable to find the pathway to salvation. It’s often hard to trust this. We are reminded of past failures that we are ashamed of and think these things could exclude us from being light. We measure Jesus’ words against our experiences, to see whether this is true for us or not. We might be terribly burdened by guilt. We might think our faith seems to be a small, flickering flame. We might feel our worship life is in a low valley, even struggling to come to church.
The other extreme is to be overconfident in ourselves; in how spiritual we see ourselves to be. We might feel very proud of our obedience to God’s word. Our faith might seem to be a brightly burning blaze of light. It might feel that we’re on the mountaintop as we worship, striving for perfect song and prayer. We might be very satisfied with our generous service to the congregation.
Yet both positions, and everything in between, are temptations of the Devil—to look to ourselves to evaluate our light emission, instead of looking to Jesus. As people baptised into Christ, the Light of the world, you are light in Christ. In the Rite of Baptism, a candle lit from the Christ candle is usually presented to the person being baptised to symbolise this reality, as the words are said: “You are the light of the world. Let your light shine, to the glory of God the Father.” They are Jesus’ own words in today’s Gospel reading. It is not usually the pastor that says these words, but a member of the congregation, to show that, as God’s people, we are together light in Christ, as we pass his light one to another.
God chose you in Christ to be light for the world before you were even born, not only because he loves you, but because he also loves all those around you. Just as a candle is not lit for its own benefit, but to bring light so that others can safely see, we are not called to put the spotlight on ourselves, but shine the light of Christ to others—those who are living in gloom and the shadow of death, who don’t know the Son as the way in the midst of darkness.
The world thinks it knows the way. The default human approach to God is that the better we are, the higher we climb the ladder of righteousness, and the closer to God’s favour we get. That’s how the Pharisees, a Jewish religious sect, saw things. By adhering to the framework for morality they had established—610 manmade rules—they thought they were perfectly righteous in every situation. They believed their meticulous observance of their laws and rituals caused God to look upon them with favour. They thought they were deserving of God’s blessing. They were so close…yet so far. They just couldn’t see the problem—the more one looks to good behaviour and pious actions for righteousness and purity, the more the law shows us how unrighteous and impure we are. They just couldn’t see that righteousness with God was not achieved by human works, but divine works in the Person of Christ. They showed such hostility towards Jesus because he was undoing their efforts at preserving moral purity of the community. Instead of casting out those who didn’t measure up to their standards, Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them! In doing so, they rejected the very source of righteousness that had come into the world, and the prostitutes and tax collectors who repented entered heaven ahead of them (Matthew 21:31).
Jesus says you are the light of the world. You are light when you point to Jesus as the only way to come to the Father—by grace alone, through faith alone. However, grace is not the same as permission. Grace does not mean inclusion of everything. Grace doesn’t mean that lives don’t have to change. Grace doesn’t mean because we’re saved, it doesn’t matter how we live. That’s what the Roman Christians thought. Paul said to them: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? No way!” and then points to what baptism means: “We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1-2).
Those in Christ are a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Jesus freed those who others condemned, but he also said: “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:11). That’s why Jesus does not stop his sermon at light, but continues with the imagery of salt. SaIt was used extensively in the ancient world to preserve meats from spoiling. In medical practice, salt (saline solution) is used to cleanse wounds from infection. If meat is not preserved it will need to be thrown away. If a wound is left infected, the body will eventually die. Jesus is saying that just as salt combats perishing, infection and corruption in food storage and wound-care, the world needs Christians to combat corruption by sin which infects society.
The world has a sweet tooth and seeks to sugar-coat everything in the name of love and personal freedom. But the world doesn’t know true love—only a love of self. Love of self means opposing Christ and his teaching. Jesus calls his followers to be the salt of the earth—to combat the world’s spiral into the decay of selfishness and evil. To be salt is to live by the truth of the bible. To be relevant to the world is not to be like the world. It is to be completely different to the world. To be salt of the earth people is to hunger and thirst for righteousness as we follow Jesus by living by his word, even more closely than God’s people of old, so that we can see what the good works God calls us to look like. For Jesus did not come to abolish the teaching of the Law and the Prophets, but bring them to their sharpest point. Even if we hate someone in our heart we are guilty of murder, even if we look at another person lustfully we have committed adultery with them in our heart.
To live as salt of the earth people is not to regard God’s word as outdated and irrelevant, but his living word for today. It is to show others we are not right with God by justifying, excusing or explaining wrongs away, but through humble and contrite hearts, confessing our sins to God, confident of his undeserved and unconditional grace that brings divine healing and cleansing to us for Christ’s sake. It is to not be like the world and seek revenge when wronged, but to bring to one another the peace and mercy of Christ.
As we gather here on Sundays, we shine as the light of the world, for we show the community there is something here that the world cannot give—the way to salvation, truth and life itself. For we gather around our Saviour, and as he serves us through his word and holy meal, we are cleansed of sin and are blessed by him again to be salt to be salt of the earth.
We can only be salt and light with Jesus’ blessing of us. That is why Jesus’ call to us to be salt and light comes after his words of the Beatitudes—of blessing. There, Jesus gives you a declaration of being ‘blessed’ nine times. That blessing is what God wants all people to know. And he wants you to know it too. That’s why your Father in Heaven bought you to be his very own, paying the price with Jesus’ own holy and precious blood. Jesus was the one considered worthless and thrown away to be trampled underfoot, when he was crucified at Calvary, to reconcile you to God. So live as light and salt, for you certainly have a righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees—through faith in Jesus, his righteousness is your very own. Amen.
Pastor Tim Ebbs
St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, 2026
