Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (2023)

We are all familiar with salt and some of its uses. Some types are used for seasoning, to enhance the flavor of food. And this time of the year for us, salt us used to help melt ice so we can walk safely. Salt was especially important in Jesus’ day because it was used not only to give taste to food, but also to keep food from rotting. In Jesus’ day they did not have refrigerators, freezers, insulated bags and other ways to keep food safe.

We live in a world today that is upside down from what God desires. People constantly doing what seems right in their own eyes, when God says the opposite. The result is the world is rotting away because of this sin.

As Christians, we are stuck right in the middle: we too live in this world, but God says we are not of this world. Instead, He says in His Sermon on the Mount that you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Jesus preached his sermon on the mount to new disciples and, in doing so, His desire is to mold their wIll to his own. He intended them to see that being a disciple and acting as a disciple are intimately connected.

So today we are going to look at all three readings as briefly unpack (1). The Need; (2). The Message; and (3). The Assignment.

The Need

Last week we heard how God loves to work through apparent weakness. God chosen enslaved people to be his first-born son. His relationship with Israel would be defined by what he would make them. 90 days after God worked their exodus from slavery, he made them a promise. He pointed them to his saving acts at the Red Sea and in the wilderness. He told them that he had adopted them as his treasured possession. Then he told them that they would be for him a Kingdom of priests- royal, everyone-and a nation marked by holiness. That's what God wanted. But that is not what he got. He said, “If you obey me fully and keep my covenant”. The rest of Israel’s history told the sad account of their continual refusal to do either.

And this problem continues today. God desires a people for His own possession, but we are constantly doing what seem right in our own eyes, even to the point of ignoring what God says.

Last week we heard God contrast the wisdom of this world with His wisdom, and He is absolutely correct. We still think there are exceptions to His Commandments. I mean, why is it that people who profess to be Christians are living together as husband and wife, when in fact they are not married. When God tells us to remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy, why do some professed Christians neglect gathering together with other Christians to Worship God and receive His gifts? Do we not look for the path of least resistance in most things?

There is a great need to preserve the world and even professed Christians from the rotting, decaying affects of sin. Jesus tells us: Be What You Are. You are the light of the world, so be the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth, so be salt for the earth. God has made us light; God has made us salt. Now he calls us to live as he made us. Our calling the sons of God means our lives will reflect our new status, and the world around us will be blessed by us. Fittingly today’s appointed Prayer of the Day prays that God would help us believe and then to do the things that are pleasing in his sight.

The Message

Jesus said,

Matthew 5:17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”

God brought His people out of their slavery, He gave them His commandment on how to live, and they promised to do all He told to do. However, all the Law did was expose how they are rotting away. They were completely unable to preform as God directed. And the same is true of us. We are continually doing what seems right in our own eyes.

But Jesus came to do for us what we cannot do. What Jesus has did was rescue us from the power of darkness and He brought us into his marvelous light. His death upon the cross made satisfaction for all our sins. And His resurrection from the dead means salvation and new life for all who are baptized into Him. His work makes us into a brand new creation. In Jesus’ Kingdom, those who were not a people because of their sinfulness would now become God's chosen people.

St. Peter shows how you are the fulfillment of God's promise and Exodus 9:6. You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a people belonging to God. So be what you are. Live as what God has made you to be. The call of God made you part of a new people in order that we might declare his praises. We have made our exodus from the darkness of sin to the light of God's love. So Peter tells us to live lives that are different from the world around us— as different as light is to darkness. Called into the wonderful light, we let that light shine on everyone around us. God says, “BE WHAT YOU ARE!”

The Assignment

Quite simply, Be What You Are!

As Christians blessed by Christ are called to be blessings to the world around us. Jesus’ words remind us that we don't need to discover how we become salt and light—Jesus’ call to discipleship has already affected it. Now he simply calls us to be what we are. In His picture salt preserves things because it is salt. Light shines because it is light. You are salt, Christ says, so be it: act as the preservative that keeps this world from rotting. You are light, so be it: shine in the darkness of the world that people might see and know how different you are. Shine into the darkness of the world that people might see and give glory to your father who made you able to do it.

The message of grace is not a message of, NOW THERE IS NO LAW, SO IF IT FEELS GOOD DO IT. Jesus did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it— first for us, then in us. Our righteousness could never be enough—even if we could keep the 613 laws of the Pharisees—but Jesus’ righteousness is. Now he commands our light to shine that our deeds might give evidence of our faith to the praise of God the father who created us to do them.

When Jesus calls us to follow him, he confiscates us for himself. He wants us—body, soul, and will. He makes a one-sided covenant with us by calling us from darkness into light, by choosing us as his people and making us his special possession. That's what we are, so now he calls us to: “BE WHAT YOU ARE”.