Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, February 8, 2026: Psalm 112:1-9, (10); Isaiah 58:1-9a, 9b-12]; 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, [13-16]; Matthew 5:13-20
“You are the salt of the earth“. Jesus is giving us an identity, but it’s a description. We *are* salt. Salt: in Jesus’ world, it was a primary preservative, keeping food fresh for times when it could not be otherwise obtained. Jesus talks about salt losing its saltiness, but that’s not what a cook worries about. For us, it is used regularly in cooking to enhance flavors. It’s astonishing what salt can add to a dish. But I suspect most cooks have blown it at least once, and oversalted a dish which becomes inedible. As one friend said, it is a thin line between the perfect amount and too much.
If we are salt, we can enhance the world around us. We can also ruin it.
The gospel also offers the promise that “a city built on a hill cannot be hid“. Most of us in the US will hear that in relation to John Winthrop’s famous sermon which declared that Boston “shall be as a city upon a hill“. It would be seen. He continued, “The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken . . .we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.“* Winthrop knew that the only thing certain about the city on the hill was that it was visible. Being the city on the hill was not a guarantee that you were good. Salt can ruin the dish.
Isaiah tells us that there are problems in the world. Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. In spite of their following the letter of the law, You serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers./ Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.
So, those who claim to be following the Lord are not. And then Isaiah reframes the fast, focusing not on self-denial but on action, on justice.
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?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Isaiah returns us to where we were last week with Micah: doing justice. It is action. This is where John Winthrop goes too. Before he describes Boston as a city on a hill, he tells his listeners that the way forward is “to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God“. Winthrop did not think being a city on a hill meant that you were necessarily good: you had to act with justice.
We live in a world where Christians cannot claim exclusive access to doing justice. There are many people from all faith traditions (including Christians) working to do justice. They feed the hungry, minister in prisons, house the homeless.
You are the salt of the earth. As salt we can do good work, enhance the good, preserve the fragile. May it be so.
- John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity”, https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/colliding-cultures/john-winthrop-dreams-of-a-city-on-a-hill-1630/
Leave a Reply