Epiphany Five (Revised Common Lectionary) | 02.08.26 | Matthew 5.13-20 | Carl A. Voges |

The Passage

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

“Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” [Revised Standard Version, Oxford University Press

“You are the LORD, do not withhold your compassion from me; let your love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever, for innumerable troubles have crowded upon me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more in number than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails me. Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me; O LORD, make haste to help me.” [Psalm 40.12-13]

In the Name of Christ + Jesus Our Lord

For four weeks now, the Lord’s people have been journeying through the Epiphany season. They broke out of the Twelve Days which followed the Son’s Incarnation and tore into those weeks, fully thinking that the realities of his Incarnation would cut into the world’s life and make obvious impacts on it. How well has that thinking worked out? Not too well!

The Incarnation still surrounds the lives of his baptized people, but the world in which we live? It continues to expose how wrong things are, but is weak when it comes to solving those wrongs. It gets highly disgusted with others, but is unable to work through the disgust in satisfying ways. It puts its trust in significant entities such as money and power, but is uneven in trying to maintain those entities.

It is striking, then, that this morning we are exposed to the second section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It reinforces the initial sense four weeks ago that the realities of the Incarnation are slicing into the world’s life and making an impact. What we are starting to find out that such realities are not always obvious!

The first two paragraphs of this Gospel are relatively easy to understand. We recognize that saltiness cannot be restored to salt and that a light is not displayed to be hidden. The understanding, though, gets more difficult when we come to the third paragraph and Jesus asks if he has come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. Recognizing that his Birth will lead to his dying and rising, and the unleashing of his new Life for this world, we’re tempted to say, Sure, sweep the Law and the Prophets away, along with the useless salt and the hidden light!

The trouble with understanding these paragraphs in this way would imply that his people need to be swept away! As his people, we have often been described as salt and light for the world as well as understanding that the Law and the Prophets still work in our lives!

The trouble begins to ease when we recall what we heard last Sunday when we were exposed to the opening section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In it Jesus noted how blessed his people are with his Life pouring in on them while countering all the realities of the world’s life. The Beatitudes reflect the new realities when people are drawn into the Life of the Holy Trinity!

Thankfully, our Lord deepens that reality by commenting he did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them! So, what is meant by this phrase – The Law and the Prophets? An Old Testament scholar, W. A. Whitehouse,* has written an in-depth article on its meaning. He notes that the phrase includes the Decalogue (The Ten Commandments – Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5); the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 34 and 20); the Code of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 12-26); and the Law of Holiness (Leviticus 17-26 and Ezekiel 40-48).

Whitehouse points out that the Law emerges from the Lord’s Word. It flows from the Lord’s loving intent to create a people who are fully imbedded in his Life and his Ways. The Lord is not describing a Life to which they must first aspire and then succeed so as to be his people. It is true that the Law is a pattern of his Life for the world’s people (the apostle Paul pointed out that it is imbedded in the consciences of all persons). To the people who cannot or will not accept what the Lord is offering them, the Law then becomes a stern command which cannot be obeyed or raises a level which one struggles to achieve. The Prophets also reflect these distinctions in their Writings. They were continually calling people to remember the Lord who had pulled them into his Life and who was determined to keep them immersed in it. From its very beginning the Law is the good news of the Lord’s grace and mercy. Jesus’ desire to fulfill the Law and the Prophets will be reflected in his ministry that concludes with his suffering, dying, rising and ascending!

Through his Incarnation on 25 December, the Son is actually bringing his Life along with that of the Father and the Spirit into the world’s people! It is not a Life we can reach or achieve on our own. It is a Life which bores deeply into our sin-soaked lives, rescuing us from the world’s natural dangers, destructions and deaths! In the Epiphany season we increasingly recognize how the world births us to focus on “me, myself and I” (its version of the Holy Trinity!). Such a focus is trouble and we need (sometimes desperately) a rescue from it. The world’s focus on the self triggers all the mayhem running through its life.

Through the pushing of his Life into this world, the LORD God surrounds us with that rescue! The great and refreshing news this morning is that the push continually emerges from his Holy Writings of the Old and New Testament along with his Sacraments of Baptism, Forgiveness and Eucharist. They are the eternal sources which he provides on a weekly (and often, daily!) basis for the life and work of the Church!

From these holy places the realities of the Son’s Incarnation constantly make their way into the world’s life. While the world stumbles around in its dangerous and destructive ways, the LORD God is relentlessly determined to have the last Word for its decaying life, the Word which erupted from the Son’s crucifixion!

As his baptized and ordained people, we are positioned to reflect and carry that Life into the world around us. This is not always done easily. It is much like driving a car through a swarming crowd of protestors. While the car can go eighty miles an hour on an open road, here in the crowd it is crawling at three miles an hour. Some of the protestors are destructive, some believe they are doing good and some are excited to be part of the action. The car is being rocked, its windows are being smashed. Still, as we make our way through the crowd, we are leery of killing or injuring any of them. We drive carefully through the crowd, we do not quit or turn back.

Such driving describes the life and work of the parish communities to which we belong. We are baptized and ordained to reflect and carry the Life of the Father, Son and Spirit into the world around us. We are continually bumping into people who are wrapped up in themselves, some aware, some not; they make up the crowd swarming around us. Through faithful reflection and carrying, however, our Lord uses to signal his rescue of such individuals.

This is why our parishes are imbedded in the Lord’s holy places of his Scriptures and Sacraments. As their members and friends move in and out from those places on a regular basis, they proclaim, serve and teach the Word, the Life of the LORD God and his saving Ways! In so doing they are salt and light for the world; in so doing they recognize our risen and ascended Lord has fulfilled the Law and the Prophets!

Now may the peace of the LORD God, which is beyond all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through Christ + Jesus Our Lord

*A Theological Word Book of the Bible, edited by Alan Richardson, Canon of Durham, article by W. A. Whitehouse, pages 122-126, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1962.

Pr. Carl A. Voges, STS, Columbia, SC; carl.voges4@icloud.com