Fifth Sunday after Epiphany | Matthew 5:13-20

This sermon was offered at First Lutheran Church in Watford City, ND on Sunday, February 8, 2026.

Click here for the livestream video – https://www.youtube.com/live/Z6jaEHdzE2s?si=qkU9l828chkzSYrk

Sisters and brothers, friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Amen.

First of all, it is so good to be with you again First Lutheran Church!! I am so very grateful for your synod authorized minister, and seminarian, Matthew; for your elected leadership and staff; and, for each one of you who calls this congregation your faith home.

You are a gift to the ministry and mission God is calling us into as people of faith across the nearly 160 congregations of the Western North Dakota Synod; in and through nearly 9,000 congregations bearing salt and light around the United States in our shared witness as people of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; and around the world with nearly 80 million Lutheran Christians who are also part of the Lutheran World Federation – a global communion of Lutherans of which we are the only representatives of from the United States. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

In baptism our gracious heavenly father frees us from sin and death by joining us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are born children of a fallen humanity; by water and the Holy Spirit we are reborn children of God and made members of the church, the Body of Christ. Living with Christ in the communion of saints, we grow in faith, love, and obedience to the will of God.

Those words, or words very similar to them, are words that people of faith have heard for centuries at the beginning of every celebration of the sacrament of holy baptism. I believe they are among the most significant words that we hear in community as followers of Jesus. And – often times we don’t even hear them in the middle of the chaos that sometimes is a baptism.

In baptism our gracious heavenly father frees us from sin and death by joining us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, sisters and brothers in Christ, what does it mean for us in 2026, knowing and believing that we are freed from sin and death and joined to the death and resurrection of Jesus??

Well, for one, it’s important to remember that baptism is not just a one-time event that has zero impact on any other part of our life.

It’s also important to note that baptism is not simply a get out of hell free card or a one-way ticket to heaven.

In baptism, we are given our very identity as children of God.

And Jesus very clearly shares with us, near the beginning of his ministry, our identity is – “You are the salt of the earth.” “You are the light of the world.”

The word “you” here in its biblical Greek origin is actually plural, not singular.

“We are the salt of the earth.” “We are the light of the world.”

I think that’s an important distinction, because following Jesus is never about me, it’s always about us.

We don’t live out our faith by ourselves – it is always done in community.

The other important thing for people of faith to remember is that being salt and light isn’t a choice. As seminary professor and theologian Karoline Lewis reminded me this week –

“Jesus doesn’t say think about being the light or you might be the light or consider being the light or be the light. It’s not an option or a command. It’s simply who we are. As we believe in Jesus, and seek to follow the Savior of the world, we are the light.” The same is true for being the salt of the earth. We just are.

Another theologian, Thomas Long, helps us to root this in our baptism. “The hardest part,” Long says, “is not in being Christian for a day, but being faithful day after day after day, maintaining confidence in what, for all the world, appears to be a losing cause. What Jesus is saying, is that what people of God do in the world really counts.”

What you say and do and the ways you say the things you say and do the things you do…matters.

Jesus is calling us to live in ways that won’t make us the greatest and most powerful people in our community, or give us material wealth beyond our wildest imagination, or make us amazingly attractive in the eyes of the culture around us, or even enable the physical institutions that we build and love to survive forever.

What Jesus promises instead is something both smaller and far more enduring: that the life of God, lived through ordinary people like you and me, makes a difference.

Salt, after all, is not flashy.
Salt doesn’t draw attention to itself.
Salt doesn’t announce its presence.

Salt simply does what it does — it preserves, it flavors, it brings out what is good. In Jesus’ day it was essential for life. And in the same way, the people of God are meant to be essential for the life of the world — not by being loud and brash, but by being faithful.

And light — light doesn’t exist for itself either. Light is given so that others can see. Light is meant to be shared. Light pushes back against the darkness, not with force and power, but simply by shining.

If we take a step back and face one another honestly, there is plenty of darkness to go around these days.

There is the darkness of loneliness.
The darkness of grief.
The darkness of division.
The darkness of uncertainty about the future.
The darkness that comes when we wonder whether kindness and decency and integrity and mercy still matter.

In your baptism, God has named you.
Christ Jesus has claimed you.
The Holy Spirit has called you.

So, what does that look like here, in this place, at First Lutheran Church in Watford City?

Well, it looks like quiet holiness of showing up.

It looks like meals being made and shared with someone who is hurting.

It looks like prayers spoken when there are no easy answers.

It looks like teaching children the stories of Jesus, so that they grow up knowing they are loved and belong to God.

It looks like forgiving when forgiveness feels impossible.

It looks like welcoming the stranger, caring for the neighbor, checking in on the one who has slipped through the cracks.

It looks like living with integrity, as Jesus says later in our reading, with a righteousness that goes deeper than appearances — a life that is shaped not by fear or selfishness, but by love and grace.

You and I are joined together, in baptism, to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

One of the last things we do every time we celebrate the sacrament of holy baptism is to light a candle for the one who has been baptized and remember Jesus’ words to us from the gospel of Matthew that is before us today –

“Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Sisters and brothers in Christ, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Let’s go and live like we truly believe that. Thanks be to God. Amen.