Salt, Light, and life's little lies...

On Matthew 5:13-20 | from Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026

Let's start in a spot that's a bit strange-- With a woman whose name we aren’t even given, from a story that isn’t even part of this past Sunday's lectionary excerpts.

You know the story in Genesis, the one where Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt?

She’s fleeing a city that is being destroyed. But she looks back. And she becomes salt.

For generations, this story has most often been told as a cautionary tale. When God tells you to go, don’t hesitate- get up and go. Follow the directions. Don’t look back, lest you too become a pillar of salt!

But that interpretation doesn’t sit very comfortably with what Jesus later says about salt, or about fulfilling the law. And I think we actually need to think about Lot’s wife in order to hear what Jesus has to say, today, clearly.

Because here’s the thing: Lot’s wife didn’t refuse to leave. She left the city. God said it was time to go, and she went, right along with her husband and other folk.

What she refused to do was make a clean break, as if the people she was leaving behind were disposable. She went ahead and looked back toward where her life had been. Toward the people who shaped her. Toward the neighbors, the children, the relationships, the losses. Toward the destruction. Toward the truth of what had happened.

And in that act of looking back while still moving forward, she became something valuable-- salt. A monument to a woman stubbornly clinging to exactly who she was created to be: Rooted in both her past and her present, holding the two together, difficult as that may be.

She refuses the lie of the clean break. She refuses to act as though the city and people she’s leaving behind are simply expendable. And in some ways, that refusal costs her-- everyone else leaves her there. (I guess Lot didn’t fully appreciate the potentialities of a literally salty wife.)

So--A woman so rooted in who she is that she refuses to let even God’s command to flee and not look back shake her loose from herself. So rooted, that she becomes salt itself. Hang on to that image and those values, and now let's turn back to Jesus, according to Matthew 5:13-20.

Jesus, speaking to people gathered around him on a mountain, says, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”

Not you should be. Not try harder to become. Just… you are.

The thing about salt and light is that neither has to decide to do its job.
Salt doesn’t work up the courage to be salty. It simply is. Light doesn’t psych itself up to shine. It shines. That’s its nature.

Now, what I'm about to say next may feel a little heretical to our Lutheran sensibilities, and it may go against our Protestant work ethic, but try to stay with me:

What if being salt of the earth and light of the world is not about serving others, directly.
What if being salt of the earth and light of the world is something closer to what Lot’s wife has shown us?

Being salt of the earth may be about refusing to be anything other than who you are. Refusing to forget who you’ve been. Refusing to be diluted, flattened, or hidden in favor of what’s easier or more socially acceptable.

Now, we don’t want to become monuments like Lot’s wife. She’s already got that role covered.
And yet, we are salt of the earth and light of the world.

Which means we are called to be so grounded in the image of God stamped into us that the upside-down kingdom of God comes closer simply because we are being so fully, so exactly who we were made to be.

Take that in for a moment. Because it carries some weight.

Lot’s wife looked back. She insisted on remembering. And she became something incredibly valuable: pure salt. And then everyone else walked away.

Being rooted in our salt-of-the-earth-ness, our light-of-the-world-ness, doesn’t always play nicely with maintaining the status quo.

Systems that oppress, exploit, and uphold illusions of goodness are not especially afraid of kindness, per se. Kindness is pretty easy to overcome.

But those systems, they are afraid of integrity. Of character. Of grit. They fear people who know who they are. People who remember where they come from. People who insist on carrying their complex histories instead of erasing them for convenience (hello, lies of race, lies of whiteness, lies of white supremacy-- all of which ask us to break from our ancestral bodies of self in favor stories that make us far easier to control and manipulate to the detriment of many and gain of an elite few).

Oppressive systems and the people who perpetuate those systems are terrified of people who refuse to become flavorless or hide their God-given light in order to survive.

To live from the roots of who God created you to be will draw attention. It will provoke criticism. It may stir anger in those who benefit from things staying exactly as they are.

After all, have you heard what they did to Jesus of Nazareth? To John the Baptist?

And yet-- and yet

Living this way also brings sanctuary. Joy. Freedom. Energy that doesn’t burn out but keeps replenishing itself. This kind of life draws from divine energy itself, magnifying and refracting wherever it goes, especially when others are walking this path alongside you.

And that line about salt losing its flavor? That’s a joke, you realize, right? I often picture Jesus in this scene with a knowing nod and smirk, twinkle in his eye while he watches folk in the room realize the absurdity of what he's saying and the obvious parallel:

Salt doesn’t lose its flavor.  Sodium chloride is sodium chloride. It doesn't go stale. And neither do you. The only thing that can happen is that salt can be diluted, mixed into or compromised or replaced by things that resemble salt. But at the end of the day, you are being told that you are salt- and if you are salt you simply cannot be anything other than what you are: salt. Therefore, you cannot lose your salt. And if you are being told that you are light, then you cannot be anything other than what you are, light. You cannot lose your light.

You are salt. You are light. Made in the image of God. Valuable. Powerful. Grounding. Guiding.

Over the last few weeks, those of us who gather in person at University Lutheran have been doing some small simple practices.

We’ve been checking in with one another. Naming feelings. Listening carefully to one another and to our bodies. Writing beatitudes for one another, reflecting back. 

Yes, these practices are connective and relational. But they’re not just social.

They’re practice, too. Practice in following Jesus. Practice in becoming a little more fully our salty, lit selves together, here.

When we tell the truth about how we’re actually doing and invite the same from others, we are being who we are: salt of the earth. And when we receive someone as they are, without fixing or correcting, and reflect back their brilliance and inherent goodness, we are being who we are: light of the world.

And when we do this together, the effects multiply. This is how the kingdom of God comes near. This is how we build collective strength. This is how justice, peace, and equity begin to take on flesh.

These small, honest connections grow over time into bold interruptions that redistribute power and reshape futures. One salt-of-the-earth, light-of-the-world human being at a time. One conversation at a time.

This is how the law is fulfilled. The law Jesus insists will not be discarded but fulfilled down to the smallest detail is ultimately about loving one another well.

As Lot’s wife loved enough to refuse erasure, to refuse to completely throw away any part of herself. As Jesus commanded of us, to love one another as he loved us.

We are salt of the earth and light of the world. Jesus is telling us it's in our DNA to love, and to love well. One connective, elemental act at a time. So refuse any dilution. Refuse attempts at dimming. Remain rooted, remembering, living firmly exactly as who God has created us to be.

with joy,
Rev. Sam