“You Are …”
February 8, 2026
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
Let’s remember the scene. Jesus has gone out into the countryside, and a multitude has followed him. So he goes up a mountain (so people can see him? Hear him better?) and he sits down and begins to talk. And as we talked about last week, he begins with Blessings. We call them the Beatitudes. Blessings for things that the world doesn’t think are blessings. But I would bet that almost everyone in that crowd would see themselves in those who Jesus was blessing—whether poor in spirit, or mourning, or meek, or hungering and thirsting after righteousness, or merciful, or pure in heart, or peacemakers, or persecuted.
Jesus has their attention. He is turning their world upside down. They are waiting to hear what he will say next. As I read this familiar passage this week, it felt like Jesus was giving marching orders. Now he has just started his ministry. People are just beginning to get to know him. And this sermon on the mount (as we call it) almost seems to be a worship service backwards! He starts with the Benediction, the Blessing, and then moves on to the charge.
You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Salt and Light. Two things that every one of us is familiar with. Common elements, like water, like bread and grape. And we need salt, we need light. But just like the blessings that started this teaching, I would imagine that these statements—even a charge to those present—were surprising.
What do you mean I am salt, I am light? You can imagine that those images would roll around in their heads for a long time afterwards. They were images that were potent. They were simple, yes, but they also had depth. You could chew on them, turn them this way and that, find new ways to incorporate them into your actions, your life, your being.
I encourage you to spend some time this week thinking about salt and light. How are you helping to flavor those around you? How are you enlightening our world? Do you place your light under a bushel? And if so, what small step could you take this week to raise that bushel a tad, to let your light seep out even just a little? Maybe you want to ask google where the word “light” appears in the Bible (expect a long list). Or maybe you read the first chapter of Genesis (thinking about being the light), or the first 26 verses of the 19th chapter of Genesis (thinking about what it meant for Lot’s wife to be turned into a pillar of salt).
Pay attention to when you reach for the salt (or how much salt is already in your food). Notice when you turn on, or turn off, a light. What kinds of light are there? Where do we find salt other than on our table or in our food? Let salt and light be your constant companions this week. And remember, that one of the first things that Jesus said, without knowing a thing about you, without seeing your resume, or hearing your life story, or even looking deeply into your eyes—was, You, yes you, are the salt of the earth. Share your saltiness! You, yes, really I mean you, are the light of the world. Shine bright!
This year, what came to my mind as I thought about salt and light is that they can be overwhelming. I’m sure we have all had the experience of eating something that has too much salt in it. (Or maybe we have put more salt into something than we should have!) Instead of adding flavor, enhancing flavor, that salty taste takes over. Think of trying to drink ocean water. Ugh! Yuck! It doesn’t taste good at all.
And as I was thinking about this sermon, because it lives with me for days before I write anything down, I found myself driving east in the early morning, and WOW, the sunlight was right in my eyes, I felt like I couldn’t see. I put up my hand to try to block some of the light because it was blinding! So when Jesus says “You are the salt, You are the light” maybe that isn’t a blank check to throw salt at every wound, or to go around splashing a bright light into everyone’s eyes!
And maybe Jesus would have used different images in our world. In his world, salt was a precious commodity. You would add it sparingly, because it was costly and rare. But it was precious because it does add to the flavor of a dish, actually helping the already existing flavors to come out. Salt is important because we need the right amount of salt in our body to make it work. If we are to be like salt—no, that’s not quite right, If we are to Be salt, wait, that’s still not right. We already are the salt of the earth. Just as we already are loved by God. Just as we already are beautiful and precious in God’s sight.
Jesus says, We are the salt of the earth. We can’t let go of who we are and what we were created for. If salt has lost its taste, it’s not good for anything and should just be thrown out. We have to hold onto our saltiness, even if we also have to remember not to spoil the soup by adding too much.
And light? Well, you can imagine a world where there was no electricity, where light came primarily from the sun by day and the moon by night, and of course, inside from various forms of fire—candlelight, fire flame, torch. If there was no light, it was much more difficult to work, to eat, to see. Light was a necessity. Our bodies need light (need the vitamin D that gets into our eyeballs when we are in the sunshine). And some of us need light to keep an emotional balance. It is no wonder that the “dark” time of the year, the time when there is less light, is more difficult for so many.
If salt is what everyone is—let’s call it a universal, then light becomes the particular. Jesus is suggesting that each of us, precious, beautiful people, have a light, some a big light, some a tiny light, but we all have a light, something that we shine, in our own unique way, into the world. (Do you know that one candle is visible from more than a mile away!—1.6 miles to be exact).
And Jesus talks a little more about this—maybe because those who would have been listening would have been prone to dismiss what he was saying. You are the light of the world. That makes you incredibly important. You shed brilliance and warmth and needed energy to those around you.
It would be a shame, incredibly damaging, to deprive the world of that light. Don’t put it under a bushel. You need to believe in your beauty. You need to understand your role in our world. You need to shine the light you have been given. Not to make it all about you, but to point to God, to the Giver of all things.
Are there those who blast their light without thinking about what it might do? Yes, as always. Jesus isn’t trying to make us narcissists. Jesus is still talking to those people he called blessed—the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, those who rarely get told that they are beautiful and precious and important. Jesus is trying to reorient us. Trying to tell us who we are, who we truly are, and what we are to be doing in this world of ours.
And what about this fulfillment stuff? Matthew is the gospel where we will constantly bump into “this happened to fulfill what was spoken.” Just as we are salt of the earth and light of the world, Jesus too has a mission—to fulfill the law. This is not a new idea—you can see Isaiah talking about it (as do the other prophets). They all see that the law can become stuck, calcified, rigid, and in so doing, it loses its “lawness,” what it was intended for—to get us closer to God.
Jesus is announcing that he is going to chip away at what has become of the law, he is going to try to remove the rust and the grime and the tarnish. He wants “the law” to become its best self as well. Others will not see it this way, but there have always been those who pushed against the prophets calling us to repent, return, and remember God’s love for us and God’s purpose for our lives.
Rev. Matthew Bolton of the website SALT has a beautiful illustration of this idea. “…when something is ‘fulfilled,’ it’s truly embodied, incarnated, filled out, brought to life. When we ‘fulfill a responsibility,’ for example, we perform it—we give it form—like an arm sliding into a perfectly tailored, beautifully embroidered sleeve. A scarecrow can technically wear such a sleeve, but its stick-for-an-arm won’t fill it out; it won’t ‘fulfill’ it, and so the sleeve can only hang slack and wrinkled in the wind.
But a human arm would fill out the sleeve perfectly; it would ‘fulfill’ it; and the embroidered sleeve itself, with its inner meaning and purpose fully embodied would then show forth in all its beauty…Jesus came to “fulfill the law,” to embody its essential features, to “fill out” and exemplify its meaning, spirit, and substance. (from SALT, commentary for Feb. 8, 2026)
In the first five minutes of his sermon on the mount, Jesus has created a new world, showed us how we begin to be on our way to the Kin-dom of Heaven. He has named us as beloveds, and blessed of God. And he has given us a mandate: to be salt, to be light, to our often tasteless, dark and dreary world. Sprinkling ourselves over all we do, lifting our light so it enlightens all around us, are steps we take in response to God’s great gift of mercy and grace. They are ways of walking hand in hand, humbly with our God. They call us to justice and to mercy as well. And they are part of what Jesus says is his mission, to “fulfill the law”—to show God’s people once again that we are God’s beloved, and God intends for us to shine bright so that our world might be all that it can be.
May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.
Friend shared a new poem
There’s no bread.
The bakers have gone into hiding.
The seats at the table are empty.
The Twelve are out marching with the thousands.
The streets are filled with a new song.
Only Judas sits at Target Plaza, counting his silver,
while Pontius Pilate issues a carefully-worded statement.
Meanwhile, the centurions have quotas to fill.
But out on the streets there’s a Communion.
Jesus takes the city in his hands and says,
“This is my body, broken for you.”
Rob Hardy (Feb. 2, 2026)
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