Matthew 5:13-20

It’s appropriate that on Super Bowl Sunday, we hear Jesus giving the disciples a pep talk. In Matthew 5:1-2, the two verses preceding what we call the Sermon on the Mount, we’re told that Jesus has seen a crowd, but he goes up the mountainside to teach his disciples. These words of encouragement are meant for Jesus’ disciples – his disciples then, and his disciples now.

When we hear Jesus tell the disciples they are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, what we often hear, instead, is “you should be…;” you should be the salt of the earth; you should be the light of the world. But that isn’t what he says. He says “You are…” You are, already. Rather than telling us we ought to be doing something we’re not, or setting an unreachable standard that we’ll only feel guilty about, Jesus says, “You are salt. You are light.”

These ordinary images don’t point to huge, dramatic acts. It only takes a pinch of salt to turn a bland dish into a tasty meal. Even a single candle destroys the darkness. With both salt and light, a little bit makes a big difference.

We’re living in difficult, challenging times. Perhaps these are not “the worst of times,” as Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities, but it can certainly feel that way some days. In the United States, immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community are under siege, American citizens who protest this have been shot and killed, the rule of law is under threat, it’s unclear that we’ll have free and fair elections in the fall, and many folks are struggling to pay their bills. Today the Washington Post lost a third of its staff, further jeopardizing trustworthy reporting following budget cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The Department of Justice seems to have been relegated to the role of personal attorneys of the Administration. I could go on and on. So could you.

What difference can a pinch of salt and a small flashlight make in all this?

I recently finished a book by author Sharon McMahon, who is known as “America’s history teacher.” The book, The Small and the Mighty, is about ordinary American citizens who didn’t make it into our textbooks but who, through small acts of courage, determination, and commitment to the ideals we claim we value as Americans, brought about more justice, more equality, more freedom, more peace. As one review puts it, “Not the presidents, but the telephone operators. Not the aristocrats, but the schoolteachers.”

McMahon’s book is a corrective to our assumption that things change for the better only when the rich and powerful act. Each of the people she describes simply does “the next needed thing.”

That is the salt and light Jesus has in mind. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your God in heaven.” (Mathew 5:16) When we have compassion for people – our families, our co-workers, the person who mows your lawn, the person who cleans your office – their lives improve. When we serve, the world improves. When we do the next needed thing in our own corner of the world, we heal that corner. We gather in community so that we can get encouragement and support in figuring out what that next needed thing is. But we are salt. We are light. Where we are, loving our neighbors as Jesus loves, we change the world around us.

© Joanne Whitt 2026 all rights reserved.