Epiphany 5A - 2026

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty

Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth.”
Not you might be, not you should try to become, but you are.

Salt doesn’t lose its saltiness because it goes bad. Salt doesn’t rot. It doesn’t spoil. Salt loses its potency when it’s diluted—when it’s watered down, mixed in so thoroughly with everything else that it no longer does what salt is meant to do.

Salt preserves. For most of human history, it was a yardstick of civilization itself. Communities rose or fell on their access to salt, because salt meant survival. It meant food that could be kept, shared, and trusted. Salt is not decorative. Salt is essential.

Which means when Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, he’s not talking about something optional or ornamental. He’s talking about who we are at our core.

If you’ve ever tried curing meat, you know this. You don’t just sprinkle a little salt and hope for the best. You need the salinity right. Too little, and the meat spoils. The cure fails—not because the meat was bad, but because the salt wasn’t strong enough to do what it’s meant to do.

And let’s be honest: low-sodium saltines are terrible. They look like crackers, but they don’t taste like what they claim to be. They’re crackers that have forgotten their purpose.

Jesus isn’t worried that we’ll somehow stop being salt. He’s warning us about becoming so diluted—so cautious, so blended in, so afraid of standing out—that we no longer preserve life, truth, or love in the world around us.

That warning connects directly to what Jesus says earlier in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

Righteousness here isn’t about personal moral superiority. It’s not about feeling important or being convinced we’re right. In Scripture, righteousness is about right relationship—with God, with one another, and with the world God loves.

And Jesus is very intentional with the words hunger and thirst. The first way we enter into right relationship with others is by making sure people are fed and given drink. Before we argue theology or debate ethics, people need bread. People need water. People need dignity.

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus puts it plainly: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” The golden rule isn’t abstract. It’s practical. It asks what kind of world we would want to live in—and then tells us to help make it real.

That’s why the table matters so much. God’s table is not stingy. It is not a symbolic crumb or a tiny sip. It is food and drink made whole by grace—bread and wine infused with the life of Christ.

At this table, we don’t just remember Jesus; we take him in. We internalize the message of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the love of God the Creator—who desires that we do right by one another and right by God.

We are salt.
We are meant to preserve life.
We are meant to deepen the flavor of love and justice in the world.

So may we resist being watered down.
May we hunger and thirst for right relationship.
And may the grace we receive at this table shape us into people who help feed a hungry world.

Amen.