Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
February 8, 2026

Sermon

Camille Cook Howe
Pastor

Matthew 5:13–20

You are the salt of the earth. Not you specifically, but the Greek plural — you all — the “you” is corporate. Jesus is talking to the body, the whole community, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. In talking to the disciples, Jesus is bonding them together in the shared work they are to do in the world. In our individualist society, we would rather have a little private sermon just for me — our own personal Jesus, as Johnny Cash sings. But this teaching about how we are supposed to be in the world is about the collective. And the collective is the church; the church is the salt, and the church is the light, and the disciples get to be part of it. Salt and light are functional; salt and light are essential; salt and light are useful.  

How do we think about this teaching from Jesus for the church, to be functional, useful, and essential, in contrast to the reality that year after year, for close to half a century, the church in America has been in decline? Not that long ago, the church was at the center of society. Some of you remember those days, but that is not the world we are living in today. The church, and most particularly, the Mainline Protestant church, seems to be on a fast track to extinction. Jesus said, “If salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

Have we lost our saltiness? Have we lost our usefulness?  

Dr. Ryan Burge is a professor at Washington University and is one of today’s premier sociologists of religion in America. In many of his surveys, he begins by asking the question, “Are you religious?” And these are common responses he gets to the question.

“Oh, I’m not religious, but I am very spiritual.”

“I like the idea of Jesus. I just think churches are corrupt and unnecessary.”

“Christianity lost me when it became so wrapped up with politics.”

“I just don’t really feel the need for any of it.”

If salt and light are functional, essential, and useful, then those responses would indicate we have lost our saltiness.  

Burge’s new book, titled The Vanishing Church, describes the landscape of modern Protestant churches and denominations in America. He argues that there are three main functions of the church in society.

First, church creates community — it is a place where your grief can be shared, and your joys can be celebrated. Church is where bread is broken, stories are told, and loneliness and isolation are combatted, and service is done for the common good.

Second, church is one of the few places where people of different points of view and backgrounds can meet and make connections. The church can bridge divides that are huge obstacles elsewhere in society.

And lastly, churches give people a scaffolding on which to learn core Christian principles  — justice, mercy, compassion, and a way to “find humanity in others.”  

But our mainline churches have lost their way. One of the reasons is because those three essential elements of being the church have become less important. And in giving up on those priorities, the church has become less unique and more tribal. Burge says, “The average American increasingly understands religion through the lens of tribalism. It’s a way to say which political team one plays for, whom they find common cause with, and how they line up during election season. When this is understood, it makes more sense why religion is declining in the United States.”

Now we all know, we can get our politics all day long, and it is exhausting. Therefore, if the church is offering us simply more political perspectives and information as its focus, then the church has lost some of its function and usefulness. Burge cautioned that if churches continue in the direction in which so many are going, the future of the church is likely to consist of single-issue congregations, in which everyone has the same political views, and the decline will continue at the same alarming pace.

The loss of diversity of viewpoints within a congregation is a loss of people growing in their faith by listening to one another. If the church was historically one of the few places where different types of people could interact and learn from each other, what happens to our society when the church has given up on that as being an important function and value?

I visited a Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., over a decade ago when I was attending a meeting for clergy from the area. This church was known to be one of the most progressive churches in the city, although small in numbers. When I walked into the sanctuary, I saw they had a very large baptismal font that was made of glass. Inside the font appeared to be dirt. I asked the pastor about it, and he proudly told me that it was used by the congregation for composting. My brain broke for a minute thinking through the practical and theological implications for turning the church’s baptismal font into a compost pile. I said to the pastor, “You know, some people might find that to be offensive.” The pastor almost scoffed at me and said, “And some people don’t.” There was a blatant exclusiveness to that statement. It was posture I see with some pastors who say, in word or in deed, “Agree with me or get lost.”

It is a posture taken in evangelical churches. It is a posture taken in mainline progressive churches. And thus, the church has lost some of its saltiness. We can be bigger than these binary choices — agree with me or get lost. God expects the church to be bigger than this — Jesus was far bigger than any of this. Jesus relished in bringing different people together and humbling God’s people by recognizing their common humanity.  

Now the church is not called to try to retrieve its former “glory,” but the church is called to live faithfully into the present challenges of the day. We are called to explore what it looks like to be salt and light for the world in 2026.

What does it mean to create community when people are literally dying from loneliness?

What does it mean to create meaning in the world when people experience information overload and an inability to even process everything that they are exposed to on a day-to-day basis?  

What does it mean to bring people of difference together when the media and algorithms work so effectively at keeping us apart?

What does it mean to be a force for good when we see so much need in the world, and it is hard to even know where to turn or what to do?

Fundamentally, what the church can uniquely offer is a theological framework for how to wrestle with life’s biggest questions in faithful ways and in community together. When we become overly focused on politics, we give up the unique position and power we have through the life-changing messages of Jesus Christ.

I truly believe the church can be a force for good in combating some of our biggest issues as a society — but not if we become single issue, not if we become tribal and isolationist, and not if we cannot speak about the important issues on our hearts with respect and humility. The voice of Jesus can help us — in a unique and powerful way. But the Word of God in the Bible is not just an ancient text to be quoted to support our viewpoints or political persuasions. Jesus is the one who will transform our worldviews into something far more loving, gracious, forgiving, and expansive than we ever could come up with on our own.  

The late Walter Brueggemann, renowned Old Testament scholar, who visited Fourth several times, in an interview with Krista Tippett, said, “A poetic preacher always has to try to find another way to say it. I’ve recently been thinking more and more; it’s so astonishing that the Old Testament prophets hardly ever discuss an issue. And I think what they are doing is they’re going underneath the issues that preoccupy people to the more foundational assumptions that can only be gotten in elusive language. And very much the institutional church has become preoccupied with issues. Which automatically puts you on one side of an issue or on the other side of the issue. And when we do that, we are robbed of transformative power. Because then it is just ideology vs. ideology that does not produce very good outcomes for anyone.”

For fifteen years at the church I served in Washington, D.C., we proactively tried to live into this different way of being together. Through presidential changes, a global pandemic, multiple national disasters, and a myriad of social changes, we brought together people from different political perspectives and backgrounds. And it was hard to stay together, talk about the issues of faith, wrestle with issues of the day, and do it all with love, respect, and humility. It was hard, and yet the membership grew, giving grew, and our mission activities grew. Our community grew — even though we were not decidedly liberal or conservative. In a city that is so Red or so Blue, we were doing the hard work, trying to be the salt and the light for the city and the world. In general, people saw the value in singing, praying, and working with people across the aisle, who were there to learn about Jesus and to be in community with other Christians. As a church, we are called to recognize that what we have in common is more fundamental and powerful than the disagreements we may have on issues of the day.  

It is very difficult for any organization to try to remain together in such fraught and divisive times. It seems to be that the times we are living in are destructive, not just to the togetherness of institutions but more importantly to the human spirit and to our human connections. And the church, through the messages of Jesus, has something to say about that. I believe the church today is called to go, as Brueggemann suggests, underneath the political issues, in order to talk about God’s vision for the world, about what it means to be a human in our time and space, about what following Jesus looks like in the midst of the complexities of the world. It is not simple. It is not easy. It is not linear. And that is why we need each other. That is why it is in the Greek plural. You all are the salt of the earth. You all are the light of the world.  

We must not lose our saltiness. We must not push our society further into the throes of tribalism, division, intolerance, and hatred. We must not. Fourth Church matters to our members, it matters to our city, it matters to the Protestant landscape at large. Therefore, let us find a different way. Let us be radical in our welcome of people into this community. Let us care fiercely about each other and about the world we are called to serve. And let us be hopeful about our future, knowing God is in our midst. Yes, even in the messiness, the brokenness, the weariness of it all — God is in our midst. 

When Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” It was not really optional. It was and is our calling. We are called to be together — held together by God’s divine love. I am grateful for the bonds of faith and love, which Jesus set in place for us. May we be bold enough to believe in those bonds — today and in all of the days to come.

To God be the glory. Amen. 

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church