Sunday, October 4, 2026… LWML Sunday

“On Assignment from God”

Scripture Readings: Psalm 100; Proverbs 9:1-6; 1 Peter 4:1-12; Matthew 5:13-20

Service Order: Divine Service III with Holy Communion, p.184, LSB

Hymns: “O God of Mercy, God of Might” #852; “Praise, Love, Serve” (printed); “Serve the Lord With Gladness” (printed)

Dear Friends in Christ,

     Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

     All of us who are Christians have a mission in life, an “assignment from God” – and that assignment, according to today’s Scripture readings, is to love God, love one another, and show our love by doing works of mercy in the world around us. Jesus calls us today to be “salt and light” in the world: The salt of mercy to season the world with love and grace and make it a better place; and light of truth to show the world the love of Christ. 

     Today we celebrate the good work of our Lutheran Women In Mission (LWML), whose stated mission is to “serve the Lord with gladness.” All the mites you dear ladies collect in those little boxes, all the hundreds of missions you help to support, glorify the name of Jesus in the world, and are bringing more and more people to know Him. Thank you, LWML, and thanks be to God for everything you do. As St. Paul says, “I thank God that your faith is being reported all over the world.”

     Jesus talks about salt in our Gospel reading today. I really like salt, don’t you? My doctor might suggest that I cut down a bit, I guess, but salt is good. A little sprinkle on the morning eggs, or on a sandwich. A little shake of salt in a stew or a soup or a casserole to bring the flavor alive. A salty pretzel or pickle or potato chip… Nearly all the packaged food you buy on the grocery store shelves, the bread and the pasta and the stuff that comes in boxes and cans, relies on salt – or sodium - as a preservative – sometimes way too much. (My doctor is probably right about eating less of that stuff; gotta watch the blood pressure!) 

     Salt, in its defense, is the most ancient of preservatives. It was an essential in a world without refrigeration, as the only means of saving and preserving meat or vegetables or fish. Salt was once considered so valuable, it was even used as currency. Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt. That’s where we got the word “salary,” and why we say something in “good, right, and salutary.” It is truly good, right, and salty that we should give thanks to You, O Lord!

     What Jesus gives us in our Gospel reading is “an assignment from God.” Jesus, living as He was in a world where salt meant so much to people, called His disciples to be salty. “You are the salt of the earth,” He says. This assignment applied to those first disciples, but it also applies to every Christian in every age from that time on. It applies to you ladies of the LWML, and to every Church that carries the name of Christ, and to every Christian, including you and me. “Be salty,” Jesus says. In a spiritual sense, what does that mean?

     Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.” Chemically speaking, salt is a catalyst. It is a change agent. Salt changes whatever it touches, or whatever it’s combined with, and doesn’t leave things as they are. Our job as Christians is to be salty in just that way.

     When Jesus talks about “salt losing its saltiness,” the Greek word there means “insipid” or “tasteless” or “inert.” If a heap of salt sat outside too long, exposed to the rain and the sun and the elements, those wonderful “changifying” properties in it could be leached out of it, leaving behind, essentially, a pile of useless dirt, not good for anything but to be spread in the road and trampled underfoot. Our job is to be the good and “salty” kind of salt. Not to be innocuous or unnoticed, not to blend into the background, but to salt and season the world around us with the salty, life-changing, Gospel of God’s grace. 

     And, Jesus goes on here,  in addition to being salt, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.” The light Jesus talks about here is literally the light of God’s truth. We live in a world, you may have noticed, where darkness too often prevails. The whole broken-down human system, in government and politics, in media, and in advertising and merchandising, operates and even thrives on “misinformation” and half-truths and lies, and it has for a long time. There’s no end to the things people would like to keep hidden in the dark, things “they” don’t want us to know because it’s making them rich. And the last thing people who are growing rich on lies want is for other people to stand up and tell the truth and point out what they’re doing. (That’s why they crucified Jesus).

     The thing is, though, that although the light is truth, unwelcome as it can be - the light is also life. In the light of God’s truth is repentance and forgiveness and freedom from sin. In God’s light is where you’ll find mercy and grace and a born-again new life with Him. In the light is where our hope is found. So God in His love and mercy calls us to “come out of the darkness and into His marvelous light.” So, if we can connect the two ideas here, isn’t part of being “salty for Jesus” shining that precious light? Truth hurts sometimes, that’s true, and confession sure ain’t easy; but truth is necessary, because facing it helps and heals and changes lives. And who wouldn’t want that for the people we love?

     Jesus goes on, “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.” One of the names Scripture gives to God’s Church here on earth is “lampstand.” Lamps don’t belong in closets, do they? Hiding a light beneath a basket or under a bowl only leaves people  still sitting in the dark, and that’s not what lamps are for. Our mission from God and from our Lord Jesus is to shine the light of truth that just shatters the darkness, in a way that’s impossible for the world to ignore. We’re not here to hide in the dark, or to be safe, or to somehow “do our church thing” in a corner and hope no one will notice us. No, we were put here to shine! As St. Paul puts it, we’re here to “shine like stars in the universe as we hold out the Word of Life to the world.”

     Jesus says, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Ever wonder, if we’re “saved by grace alone,” why God still calls us to do good works? Not for our salvation, certainly; Jesus did every work for us that needed to be done when He died on a cross to pay for our sin. “Good works avail us never,” the old hymn says, as far as our salvation goes. “The righteous will live by faith.” But the good deeds we do in Jesus’ name are meant to shake on the blessed salt of grace and shine the Gospel light for Him, so everyone else can know Him, too.

     Our “assignment from God” isn’t to “abolish the Law or the Prophets,” as Jesus tells us here. The Ten Commandments are still in full effect, still as valid and true as they’ve always been. God gave them to us because He loves us, and how blessed we’ll all be if we turn our hearts to follow them; but taking them down from the courthouse wall and locking them in a dark closet isn’t going to make them go away. “Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished,” Jesus says. And what the Law was meant to accomplish was to show us our sin, so we’d turn away from it and be saved by the love of our Savior. I’m not here to tell you your sin doesn’t matter. I’m here to tell you what a glorious thing it is to be able to confess and repent and be forgiven.

     Our assignment, Church, from beginning to end and every day God gives us in between, is to keep God’s Commandments by loving Him and loving one another, and teaching our children to do the same. The Pharisees and law teachers Jesus dealt with every day taught that salvation was all about following the letter of the Law and keeping all the rules; and not just God’s rules, but all the other man-made rules they saw fit to invent and pile on. And that’s nothing but a path to misery; because for all you do and do and do, it will never be enough, and the end result will be despair.

     Real peace is in confessing your sins before God and putting all your trust in His mercy -- and then discovering with joy that a God of mercy gave Himself on a cross for you. Jesus, because He loves us, gave all of Himself to us -- first His body and blood on a cross, and now His body and blood on His altar, in, with, and under the bread and the wine. And all we have to do to be saved and live forever is to believe it, and to come in faith and open our hearts and our hands and our mouths to receive the gift.

     This assignment we have from God is a joyful one. Our mission isn’t complicated. Our message to the world is as simple as simple can be: Jesus loves you, and I love you, and I just wanted you to know.

     Pass the salt! Shine the light! In Jesus’ name; Amen.

Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.

Trinity Lutheran Church, LCMS, Packwaukee, WI

St. John’s Lutheran Church, LCMS, Oxford, WI

pastorshepp@gmail.com