Weekly Sermon: 02-08-2026 - Season of Light, Love, and Mission

The Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, O Lord.

Jesus said, You are the salt of the earth. But 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.

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.

People do not light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket. it.

Rather, they put it on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your

good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill.

For truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter,

not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until it is accomplished.

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches

others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,

you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Praise to you. This is the gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ.

Have you ever put one grain of salt on your food?

Yeah, neither have I. But usually you need a good shake right from the salt shaker.

Have you ever counted how many grains of salt are in a good shake from the salt shaker?

Yeah, neither have I. But I tried last night.

It's impossible to count. So I asked Chad GPT.

And it's 100 to 300 grains of salt for one good shake from the salt shaker.

And it depends on how big the hole is and how many holes you have from the salt shaker.

So in other words, it's a mick full.

It's a group. It's a team of salt grains.

It's a, well, what could we say? It's a congregation of salt grains.

The same is true for light. Thank goodness most of us did not lose any power

in the last freeze, like we did, whatever that was, four or five years ago.

But when my power goes out, I actually want to see what I'm doing.

So I light more than one candle.

You know, it takes more than one watt to light up a whole room.

So that's why we have at least 40 watt bulbs, or now they're LEDs and so on.

So in other words, being salt and being light, as Jesus describes in our gospel

reading, it's a group project in the kingdom of God.

Jesus is not giving us individual instructions, but he's giving us communal invitations.

And when Jesus says, you, you are the light of the world, he's talking about you plural.

We just can't tell that in the English translation because you singular and

you plural sound the same.

He's talking about the whole church, as in that helpful Texas phrase, all y'all.

So all y'all together are the salt of the earth. and all y'all together are the light of the world.

Another significant word that Jesus uses in these phrases about salt and light is the word are.

All y'all are the salt of the earth.

All y'all are the light of the world.

That's significant because these are descriptions.

These are descriptions. They're not directions. They're not commands.

They're not maybe kind of, sort of, coulda, shoulda, woulda.

They are descriptions of who we are actually in our identity, in our beingness.

This is who God made us to be. This is who we are, our identity. We can't help it.

It's our DNA. today. Jesus invites us to live out how God designed us to live,

to be who God made us to be, to live with God's love, hope, forgiveness, and flavoring,

shining out for others.

So we are already filled up with it, with God's light, with God's love,

with God's image, with God's spice of life.

So for my sermon today, what I want to do is to celebrate how all y'all together

have been salt and how all y'all together have been light,

flavoring, spicing,

shining hope in 2025.

So in 2025, we took in 14 new members.

And being salt and light is being a place of welcome and a place of joy.

And we celebrated that again today and a place of warmth and love when people

walk through the door or when we invite them in out in the community.

And that makes 62 new members in the last three years, not counting the people who join today.

That's phenomenal. Did you know there's lots of ELCA churches that aren't growing at all?

So that's amazing. And here's a retired pastor here in the front row nodding his head.

So he, right, Pastor Sandegger knows what I'm talking about.

So I can dance on the median in the middle of Beltline Road,

and I have actually done that, publicizing the free breakfast.

Some of you are witnesses to this behavior, which I probably should start again. It's been a while.

But if people don't feel loved, if they don't feel seen, if they don't feel

welcomed when they walk through the door, if they don't make friends,

then what I do doesn't matter. One wit.

Everyone has an invisible sign around their neck that says, make me feel important.

And you are great at sharing the light of Jesus by seeing, talking,

welcoming and making friends with new people.

This last year, we had three baptisms, and one was an adult, Ivan Minty.

And this is a wonderful thing to celebrate. And we have had one this year already,

or one on the books, like February 8th.

So we're so excited because baptism is such a wonderful gift to celebrate and

one of my favorite things to do as a pastor.

We've had more children in worship. Wasn't that just awesome to see all the

children? and, you know, the Holy Spirit is so wonderful.

I did not call up the parents and say, have your kids wear the light-up shoes

today. I did not do that, right?

All the kids showed up in their light-up shoes. Honest to gosh,

do you need any more proof that the Holy Spirit is moving at St. Luke's?

All the kids with their light-up shoes on a day like today.

The number of kids in the nursery is growing. Look, we have a whole table full of kids in the nursery.

Oh my gosh, my heart just burst when I look at these pictures of the kids and

all of them coming up for the children's message.

We are being salt and light to our children, and we are so grateful for Pastor

Ashley being a part of our congregation.

We had VBS now for four years in a row.

Four years in a row. Isn't that awesome? I think the church went for a decade

of no VBS because we didn't have enough children.

And probably since Pastor Pete was here the last time they had VBS. So this is incredible.

Four years in a row to have VBS.

How thrilling. Being light and sharing the love of Jesus with members,

with family, with friends. inviting our friends in to share the love of Jesus with them.

This year we had our second fall festival. And I don't know how many people

who worked the fall festival had people say to them, I didn't really know this

church was here. I didn't know what this church was about.

And so people are learning that St.

Luke's is a happening, loving, welcoming, rainbow people loving place.

And so hundreds of neighbors came and got to know St. Luke's.

And they definitely got some salty, spicy flavor at the chili cook-off.

So there was some salt right there. That was a lot of fun.

We had new and longtime members in our Christmas pageant and more children.

And we shared the light of the world by being the light together.

And again, so grateful for Pastor Ashley sharing her gifts among us.

And then our food ministry is a huge way in which we are salt and light in our community.

And this year we received a Mission Endowment Fund grant from our Synod,

$7,326 for all three of our food ministries combined.

So here you see our Hunger Helper bags.

They're in the gathering area. You can pick those up and pass them out to homeless

people or people who are on the corners asking for help. They have socks,

which are the most requested item by homeless people.

Soap. And this year, this is my dentist right here and his wife. She's a dentist also.

Richland Dental, just here in Richardson. And they donated 100 of these toothpaste

packs with toothpaste, toothbrush, floss.

And they donated 100 of them for our Hunger Helper bags.

So that was a new thing this year for our Hunger Helper bags. And I'm corrected.

It's not $7 each, but $20 worth of stuff in our Hunger Helper bags.

So the value of our Hunger Helper bags, which you give about $250 to $300 a

year, is about $6,000 just in that one ministry itself.

And now, more and more people are using our outdoor food pantry.

If you go out the door, the main entrance, it's there on the left.

And now John Bazan, our custodian, needs to refill it almost five times a week.

Last week, our council Sunday afternoon had a retreat, and just while we were

sitting in the adult ed room for a few hours, four families came and got food from the food pantry.

So now we're going to start having a basket in the entryway so that people can

bring food as a part of your offering. And we'll carry that basket forward as a part of our offering.

So restocking that was $75 worth of groceries a week.

That's $4,000 worth of salt and light given to our community.

And it's just there 24 hours a day.

And my dentist office also had a bucket in December for donations to the food pantry.

So this is what happens when we are salt and light in the community and we're

developing those relationships. So think about that when you're going to your

appointments around Richardson or you're getting to know people.

Our free community breakfast on the first and third Saturday continues to be

an amazing and vital outreach.

And Jerry Zimmerman, wave your hands, Jerry. Jerry looks a full burrito, let me tell you.

So if you're scooping them skinny, Jerry's going to come by and say,

that needs to be a fatter burrito. Thank you, Jerry.

Jerry does all the shopping for the breakfast.

Eggs, cheese, sausage, tater tots, salsa, garnished with cilantro,

with or without pork. It's the best burrito in northern Texas.

We give about 150 burritos, 160, 140, depending on the day.

And each person gets two of those, plus coffee and juice and a snack bag for later.

The value of the breakfast is about $17.

And when you add the time of the servant volunteers times 24 Saturdays,

The value that our breakfast per year puts into the community is about $30,000.

It is unbelievable amounts of salt and light, and we're developing relationships

with people in our community. We're learning about what the needs are.

We're praying for them, and we even have had people join the church by coming to the breakfast.

So amen for that incredible ministry that was started in the pandemic and continues

today. I think that's awesome.

Everyone contributes to being salt and light.

There we go. Our women's organization, WELCA Women of the ELCA,

this year did 49 quilts, made 150 school kits, and 200 health kits.

And those go for disaster relief, both here in the United States and abroad,

from storm relief, refugee camps, and so on.

So the women are often leading us in mission efforts, and they are here every

week, practically, putting together this kind of mission work.

And everybody contributes to being salt and light. Our yard birds who keep beautiful grounds.

Everyone who contributes musical gifts and works with our children.

Everyone who makes worship happen. Ushers, assisting ministers,

communion servers, altar guild, greeters, streamers, audio, photography.

We could go on with everybody who contributes and serves.

Everyone contributes to being salt and light.

Our choir and our choral Scholars, Dale and Aaron and John. We have a wonderful staff.

All of our members, in every way that you serve, you make a difference.

Every team helped us embody salt and light this year, and we all play a role

in being salty and shiny, whether it's property or evangelism, fellowship, worship,

abundance and finance, social media and pride, our great council and officers,

our member care team, which has pictures in the annual report.

All of us are salt and light together.

It's a joy to celebrate with our council leadership and all of you at our annual

meeting today, all the ways that we bring life and grace to one another and

to our community in worship,

in fellowship with our veterans and all that they do for us in our community

gatherings and in our blessing of the backpacks, which ended with this great

water play time, which was just fantastic.

And we want to thank Larry Wexler for all of these awesome pictures.

So we are salt and light. That is our identity. That is who we are.

That is who God made us to be.

And last fall, our abundance chair, Michelle Bender, talked to every single

group, every single person, every single ministry, and added up all the hours

given in this congregation.

And together, you gave more than 5,000 hours of your time,

and that translated into over $850,000 worth of value poured into our church,

our mission, and our wider community.

And that is just mind-blowing for the size of our congregation.

So that is an, I don't know, I've got to sit down with her and say that just blows my mind.

So that just brings me to tears when I think about what God is able to do through St.

Luke's here on Beltline and St.

Luke's Drive. So just think about the lives touched, the hope restored, the love shared.

And God has given us an even greater mission for 2026, and I'll talk a little

bit about that at the annual meeting, for ways for us to be more salty,

more shiny, more flavorful, more loving, more giving.

And we want everyone's gift and everyone's talent and everyone's contribution

going forward in 2026. Because you know what? There's no hiding under a bushel basket here.

There's no pew potatoes, as I like to say, because God has made us all shiny

and salty for the sake of others.

Jesus ends this part of his sermon about salt and light by saying,

let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and

glorify your father who is in heaven, which maybe you recognize from our baptism

service when we give a candle to the newly baptized,

it kind of sounds like Jesus is saying,

Let your light so shine, like it's a commandment or something.

But it isn't really. This is actually written in the third person imperative,

which actually does not exist in English.

The command is actually addressed to the light, not to us personally.

The command is addressed to the light.

And so our job is simply to allow our essence,

our true nature, that is the light of God within us, to be made even more manifest than it already is.

So it's about removing the

barriers dismantling the

impediments so that the light of God

which is our true nature might be even more evident might be more available

might be more shiny might reach further might encounter more people isn't that

amazing that God is when Jesus is saying this,

Jesus is speaking to God's own light within us.

Wow.

So all y'all allow the light of Christ, which is who you are,

to shine through you even more brightly.

So we don't let fear get in the way, or insecurity, or God couldn't possibly use me.

Well, that's an oxymoron, because God is already in you, using you. You can't help it.

You can't stop it. You can't avoid it.

Sorry, that's your identity. That's who you are. It's already there. I see it.

You can't play hide and seek with God, because God is already in you.

I think that's so awesome, right? Isn't that freeing?

That just like frees us from just about every insecurity we've got.

Boom. Therapy is done.

Wouldn't that be great? I just thought of that. That wasn't on the script. Okay.

But that is so freeing, right? This is who we are. So we just don't have to,

it's like, I don't have to be insecure.

I don't have to be afraid. I'm just going to say, boom, God,

let's go. this is your light and I'm going to allow it to shine forth.

I love that. And so as we turn our mission sites to 2026 with all of this to

celebrate and more, right?

I mean, I could have gone for another hour, but you know, chop, chop, right?

So just think about how we might allow the flavor rich, spicy spirit of God,

the light of Christ and the life-saving love of Jesus to become even more evident, even more manifest,

even more widely experienced than it already is.

That is an awesome invitation for a salty, spicy, shiny church where spirits already come alive.

So let's sing this little light of mine, but let's say amen first. Amen.

Go in peace to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly, shining the light

of Christ as you love, serve, and welcome all.

If you were inspired by this week's.