Lectionary Commentaries for February 8, 2026
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

The lectionary offers preachers an awkward selection this Sunday. It combines two units from the Sermon on the Mount that, at first (and probably second) glance, don’t seem to belong together (5:13–16, 17–20). One option is to focus on one of the units. Another option is to find a way to link the two sections. I suggest that a focus on the interpretation of scriptures links the scenes.

Using parallel images, verses 13–16 provide further vignettes or examples of the identity and practices of Jesus-followers shaped by the empire of God. Both images are expressed in the second-person plural (“you”) to construct communities that exist for the benefit of the “land/earth” and “world.” Both images form missional communities.

Communities of Jesus-followers do not exist for themselves. No matter how powerless, they are not to live in retreat from or avoidance of the imperial world. Rather, their mission is to manifest God’s empire that contests the status quo and envisions an alternative societal experience.

Why the image of salt? Salt performs multiple functions: transforming, flavoring, preserving, and purifying substances. Salt does not exist for itself but affects other elements. Likewise, the community of disciples is commissioned to impact “the land” or the earth or the world where Israel and the entire population live under Roman rule (5:16; 6:1).

The beatitudes have described this inhabited world. According to 5:3–12, this world is marked by wealth and poverty (5:3), loss and grief (5:4), oppressors and oppressed, those with resources—land—and the dispossessed (5:5), injustice and acts of justice (5:6), mercy and cruelty (5:7), purity and impurity (5:8), war and peace (5:9), opposition and reward (5:10–12). Jesus-followers are missional participants in this society with the huge task of “salting” and transforming it.

The rest of verse 13 recognizes that this mission identity and task are challenging. It acknowledges that ineffectiveness or failure is a possibility by imagining that salt becomes “saltless” (whatever the chemical impossibilities). And in such circumstances of the failure of identity and practice, judgment follows with the salt being thrown out and trampled underfoot. The Gospel threatens judgment to motivate faithful behaviors.

Another image of transforming mission follows: “You are the light for the world” (5:14). This image is drawn both from everyday life and from Israel’s traditions. As “a light to the nations” (Isaiah 42:6), Israel is constructed as an agent of God’s will tasked with resisting imperial injustice and awaiting God’s eventual imperialist triumph over all opposing forces and nations (Isaiah 2:2–5; Micah 4:1–3). Likewise, Jesus-followers are to continue Jesus’ identity and mission of shining light into the darkness and death of the Rome-occupied world (so 4:15–16).

In contrast to the warning and threat about the salt in verse 13, verse 16 seems optimistic about the transformative impact of the “good works” that comprise this light-shining mission. Yet the confidence seems misplaced. The mission task is monumental, the world (past and present) is significantly out of shape, and it comprises competing claimants, powers, and interest groups. Cicero, for example, describes Rome’s identity and mission as “light to the whole world.”¹ None of this, though, deters the Gospel’s constant urging to mission (10:7–8; 24:14; 25:31–46; 28:19–20), nor its confidence about the final, life-giving, imperially imitative victory of God’s empire over all opposition (24:27–31; 25:31–46; 28:18).

Verses 21–48 will supply six more examples or vignettes of the identity and practices of Jesus-followers created by God’s empire. These examples are created by constructing Jesus as the interpreter of scriptural traditions. This is not a new development. Scriptural traditions and images have informed the beatitudes and images of 5:3–16, just as they will be central in the following six scenarios in 5:21–48.

Verses 17–20, therefore, pause the sermon’s examples or visions of life in God’s empire to highlight two claims. One is that Jesus’ manifestation of God’s saving presence (1:21–23) and of the reign or empire of God (4:17) enacts God’s will known in the scriptures. And second, Jesus is the God-anointed interpreter and teacher of the divine purposes.

The Matthean Jesus makes four declarations.

First, he claims continuity between his teaching and the scriptures (5:17). He emphatically rejects the notion that he destroys or abolishes the scriptures. Rather, he rightly interprets them.

The second claim states the basis for the first claim (5:18). The written scriptures have abiding authority for the duration of the present world. Not one letter, not an iota and stroke (“jot and tittle”), will pass away before heaven and earth pass away. If the smallest letters are so valuable and permanent, so are all the letters that comprise the scriptures.

The third claim moves beyond written texts to their accurate teaching, interpretation, and observance (5:19). He identifies a teacher who sets aside a commandment and teaches others to do so. This teacher is not excluded from God’s empire but is demoted to a place of little honor.

By contrast, Jesus ascribes great honor in God’s empire to the one who teaches and obeys the commandments interpreted by Jesus. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus’ interpretation emphasizes justice (5:20), mercy (9:13; 12:1–4), love (22:34–40), and faithfulness (23:23) as central tenets. The sermon closes by advocating hearing and doing Jesus’ teaching (7:24–27; see also 12:46–50).

The fourth claim identifies the ethical demand to live according to Jesus’ right interpretation of scripture that ensures entry to God’s empire (5:20). The ethical demand consists of a life marked by justice as set out in the scriptures and rightly interpreted by Jesus. It is to be greater than the justice of the scribes and Pharisees. Doing justice matters more than confessions.

The verse does not identify the inadequate practices of justice. However, we must remember that scribes and Pharisees were part of the Judean leadership and allies of Rome (2:4; 15:1; 16:21; 27:41, 62). As societal leaders, they sustained and benefited from Rome’s powerful, male-dominated, hierarchical, oppressive world. They will secure Jesus’ death. Jesus attacks them for ignoring justice, mercy, and faithfulness (23:23).

The communities of Jesus-followers are not to replicate self-interested “(in)justice,” but are to embody justice that brings life to all.

Notes

1. Catalinarian Orations 4.11.

Though the context is postexilic, the voice of First Isaiah (1–39) still resounds through the prophecies of Third Isaiah (56–66). Their resonance is largely due to a ruling class that continually demands prophetic critique. While the conquering violence of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires upended the leadership of Israel and Judah, the old habits of injustice soon resurfaced after the return from exile. 

At issue here is when elite power and a self-serving value system converge to produce a leadership praxis of oppression, exploitation, and subjugation. It is this recurring social environment that summons prophetic critique—the kind voiced in the divine command “Shout out; do not hold back!” (58:1).

A prophetic critique of privilege

In this passage, the prophetic critique of oppressive power attends not to a ruling individual but to an elite group. These are privileged people whose position is sustained by the hard labor of others (58:3). They have access to food and own houses. Ultimately, they hold the power to liberate “the oppressed” (verse 6) and to feed “the hungry,” house “the poor,” and clothe “the naked” (verse 7). Such a focus brings into view a consensus of thought, a dominant belief system, a collective way of being. 

To linger here as a preacher of this text invites reflection on current elite groups that perpetuate their privilege by oppressing others. For the privileged group in this passage, fasting functions as a sacralizing cover to their unjust treatment of the poor.

To abstain from eating food as a religious practice imposes a physical hardship intended to lessen the devotee’s superiority mindset. In this way, fasting is self-inflicted oppression—what the prophet calls “to humble oneself” (ʿannôt; verse 5). The irony is that their self-oppression serves only to render themselves holy and righteous (verse 2). 

As the prophet’s critique reveals, how is it that their humbling through fasting does not yield empathy for those humbled by oppressive practices? Moreover, what kind of religion demands a humbling of oneself yet ignores the oppression of workers, the poor, the hungry, and the naked? To God, there is a moral disconnect here between their daily worship and their social dealings. In the words of the prophet, “You fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high” (verse 4).

The fast God chooses

What is called into question in the prophet’s critique still holds true in our time: “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” (verse 3). Any worship practice rooted in Scripture risks irrelevance when it fails to produce empathy for the hurting people of the world. Such is the enduring dilemma of US Christianity—a faith that has, at various times, sanctified slavery, genocide, and now, mass deportation. If the prophet’s critique still speaks today, any faith system that cultivates worshipers who, in society, oppress workers and perpetuate the bondage of the poor, the hungry, and the naked is not a faith “heard on high” (verse 4).

The lectionary reading ends with a piercing response to the elite group’s worship practices. Rather than a form of fasting that leaves them void of empathy for the oppressed, God chooses a different fast. The expression of divine intention in verse 6 is worthy of the preacher’s pause. Whereas the worship intentions of those with power are self-centered, the divine choice reveals a form of worship that translates into material liberation for the hurting and the vulnerable. Indeed, to seek, to know, and to draw near to the God intent on liberating should yield a people of faith who do the same within society.

Embodied worship and liberation

If fasting is a form of worship, then an “acceptable” fast (verse 5) is not food deprivation for piety’s sake but rather “to loose the bonds of injustice” and “to let the oppressed go free” (verse 6). In contrast, a fast that is self-serving produces a people of faith without moral or spiritual awareness—those who “do not see” and “do not notice” (verse 3) the suffering in their midst. Such a self-centered religion reduces divine intention to the pursuit of personal holiness, turning the worship of God into an exercise in self-exaltation.

The fast God chooses cultivates a way of being that manifests itself through tangible acts of liberation. These acts are outward-facing, performed in public and directed toward those who are actually hurting. They include the sharing of food with those who are starving. Accompanying this act of sharing is a way of seeing—not the self, but the hunger of others. In seeing the hungry, sharing becomes an act of awareness, a recognition of the injustices that cause hunger and a step toward lifting those injustices.

The fast that is acceptable shelters the poor who wander without housing; it liberates by providing refuge. Rather than living only for oneself, where abundance exists for private enjoyment, the question becomes: How might a portion of our abundance be shared with the hungry and the poor? Fasting, then, becomes a voluntary deprivation—a redistribution of life-giving resources so that others may live.

This liberation begins with awareness: awareness of the poverty in our midst and of how we contribute to it by withholding what we have. Overspending on clothing leaves others naked; overconsuming food leaves others hungry; overbuilding homes leaves others without shelter. For as the prophet declares:

If you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness,
and your gloom be like the noonday (verse 10).

Psalm 112, a wisdom psalm, provides instruction in right living and right faith in the tradition of the other wisdom writings of the Old Testament.¹

It, like Psalm 111, is a succinct acrostic, with each of its 20 lines beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Psalm 111 celebrates God’s mighty deeds on behalf of the people, and Psalm 112 offers instruction for response to God by the people. One scholar observes that Psalm 111 is “theology,” while Psalm 112 is “anthropology.” Psalm 112 may be outlined as follows:

Verse 1a: A Call to Praise
Verses 1b–3: The Praise of the One Who Reverences (New Revised Standard Version, “fears”) the Lord
Verse 4: The Fate of the Upright Ones
Verses 5–9: The Deeds of the One who Reverences (New Revised Standard Version, “fears”) the Lord
Verse 10: The Fate of the Wicked Ones

The psalm begins with “hallelujah,” and is part of a group of psalms (Psalms 111–118), in which the word “hallelujah” occurs repeatedly at the beginning and end. Two translation issues present themselves as the reader enters the acrostic body of Psalm 112.

First, the psalm begins, in the New Revised Standard Version, “Happy are those who fear the LORD,” and in the New International Version, “Blessed is the man …” The word translated “happy” or “blessed” is ‘ashre, whose basic meaning has to do with walking in a prescribed path and not wavering off the path. While “happy” and “blessed” are good translations of the Hebrew word, a better rendering might be “content.” The person who walks along the path prescribed by God can rest in a sense of contentedness that they are following the words of God faithfully.

Second, verse 1 states that “contentedness” comes to the one who “fears the LORD.” “Fear” is a very good translation of the Hebrew word yara’. But in today’s culture, the idea of fear is usually connected with the base instincts to run, defend, or retaliate. The Hebrew word actually encompasses a larger meaning of “awe, reverent respect, honor.” It appears in the Hebrew Bible as a synonym for “love” (Deuteronomy 10:12), “cling to” (Deuteronomy 10:20), and “serve” (Deuteronomy 6:13; Joshua 24:14). At its base, the word denotes obedience to the divine will.

Verses 2–3a outline the rewards for the one who “reverences the LORD” and “delights in the commandments.” That person will have mighty, upright, and blessed descendants and a house that contains riches and wealth. The words of these verses echo in many ways the promises given by God to Abram in Genesis 12, 13, and 15—descendants, land, house, and blessing.

Verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 112 evince strong parallels with verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 111. Yahweh is the subject of 111:3–4’s words of thanks:

Full of honor and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds;
the LORD is gracious and merciful.

The righteous person is the subject of 112:3–4’s wisdom words:

Riches and wealth are in that person’s house,
and that one’s righteousness endures for all time.
A light has shone forth in the darkness for the upright ones,
gracious and merciful and righteous.²

Just as the righteousness of God endures for all time, so does the righteousness of the “content” person of Psalm 112. The basic meaning of righteousness includes the ideas of “a sense of right,” “correct order,” “being just,” or “being true,” and, in the Hebrew Scriptures, has more to do with right actions than with right states of mind (see Genesis 38, for example).

In verse 4a, the “content” person is promised a light in the darkness. While it is not clear to what the “light” refers, nor does verse 4b have a clear subject, the reader may be permitted to equate the light with Yahweh, who is described in 111:4b with the same words that describe the light in 112:4b—”gracious and merciful.”

Verses 5–9 describe the actions and demeanor of the “content” person of Psalm 112. In verse 5a, the person is gracious (hanan) and lends to others (lavah). The Hebrew root hanan carries a basic meaning of “an aesthetically pleasing presentation or aspect of someone or something,” or “the pleasing impression made upon one individual by another.” Lavah indicates a connectedness to others, as results when one lends to or borrows from another. In 5b, we read that the “content” person holds words in judgment, being slow to speak words of praise or condemnation.

Verse 6 acts as something of an interlude for this portion of the psalm. Here the reader learns that the person—now called “the righteous one”—with the character traits that have been described in verse 5 and will be further described in verses 7–9a will not stumble and will be for all time a memorial. The verse is strikingly parallel to Psalm 111:4’s words, which state that Yahweh is a memorial because of his wondrous acts.

Verses 7–9a continue with a description of the “content/righteous” person. Despite potential danger from “a bad hearing” and oppressors, this one is not afraid, having a heart that is established and steady; in fact, here is one who reaches out the hand and gives to the needy. When the apostle Paul wants to encourage the church at Corinth to contribute financially to the impoverished church in Jerusalem, he quotes Psalm 112:9 as an example of a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:9). The final two cola of verse 9 offer a concluding refrain in praise of the “content/righteous” person.

Verse 10, in true “wisdom” fashion, contrasts the fate of the wicked one with the fate of the righteous one. While a light will shine forth in the darkness for the upright ones (verse 4b), the desire of the wicked ones will perish (verse 10c).

Psalms 111 and 112 are a summary statement of what faith is all about: who God is and what humans must do in response to God. In a rich intertwining of language and metaphor, the “content” person of Psalm 112 partners with the God of Psalm 111, working together to achieve righteousness—right living, correct order, and truth—in this world.

Notes

1. This commentary was previously published on this website for February 6, 2011.
2. This is the author’s own translation. The New Revised Standard Version renders the singular pronouns in Psalm 112 as plurals to achieve more gender-neutral language. But the singularity of the “content” person is important for a proper interpretation of this psalm.

Paul has described his role as one sent to proclaim the message about the cross. For outsiders, that message appears foolish, but for those who have faith, it demonstrates the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:17–25). As he continues his argument, Paul describes his own ministry among the Corinthians, continuing this contrast between human and divine wisdom.

Paul’s ministry (1 Corinthians 2:1–5)

Paul first reminds the Corinthians about the way he preached and taught when he arrived in their city. Proclaiming the testimony that has come from God, he did not use “superior speech or wisdom” (verse 1) or “persuasive words of wisdom” (verse 4). Instead, he came in humility and reverence, even in weakness. 

He concentrated not on his own skill as a speaker, but on the content of his message, “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (verse 2). This unadorned delivery and controlled self-presentation were of one piece with the message of the cross. It was not personal charisma or smooth elegance that supported his message, but the power of the Spirit. As a result, the Corinthians can base their faith not on skillful rhetoric or on human wisdom, but on the power of God (verse 5). 

God’s plan (1 Corinthians 2:6–10a)

A shift from the past tense to the present and from the singular to the plural marks off this discussion of Paul’s initial ministry at Corinth from what follows. Although he has set the world’s wisdom in contrast to the foolishness of proclamation (1:21–25) and his own practice (2:1–5), he now asserts that he and others who proclaim this message do teach wisdom, “though not a wisdom of this age” (verse 6). But they teach that wisdom only “among the mature” (verse 6). With that short phrase, Paul rebukes those Corinthian believers who value the world’s wisdom. 

In the ancient world, it was common for philosophers to teach students at different levels, reflecting different levels of progress in moral insight. There was one level of knowledge for beginners, another for those who were making progress, and a third for those who had reached the level of maturity. In a similar way, we divide our own education into different levels—elementary, intermediate, and advanced. 

In stressing that he teaches wisdom to the mature, Paul suggests that the Corinthians are apprentices, not masters. He later describes them as “fleshly, as infants in Christ” (3:1). As a result, he has not yet taught them in detail about God’s wisdom, a wisdom he describes as a mystery or a secret that God had for a time hidden away but has now revealed (Daniel 2:18–19, 27–28).

Paul here draws on the language of apocalyptic thought, contrasting this present age and the coming age of God’s rule and reign. In this age, the Corinthians live in the Roman Empire, under the control of rulers who do not know God’s designs and plans. These governing powers have “crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). But those powers are transitory, on the verge of destruction (verse 6). The coming age will bring God’s plan of salvation to fruition, as the Lord of glory will glorify believers and liberate them from “every ruler and every authority and power,” even their last enemy, death (15:24–26).

God has revealed this plan to Paul and others “through the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:10). To support that claim, Paul quotes an unknown Jewish apocalyptic text that draws on prophetic texts like Isaiah 64:4. In this wise plan, God uncovers realities beyond human imagination “for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

The Spirit’s revelation (1 Corinthians 2:10b–16)

As a result, knowledge of God’s plan does not come from study or human insight but from God, who reveals it by the Spirit. Only the Spirit knows the things of God, and so the Spirit alone knows this secret plan now revealed.

But Paul and the others who proclaim the message of the cross have received God’s Spirit. As a result, they may understand all that God has freely given, including knowledge of the mystery, God’s plan for the coming age. They speak of these things in words “not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit” (verse 13). Those who do not have the Spirit do not understand their teaching but perceive it as foolishness (verse 14). They may hear the words, but they do not grasp them. They are like people who speak only their native tongue and who hear speech in another language: Such speech sounds to them like gibberish. In the same way, those who do not know the language of the Spirit find the message about the cross and God’s plan for the ages incomprehensible.

But Paul and those who bear the message of the cross do understand and teach these things. Although the question of Isaiah 40:13 (“For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?”) remains vital counsel against human arrogance, there now stands another truth. The gift of the Spirit enables Paul and others to understand the things that God bestows, so Paul can affirm, “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

These verses open up several avenues for faithful proclamation. Preachers may choose to explore the need for coherence between their message and the presentation of that message: A cruciform message requires a cruciform proclamation and a cruciform life. They may focus on the way the message of the cross unfolds God’s plan of redemption over against the pretense of the governing powers of this present age. They may choose to expand on the insight that God prepares that unimaginable gift not for those who know God, but “for those who love him” (verse 9)—Paul’s first use of this key word in the letter (8:3; 13:1–13). 

All these possibilities, of course, will build on the contrast between self-aggrandizing human wisdom and God’s lavishly gracious wisdom, a mystery now revealed by God’s own Spirit, the message of the cross.