Know Your Why. 2/8/2026

I have been in many cohorts, workshops, and trainings about leadership — innovative leadership, church leadership, leadership in schools, and leadership in general. An emphasis in most, if not all of them, has been “Knowing Your Why.”  Basically this means: Know your purpose. Know why your organization, or for us as a church: know why this movement of Jesus, exists. In both of our readings today, the prophet Isaiah and Jesus are saying to God’s people: Know your why. Because when you know your why, and live your why, God’s Kingdom draws near. God’s Kingdom is unveiled.

The prophet Isaiah says to God’s people: your why is not to perform empty religious rituals. Now, not all religious rituals are automatically empty. Rituals can be very effective if we understand that they are a means to the why, and not the actual purpose. Rituals are meant to help people live out the purpose God has set before us: to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.  After all, God’s purpose (you could think of it as the will of God) is justice. And God spells out more clearly what justice means here in the 58th chapter of Isaiah. God’s justice is when everyone—every part and parcel of Creation, every person and all peoples—have enough. Regardless of anything else; regardless of their ability to earn it or produce it; regardless of their ethnicity, the status of their citizenship, their history of choices and behavior, their gender or sexuality, their socio-economic status. God’s justice means everyone has enough…..enough to thrive. And when God’s justice is being enacted, each person, each part of Creation, is supplied with what that one needs (I mean, isn’t that part of what the parable of the Prodigal Son shows us God is like as Source of all being?).  It’s not that everyone gets exactly the same thing, but that each one gets what is needed to thrive. 

Beloved, this is totally counter-cultural, and frankly, counter-capitalism, but it is what God through Scripture keeps repeating to us over and over. In order for Creation, and therefore all of humanity, to be whole, each part, parcel, and person, must have what is needed to thrive. And if one doesn’t have that, then God’s expectation is that those of us who identify as God’s people will work and share and give to make that happen. This is God’s acceptable fast, this is what looses the bonds of injustice, repairs the breach and restores the streets we live in.

Which is just another way to say:  the “house” we live in. When God refers to our “house” in Scripture, God is not referring to a structure or a building. The Greek word is oikos—and it means household. It means the width and breadth of all those and all of that to which you belong.  As God’s people, it is God who determines our household, and God’s household is the entirety of Creation. We all belong to each other and to Creation itself, inextricably intertwined. Interesting note about that Greek word, oikos, translated as house: It is also the root word for economy. This means verse 7 of chapter 58 of Isaiah could be heard this way: Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your economy? What might it mean for us collectively to hear it this way? What might it mean for you to hear it this way? If we bring those who are hungry, the homeless poor, into our economy? What does that mean when we think of our obligation to them? Our belonging to them? And their belonging to us?

God is calling people to turn around, change their lives, another word for this is repent. God says: Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers…..

God’s people have forgotten their why. 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says our why is to be light and salt.

Mostly, we get the light thing: Light reveals shadows so that our shadows can be addressed and healed. Light even chases shadows away. Light illuminates, helps us to see and understand. Light shows us our next step — maybe not the entire journey in one fell swoop, but the next step needed to move forward. Light provides warmth. Light provides hope. Even a little light. Did you know that, removing physical barriers, a candle can be seen over a mile and a half away? 

Jesus is often referred to as the Light of the world. The One who heals our shadows, comes close to provide warmth and hope, illuminates our next step. Because as Jesus puts it: the Christ is not in the world to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Jesus fulfills the Law by embodying it. With his words, his actions, his choices, as he lives the way of Love. This means, when we are trying to understand God’s Law (which could also be known as the will of God), our filter for understanding the Law is Jesus. If it doesn’t look like Jesus as we know him in the Gospel (which is not always the same Jesus we see in the movies or TV or social media memes), if it doesn’t sound like the Jesus in the Gospel then Beloved, it’s not God’s Law nor God’s will. I’m talking about the Jesus that hangs out –heck even seeks out – the sinner and outcast, the marginalized and impoverished. The Jesus who is a Middle-eastern Jew who champions women and refuses to take up weapons—even for his own self-defense. Now, we may be told to believe or enact an interpretation of God’s law that has been handed down, taught to us, cemented into doctrine and dogma, but if it doesn’t match Jesus’ way, then it is not the Way of Love, and it is not the Way of God.  Several times in the Gospel Jesus says: Repent; the Kingdom of God is come near. Meaning: turn your lives this way….I embody God’s way……see how to live by how I live. Follow me. 

Okay, that’s “be the light,” but what do we do with “be the salt?” Why does Jesus go on and on about salt? Even so far as to say: if salt has lost its taste, how can it be restored? It is no longer good for anything……

Salt does many things: we know it melts ice because we live in Wisconsin, but probably not the first trait Jesus had in mind back then in Israel. But still a good truth to keep in our pockets. But salt also enhances flavors or traits of other elements in a recipe. Salt preserves. Salt transforms. Salt purifies. Salt pickles!  And here’s one of the most important aspects of salt that I think we do not always highlight so well:

Salt does not exist for itself; salt exists for the effects it has on other elements.

Salt’s purpose is how it enhances, preserves, transforms — not its own self but whatever elements it comes into contact with.

Jesus says: You are the salt of the earth.  You are the salt.

You do not exist for yourself. You exist for the effects, the benefits, that you have on whatever elements of Creation you come into contact with: each part, parcel and person. 

Beloved:  we are at a turning point in time. Now is the time. We must be the salt now. We must be the Light now. It is time to demand that everyone who participated in or who allowed the horrors witnessed to and testified about in the Epstein files is thoroughly and seriously investigated. And all those who are found guilty should be imprisoned. As Salt, our purpose is to tend to the victims. As Light our purpose is to expose and remove the evil. We are called to hold our elected servant leaders to a level of morality and decency. To hold them accountable when they share racist videos and demean women. As our own Bishop Gunter shared: (and I quote)This is not about politics. It is not partisan to name the gross immorality of a leader. No politician is perfect. Some presidents of both parties have been more morally compromised than others. But this is different. Enough is enough.

Beware. Even if all his policies are the right ones. Even if he is giving you everything you want. Continuing to defend or support this man is no longer a political matter. It is perilous to the health of your own soul. (End quote)

Beloved, we become the least in the kingdom when we forget our way, not as a punishment from God but because the kingdom comes, the kingdom is made manifest when we live our purpose. Just as we heard in the Beatitudes last week.

Today God, through the prophet Isaiah, gives a prophetic critique against privilege. There is more than one way to understand privilege, but I want to  invite us to think  of it this way: Privilege is when we can afford to ignore a crisis, a struggle, a disaster, the horrors of the Epstein files, because it does not affect us.

And when we have that privilege and we choose to ignore the crisis, the struggle, the disaster, those horrors— that Beloved, that is complicity.

Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers…..

You are the salt of the earth and salt does not serve itself. Salt exists to enhance others. To work with other elements in order to transform a reality. Our why, our purpose is not to get God on our side. God is always on our side, because God is on the side of all Creation. God is already on our side. Our purpose, then, is to intentionally, and continually, over and over again —- every time we get off track —our purpose is to choose to live on God’s side. To choose God’s way, the way of Love, the way of Justice. As Light. As Salt. Not for our own sake, but for the sake of all others. Just like Jesus.