The readings for the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany are taken from Isaiah 58:3-9, 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, and Matthew 5:13-20.
Epiphany concentrates on people and things that appear—angels, stars, shepherds, wise men, John the Baptizer, and most of all, Jesus Himself, THE morning Star. But Epiphany is also interested in things that God’s Word makes apparent, like pretentiousness in contrast to authenticity.
Isaiah conveys how God know the difference between pretended religion and what is substantive and organic. Pretending to serve God while despising Him, pretending to be good while doing those around you harm is self-defeating (it does no good for anyone) and self-condemning. God condemns what is pretended in order to make room for what is real.
The Corinthians had a lot of trouble with pride and pretentiousness. They were attracted to what Paul calls “lofty speech.” They were in love with the trends and ways of the world around them—even while they pretended to be religious toward God. Paul contrasts that devotion to vanity with the substance and Redeemer of all things—Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Jesus was not celebrated, but rather rejected. But He was rejected in our place and rose to declare His life to us through the simple, lowly means of grace so that our souls might be regenerated in His image and thus, organic, substantive, and eternal.
Matthew records what we might refer to as Jesus “coming out swinging”! Jesus is a bull in the china shop of the pretended religion of people in general and the Jewish religious authorities in particular. We ARE the light of the world in as much as we remain with Jesus. We are in the light because He is the light. But if/when we turn away into the darkness of pretentiousness, then both God and the world recognize our hypocrisy and trample us underfoot. Jesus did not come to cast away what was left of the law so we could claim that we are righteousness. He came to show us the value of righteousness as He restored lives and fulfilled all that is necessary for us to be actually, substantively, and eternally good—good before God, good to neighbor and enemy, and good for ourselves.