Sunday Service 8th February 2026

 
Today’s service is led by the Revd Nicola Furley-Smith

Introduction and Call to Worship
 
We come on our own, we come together. We come with our excitement
and with our lack of expectation. We come with our longing and our pride. We come with our words and with our silence. We come to you, God of truth, with our hands and hearts open, asking that you reach out to us afresh. Show us your truth, direct our paths. You, alone, can change our lives. So we worship you – God of all that gives meaning to life. We worship you. Amen.
 
Hymn       Christ is the world’s true light
George Wallace Briggs (1875-1959) © Oxford University Press OneLicence No. # A-734713 Sung by the Choir of Sheffield Cathedral

Christ is the world’s true Light,
its Captain of salvation,
the Daystar clear and bright
to every land and nation;
new life, new hope awakes,
where we accept his way:
freedom her bondage breaks,
and night is turned to day.
 
2 In Christ all races meet,
their ancient feuds forgetting,
the whole round world complete,
from sunrise to its setting:
when Christ is known as Lord,
all shall forsake their fear,
to ploughshare beat the sword,
to pruning-hook the spear.

3 One Lord, in one great name unite us all who own thee;
cast out our pride and shame that hinder to enthrone thee;
the world has waited long,has travailed long in pain;
to heal its ancient wrong, come, Prince of Peace, and reign.
 
Prayer of Adoration
 
Holy and gracious God,
You speak through prophets and poets,
You shine through Christ, the Light of the World,
You stir our hearts by your Spirit
until we lift our eyes again to your glory.
e worship you
for your justice that rolls down like waters,
for your mercy that meets us in our weakness,
for your love that refuses to let us go.
We praise you
for creating us to shine with your light,
to season the earth with hope,
and to live as signs of your grace.
Receive our adoration, spoken and unspoken,
as your people gather in your name. Amen.
 
Prayer of Confession
 
Forgive us, loving God,
for the times we have sought our own glory
and lit our own lamps.
Forgive us when we have hidden the light you have kindled in us,
when fear has dimmed our discipleship
and pride has overshadowed your grace.
Shine the light of your humility and mercy into our hearts,
that individually and together we may reflect the obedience
and the self-giving love of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
 
Assurance of Pardon

Hear the good news:
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
In Christ we are forgiven; in Christ we are renewed. Thanks be to God.
 
The Lord’s Prayer
 
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
 
Hymn       Longing for light, we wait in darkness
© 1994 Bernadette Farrell (born 1957) published by OCP Publications 
OneLicense No. A-734713 Sung by Chris Brunelle and used with his kind permission.

Longing for light, 
we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, 
we turn to you.
Make us your own, 
your holy people,
light for the world to see.
 
Christ be our light! 
Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ be our light!
Shine in your Church 
gathered today.
 
2 Longing for peace, 
our world is troubled.
Longing for hope, 
many despair.
Your word alone 
has pow’r to save us.
Make us your living voice.
 
3 Longing for food, 
many are hungry.
Longing for water, 
many still thirst.
Make us your bread, 
broken for others,
shared until all are fed.
 
Introduction to the Readings
 
Today’s Scriptures draw a straight line from the cry of the prophet Isaiah
to the teaching of Jesus on the hillside. Isaiah reminds God’s people that true worship is not outward performance but lives shaped by justice, compassion, and liberation.  And Jesus, using images of salt and light,
calls us to a faith that is visible, transformative, and grounded in God’s long faithfulness. Let us listen for the Word of the Lord.
 
Reading   Isaiah 58:1–9a
 
Shout out; do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they want God on their side. “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day and oppress all your workers. 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. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”
 
Reading   St Matthew 5:13–20
 
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 under foot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp put it under the bushel basket; rather they put it on the 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 fulfil. 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 all 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.”
 
Sermon
 
This is at the heart of what it means to belong to God’s people. These are not abstract teachings. These are not lofty theological puzzles. They are earthed in the ordinary, the everyday, the things we handle without thinking: Salt. Cities. Light.
 
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus turns to these mundane images for a reason. They are familiar enough that no one could miss the point—yet, if we listen closely, they carry a challenge that unsettles us.
 
“You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus says. Useful, necessary, preserving, sharpening, giving life flavour. Yet he presses the metaphor: salt that loses its saltiness is no longer salt. It is neither seasoning nor a preservative. It has forgotten what it is for. And so, it is thrown onto the path, where it simply becomes dust beneath other people’s feet.
 
It’s a stark picture. Because Jesus isn’t talking about the ingredients of a first-century kitchen. He’s talking about us. About the vocation of God’s people. About righteousness—not righteousness as self-importance or moral superiority, but righteousness as faithfulness to God’s call, the kind of living that makes God recognisable in the world.
 
So how is righteousness like salt? Perhaps because it is meant to make a difference. Salt without flavour is pointless; righteousness without action is equally so. And who is the salt that has lost its saltiness? That is the question Jesus leaves hanging in the air. It’s meant to make us uncomfortable enough to look at our lives and our church with honesty. Have we forgotten what we are for? Have we lost our distinctive tang? Have we become so cautious, or so weary, or so anxious about reputation, that we have lost the courage to live differently?
 
If salt unsettles us, then light reorientates us. Jesus moves from the seasoning of life to the visibility of God’s hope. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. A lamp is not lit to be buried under a basket.
Light spills. That is its nature. It illuminates more than just the lamp itself. And Jesus says: So it is to be with you. Your life, your actions, your witness are meant to shine—not so that people will admire you, but so that through you, they will glimpse God’s goodness.
 
And this is crucial: the light does not belong to us. “Let your light shine before others,” Jesus says, “so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Our good works are not our possession. They are the overflow of God’s grace through us. We are signs, not the source. We are conduits, not creators. We are lanterns, not the flame.
 
Which means that when we hide the light—out of fear, out of self-protection, out of a desire to remain unchallenged—we are dimming not ourselves but others’ chance to see God at work.
 
And this is where Isaiah 58 speaks so directly into Jesus’ teaching. Because Jesus is not inventing a new moral code. He is not overturning the Hebrew Scriptures. He is standing in the ancient river of God’s justice.
 
Isaiah cries out against a people who think that holiness is found in ritual alone. They fast, they bow their heads, they adopt pious postures—but they oppress their workers, quarrel and fight, and turn away from the hungry. They want the appearance of religious devotion without the cost of compassion.
 
“Is not this the fast that I choose,” says the Lord, “to loose the bonds of injustice,to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free… to share your bread with the hungry…to bring the homeless poor into your house?”
 
Isaiah insists that righteousness is visible. It is salty. It flavours the lives of others. It is light that spills outward—exactly as Jesus says. When we live in this way, Isaiah promises, “your light shall break forth like the dawn.”
God’s people have always been called to this visible, justice-shaped faith.
So when Jesus speaks of salt and light, when he warns of losing our saltiness or covering our flame, he is echoing Isaiah. He is reminding the crowds—and us—that righteousness is not abstract ideals but lived trust in God’s promises. That obedience to God is not mere rule-keeping, but participation in God’s liberating work.
 
Which is why Jesus goes on to say something that must have startled his first hearers: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.” No—Jesus has not come to make them irrelevant, or to replace them with something new and shiny. He is fulfilling them, drawing out their deepest intentions, bringing them to their flourishing.
 
To suggest that the Sermon on the Mount supersedes the law is, in fact, to risk losing the very saltiness Jesus calls us to keep. Because the law and the prophets testify to a God who hears the cry of the enslaved, a God who sets people free, a God whose commands are rooted in compassion and liberation. Why would Jesus mute such a trustworthy and transformative promise?
 
And yet, as the Church, sometimes we have done just that. We have spiritualised the Gospel until it no longer speaks of justice. We have turned commandments into constraints rather than signposts to abundant life. We have treated God’s law as if it were about behaviour rather than about belonging to the God of exodus and liberation.
 
For Jesus, these cannot be separated. The promise, the story, and the commandment belong together.
 
Jesus says: those who set aside even the smallest commandment—and teach others to do the same—diminish themselves and distort others. Because breaking a commandment is never just breaking a rule. It is loosening our grip on the God who saves, doubting God’s promises, stepping away from the path of life God lays before us.
This is not moralism. Jesus is not setting up a spiritual exam. This is about trust. If God is faithful—if God truly brings light out of darkness—then the life God calls us to live is not burdensome but freeing. It is the salty, luminous life that makes God visible to others.
 
Which brings us to Jesus’ closing sentence: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees…”
 
Not “more rule-keeping,” not stricter obedience, not moral superiority. But a deeper alignment of the heart. A righteousness that flows from the God whose character is mercy, justice, and liberation.
 
And as we shall see next week, Jesus will push us further still. The commandments are not the ceiling of righteousness but the floor. They are the starting point, not the finish line.
 
We live in a time when the Church is watched carefully. We worry about reputation, about charitable governance, about safeguarding, about not bringing the Church into disrepute—and rightly so. But Jesus’ question remains: does our concern for reputation ever lead us to hide our light? To soften our saltiness? To avoid speaking or acting prophetically because it is safer not to?
 
Isaiah 58 and Matthew 5 together remind us that God has always called God’s people to visible, justice-shaped living. Not a righteousness we manufacture, but one that flows from God’s grace through us. Not a private piety, but a public witness. Not a safe and dim light, but a lamp that shines so others may see God.
 
Friends, the world needs that kind of Church.
 
A salty Church that preserves what is good and refuses to lose its edge.
A luminous Church that refuses to hide what God has lit within it.
A trusting Church that lives God’s righteousness out loud—feeding, welcoming, liberating, forgiving.
A Church whose very life points beyond itself to God.
May we be that Church.

May our salt not lose its flavour.
May our light shine with the radiance of God’s justice.
And may all who see our good works give glory, not to us, 
but to our Father in heaven. Amen.
 
Hymn       Brother, sister, let me serve you
Richard Gillard (born 1953) © 1977 Scripture in Song/Maranatha! OneLicence No. # A-734713 Sung by St Laurence’s Church, Chorley and used with their kind permission.

Brother, sister, let me serve you,
let me be as Christ to you;
pray that I may have the grace
to let you be my servant, too.
 
2 We are pilgrims on a journey,
and companions on the road;
we are here to help each other
walk the mile and bear the load.
 
3 I will hold the Christlight for you
in the night-time of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you,
speak the peace you long to hear.
4 I will weep when you are weeping;
when you laugh, I’ll laugh with you;
I will share your joy and sorrow
till we’ve seen this journey through.
 
5 When we sing to God in heaven,
we shall find such harmony,
born of all we’ve known together
of Christ’s love and agony.
 
6 Brother, sister, let me serve you,
let me be as Christ to you;
pray that I may have the grace
to let you be my servant, too.

Prayers of Thanksgiving
 
Generous God, we thank you for daily blessings –
for kindness received, for strength renewed, 
for hope rediscovered in ways small and significant.
We thank you for Christ who walks beside us,
for the Spirit who empowers us,
for the Church that surrounds us with fellowship and prayer.
For the light that guides our feet
and the salt that flavours our living,
we give you thanks. Amen.
 
Prayers of Intercession
 
We pray, gracious God, for your Church throughout the world – 
may we be light bearers and truth tellers.
Where there is disappointment, 
may we shed the light of encouragement.
Where there is corruption,
may we shine the light of integrity.
Where there is uncertainty,
may we offer the light of clarity.
Where there is complacency,
may we bring the light of challenge.
Where there is rejection,
may we hold out the light of acceptance.
We pray for our world:
for peace where conflict rages,
for justice where people are silenced,
for compassion where suffering overwhelms,
for wisdom for leaders
and courage for peacemakers.
We pray for all who are unwell, all who grieve, all who are lonely,
all who fear the future.
May your healing surround them.
And we pray for ourselves:
that we may walk, pray, and serve in humility and hope,
so that others may see you in us and give you glory.
We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
 
Hymn        Lord, the light of your love is shining
Graham Kendrick (born 1950) © 1987 Make Way Music OneLicence No. # A-734713 
BBC Songs of Praise
 
Lord, the light 
of Your love is shining,
in the midst 
of the darkness, shining:
Jesus, Light of the world, 
shine upon us;
set us free by the truth 
You now bring us —
shine on me, shine on me.
 
Shine, Jesus, shine,
fill this land with the Father’s glory;
blaze, Spirit, blaze,
set our hearts on fire.
Flow, river, flow,
flood the nations 
with grace and mercy;
send forth Your word,
Lord, and let there be light!
 
2 As we gaze 
on Your kingly brightness
so our faces display Your likeness,
ever changing from glory to glory:
mirrored here, 
may our lives tell your story —
shine on me, shine on me.
 
Sending Out Prayer
 
May you be as salt where there is staleness;
light where there is darkness; truth where there is unbelief;
and love where there is great need.
And the blessing of God Almighty Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Be amongst us and remain with us this day and for evermore. Amen.