“Let your light shine before others.” When we first started worshiping together online I received lots of comments about the ways in which we might be able to hold onto the things that make worship familiar and meaningful. One of those comments was about the candles.
I had forgotten to light the candles, and it just distracted a few of you and made the environment feel less vital and more virtual. Some of those who were concerned couldn’t really say why it mattered so much. They just knew that it mattered.
Maybe that’s because of the tradition of scripture that reminds us that Jesus is the light of the world and that the light entered the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it. Maybe the light of the candle reminds us of the presence of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost or the light of God’s presence in the temple in the Old Testament. Maybe it touches something primal in us to see the light of a candle, and it reminds us of hearth and home and hospitality.
Whatever the reason might be, light touches us in more ways than one. In the most basic of terms, light is a frequency that bounces around the room and is received by our eyes to let us know the depth and color of things. Even those without sight are still impacted by the presence of light. Studies have shown that exposure to light not only activates our biochemical makeup but it stimulates our brains, and different frequencies of light impact us in different ways. In fact, most of you are receiving blue light from your screens right now, which isn’t a bad thing unless you are watching a screen all day (or before bed, because it will keep you up).
Light stimulates. Light exposes. Light can even create and destroy – depending on how it is handled – and we are told to let our light shine. It’s important to note that this passage is a part of Jesus’s sermon on the mount. He’s just finished telling everyone that those who are poor in spirit, meek, mourning, merciful, pure in heart, and hungering and thirsting for righteousness are blessed and those who follow in the way of Jesus will be persecuted for telling everyone about it. Then he tells them to go out and be salt (to highlight and preserve what is good) and to be obvious about it (to be light).
For those who follow in the way of Jesus are like a city on a hill, but what would that city look like without light? It would look uninhabited. It would seem to be a place that is not a place of life, but a place that once held life and doesn’t hold it anymore – which is exactly why everyone in London turned out their lights during the blitzkrieg in 1940. The German bombers intended to rain death and destruction from the night sky, and the people responded by turning out lights, sharing resources, and taking care of one another. At the time, targeting was done by sight and the impact of the campaign was so limited by their courage that the blitzkrieg was defeated. Of course, there was more to it than that, but my point is that being the light can still happen in darkness, and sometimes the darkness is the place where we shine the brightest.
I’ve told the story many times before about Jean Moutoussamy–Ash’s impactful comment about film photography, but it always comes back to me. She said, “Images created by film are entirely dependent on the light, but they are created in a dark room – a room devoid of all light except for the developer. The same is true with the darkest moment in human history, on the hill of Calvary where Christ died and the empty tomb that proved God’s power over sin and death.” [Comment paraphrase from a Sprunt Lecture speech in 2003]
Friends, we live after that moment. We live in response to that moment. In some ways, we live as a re-creation of that moment over and over again and again. It may feel that our sanctuary is devoid of light right now, but the truth is that the church is filled with light! We, the church, the body of Christ, with our lit screens spanning the land are letting our light shine. We, the church, God’s people, are full of the Holy Spirit to the point that we become luminous, and we are called to share that light with the world.
I’m reminded here of the paper lanterns in the movie Tangled that the entire kingdom launched into the air every year out of the memory of loss and hope for the return of the princess. In the same way, we receive these words from Jesus today to remind us that we have been sent out to proclaim the memory of his death and resurrection and the hope of Christ’s return. In that hope, we stand as forgiven sinners and we give evidence to the truth that the Kingdom of God has come near.
As comforting as that may feel to you and to me, it doesn’t make a lick of sense to those outside the church. It doesn’t make sense to those who are calling out to acknowledge pain and suffering and hearing only silence from the church. It doesn’t make sense to say the kingdom of heaven is in our midst when disease results in indifference rather than compassion. It doesn’t make sense to say that the kingdom of heaven has come near when faith is used as a rhetorical wedge or a moral hammer.
Fortunately, for you and me, we have been called to something greater. We have been called to be something brighter. We have been called to “exhibit the kingdom of heaven.” It may seem odd that I say “exhibit.” It sounds like something from a court case, “Your Honor, I refer to Exhibit A – the church!”
Those of you who have been worshiping with us the last few Sundays will probably recognize this as a part of the “Great Ends” or purposes of the church, but maybe the court language is more helpful today.
I’m not a student of constitutional law, but I have watched a lot of Law and Order on TV, and my understanding of “exhibits” in a court of law is that they prove something. Likewise, I have a brother in the tradeshow industry, and his life revolves around helping businesses set up exhibits to demonstrate their products as useful and meaningful for their client’s lives.
While I think those ideas are helpful, I don’t think the church is here to prove the reality of God’s grace and mercy or to sell religion as a useful product. No, when protestant leaders in the early 1900’s came up with these “Great Ends” they meant something a little different.
They were speaking out against poverty and classism, and when they said “exhibit” they meant that the church is here to help us know what life is like in the kingdom of heaven. They meant that the role of the church is to encourage us all to live as citizens in the kingdom of heaven, even while we wait for the kingdom to come.
How do we do that? We do it by proclaiming the good news of salvation for all people, everywhere. Does that mean that we all become street preachers? No. It means that if we are forgiven sinners, then our lives proclaim salvation. If our lives as individuals proclaim salvation, then our life together will center around caring for others – providing shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship for God’s children – everywhere, all the time, in the safe space of love we create between us. That safe space of love becomes a sacred space. It becomes holy ground. It becomes the sanctuary we turn to in order to live God-centered, worship filled lives. In the space of worship filled lives we preserve the truth of God’s amazing love that says you are loved, and so are they.
Now, you may be getting the sense that this Is like a spiritual version of the “Give a Mouse a Cookie” books, but these are the “Great Ends” or purposes of the church, and taken together they reveal the way in which we “exhibit the Kingdom of Heaven,” although you may have noticed that there is one more. Last week we talked about the promotion of social righteousness – the idea that we are called by God to be in right, or corrected, relationship with God and one another.
In those relationships, there is no room for poverty, greed, or avarice. In those relationships, there is no room for injustice and inequality. In those relationships, we are reformed in the image of Christ, the light of the world that no darkness shall overcome.
I think it’s important to take a moment to acknowledge that terms like light and darkness have been co-opted in our culture and in the history that we share. This isn’t about political correctness. It’s about the fact that in our collective conscience and in the present memory of our elders there exists the experience of common language about the dirtiness of dark skin and the cleanliness of white.
Let it be known that the church exists to stand against such notions, and in those times that we are unwilling to say so we need to return to the text that calls us to be salt and light. In the midst of the current assault that we face as a nation we must answer the call of God, knowing that those who testify to the blessedness of the poor, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, and those that hunger and thirst for righteousness will be met with scorn.
Still, our concern must always and ever be that we follow Jesus – the one who is the light – that we may be developed like film in darkened spaces into his image; that all of our little kingdoms of power and control may be transformed into the “kin-dom” of God where everyone realizes that we truly are next of kin to one another; that the kin-dom may come, and God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and all of this and more will give us cause, like never before, to give God glory and praise – now and always – Amen!
Comments