This is who and what you are. You are the light. Being a light is not action you take to deserve or prove your rightness before God. Becoming a light is action God takes. You are the light of the world. Some days you may feel like it, most days you probably don’t. But it’s still who you are.
Sermon for Feb. 5, 2023 (St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran, Steinbach, MB)
Matthew 5:13-20 (5th Sunday after Epiphany)
Today’s gospel text is another installment of what we call the Sermon on the Mount. For Matthew this collection of Jesus’ teachings is central to understanding and defending Jesus’ identity, purpose and mission. And today’s text is just a portion of the sermon, so if you weren’t here last week or might not be here next week, know that you’re getting a small piece of a larger discourse. Right off I want to encourage you to spend some time in this section of Matthew on your own—and reflect on the whole sermon, as well as the stories that come before and after this collection of teachings.
What we get today is a section that actually seems to pull two different teachings together. There’s the bit about salt and light which may sound familiar to us in ways I’ll talk about in a minute, and the bit about righteousness and the Kingdom of Heaven which is a bit harder to make sense of and easier to gloss over.
But before I try to make any claims about what I think these verses might be teaching us, let’s just remember who’s preaching this sermon. Jesus is preaching this sermon. Yes, it’s possible the writer of Matthew has pulled together various teachings of Jesus and put them together into one sermon, but even if that’s happening, the intention is to curate Jesus’ teachings. So, as we read these verses—even the ones that sound like rules and regulations that may rub us the wrong way or challenge us unexpectedly–it’s important to remember that these are teachings from Jesus. Jesus who is the very presence of God in human reality and who over and over calls people into wholeness in relationship with God, self and neighbour. In fact, this sermon is bookended by stories of healing and restoration. So whatever challenge or conviction we hear in this sermon flows from and flows into God’s action of healing, restoration and relationship. That changes how we receive what can sound like a code of behaviour and expectation that sometimes may seem narrow, restricting, or impossible to achieve.
That being said, the text for today also centers us in the initiating work of God first and the responsive action of humanity second.
“You are the light of the world.”
If you’ve been around church for any amount of time, you either started humming “this little light of mine” or you thought about the Lutheran rite of baptism when you heard those words. You are the light of the world. I think I grew up with a “this little light of mine” response to this verse. Hear me out…I don’t have anything against this beloved chorus. But I think I grew up thinking this was an order or a command—make sure you are being the light of the world. Make sure you’re shining in all the right places. It’s up to you to be the light of the world. Being a light felt like work I could never do right or well enough.
But listen again to what Jesus—the one who calls, gathers, feeds, heals and sends—says. YOU ARE the light of the world. This is who and what you are. You are the light. Being a light is not action you take to deserve or prove your rightness before God. Becoming a light is action God takes. You are the light of the world. Some days you may feel like it, most days you probably don’t. But it’s still who you are.
This shift in perspective changes how I read the rest of these verses. If God is the actor—that changes a lot. God is the one who builds the city on the hill. God is the one who restores the flavor of salt. God is the one who removes the bushels that seek to snuff the light out. God is the one who activates and energizes the light.
Think for a minute about that song “This little light of mine…I’m going to let it shine.” What if we sang “I’m going to allow it to shine” rather than “I’m going to make it shine.” It’s subtle, but when you sing “I’m going to let it shine,” which one do you think you’re singing? Now, I have to admit I’m the chairperson of overthinkers anonymous, and I have the ability to turn small things into big things with the best of them. So take my analysis with a bit of a grain of salt. But do you, on some level, think that being the light in the world is some obligation or expectation God has given you?
What if it doesn’t have to be? What if we hear the words to this chorus as God saying “this light of mine…I’m going to let it shine in the world.” What if it’s an invitation to release ourselves into who we already are…who the spirit of love and creation makes us to be? What if being light is just who we are, right now, in this moment, with all of our insufficiencies, challenges, weaknesses and insecurities? What if light is just something we get to be because of God’s action in and through us?
What if we hear the words to this chorus as God saying “this light of mine…I’m going to let it shine in the world.” What if it’s an invitation to release ourselves into who we already are…who the spirit of love and creation makes us to be?
I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to become light, or to use the other metaphor Jesus uses, to regain our saltiness. We think if we can do the right things, have the right amount of faith to navigate every stressor, respond to every situation with the right amount of love and action, then our light will shine enough. I think if we’re not careful, we can equate doing light THINGS with being light.
Yes, Jesus does say “let your light shine before others so they may see your good works and praise your Faither in heaven.” Does that bring anything to mind? When and where do we say that in our tradition? At baptism. When someone is baptized—regardless of their age, social or economic status, life achievements, successes or failures—we proclaim that they are light. They are light. You are light. The good works we do do not make us light. We are light. The same spirit of God that came on Jesus, declared him “beloved” and empowered him to heal and restore life comes to us and calls us “beloved.” We are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. We are light! The invitation then is to BE light in the world. Be who you are. Allow the light that you are to shine.
That’s where the good works come in. Not as a precursor to being light, but as an expression of what light does and is. So in the next section where there’s this confusing language about righteousness and entering the kingdom of heaven, remember that you are light. Remember what God has already done and will do again. Ours is not to make ourselves light by following the law or adjusting the word of God to fit our interests and expectations. Ours is to be the light. And on those days where we don’t much feel like light, the water of baptism and the bread and wine of communion call us back to what is still true…we are beloved. We are light. We are forgiven. We are given life. We are bound to one another and to the whole body of Christ. We are light.
Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, he says. Being light doesn’t mean we don’t need to be care-filled in how we do life together. It also doesn’t mean we get to just sit in our little light clusters and separate ourselves from the world around us. We still are invited to be kind to one another, preserve and protect the most vulnerable, expand our awareness of the pain and suffering around us, respond to the reality of brokenness with grace and compassion. But doing ‘light’ things and following the ‘rules of light’ is not what makes us light. That’s God’s action. We do these things because that’s what light does. Light transforms darkness. Light warms up the cold. Light reflects diversity and magnifies beauty. Light reveals wounds that need healing and weaknesses that need strengthening. Light DOES STUFF!
This weekend the youth have spent time reflecting on how we can create space for God to meet us and remind us of the truths of who we are that we forget or lose sight of under the pressures of performance, acceptance and validation. We spent time exploring spiritual practices that help us see and hear God remind us “you are the light of the world.” We listened to one another’s stories and became more comfortable claiming for ourselves what being light means to us. We reflected on what we hope others see in and through us that gives glory to God.
So what does all of this mean for this congregation? It’s easy to think that Jesus’ point is for each individual person to be the best light they can be on their own. But what we miss in the translation of Jesus’ words into English is that Jesus emphasized the COMMUNITY as often or more than the individual response. You ALL are the Light of the world. A CITY—a collection of lights—cannot be hidden. God has made you all—those gathered here in this time and place and those connected to this place in other ways—light and salt for the world. What does that look like for you all? You reflect your light-ness to one another when you gather, pray, share, and fellowship together. When you reach out to those who are struggling. When you welcome in those who are different from you. You reflect your light-ness when you gather for worship, host a group of youth in your building for the weekend, invite the community to join you for events and activities. Light DOES STUFF!
What practices do you do together to make space for God to remind you who and whose you are? You are God’s beloved. You are the light of the world. The one who heals, restores, calls, gathers, commissions and sends claims you and transforms you. The one who defeated the power of death and frees you from the power of sin and death loves you and claims you. You are the light of the world.
Now, if you hear this charge as both compelling and daunting, you’re in good company. My first reaction to what I hear myself saying is, “yeah…right. I am not light. And if I am, I do a pretty poor job of showing or feeling it most days.” Yep, you’re right. But this is where we remember who is giving this sermon. Jesus. Jesus…the incarnated word of God. Jesus who goes on to remind us that God is faithful to God’s word. And it was God’s word that spoke into the chaos at creation and said “let there be light”. Being light and sharing light and directing people to God is not work that we do. It’s work that God does in and through us.
The rest of Jesus’ teaching is a little about how that happens. That’s what we call the life of discipleship…the daily stuff of figuring out what it means for us today to be light in the world. That shows up in our relationships. It shows up in our response to suffering. It shows up in our response to anxieties about our future. It shows up in our expectations of one another. The rest of Jesus’ teaching reminds us that we are invited—like Peter and Andrew who we read about a few weeks ago—to align ourselves with what God is doing and be part of the Kingdom of Heaven even today.
If you’ve read any more of the gospels, you know that the disciples usually don’t get it. Jesus has to repeatedly explain, clarify, remind and teach again. So this life of faith…this discipleship journey…this business of being light and salt…is not contingent on our perfection. God’s love, grace, forgiveness and relationship is extended to us every day, wherever we are, in whatever condition our light is. And yet, when we live into the call to follow Jesus, when we take our identity as light seriously, when we as community stay open and attentive to God’s presence in our midst, we and those around us experience transformation.