This Little Light of Mine
February 12, 2006
Matthew 5:14-16
You, You are the light of the world.
Can you feel it?
You, are the light of the world!
You are! That's right. You are
And, it's Jesus' voice these words are attributed to. Jesus, God's beloved Son, the one who came to transform this world to love, comes to you today to say,
It is you, you who are the light of the world! Do you feel like light? Come on, try, try to get into that place that will allow you to be light. Open yourself, ask God to fill you up with light, ask God to allow God's light to flow through you, right now, come one, don't be shy…can you feel it? Filling you up? It feels like warmth, peace, hope, love, joy! God's light fills you up with energy, enthusiasm. Close your eyes if you have to, ask God, open yourself, allow God to explode within you. There! I can see it! Shining, in you! You are the light!
It's like when you have a dark room at home. And, you choose to just walk through it. You know the terrain. You proceed into the room and bam! You forgot the shoes you left there in the middle of the floor last night. Reaching for the light and illuminating the room doesn't change where the shoes are or how the room is arranged. Turning on the light only helps us navigate the room differently. What a gift it is to hear that God illumines us and that we are the lights of this world.
What a metaphor…We don't have to be in any particular order. We don't have to wait for a particular time or moment. We don't have to prepare ourselves in any particular way, we are enough today to be the light. The light doesn't change us, it simply helps us see things differently. For the you in this call begins as individual. It means each one of us is called to be the light. However, the light is not for ourselves, it is for this world (“no city on a hill can be hidden”). And, that's when it becomes corporate. It is a call to fill ourselves up with God's light and then to shine it out into the world.
There are persons throughout our world who live in the dark. There are a lot of people who cannot see any light. The light in many lives has been extinguished because of suffering they endure personally and socially. It is to these people that we must bring the light of Christ. This feeling of life light, this feeling of being loved, this feeling of hope. Jesus is depending on us, the disciples, to bring light to those places and conditions that need illumination—greed, apathy, ignorance, hate. Jesus is depending on us to let our lights shine so that others will know who it is we follow and why. Jesus is depending on us to let our lights shine so that hope, renewal, and redemption are possible.
And, it is possible. It is possible because you are the light! It is through your work of shining the light that we can hear lives changing. We can hear the tearful thanksgiving of those who haven't seen the light in ages at last bathed in light. We can hear the praises to God of hope, peace, joy, and love. This is how we know that we have turned on the high-beam. Because when the light shines, it leads us back to the Divine Light, not ourselves.
This is why we take the time to sign up for Stewardship in our Community. This is why we put so much emphasis on identifying what our gifts are. When Barbaraworks to pick fruit, she helps transform a situation where one hoards too much fruit into feeding the least of these, those who are hungry. We all do not have the patience, ability, or know how to pick fruit. We all do not have the time, skills,and tools to know when and where. We all do not have the passion to make sure it gets done, but Barbaradoes. And, she helps us shine the light there. We can link to her light, her guidance and shine more brightly into that place but it takes her leading light. And, those of us who can not, count on her to handle that light, transforming that suffering.
Betsyworks to keep our website up to date and train others to share the ministry of our community on the World Wide Web. Most of us barely know how to navigate the web. It would be impossible without her leadership to shine a light out into cyberspace reaching those who are so wounded they can not yet cross our threshold. With both of these leaders we have light shining into two realms that may be inaccessible without them.
They both prove to us we don't all have to have the same gifts. That whatever our gifts are, they are enough. And, they both give wonderful models for us, of what we can do with our gifts to transform places of hopelessness, greed, and suffering. And, when we pray for them, support them, nurture them, we are indeed maintaining the light.
First UCC, it's simply by connecting with one another that we are the light. That's why we live in community as Christians. We live in community so we can see the light within, help groom the light with one another, and join our lights together. It is an enormous world with a world of hurt, and it takes all of our giftedness to bring a transformational light to all those places. It takes us working together as a team and as a community.
This is why we are going to the Rally for Love and Justice today. This is why we'll take time beyond our worship, beyond our committee work, beyond our jobs and daily lives. We're going out there today to shine some light. To remind the outcast that we can see them, they are welcome here and we call them brothers and sisters. We go out to shine some light today. I got a packet of information from the Center for Arizona Policy this week. It was a packet of information telling me what to do to help support this crucial piece of legislation known as Protect Marriage Arizona. I called around to other pastors and everyone in town seems to have received this same packet. It must have cost at least $100,000 to get these packets out in Tucson…I don't know if they went out across the state, but I imagine they did. They asked me in the packet to have brides and grooms dress in their wedding outfits and ask people to sign the petition to get this hate filled legislation on the ballot. They asked me to arrange to serve wedding cake during our fellowship hour. They asked me to arrange a convertible to sit out front and have “Just Married” signs, pulling aluminum cans behind to get the signatures needed. Signatures that will lead to one group of people getting to control another group of people. Signatures that will prevent people from getting health care. That will make some people suffer. It won't affect the brides and grooms who have married. It won't affect the brides and groom who will marry. But, it will create suffering for many who cannot marry for a variety of reasons. All proclaimed in the packet to uphold our Scripture and God's law. So, how do you shine light there? How do we shine light into a place where God's law and Scripture are being used as punitive and fear based? I think you gather people together, particularly those who have the potential to be the brunt of the suffering, and you show up. You show up and remind them that God's light is life-giving. God's light is the light that leads to unity and peace, love and joy. That there are some people of faith, who are standing with them, fighting for them, shining our lights with them that instead they might find healing and peace because of our work. Healing that will remind them of the presence of God, healing that will help them see the bright light that is shining from our collective love.
But, once again, this may not be your gift. Maybe you have to go and visit a sick relative in the hospital today. Maybe you can't stand out in the sun for two hours. Maybe you're feeling badly today. Maybe you don't like crowds. It's OK, because those of us who can, are. And, we know that your day is coming--to come to us because you've seen suffering. You've seen darkness. You've seen impossible circumstances and you just have to do something about it. When that day comes, rest assured that we will be there to support you in showering that place with light and hope. We will support you in sharing your gifts that we might glow brighter. We will support you in widening our ministry of healing and hope.
You, you are the light!
Let us pray!