Year A, Epiphany 5: Matthew 5:13-20
Sunday, February 5, 2017: The Church of the Holy Cross, North Plainfield NJ

“You are the light of the world…Let your light shine”[1]

In today’s gospel passage from Matthew, we hear some of Christ’s teachings from what happens after the Sermon on the Mount. In anticipation of his crucifixion and resurrection, Christ calls us as his followers to be the light of the world – to be the light of Christ in a world where it is always tempting to give in the darkness of things like hopelessness and unkindness. We are called to be bright. As humans, nothing we give light to in our physical world is meant to be hidden. We don’t use candles, headlights, and lamps just to hide them in a box to be left unseen. When we give something light, we expect it cast its glow all around. Doesn’t it stand to reason that God expects us to shine with the light God has bestowed on us as well? When God called light into being in Genesis, God called that light good.

Christ tells us today that we are the light of the world. (Think about how beautiful that sounds). It is our great gift and our responsibility to let our light shine.

I know that it can be tempting to feel self-conscious about shining, but think about all of the times someone else shining has made you brighter. Let me tell you about a time that someone’s light left a lasting glow on me:

In my second semester of college, I sat behind a woman named Tanya in my history class. We didn’t interact much, mostly in a “talk to the person next to you” kind of way or in the venting mutual frustrations before-or-after class kind of way…but we interacted enough that I recognized her when I ended up sitting next to her again in a literature class the following fall. This time, we spent more out-of-class time together as study buddies and collaborators on group projects, where we balanced academics with cobbler-baking and movie-watching. Still, our friendship didn’t really stick until our third class together during my third year at Delaware. This time, our cobbler-centric study parties extended beyond the semester and our time together became less and less focused on studying.. and more and more on being good friends. When I shared with Tanya my discernment of feeling called towards the priesthood, it didn’t shutdown or redirect our conversations. Instead, it deepened them. As we talked about how we each experienced Christ in our lives, I felt called to invite Tanya to church. She’s maybe the second person I’d ever invited to church and having her join our campus ministry made it a richer experience for our small but mighty student community as well as St Thomas parish, which sponsored the ministry.

Tanya and I used to joke that God knew we were supposed to be friends, and that’s why we got all of those chances to get it right by having all of those classes together in college. Tanya could be reserved, but as she learned to trust me with the bright shining light got put in her, my life and my faith became made richer. She was unwavering in her faith in God and God’s providence. She was always gracious, and even when life was not gracious to her, she was unwavering in her faith in God and God’s plan. She had a great eye for God winks! Tanya was gracious, grateful and faithful even when she spent her post-graduate school years battling a brain tumor that took away her independence. Seeing her light shine so beautifully connected me to Christ in a new way through the piece that was in her. On the days I feel like my light is going out, the gracious, grateful, and faithful glow of her Christ-light is one of the most inspiring that still shines on me and helps me start to glow again.

We are the light of the world, and we are called to shine. Like the candles we hold each Christmas Eve when we sing Silent Night and all our individual lights combine to make the whole church glow, except that we’re called to be light everywhere. I can’t talk about light without quoting the first chapter of John: “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.”

I know that the annual meeting can be stressful, for us and for many of our church neighbors, in this diocese and in others. I also know that the transitions we’ve been through as a community have brought us much change in not a lot of time. We are not alone in this challenge either. But I’ve also called this place home long enough to know something else. For all of the years we’ve faced stressful annual meetings, we’ve still shining, maybe brighter than ever because we’re so determined to overcome any darkness that might dare creep across our Holy Cross horizon line. Christ’s light may not have led our community where we expected; I talked to you last week about just how hard the Holy Spirit laughs when we try to overplan – but we are most definitely called to shine.

I’ve grown a lot in the light here – the light of this community and the light in each of you, who I am so much brighter for knowing and loving and journeying with.  But last week, after church, when I stayed to lend my heart and hands to Neighbors Feeding Neighbors, I was reminded that there are still new ways I can find Christ in all of you and in this place I’ve known as long as I could know anything.  I remembered hearing about this program, when it first started and was struggling to grow, but last Sunday, I experienced it in action. This room full of people from all walks of life – young and old, families and singles – who came to eat the food prepared and coordinated by people in this room and to claim warm winter clothes donated by Betty’s Basement – another example of what cool things can happen when our light shines in a new way. At Neighbors Feeding Neighbors, I got to be amazed at the light of Christ shining forth from Holy Cross in a new way that connected to all of these new people and that showed me that even in a community I’ve called home forever, I can still find more of Christ’s light. It’s been blowing my mind and making my heart glow all week.

We are the light of the world. We are not meant to hide ourselves under a bushel or behind closed doors. We are not called to play it safe by glowing in the all of the same familiar ways. We are called to glow like fireflies on a summer night, shining in the darkness and stretching our wings as far as we can to light up the night with love as boundless as the sky and full of new places to explore. We are called to take risks and shine in new ways  – think about the beautiful new way Christ’s light is shining through Neighbors Feeding Neighbors!

We are the light of the world. Let’s shine, shine, shine!

[1] Matthew 5:14, 16