“Called to Shine” - February 9, 2020

Matthew 5:14-16

                  

            There’s a point in Jesus Christ, Superstar where Judas gets upset because Jesus lets Mary Magdalene rub his feet and Judas sings, “It doesn’t help us if you’re inconsistent.”  In the actual gospels, Jesus is annoyingly inconsistent sometimes, though, and the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t steer away from that.

            Today we heard this from chapter five:

“You are the light of the world.  A city built on a hill cannot be hid.  No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light so shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

Then come these words in chapter six:

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.  So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Now, there are various ways of holding these passages together despite the tension between them. 

            There is the whole question of motive: whether what is being done is being done for God’s glory or human approval.  It’s pretty clear sometimes.  If there’s a trumpet blowing to gain people’s attention, then it is people’s approval that is being sought.  The Romans were especially good at that type of thing.  There is a building in Rome that dates to the time of Caesar Augustus, to the same years as Jesus was walking the roads of Galilee, the Pantheon.  It was a temple whose construction was funded by Caesar’s best friend, Marcus Agrippa.  We know that because to this day the front of the building has words carved in stone: “M. Agrippa me fecit”.  (“M. Agrippa built me.”)

            But what if, say, a gift is given in honor of someone else?  What of a college library that is named, not for the donor, but for the donor’s parents?  The name carved above the door will still be the same.  It may be done with pure motives but still leave you wondering.  It’s like when William Shakespeare came into some money and he arranged to have a coat of arms posthumously awarded to his father, which – incidentally – meant that he himself automatically moved from the status of a commoner to that of a gentleman. 

            All the same, I am grateful for having had a chance to study at Duke University Divinity School and having had my field education funded in part by the Hamrick endowment for graduate student ministries.  I often use information provided by the Pew Foundation and listen to radio shows funded by bequests of Ray and Joan Kroc.  If I had heart problems, I would probably want to be treated at Lankenau Hospital or if I caught some strange disease I might appreciate the care of the Mayo Clinic.  But since I am well, I may enjoy a day trip to the Guggenheim Museum or the Smithsonian Institute.  Those are kind of far, though, so maybe I’ll just run up to Doylestown to the Michener Gallery or the Mercer Museum.

            There is one thing I have overlooked in my diatribe here, though.  It’s a distinction that doesn’t always stand out in English translations of the Bible.  When we are warned about blowing our own horns, the word “you” is singular.  When we are told,

“You are the light of the world,” [Matthew 5:14]

that “you” is plural.  It isn’t any one of us alone, but all of us together who are to show the world what God’s glory is like.  For that matter, to be called

“A city built on a hill” [Matthew 5:14]

implies that it is God’s people working together that successfully shows a kind of holiness that we all fall short of individually.  Whenever we try to stand on our own we run the inevitable risk of standing not just by ourselves but for ourselves, when it is God with whom and for whom we should be standing.

            We are called to let the good works shine out, but not as single and unconnected deeds.  There may be that one candle shining in the window at times, but more often than not there’s a candle in the next window over, too.  It won’t be visible from inside the house, and in any given room you may only see that one light, but on the outside, there may be a dozen candles showing.

            What may make a difference in the long term is not the grand gesture, but the constant small ones.  (That is, after all, how erosion smoothes the rocks in a creek into beautiful, rounded stones.)  That is how, century by century, acts of lovingkindness put the lie to cynicism and hopelessness.  The nineteenth-century poet Arthur O’Shaughnessy began a poem called “Ode”:

“We are the music makers,

            And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

            And sitting by desolate streams; -

World-losers and world-forsakers,

            On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

            Of the world for ever, it seems.”

Habits matter.  Good manners matter.  Small courtesies and high expectations change people, both those who share them and those who receive them. 

            This church has taken up a mission statement for itself, saying that we are about “Seeking, sharing, and showing God’s love.”  We seek it all the time.  We seek it because we live in a world that does not value people highly for themselves, but mostly for what they can produce or pay, and there needs to be a place where someone can hear that Jesus sees and loves them for who they are.  We share that love because we’re all in the same spot, and we know that someone, somewhere, sometime managed to get that message through to us.  We show that love when we form a community that is not by any means perfect but that at least tries to live by standards other than the prevailing ones.  Sometimes – more often than we give ourselves credit for, even – we get it right.  Then God’s love can really get to work on its own, despite our egos and pride and all the stuff that gets in the way, and the whole cycle starts over again – to the greater glory of God.

            There is no magic formula in all of this.  It isn’t a one- or two- or fifty-two-week program.  It’s a way of life.  But it’s one I believe we can all live with.