After Moses had drawn
close to God on Mt. Sinai,
his face radiated a holy light.
But when he met his
people at the base of the mountain,
that light made them uncomfortable,
so he put a veil on to hide the holiness.
St. Paul did not think
that was the right thing to do. Paul said:
“Since we then have such a hope,
we act with great boldness,
not like Moses who put on a veil.”
After we bask in the
light of Christ,
we naturally radiate his holiness.
“You are the light of the
world,” Jesus said. Mt. 5:14.
He goes on: “No one
lights a lamp
and puts it under a basket.
You put the lamp on a stand
So it gives light to the whole house.”
After we have been
blessed to dwell in the light of Christ,
our mission is to radiate that light
into a darkened world,
to share some hope with people in despair.”
What does it mean to be
the light of the world?
Jesus told us straight
out.
He said, “Let you light
so shine that people
may see your good works
and glorify your Father in Heaven.”
In theology, that’s what
we call a “dominical injunction”
--
meaning Jesus said, “Do it.”
He said, “Let you light
so shine that people
may see your good works
and glorify your Father in Heaven.”
There are verses that say
we should pray in secret.
There are verses that say
we should give alms in secret.
But when it comes to
active, hands on doing good in the world,
Jesus says, “Let you light so shine that people
may see your good works
and glorify your Father in Heaven.”
And Paul says, “Do it
boldly – no veils.”
We, however, have been
well taught to wear veils.
Nice people are modest.
If we do something good,
we don’t want anyone to know it.
But here’s the
difference.
Christians don’t do good works
so people pat us on the back.
When we go about doing
good while keeping quiet about our faith,
the danger is people will just thing we are naturally
heroic.
The reason is all-important.
Jesus says to do good
boldly and publicly:
“so that
people will glorify your Father in heaven.”
When we do something
right, we redirect the credit to God.
Jesus shows us how this
works in today’s Gospel.
Like, Moses, he drew near
to God in prayer on the mountain
and like
Moses he glowed with holiness.
When he got back down the
mountain,
he showed people the light,
not by physically glowing, but by healing,
by setting a child free from bondage to a
demon.
When he did it, the people saw it, and the glorified God.
Setting children free
from oppression
and doing it in the name of Jesus
– that’s shining the Christ light into
a darkened world.
Tomorrow morning 35
people of faith will fly from this Valley
up to Reno and drive over to Carson City
to talk with our legislators.
We’re going to tell them
who we are.
We are people of faith.
And we are going to ask
them to pass the Human Trafficking bill,
to set our children free of the sex traffickers
who exploit them here in our state.
That is shining the
Christ light into some serious darkness.
Whether it’s Jesus
setting a child free from a demon
or a follower of Jesus setting a child free from a pimp,
that’s shining the Christ light
so that people may glorify our Father in Heaven.
James Davison Hunter’s book, To
Change the World,
is about
how Christians try to make a difference here and now.
It’s a hard facts study
of what works and what doesn’t.
Trying to seize power and
make people do what we say doesn’t work.
It hasn’t worked for the
Christian Right
or for
the Christian left.
But when we participate
in our community,
when we get involved with the place where we live,
and we
do it honestly in the name of Jesus,
it does make a difference.
Hunter calls it “fathful
participation.”
People see Christ acting
through us;
they are
touched by it, encouraged, inspired
– they are changed.
Hunter says the problem
with modern Christians
is that we are wearing veils.
Mainline Christianity has
withdrawn from the culture
taking
refuge from the modern world inside our church walls.
We have handed over the
universities, sold the hospitals,
stopped
making art and literature,
and entrusted
social services to government bureaucracies.
We have abandoned the
field.
When Jesus said, “No one
lights a lamp then puts it under a basket,”
he
hadn’t met us.
But I see signs of hope.
There are green buds on
the bough of our faith.
Here at St. Timothy’s,
you have been stubbornly Christian
in your
work with Friends in the Desert,
serving the poor and the hungry
even when it offends your neighbors.
That’s what Paul called
“acting boldly.”
I am very encouraged by
Michele Turner’s stepping up
to make
connections between St. Timothy’s
and Nevadans for the Common Good.
Fr. Mike recently went to
the 5-day community organizing training
at our
seminary in California.
He is the second
non-Hispanic priest in this diocese
get that
training.
There are stories like that
all over this diocese.
Congregations who had not
been involved with their communities
are
getting involved.
Congregations who have always
been involved with their communities
are
doing more.
This MLK Day,
St.
Catherine’s, Reno, visited a homeless shelter
to
teach people how to use crock pots.
The homeless people saw that. But they
weren’t the only ones.
The next day, it was in the Reno
Gazette-Journal,
because
when Jesus shows up, that’s news.
Will our good works shine
light in the darkness?Let me share a few simple
stories.
After my mission trip last year,
I met a young
man at the luggage repair shop.
He asked me what I had been doing in Kenya.
I told him about Melvin Stringer’s work to
save young women
from
genital mutilation and forced marriages.
He said, “Where is your church? That’s a
church I’d go to.”
When I went to help clean up a community
center in Las Vegas,
several
young people said, “Where is your church?
If
you’re here, we want to be there.”
I went a community organizing training in
Texas this year-
- the same
training Fr. Mike just did in California.
All of us trainees who were over 50 were
church folks.
The ones under 30 were not.
But two of the young adults said, each in
their own way,
“if I’d known Christians like the ones here
I’d
still be in the Church.
In
fact, I’m going to give it another try.”
“You are the light of the world.
No one lights a lamp and sets it under a
basket . . .
Let you light so shine that people may see
your good works
and
glorify your Father who is in Heaven.”
