You Are the Light of the World
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“Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha upon his death. Like Jesus, he knew that he was light, and people were drawn to him. And they both knew, I think, that that was beside the point.
They knew it was easier to idolize teachers than to actually listen to what they said and live accordingly. I imagine both of them saying different versions of “Don’t you get it? It’s not about me! You—you are the light of the world.”
We are more likely to be familiar with other passages that have Jesus saying I am the light of the world. I don’t blame the gospel writers for saying this. As Marcus Borg puts it, to the writer of John’s Gospel, Jesus was the light of his world. This is the traditional meaning of Christmas—Jesus as the light of the world. But given everything else Jesus said it seems far likelier that he would shift the focus away from himself.
“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 the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14)
It’s easy to get a sense of a great teacher’s specialness. It’s harder to get a fix on their audience, the people their words were meant for, but as a Unitarian Universalist, that is my bigger concern. To be of value, such a teaching has to apply to everyone, no matter who they are, no matter what they believe, no matter whether they are especially great moral achievers or struggling to figure out the right thing to do, like the rest of us.
In his book in Jesus and the Disinherited the great African-American theologian Howard Thurman reminded us that Jesus’ message was intended for people with their backs to the wall. He was speaking to an incredibly poor audience. Jewish communities who were brutally occupied by the Romans, and were charged enormous taxes that would cost them their land when they couldn’t pay. Jesus gave them hope, gave them a sense that the divine spark—the kingdom of God—was within them. The oppressor need not have any power over them. “You are the light of the world,” he said. Not Caesar, not Rome. You.
Actual light—oil for lamps—was precious in those days, a rare commodity. A museum in Amsterdam recently held an exhibit called “House of Light,” which explained that it wasn’t until about 1800 that ordinary people could afford candles in their homes. You would hoard oil for your lamp carefully. It was precious. Poor people must have looked at the lighted homes of the rich with longing and envy.
The dark was darker for them, and more fearsome. No streetlights, nothing that would produce the kind of scattered light that obscures stars above many towns today. Christmas carols are full of the image of night: “O Holy Night,” “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” “Silent Night.” Christmas Eve was always more appealing to me as a child than Christmas Day—more magical, more evocative. But in those times, there was nothing romantic about the night. And a light appearing at night would have been a powerful spiritual symbol. Psychologically, it’s about something that wakens us out of our sleep, our usual inattentive state. Despair, even depression. If you’ve ever had a “dark night of the soul,” you know what I mean. This is what Jesus’ people were in.
They also lived in fear. “Fear not” was an important and often repeated message of Jesus. And he probably did see fear in them. Why else would you say it? Jesus looks at the frightened folk, and says Even if you have no money, no power, no status, you are light. There is a power within you that is God, that is light. You don’t need to be afraid.
“The light of the world” was a common expression in Jewish tradition at that time. Rabbis taught that God was the light of the world, or that the Torah or the tribe of Israel was the light of the world. So saying “You are the light of the world” to ordinary people, most of whom were poor and struggling, was something radically different. Different ways to understand this might be: You are like God. Or, You have God in you. Or, Your heart is as important as the Torah. It would have startled most people; it would have enraged the priests as blasphemy. It would also have given people hope.
But you do have an obligation to the light. The second part of this passage is definitely harder. Jesus here expects us to shine, to use the precious oil, to burn it up. “A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all the house.” This involves a certain amount of risk.
In Minnesota, where I come from, my people do not encourage flagrant light-shining. We had words for people who (shudder) drew attention to themselves—show-offs, grand-standers—those people who made spontaneous speeches at parties or burst into song because they couldn’t help themselves. Cold looks and a particular sound we made—a tick, a sigh—were barely audible, but it was all it took to douse the light.
We may not resonate with the notion of letting our light “give glory to our father in heaven,” but it’s just another way to say that burning your light, spending yourself, is for something greater than just you. John F. Kennedy’s famous words: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” are another way to express this notion. We sense somehow that it’s kind of boring just to shine our light for ourselves. The spiritual life is about finding our connection to that bigger life. To find something that is worth burning our light for—the light that isn’t just about us. (It’s not about me, I repeat to myself from time to time. Sometimes a lot.) It’s a spiritual lesson we’ll probably be working on for generations. It’s not about you. And still, burn your light.
Mary Oliver writes, “Clearly I’m not needed, yet I find myself turning into something of inexplicable value.” I am reminded of a funeral I conducted a few years ago, along with our minister of music. We were called on behalf of a couple whose two-year-old son had died of leukemia. He was certainly the light of his parents’ life. They had given everything to the fight for his life. They moved from Washington, D.C. to the Ronald McDonald House at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to devote full time to his recovery. His mother and her parents quit their jobs. There are times in your life when you have to completely give yourself over to someone or something, and this was it for them. They burned their light for him. And now he was gone.
The family had originally requested just a few words at the cemetery—nothing religious, they “weren’t religious people.” Soon it became apparent that much more was needed, as scores and scores of people were going to come. We sometimes don’t know what a light we are, even in a brief span of time. They didn’t fully realize this about their son.
Need I tell you it was painful? A casket is not supposed to be so small. We ended with a large candle in the middle of a table to represent his life, and surrounded it with smaller tea candles. People were invited to come and light a candle from the larger one to express how his life touched their own. And so they came forward, silently, tearfully, some hesitantly. And when all 300 or so had come and lit a candle, we blew out the large candle, and said, “The light that was his life on earth has gone out; but look at the light he has left behind.” It was beautiful. His grandmother ran out to the car to get her camera; no one thought there would be anything they would want a picture of. Even if you only live less than two years, you are light, those candles said. You touch the world.
Jesus and Buddha looked at the crowd and saw light. They were not speaking to people who already knew this. Notice that Jesus did not say, “Blessed are the powerful, the wealthy, the popular. Blessed are the handsome; blessed are the cool.” He was speaking to the rest of us. You, whose marriage failed, or who remained single in a world where people are expected to be married—you are light. You with a jailed child, you are light. Your child is, too. You who work at a job you hate, you who lost your job—you are light. You are light when you don’t like yourself very much, when you have failed. That’s the miracle of the light—God in you—it’s still there and it can be there even against your will.
Hiding it makes no sense; why waste something so precious? And yet we do. They didn’t say you could be light some day if you worked hard at it, were good enough, or did something worthwhile with your life. You, now. Make of yourself a light. Every night a child is born is a holy night. You are the light of the world.
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