Y’all are the light of the world!
Image: Bening, Simon, 1483 or 1484-1561. Villagers on Their Way to Church. As the local parish church prepares for services, villagers and rural peasants make their way down the path. The candlelit procession inside the church, as well as the candles held by the approaching villagers, suggest the celebration of Candlemas, a church holiday observed the second of February.
From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57932 [retrieved February 7, 2023].
Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A (February 5, 2023).
View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (February 5th) is available here.
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Jesus said, “You are the light of the world… No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in 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 5:14-16)
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.
Nobody after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, right? Nobody does that. Why would you do that? Why would you put a lamp under a basket? I have a story to tell about why that might happen.
This Thursday evening here at St. James, we celebrated the Feast of the Presentation, which is also known as Candlemas. This is a holiday that comes 40 days after Christmas. On this holiday, we remember that Jesus was brought by his parents to the Temple, as all first firstborn sons would've been, to be presented in the Temple. And at the same time, his mother, Mary, would've undergone the ritual purification that would follow the giving birth to a child.
When Mary and Joseph brought Jesus into the Temple, they encountered two people, two wise and aged and faithful elders of the community. They were Simeon and the prophet Anna. Both of these elders were told to come to the Temple because they would see the fulfillment of God's promise for them if they came on that day. And in fact, Anna never left the Temple. She lived there. She spent her days and nights there faithfully waiting. So these two elders, both moved by the Spirit, were present at the presentation of God! in God's own temple. And Simeon, recognizing the Savior in this small forty-day-old child, sings this great hymn:
Lord, you now have set your servant free
to go in peace, as you have promised,
for these eyes of mine have seen the Savior
whom you have prepared for all the world to see:
a light to enlighten the nations
and the glory of your people in Israel.
He recognizes Jesus as the light, which is the light of God for all people. So on Candlemas, that's why we carry lights; we bless our candles. It became traditional in the church to celebrate the return of light as we move towards spring and the longer days; to bless candles, the things which give us light in our homes and in our church.
So to celebrate this holiday, to celebrate this feast, we had a lovely soup and bread and dessert supper over in the Parish Hall. And then we gathered together and we passed out candles to each person. We lit our candles and then we walked out into the night with our candles and it was going to be very picturesque and beautiful as we walked through the darkness bearing our lights. Except those who were there will remember it was a little breezy!
And so we're walking with our lights and I'm at the back of the procession. I can see one by one, these lights get blown out by the wind. And I'm real proud of myself because I remember to put my hand up to cover my candle from the wind. And I get almost all the way to the church door. And then there's this great big wind and now, out goes my candle too! And I was a little worried because we had brought down the lights here in the sanctuary. So people were going to into this dark space, and bring their light into it, and it was going to be a very moving liturgical moment... but there was no light by the time we got here!
So why might you cover your lamp?
Now if you think about what Jesus is saying, that each of us carries within us a light of God, or each of us carries within us this sort of earthy saltiness that makes us who we are... A metaphor we might use is, "you are the spice of life." You bring a certain something to this feast of the world. But we might hide our light in order to protect it from whatever assaults it. A physical light can be blown out by wind. And that metaphorical light: probably each of us has had an experience where our light—whether you think about that light as your faith, or as what makes you *you*, the way God created you to be—chances are there's some point in your life where a metaphorical gust of wind threatened that light that is uniquely yours.
Maybe it was a harsh word given at just the wrong time: knocked out that light. Or maybe it was a moment of true loss or grief, causing that light of faith which burns within you, to flicker.
So there's a move to want to protect what is most precious to us from the threats out here in the world. And yet Jesus says, No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a basket. Even if you want more than anything to protect it!
Going back to that story, as my light went out and I came to the open door of the church, I thought, oh, how are we going to do this now? It's going to be dark in there! What will we do for light now? Someone's going to have to turn the lights up... someone else is going to have to get a match...
In the doorway of the church was one person who had lit their candle. And as each person came in with their blown out candle, she relit it. So me, with all my worry, came in to a beautiful church full of people holding their candles.
When Jesus says, you are the light of the world, one of the problems with our translation is we say "you" whether it's one person or a whole lot of people, right? When Jesus says "you are the light of the world," he's not talking to an individual. A translation that we might better understand is "y'all, all of y'all are the light of the world!" He's speaking to the gathered community, not just to one person.
Y'all—let y'all's light so shine before the world.
Doesn't that make sense? Because if our instinct is to say, I've got to protect my light, what I've got... that's true, if we're on our own. But our Candlemas service and that person who was re-lighting the light... that can remind us that when we come to that instinct to protect and hide the light, we're forgetting that there's a whole community whose purpose is to nurture one another's light and to help it to grow and shine.
Y'all let your light so shine.
And if one person's light is flickering, then others can help them to relight, to rekindle, the light and the life of God within them. Nobody's light stands alone in the community of Christ.
And isn't it funny then that Jesus, who is the light of the world, turns around and says, y'all are the light of the world. You, the Body of Christ gathered here on earth, together: you are the light of Christ. Christ who is the light, is you, who are the light.
So don't be afraid, don't hide your light. But instead remember that we are here together to keep that light burning. Amen.