Do Power and Glory Mix?

Psalm 2; 1 Peter 1:16-23; Matthew 17:1-9

We say these words often. Once a week. Once a day. Perhaps more often than that.

“Thine is the power and the glory forever.”

You recognize them. These are the closing words of the Lord’s Prayer. We will be saying them soon, at the end of the Great Thanksgiving prayer of the communion liturgy. 

The Power and the Glory is the title of a 1940 novel by the British author Graham Greene. Like the American author Flannery O’Connor, Greene objected strongly to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist, rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic. Nevertheless Catholic religious themes are at the root of his writing, especially the four major Catholic novels, of which The Power and Glory is one.

Nick Ripatrazone wrote in the February 2016 Atlantic that Greene’s book is a”violent, raw novel about suffering, strained faith, and ultimate redemption.”(1) The book’s hero is an unnamed priest on the run from Mexican authorities after a state governor has ordered the military to dismantle all vestiges of the religion. Churches are burned. Relics, medals, and crosses are banned. The price for disobedience is death. While many clerics give up their beliefs and accept their government pensions, the unnamed priest travels in secret, celebrating Mass and hearing confessions under the cover of night. Yet he’s also a gluttonous, stubborn, and angry man drowning in vices, and the religious ambition of his earlier years has been replaced with a constant desire to drink, hence Greene’s term for him: the “whiskey priest.” Tired of risking his life, the priest even prays to be caught.

The tension between the priest’s calling and his humanity, between his desire to flout the uncivil worldly authority with the authority of God and his human desire to ultimately succumb to it catches many of the themes of the Transfiguration as witnessed to and responded to by three of Jesus’ disciples. On the mountain God confirms Jesus as the one called to bear grace and reconciling love to a broken, unneighborly, and unloving world wracked with conceit, greed, and unbelief. The disciples continue to misconstrue Jesus’ ministry by wanting to enshrine him with two great leaders of the past. However, Jesus takes them with him down the mountain and into the thick of the ministry which will confirm the world’s denial of him in its sordid attempt to shut out the Light of the world. Yet God will affirm the power and glory of that Light when it bursts forth from the tomb three days later.

Psalm 2 is one of several royal psalms that celebrate the anointing of God’s chosen king. It may have been for a human king or it may be for the promised Messiah. Christians have historically read this text through a messianic lens. On the surface, the psalm warns the rulers of the earth who have placed themselves in opposition to God and God’s people. 

In the context of the Transfiguration Psalm 2 takes on additional meaning. Besides Jesus’ experience on the mountain, we also remember the Exodus account of the experience of Moses on Mount Sinai. Both events are instances of God putting the divine stamp of approval on the missions which will be going forward.

The obvious parallel between Psalm 2 and the Gospel story of the transfiguration is that both describe God’s anointing of a chosen one. The psalmist identifies the king as anointed, declaring, “You are my son, today I have become your father.” The story of the transfiguration echoes these words, as God’s voice booms through the clouds and names Jesus as the son whom God dearly loves.

Psalm 2 envisions God’s chosen king as a powerful military leader, who is ready – and able with God’s help – to conquer the nations of the earth. This is the dominant image of the expected Messiah which is recorded in Hebrew Scripture. With only a few exceptions, this vision of leadership is most prevalent in the rule of the Israelite kings. This is the Messiah for whom the Israelites and their descendants longed.

Except that this is not the mantle of leadership which Jesus took up. He would not become the type of Messiah that Israel anticipated. Like Frost’s traveler at the fork of woodland paths, Jesus “took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” Time and again, Jesus rejects the job description of a powerful, militaristic Messiah. 

We see this most notably in the report of the temptation of Jesus, a temptation that this psalm almost foreshadows. In the psalm God promises to grant  the king “the far corners of the earth” as his  property as well as power over the nations. Compare that idea to the dramatic scene from Luke’s temptation account, where the devil shows Jesus the kingdoms of the world and suggests that they could all be his (Luke 4:5-7). You can almost see the devil’s sinister smile as he makes this offer. The irony is that in the psalm it is God who laughs at the feeble rulers of the nations.

Jesus has come to reveal a different kind of royal leadership and a kingdom with a different mission and purpose. The kingdom that Jesus leads is not defined by power and might, but by humility and servanthood. That is also the message of the story of the transfiguration. Jesus sets the tone of all he has done and all he will continue to do in the limited number of days ahead. His mission is not about earthly glory. He does not stay long on the holy mountain, basking in radiance, as his disciples think he ought to do. Instead, he leads the disciples back down the mountain. Jesus knows that his throne is not of this world and that his true glory will be revealed on the cross.

It is true news: Jesus does indeed become a king on a holy hill, but it is the hill of Golgotha, not Zion. When that coronation happens, Jesus is clothed in shame, not in splendor. We don’t hear God laughing in derision; the mockers are the crowds and the executioners surrounding Jesus. The anointed one is crucified and all the expectations of an all-powerful Messiah are overturned.

Human expectations are upended and reversed. That is a key element of the scriptural narrative. It doesn’t make sense, it is counterintuitive. The people of Jesus’ day couldn’t understand it, and we aren’t a whole lot better at it today. You and I spend enormous amounts of time and energy in pursuit of success, esteem, power, control, and all the things that go along with them. We don’t know how to define our earthly kingdoms in any other way. Our minds are boggled by the concept that Jesus’ life and mission are defined by relinquishing power and by traveling a sacrificial journey toward death. 

We confess and somehow believe that God acted in Jesus to overcome death with life. In his journey toward the cross, Jesus, the unexpected Messiah, reveals a kingdom more eternal and more powerful than any the world has known. The power of the world and the glory of God reconciling the world in Christ don’t mix.

Among twentieth-century Christian writers, Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder stands out in his analysis of this unexpected kingdom and its lessons for us. In The Politics of Jesus Yoder demonstrates how Jesus defies the traditional expectations of the Messiah and forges a different kind of kingdom, the kingdom of God. This kingdom does not depend on military might or economic prowess, but rather is made known through concern for the poor, justice for the oppressed, love for friends and enemies alike. The kingdom that Jesus leads builds doors instead of walls, welcomes rather than bans, loves rather than despises, affirms rather than debases, seeks the truth rather than revels in falsehood. 

In the kingdom over which Jesus is Lord, he introduces a new social ethic. Jesus forsakes the quest for power and control and doubles down in a commitment to servanthood and sacrifice. It is truly an upside-down kingdom, where the last shall be first, and where suffering and death lie unavoidably on the path toward joy and lasting life. Jesus is transfigured and messiahship is transformed.

Now that the Light of the world is so revealed that the power structures of the world must seek to envelope it in darkness we are at a decision point. Which type of Messiah will we follow: the one dependent on brute force and oppression or the one that turns the other cheek and goes the additional mile? Which kind of kingdom will we give our allegiance to: the one that squeezes power out of every last individual or the one that promotes compassion, forgiveness, and love? 

May we lessen our thirst for power and open ourselves to God’s grace in Christ lavished upon us by the Spirit.


General Resource: Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) Year A, Volume 1, 441-445.

(1) “Revisiting The Power and the Glory During Lent,” Atlantic, February 2016. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/02/the-power-and-the-glory-lent-graham-greene/461820/

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.

Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Does It Really Say That?

Matthew 38-48; Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23


For $50 the State of Ohio will issue you a specialized vehicle license plate if the wording can be put into seven letters, isn’t already taken, and isn’t offensive. Some plates are simple to decipher, others take some creative thinking. An “8" can be used for that sound. A “3" is sometimes used for an “e”. Often vowels are left out, but we can get the message.

The human mind is often pretty good at filling in the blanks; sometimes better than the auto-spell on our phones. If we are given a text with only consonants appearing, we can often read it without difficulty. Our minds skim over words so quickly that it knows the sequences and can fill in missing letters.

But sometimes our minds can get a little sloppy. I’ve told the story before about how for years I misread a sign on the court house square across from the Presbyterian Church in my home town. It wasn’t until I was high school that I realized the sign didn’t say “Presbyterian Crossing,” but actually said “Pedestrian Crossing.”

We do the same thing with scripture. If a certain saying sounds like a Bible verse, we assume that it must be. Or we take a verse and supply information that is not there. Matthew does not tell us how many wise men came to find Jesus, but we assume it was three because there are three gifts listed.

Jesus plays with our minds and what we think we know. In last week’s reading from Matthew, Jesus said several times, “You have heard that it was said....” Then he explained the statements’ real meaning. The original statements could have been mis-remembered, misquoted, or misinterpreted. Alternative reality is not a new phenomenon.

Jesus proceeds with two more reinterpretations in today’s reading. They are packed with trouble for those of us who claim to live in the real world. What Jesus spoke of is foreign to us. We live an irenic and cloistered existence when it is compared to the daily reality experienced by Jesus and his contemporaries. The incidents he cited occurred every day in many parts of Galilee and Judea. So we ask, what does this have to do with us in 2017?

While Jesus was talking about the world he lived in, the truth is that our world is as distressed and conflicted as his was. Evil was as real then as it is now. Neighbors were just as difficult to live beside. Poor people begged in the streets and we see them on the off ramps and intersections in Columbus, Chillicothe, and even occasionally in Waverly. In Jesus’ time, a Roman soldier could actually order a Jew to carry his pack for a mile whether that Jew wanted to or not. Today’s talk about immigrants approaches that level of belligerency. Nationally, a number of police departments, large and small, are under investigation or oversight because of a deep-seated culture of racial or ethnic insensitivity, profiling, and excessive force. The desire for retributive justice – vengeance, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” – was a direct quote from the Hebrew scriptures (Deuteronomy 19:16-21, cf. 25:11; and Numbers 35:9-30).

Jesus’ audience was as shocked then as we are today. Most people knew the vague generalities of the law. After all, the ten Mosaic commandments were explicated in 613 laws and regulations. Only the religious institution lawyers knew the ins and outs of the legal fine print. And they argued over the implications of many of them. What Jesus did was to take the application of some individual laws much further than anyone could be expected to go in ordinary living. Did he really expect his fellow Jews in Galilee or Jerusalem to be so scrupulous in carrying out the full detail of the law? None of us are moral perfectly. Not even close. The disciples and the hillside hearers weren’t any different in terms of achieving moral perfection. Life is never that simple or that easy. Does keeping both the letter and the spirit of the law require us to go beyond the basic requirements of holy living?

Jesus names what is widely taken for granted, and then speaks against it. Throughout his sermon he preaches in an adversative style, naming supposedly sound advice and then contrasting it against his own. Like any good rabbi, Jesus carefully explains the scripture, interpreting the law within its proper context and according to its proper use. Sometimes this task involves criticism of particular features and interpretations of the sacred text itself.

In discussing the “eye for an eye” situation, Jesus paints a portrait of active non-retaliation. This stance is so far from resistance to opponents (do “not oppose those who want to hurt you”) that at first it seems to give into them, offering them another cheek, another shirt, another mile. Looking closer, we find that his approach is grounded in profound resistance, the kind that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., espoused. This is an unexpected refusal to play the opponent’s adversarial game. By voluntarily going a second mile, for example, the first mile is reframed from something “forced” into something chosen. On the surface this looks like being docile; on a deeper level it is a form of non-adversarial defiance. It robs the oppressor of the exhilaration of abasing the victim.

A number of years ago a Korean-American pastor, Kenneth Bae, felt God’s call to go to North Korea and preach the gospel despite regime’s prohibition against any religion. After being arrested, one of the tortures inflicted on him was to stand motionless in the center of his cell for six hours. He was so filled with the Spirit as he stood there that he smiled. This response so confounded his captors that they ended the torture and told him to go to sleep.

As Jesus interprets the law, “an eye for an eye” means that the proper restitution for a wrongful act is its mirror image or reversal (as in, “if you take an eye, then you will lose an eye”). But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He argues that the true reversal of an opponent’s opposition is not another act of opposition but an act of non-opposition, a creative response that works toward extinguishing the opposition rather than the opponent.

Jesus broke down the entrenched assumptions of people on all sides of life. That is a message that we desperately need today. All sides today have become so entrenched, so rigid in their beliefs, their assumptions, their perceptions, that it is increasingly difficult for us to love when others are seen as enemies rather than neighbors. Colleague Thom Shuman says that “It’s not just ‘America First’ that presents a crisis in this moment, it is the ‘My Viewpoint First’ that is at the heart of the discord, the division, the disunity facing us right now.”(1)

Shuman continues, “Leviticus, Jesus, Paul all tell us of the gracious invitation God offers to us to live in neighborhood where reconciliations is the norm, not revenge; where trying to accumulate more takes a back seat to caring for the kids of the single parent who works two shifts a day; where we put our angry words out with the garbage, and recycle the grace God has given to us; where the losing side in elections invites the winning supporters over for coffee and dessert to talk about working together; where the quaint old notion that I best show self-love by loving the other is lived out.”

According to pastor Brian Donst, presidential counselor Steve Bannon says that we are living in a time of open war between civilizations.(2) Donst thinks Bannon is wrong in thinking that the warfare is between Christian and Muslim, or between any “competing” religious traditions. More accurately it is a war between a civilization of openness, love, honest dialogue, humble community, and honest efforts towards shalom (in any of its million faces), and a civilization of anger, suspicion, fearful exclusion, and self-righteous isolation. That means the battle line is not between different religious traditions, political parties, nations, classes, or races, but rather that the battle line runs right through the middle of each and every tradition, party, nation, class and race, precisely because the line runs right through each and every one of us. The enemy we must fight is first of all that part of ourselves which is subject to the lower and more sinful spirit of our age.(3) The salvation of Jesus is salvation from the worst that we would be without him.

We ask, “Does it really say that?” To which Jesus says, “But I say to you..., just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.” Or as Eugene Peterson paraphrases Jesus, “In a word, what I am saying is Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live graciously and generously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

God is indeed generous to us in Christ. Jesus did say that. May we live the truth of that reality.




(1) Thom Shuman, Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 11:21 AM, midrash@lists.joinhands.com.

(2) Brian Donst, Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 2:32 PM, midrash@lists.joinhands.com.

(3) Donst, Ibid.




Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.

Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Reaching beyond Reach

Matthew 5:21-37; Deuteronomy 30:15-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

Remember the black and white westerns that we watched on television more years ago than we care to remember? At least once in every episode someone – either a white hat or black hat – would confront someone of the other hat color and say, “Reach for sky!” In other words, get their hands where they could be seen and be as far from their pistols as possible. The disarmed person couldn’t literally touch the sky, but they knew what the gun-toting hombre meant.

Michael Phelps has been so phenomenal as an all-round swimmer because of his strength and also because of his reach. He has long arms and as he pulls himself through the water every stroke takes him several inches farther than his competition. Two inches every stroke adds up over the fifty meter pool distance times the number of laps in the race. 

“Reach” is the brand name of a tooth brush. The idea is that its head and handle are designed to enable the brusher to reach better the teeth at the back of our jaws where food particles can get trapped and cause decay.

When the Steelers aren’t playing football, Paula and I like to watch the Cleveland Cavaliers. What so often amazes us is the reach which some basketball players have. In addition to leaping high, they extend their arms so that their hands are way above the height of the rim. Commentators talk about player’s wingspan. Normally a person’s fingertip to fingertip distance is equal to their height. Some players seem to exceed that ratio as they reach upward or outward.

Ergonomists tell us that we need to exercise caution when we reach for things. If we stretch too far or twist just so while stretching, we can injure ourselves, particularly our shoulders or backs. Safety experts tell us that we mustn’t reach to the side of an extension ladder farther than our arms extend without stretching or to stand too high on a step ladder than it can safely hold us in order to reach beyond our reach. If we do, we run the risk of having the ladder shift under our weight and cast us to the ground. 

We need to know our limits in the physical realm and not exceed them, in spite of what the gravity-deniers tell us.

Not all reach is limited. In the realms of learning, work, social interaction, some people fail to reach as far as they might. A student might be content to just get by even though he has the capacity to excel. A capable worker may do just what she is asked to do and not take any initiative to make improvements to the process she uses or to create an alternative that would ensure greater efficiency, reliability, accuracy, or safety of what she does.

While some don’t reach as far as they could in life, others reach farther. Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist writes for The New York Times. His book, The Power of Habit, was a bestseller. But when he looked at some people around him, he realized he wasn’t doing as much as he could. Duhigg was especially awestruck by Atul Gawande, a noted surgeon, Harvard Medical School professor, author, and MacArthur “genius” Fellowship recipient. Writing does not come easily to Gawande who relies on his wife to find the right words. He constantly stretches his writing facility and produces scintillating prose.

Impressed by Gawande, Duhigg looked into how some people are able to tackle so much and wrote a book titled Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business. One piece of advice Duhigg offers is to stretch yourself. Big goals are not impossible, even though they may seem out of reach. The reality is that the more ambitious you are, the more you'll do. Duhigg recommends creating “stretch goals.”

“A stretch goal is a huge ambition,” he says. “It inspires our motivation and dreams. But it can create panic.” To avoid panic, Duhigg says that we should break stretch goals down into shorter-term goals that are more achievable. Big stretches are best achieved one small stretch at a time.

Our reading from Matthew’s account of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount,” gives us a series of stretch goals. “You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago...,” Jesus says. Then he goes on to encourage his hearers to stretch beyond the letter of the law. Don’t just stop there, dream further, go further, live further. 

It is not enough to not murder a person, but stretch further. Eliminate the steps that can lead to murder – hatred, anger, unreconciled differences, unwillingness to listen and understand where the other person is coming from.

It is not enough to not commit adultery, but stretch further. Create relationships based on trust and sincere affection rather than lust. Lust is another form of envy or greed. Greed is not only about money. It is about power, hierarchy, egotism, personal insecurity. All these things will put human relationships out of equilibrium.

It is not enough to not make a false solemn pledge, but stretch further by actually doing for the Lord what you have pledged to do. Jesus went even further, telling his hearers not to make pledges or oaths at all. The religious leaders of his day had come up with schemes to phrase pledges so that the maker had ways of getting out of them. We cannot take things which are beyond our control and influence, such as heaven or earth or the Temple, and use them as collateral for the oaths we make. The psalmist reminded us that “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants too” (Psalm 24:1). Wherever we look, wherever we turn, we are surrounded by the Divine, and none of it is an appropriate basis for us to intensify the sincerity of a human-made oath. When a person of integrity says “Yes” or “No,” that person’s simple word can be trusted. Christ’s people are to make integrity the standard, reaching beyond the commonplace.

Physically you and I can only reach so far before we endanger or do actual harm to ourselves. Sometimes we have to learn all over again to reach. Many of you can identify with this. You have had a joint replaced or have had an illness that left you significantly weakened. As the healing progressed you had to go to physical therapy – P.T., otherwise known as “pain and torture.” The task of the physical therapist is to stretch you back into shape, to make you reach once more as far as you could or farther. Sometimes we have so coped with a limitation that we reduced the stretching and reaching in order to ease or avoid pain. The therapist uses exercises to get our muscles to once again do all they are supposed to do. Stretching them creates pain, but the pain also creates growth and greater flexibility. 

While we may dare to reach too far physically, and fall off the ladder or dare to gain back the reach we once had, we often fail to reach farther spiritually. We get set in our ways and spiritual activities. The muscles of our spirit life begin to lose their tone because we don’t exercise them like we know we should. Their range of flexibility begins to decrease until there is little or no spiritual muscle mass. We fall back on “You have heard it was said in days gone by,” and we codify that as something we aren’t going to deal with. If it was good enough for the old folks, it will be good enough for me. And our spiritual reach gets shorter and shorter because we don’t exercise our spirits.

The Jesus we meet sermonizing on the mount is the Jesus who insists on interpreting the law from what can be discerned of God’s intention for humanity. Jesus expands and reframes what has been taken as the traditional or normative interpretation of what the ancients understood to be God’s will. Jesus reaches beyond the reach of the Mosaic Law. He places himself solidly within the tradition, but the tradition does not have the last word. The Gospel writer John’s opening words openly declare this: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). 

The images and ideas of the Sermon on the Mount that we have been considering for the last two Sundays and today remind us what the Season of Epiphany is about: Jesus reveals God and God’s nature and intent for humankind. Our quest as disciples of Jesus today is to continue to listen for and to follow the Jesus who came, not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. Jesus calls us to expand our spiritual reach, to reach farther than a lazy spiritual life will take us. 

May the Spirit aid our spiritual reaching.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

What Darkness

Matthew 5:13-20; Isaiah 58:1-9a; 1 Corinthians 2:1-12


The title of today’s proclamation is a two-word statement, or since it lacks a verb, a two-word sentence fragment. There is no punctuation mark at the end. Without a verb it can’t be a declarative statement. Perhaps the verb is understood: “What darkness [there is],” making this a flat statement. In a Progressive Insurance commercial Flo tries to say unemotionally that people could save 15% or more with Progressive. She fails and has to correct herself with a monotone, “Woohoo.”

There are two possible punctuation marks that can end this sentence fragment.

The first is the exclamation point, “What darkness!” That’s the one for people who look on the world and all they see is darkness, evil, sin, terrorism, war, poverty, hatred, oppression, crime, injustice, drug addiction, shoddy workmanship, price gouging, alcoholism, falsehood, greed, egotism, etc. The list is never-ending and each of us could add our pet world ill to the list. The darkness of the exclamation point is pervasive, total, complete, all-encompassing.

Have you ever gone to an underground cavern? Paula and I took our children to the Ohio Caverns near Bellefontaine. We descended into the cave. The steps and path were well-lighted. Halfway into the tour, the guide turned out all the lights and gave us an experience of total darkness, darkness into which no light intruded, no matter how long we might wait to let our eyes adjust. Such is the darkness of the world as seen by those who would use an exclamation point and say, “What darkness!”

The other option for punctuation is the question mark. “What darkness?” Those who use the question mark ask, “What darkness? I don’t see any darkness.” The thrust of this punctuation is totally different. Rather than looking for dark clouds to blot out silver linings, these people choose to look for the silver linings; indeed they create silver linings for dark clouds. For them the Light of the world, Christ, left the world at his ascension and entrusted the illumination of the gospel to lesser lights, Christians, you and me.

The Heidelberg Catechism, one of the confessions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), asks this question: “Isn’t Christ with us until the end of the world as he promised us?” The answer is, “Christ is true human and true God. In his human nature Christ is not now on earth; but in his divinity, majesty, grace, and Spirit he is never absent from us.” There is light and it is not now – nor ever will be – extinguished.

Our world is crying for light. In the darkness we grope for truth, for meaning, and for purpose in life. As Christians we are the means by which the only true light for the world can shine today. If we are true to the calling Christ gave us, we have to proclaim with John that the light came into the world and the very darkness itself was wiped out. Things appear very pale as we peer into the seemingly chronic dimness, but the light shines unceasingly. Because of our belief in Christ, we will choose the question mark and say, “What darkness? There is no darkness. There is Christ.” We are the light of the world for today..

A Sunday school superintendent, named Mark, tells about greeting a new family at church, mom, dad, and three daughters. The youngest girl was five-year old Sarah. Mark told her how glad he was that Sarah had come to the Sunday school that morning. Sarah up and kicked him in the shin – hard. Mark thought, “This is a fine way to begin our friendship.” But he resolved to be kind to her.

The next Sunday Mark welcomed Sarah with determined friendliness, and she kicked him in the shin – hard and twice. He wasn’t sure if they were going to be friends or not, but he decided to keep trying.

One Sunday Mark sat in church and noticed that Sarah and her family were sitting at the other end of the pew. Sarah was closest to him and soon she slid over to where he was and snuggled up him. Suddenly she looked up and said, “Mr. Mark, I hate you.” “I know,” he said. He thought to himself that at least it was better than getting kicked in the shin.

Time passed. One Sunday he went to the kindergarten room. The children were all seated in a circle listening to a Bible story. Mark tiptoed in, got a tiny chair, and sat down at the edge of the circle. Pretty soon a little boy stood up and came and sat on his knee. Sarah then came and sat on the other knee. She didn’t say anything or look at Mark. But she did reach out and took his hand. He thought, “Maybe this will work out after all.”

And it did. Now when they meet Sarah runs to him and throws her arms around him and he gives her a big hug.

In a humorous but very graphic way, this story illustrates the two basic conditions of people in God’s kingdom on earth. There are those, like Sarah, who want the light of love more than anything. They hunger for it, reach out for it, and are drawn to those who offer it to us. They may be 5 years or 55 years old and still inside they’re like Sarah. They desire to be held and loved, no matter how many times they’ve kicked people in the shins. You see, the kicking is part of the human condition. It’s a test to sift out the people who offer the light with their mouths but who go away when they get kicked in the shins. Then Sarah can say, “See, I told you they don’t really love me.” Has anyone you’ve tried to love ever said to you, “You don’t really love me,” as a challenge to prove it?

There are many Sarahs in our lives.

The second kind of person in God’s kingdom is typified by the Sunday school superintendent. They are Light Givers, ones who know that the light of Christ’s love is stronger than any darkness the shin-kickers can offer; Light Givers, one who know in their hearts that the reason Sarahs kick is because they are desperately in need of Christ’s love. The Sarahs will seldom admit their need. It takes the eyes of faith to perceive the darkness. Our Lord identified the eyes as the light of the body. If you are a Sarah and your body is filled with darkness you will see another Sarah as a nasty brat. If your eyes are sound and you are filled with Christ’s light, you will seek out darkness and its need for love.

The difference between the Sarahs and the Light Givers is expressed in secular terms through a parable you may be familiar with:

Once upon a time there was a frog. But he wasn’t really a frog. He was a prince who looked and felt like a frog. A wicked witch had cast a spell on him and only the kiss of a beautiful maiden could save him. But no one wanted to kiss this frog. So there he sat – an unkissed prince in frog form. One day a beautiful maiden came along and gave this frog a great big smooch. Crash – Boom – Zap! There he was – a handsome, dashing prince. (And you know the rest – they lived happily ever after.)

So what is the task of the church?

To kiss frogs, of course. Our Lord addresses his command in today’s gospel to those who have received the light. He gives us a specific guideline for being light for others.

People do not “light a lamp and put it under a basket.” Instead, they put it on top of a lampstand, and it shines on all who are in the house.” It is assumed by the lighting of a lamp that there is darkness. As Light Givers, whenever we are aware of darkness around us, we are to go into the middle of it (like the lampstand) and shine the Light of Christ.

This is not our nature. Consider the darkness of depression. If you had an hour to visit someone and you had two choices – Bill who is always cheery and positive or Marie who is so depressed that all she can talk about is the pit she sees herself in – what is your natural choice? For most of us, we would say Bill. Why would we want to talk with someone who is such a downer and brings us low. Yet, where is the need for the lamp?

Unless we are specially trained, we cannot fight the darkness of another’s depression. They will drain positive energy out of us and we will feel totally exhausted. However, if we approach the darkness spiritually, with prayer and total surrender to the power of Christ, he not only supplies us with light which does not drain away, he also supplies the other person with light and love also. It may take a while, but the light can thaw the depression. Thus, the lamp “shines on all who are in the house.”

We all have a Sarah bearing the darkness of depression, irritability, or need. Whatever causes our Sarah to kick our shins, that is the darkness where we are to place our lampstand.

Our Lord does not merely stop here. All of us can share some Light on occasion, but remember Mark. His shins were kicked for quite a while before the Light shining through him could reach and wipe out Sarah’s darkness. Thus Jesus continues, “In the same way, let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven.” The Light Giver is to give the Light of Love through her deeds so that the person will realize it is Christ’s light shining and not merely a passing good deed. And sometimes to accomplish this we may have to sacrifice in order to show the Light.

Two brothers were having some difficulty over a property line. John was very bitter and wrote Alex as follows: “You have cheated and robbed me of what rightfully belongs to me. You know that the row of poplars is the property line. You have no right to build a fence on my side and claim the ground for yourself. I shall sue you and make you pay every dime it is worth.” Alex was a Light Giver. He reply was a living example of Jesus’ second guideline. He said to his brother, “Father’s will said the property was to be equally divided. By survey I have placed the fence where the division comes. However, both of us are in good standing in this community and I do not want our neighbors to think that we are not Christians. Neither of us can use the ground under the poplar trees, for nothing will grow there. If you will meet me with the surveyors I will allow you to place the fence where you want it and we will make a permanent record in the surveyor’s office that you have 126 feet and I have 118 feet. I have no objection if you want more than your half.” Christ’s light shone brightly into John’s darkness. There was not only the light of love but also the light of truth. John was humbled and dropped the matter.

“In the same way let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven.”

What darkness? In Christ there is no darkness because he is the Light of the world.


Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 

Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.