This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
You are the light of the world … Let your light shine before human beings, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven (Matt 5: 14a, 16, Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Feb 9).
***
When these words of Christ were first recorded by St. Matthew, somewhere around 80 A.D., the followers of Jesus were a tiny minority, a fragment of a fragment of the vast population of the Roman Empire. The world they lived in was for the most part indifferent, if not violently hostile at times, to the message of salvation they bore.
They themselves were, every last one of them, new and relatively recent converts (well, obviously!) to that message, and most of them were from the lower and disempowered end of society—slaves, women, and other such disreputable types.
And here they are, the light of the world, the salt of the earth, challenged to shine forth their light in good works so that all may see and glorify, believe, and be saved.
Christ’s own words from the Sermon on the Mount, which at the time the Lord gave it were an even bigger challenge to an even smaller number (fragment of a fragment of a fragment…)—how did it seem to them? An impossible dream? An overwhelming task far beyond their feeble resources? A bad joke, perhaps, on their harder days?
Well, how does it seem to us? 2000 years later and a whole lot of water has gone under the bridge. Much light has been shone in 2000 years; saints canonized and uncanonized have done countless good works to glorify God.
But of course there has been no shortage of light extinguished, light obscured, darkness spreading, from evil works and calamitous failures of justice and charity among the followers of Christ.
And so here we are, again in a world that largely seems indifferent to the message of the Gospel, if not violently hostile at times. The only difference is that while Christianity in the year 80 was a wholly unknown quantity, something utterly new in the world, now it seems to many to be all too well known. Many have turned away in disdain.
The Matthew Five challenge stands, however, for us who believe, we who continue to identify ourselves as followers of Christ. Jesus says we are the light of the world; we are, then, the light of the world. Not because of our own merits and virtues (which are small), but because of his, because he has made us so.
It is an impossible dream, an overwhelming task beyond our resources. A bad joke indeed, if the Lord were simply to lay all this on us and then leave us to those poor resources to carry it out. And yet…
The Roman Empire did become Christian. Not at once, not without terrible resistance and struggle, and God knows never perfectly, never without much mediocrity, compromise, and failure. (Such is the way of fallen humanity in a sin-scarred world.)
And it became Christian to the extent it did, not because the apostles and their bishop successors were such brilliant preachers, not because of wildly persuasive arguments, not because of well-tailored marketing pitches and brilliantly executed programs of evangelization and catechesis. Some of that may have been going on, and some of it may even have had some success.
But the reason the Gospel made such a powerful impact on the pagan Roman world, the reason the pagans were impressed in spite of themselves, and over decades and centuries became Christian in vast numbers, long before Constantine gave it imperial approbation and social sanction, was because these poor little Christians were in fact caring for the poor.
They fostered orphans, provided for widows, tended the sick, cared for the dying. Beggars were fed and exiles welcomed. This is a matter of historical fact, along with the fact that, whatever can be said for the pagan world of Greece and Rome, it simply did not care for the poor and the vulnerable, not like that, not as a matter of consistent practice and policy.
So the Matthew Five challenge was an impossible dream—except that it came true. It was an overwhelming task—except that they did it. It was indeed a joke, but not a bad one—a divine joke.
It was the best joke ever told, that this tiny remnant of not very important people would so love the poor as God loves the poor that many thousands and ultimately billions would come to know at least something of God’s love for the poor, and specifically for their own poor selves.
Well, folks, here we all are in the year 2020. Is there darkness in the world? Is there darkness in your community? In your parish? In your family? In your life? Do I really have to ask?
You are the light of the world. Yes, you! Not those other people over there. Not some other group in the Church, in society. You are the light. Not because you’re so special and wonderful (well, you are, but that’s another story).
But because Jesus made you so, and makes you so, every time he, the True Light of the whole world, comes to you in his Body and Blood, washes clean your sins in Confession, graces you with his Spirit.
So … behave accordingly. What can you do? Who are the poor, the marginalized, the weak, the suffering, the afflicted in your ambit, in your immediate world? Can you do something for them?
You’re not the savior of the world, and neither you nor I nor all of us reading this article together are going to come up with some brilliant program to end poverty and usher in a new and just society.
No … but we can do something, right? Something for someone, somewhere. I leave the details to you to sort out. How could I know what you can do, and to whom?
The Matthew Five challenge, and a challenge it is, for sure. But the world will not come to know and believe in the love of God and the saving power of Christ, and the truth of everything we say we believe is true, if they do not see Christians loving, Christians serving, Christians caring for the poor, in whatever form those poor come.
If the Roman Empire could be converted, even a little, by such a ragtag straggly group as those early Christians, the new Global Empire of our times can be converted a little or a lot by the much larger (but no less ragtag and straggly) group of disciples known as the Church. But they have to see we mean what we believe, and there’s only one way to do that.
Love. Serve. Care. Shine.
Amen.
