"Kept for best"?

Jesus said…You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16

I will also make you a light for the gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. Isaiah 49:6

Then you will shine… like stars in the sky… Philippians 2:15

I spent the first twenty years of my ministry in a northern industrial town. They were good years, which I will always look back on with great fondness.

The people, like people everywhere, had their own little peculiarities. One was that, in many homes, the small “front room” was only rarely opened; it was “kept for best”, and everyday life was lived in the back. The front room was neat and tidy, perhaps with a bit of special cutlery and crockery on display. If something out of the ordinary was going on – a funeral tea, perhaps, or the Queen happened to pop in (though I don’t think that happened very often) – fair enough; but otherwise, oh dear no, that would never do.

To be fair, the people were quite happy to laugh at their own absurdity: “Yes, we know it’s silly, but…”

There are many areas of life which are rather ridiculous until it is pointed out to us. (I have to admit that I tend to be reluctant to wear new clothes for the first time because it seems a shame to spoil them.)

In these verses from Matthew 5 Jesus is rebuking his own people, the Jews, for their failure to make known to the whole of humankind the light which God had graciously bathed Israel in. “Is anybody so daft,” he asks, “as to light a candle and then put it under a bucket?” Of course not! And yet… they were failing to pass the test of Isaiah 49:6.

We might ask why anybody would do such a ridiculous thing? I suppose, in the time of Jesus, the main reason would be to prevent a draught blowing the candle out; after all, they didn’t have nicely warmed and insulated homes  back then, or even those sausagy things we can buy and put inside the door. So… if you want to keep your candle alight, just stick it under a bucket. Sorted.

Except for one thing: the very point of lighting a candle at all is in order to give light, so you end up gaining safety, sort of, at the expense of the very point of having a candle. And how ridiculous is that?

Jesus’ rebuke was, then, first and foremost a rebuke to his fellow-Jews, God’s chosen people Israel. Chosen by God, yes – but not in order simply to be themselves blessed, but to be a blessing to others. The whole broken, fallen world needed light, but God’s chosen light-carriers, the people of Israel had, so to speak, hugged it to themselves.

We Christians can be just as bad. Whether we’re thinking of the church as a whole, of individual congregations and other agencies, or of individual men and women, we too can very easily turn the light of Christ into our own personal possession. Oh yes, outsiders are welcome to come and join us if they decide they would like to, but it’s very much a case of “Join the club and become one of us” rather than “We have heard this wonderful good news and would like to share it with you”.

May I ask if you recognise yourself in this? And if you do, if you are aiming to do anything about it?

What is the “light” Jesus accuses us of hugging to ourselves? Not primarily teaching, important though that is; no, it’s much more basic than that: “that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (verse 16).

That doesn’t mean we should go around flaunting how kind, generous and loving we are. Jesus himself went to the trouble of ruling that out: “When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret…” (Matthew 6:3-4 – that’s just twenty or so verses further on from the parable of the covered candle). But what does this mean in practice? How can we be both “secret” in the way we go about our acts of kindness and at the same time make sure to let them be seen? Is Jesus contradicting himself?

It comes down to the question of motive. Jesus states explicitly that the purpose of doing good deeds is simply because they are – well, good deeds. And what does that lead to? – “that they may glorify your Father in heaven” (verse16).

Even the most Christlike person may have a little poisonous crumb of self motivating their kindest deeds; deep down, after all, we all like to be admired, don’t we? But that desire, however natural, needs to be well and truly squelched; for it is God alone to whom the glory belongs. It is better not to be noticed at all – to leave somebody wondering “Why did he/she act like that?” – than to have them thinking “What a wonderful man/woman!”

We may have a wish to avoid hiding our light under a bowl. That’s good, as it should be. But let’s face head-on the challenge: Am I truly wanting that other person to “glorify my Father in heaven”? – or to admire me?

O God our Father, this fallen, groaning world is full of darkness and in desperate need of your heavenly light. You have called me to be a bearer of that light as I have it in Christ. Help me, by your Holy Spirit, to make that my supreme aim and joy, and may all the glory go to you. Amen.