The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Follow the Light
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 5-13
Matthew 4:12-23

Light is an important theme in the Scripture readings for today. Isaiah, the Psalm and the Gospel all speak of God being light or bringing light into darkness.

Light is a very powerful image throughout the New Testament and one that we use a lot in the church. We speak of the Light of Christ. Jesus is the light of the world. We are awed by the wonder and power of God’s light to dispel both literal and figurative darkness. God’s light brings illumination, enabling us to see God in the world around us. God’s light has the wondrous power to cast out fear and dispel doubt.

A life lived with God is a life into which light shines. Conversely, a life without God is a life lived in darkness, in shadow. It’s a stark dichotomy. The absence of God and darkness verses the presence of God and light.

Especially as I considered Matthew’s Gospel, I became aware of another dichotomy, another set of images coincident with the images of darkness and light.

What happens in the darkness? The people sit. Matthew says it repeatedly. The people sat in darkness. Those who sat in the shadow of death.

And then Jesus comes and says, “Follow me.” Move. Get up off your backsides and move.

So along with the dichotomy of darkness and light is the parallel dichotomy of stasis verses motion; passivity verses growth; inactivity verses an active journey Godwards.

Which is to say: God’s light is not for basking in. It is for guidance. It is meant to lead us as we move closer and deeper in our relationship with God. That’s a wonderful gift, a beacon to guide us in our journey towards God. All of us, I expect want to be closer to God and give thanks for God’s desire to help us move beyond ourselves and our limitations. We affirm and celebrate God’s gift to us of guidance, of motion. In the Eucharistic Prayer we are currently using, we thank God, that in Christ, God has brought us: out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of isolation into community, out of death into life.

Surely, we are all eager to move out of the darkness, eager to move God-wards. Eager to move….

Except when we don’t want to move anywhere at all.

When we treat being a Christian more like a vacation than a vocation. What is the stereotypical vacation? Sitting around in the sun doing as little as possible. Soaking up the sun, basking in the light, with an absolute minimum of motion. We often seem to think being a Christian is like a vacation. Lord, wash away my sin and doubt and fear with your glorious light, while I just sit here and work on my tan. We think of the church as a sort-of spiritual tanning salon, a place to relax and bask in God’s light.

It doesn’t work that way. The popular hymn (which the choir is going to sing in just a bit) does not say, “I want to sit as a child of the light.” It says, “I want to walk as a child of the light. I want to follow Jesus.”

If you are, spiritually speaking, the same person, in the same place, doing the same thing today as you were yesterday, you are not following Jesus. Jesus is the light of the world. The light does not sit still. Sitting is for the darkness. The light is for following.

Being a Christian is a vocation, not a vacation. A vocation of study, prayer and ministry. A vocation by which Jesus leads us closer and closer to God. Being a Christian is an active vocation of growth, of movement. The light of the world says, Follow me. Where is the light leading you? What vocation of prayer, study or ministry are you being called forward to?