Ruining the Darkness
A Sermon for Every Sunday, Epiphany 5A
Matthew 5:13-20
Several years ago my sister, father, and I started giving my mother a hard time because she suddenly
became very particular about how dark it had to be for her to go to sleep. It had to be completely, 100%
pitch black, and if somewhere there was the littlest light shining—maybe the dull glow from a streetlight
outside the window, maybe from an alarm clock beside the bed—she would not be able to fall asleep.
She would lie there awake, irritated by the light. She even got so dependent on having utter darkness
whenever it was bedtime that she started to travel with a roll of electrical tape in her toiletry bag. When
they’d turn off the main lights of some hotel room, inevitably there would be other smaller lights around
the room still shining. Little light on the thermostat? She’d slice off a piece of electrical tape and cover it
up. Little light emanating from some device in the bathroom? Slice off another piece of electrical tape
and slap it on there. It was like a little bed time ritual, one in which she discovered how difficult it
actually is to control the amount of light when it is supposed to be dark.
You can imagine how awful we felt later when we realized that she had developed quite a serious eye
condition that left her extremely sensitive to light. And you can imagine how silly I feel now that I have
somehow developed a similar nightly ritual. I don’t have an eye condition, but for some reason I, too,
need as little light as possible. In fact, there are some nights I don’t get good sleep and I’m convinced it
is because there is this little teeny weeny green light on our printer and it is keeping me awake. Mind
you, the little light is about the size of the head of a pin, and it sits on our desk about 5 feet away from
our bed, but when I wake up in the middle of the night it IS THIS BRIGHT. I’ve made a special cover for it,
not out of electrical tape, but out of black construction paper, and when someone prints something it
often knocks that paper out of the way. You think I’m crazy, but that teeny tiny green light ruins the
darkness.
“You are the teeny tiny green light that will ruin the darkness,” Jesus tells his disciples. It’s a good thing
to say, and the right time for him to say it. Jesus has just begun what many consider his most thorough,
most important teaching about the kingdom of God and it’s totally imaginable that they’re starting to
get a bit overwhelmed by the sound of it all. He has come on strong, even mentioning right up front the
fact that they may face some persecution, some blowback, for their beliefs and their works of mercy.
And so now he gives them an idea about how special and important and influential their witness will be.
Like a city situated up on a hill that stands visible for all those in the valleys and hillsides, like a candle set
on a table in a room at night that enables people finish their work, like the small bit of salt that flavors
the dish it is in, they will have an effect on the world around them. And even if someone walks around
with electrical tape, they will prove by their very presence that it is actually very easy to banish the
darkness.
Light is difficult to control. Just a little teeny tiny bit can make a huge difference. In a time long before
people knew the physics of light—that it had characteristics of both a particle and a wave—Jesus is
telling them that their very actions in Christ’s name will be mysteriously explosive, impossible to shut
away. As little photons of good in a world of evil, disciples could beam and bounce off of others and
transmit holy energy to them, and like a wave their actions could reach distances far beyond the
distance their legs could ever take them, like when a prayer shawl stitched here warms a person in a
