Mark 4:21-25
I was absolutely mortified that our good Deacon, in addressing the holiday concert at our grammar school, welcomed "our Jewish brothers and sisters" as they celebrate the festival of lights but welcomed everyone celebrating "Christmas, the celebration of thee Light. " It's true that we equate Christ with light, we might say something about 'the light of Christ' but Jesus was Jewish and if for only that reason alone, it should not be celebrated as one upmanship or that Christians are better than Jews. Thar's not really what 'the light of Christ' is supposed to be about, is it?
It's much more appropriate to view the wisdom, love and message of Christ as a light not unlike any light that visits and conveys God's message of love and truth, inclusiveness and peace. So let's speak of light in the broadest of terms. Is there not light in each of us too?
When reading today's passage my mind began to return to my youth. We had discovered that a glass could transform light into several things. It was probably in school that we first learned that a prism of glass could separate light int the spectrum of light, the rainbow. Water or moisture in the sky acts in the same way forming the rainbow that we see arcing over us from time to time. Glass in the form of a magnifying glass can take light and concentrate or focus it. As kids, n more than one occasion, we tried to use a magnifying glass to ignite a few twigs to start a small fire in our back yard. We think of this as science but it is more than that, it is a revelation of Gods' world and it isn't simply about refraction, focusing light or separating into a rainbow as magnificent and symbolic as all that is.
The light that is Christ and the light that is within each of us is transformed into something awesomely powerful. It is not creating something that is not already there within us but it magnifies, focus and makes our gifts and lives like a rainbow. It seems wholly appropriate that a rainbow then is used to celebrate the LGBTQ community and why we embrace it. The beauty of light in a rainbow is the same beauty and light that each of us can share, perhaps more so because the gifts we bare as a member of the LGBTQ community. The gifts we bare as a gay man or woman are gifts of light and love that have been hidden, undermined and marginalized for far too long.
No longer can we be excused for keeping our light under a bushel basket. The light and love we have must be put out there to illuminate and celebrate a unique love that God created in us. This light is not just from our community but it is a unique light withing each one of us that must be recognized, accepted and celebrated.
Let your light shine my gay rainbow family
He said to them, ‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ And he said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’
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