In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Jesus is wrapping up one of his top hits – the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the poor, those who hunger, the peacemakers. This is all language in the third person; Jesus is talking to a group of people, about other people, or at least impersonal others. But after he gets through this explanation of who’s blessed and why, he changes to tone, and starts talking to the group. You are the salt of the earth. You are light of the world.
I’ve always loved the Sermon on the Mount, also referred to as the Beatitudes. Jesus cares deeply about the hungry, poor, meek, or as some of alliterated, the least, the lost and the last. Reading these words of Jesus always stir something in me. This practice of morning prayer has given me the excuse to follow that curious thought, or niggling idea. It’s the positive version of a rabbit hole. And I’m delighted I did.
Yesterday, in morning prayer, we read about the Blesseds. . Blessed are the Poor. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Today we get the conclusion where Jesus is speaking directly to the group; the focus of his speaking has shifted and he’s getting personal. You are the salt. You are the light. He offers warnings about what happens when those attributes are not used. Salt that’s lost its taste is thrown out and trampled. A light isn’t put under a bushel. Jesus is saying that we are the salt and light, and we need to act like it.
Fr. Richard Rohr, Franciscan Mystic has a wonderful essay about being the light in the darkness. He wrote it shortly after 9/11, and in it he references liminal spaces. A liminal space is where we are between things, where what was is gone, and what’s coming has yet to arrive. Liminal space is uncomfortable, unknown and mostly undesirable; we’d much prefer the bright light of what was. But Rohr argues we have significantly less opportunity to grow and connect with the Holy in the bright light of what we’ve known. We have far too much certainty and self-assuredness.
He refers to liminal darkness, a place where we are stumbling a bit in the dark, because what was has fallen away, and what will be hasn’t yet arrived. As creatures of comfort, we rush to either place – anywhere but this uncertainty. We might even prefer what was, or blindly rush into something new – anything but this betwixt and between place. He argues that the place that was, our certain comfortable existence before we were plunged into uncertainty, was actually not a healthy spiritual place. We grow complacent, self-assured, and self-reliant, and actually lose the need for God, because we know more.
Like a city on a hill, God working in and through us shines a light in the darkness. We are that light. We do not have the ability to enlighten everything, but at least through our actions, we can be a beacon of light in the liminal darkness. We realize that we need God working through us to keep our salt salty, and our lamps lit.
We realize we need God, because we need to be content in that liminal space. In the Saturday after the Crucifixion. In the weeks after 9/11. In the time after a hard medical diagnosis. In the time during a pandemic. We can exist in that space not because it’s easy, or we like it. We can exist there because we have faith that something renewed and restored will come out the other end.
This morning, I’m thinking about the concept of liminal darkness, and how it feels like I’m there personally with uncertainties about my loved one, and it feels like I’m there, along with everyone else, because of the pandemic. I don’t want to return to the false certitude of before. I don’t want to rush towards the light at the end of this long tunnel. In God’s time, the light will emerge. I will strive to be content in the vast amount of unknown darkness, because of an even more vast faith in God’s providence.
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