The Porch Light

Matthew 5:16 (NRSV)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.My brother and I used to spend whole summer days at my great-aunt Gladys' place in upper East Tennessee, gone from just after breakfast until the cowbell rang. She'd ring it from the porch when supper was ready, and the sound would carry up the holler however far we'd wandered.Gladys wasn't just an aunt who happened to have a huge house and what seemed like a million acres. My grandmother — my father's mother — died when he was a teenager, and her sister Gladys was the one who stepped into the gap, for him and eventually for all of us. Nobody required that of her. She just did it, summer after summer.We'd start back, cutting through brush and tree line, not always sure which direction the house actually was. But then we'd see the light.It wasn't some bare bulb over the screen door. There was a spotlight up there that could've guided a plane in. I was sure you could see it from the moon. Aunt Gladys wasn't standing under it, waving us home. She was probably back in the kitchen. The light was just on, doing its job at full power, and it did the same thing every single evening, whether we were five minutes out or forty. We'd catch that glow through the trees and know two things at once: which way to walk, and that someone was expecting us.Jesus says we're the light of the world, and then tells us what to do about it. It’s not complicated. Let it shine. Not a little. Not carefully. Aunt Gladys never once worried that her porch light was too much. We rarely worry that our own light is too bright. We worry it's not enough, or that someone might actually notice it. Like Aunt Gladys, Jesus doesn't share that worry.After telling us to shine our light, he tells us what the light is for. Not so people see us. So they see good works — and through them, glorify the Father. The light isn't the point. It's the pointer.The men who founded the United States understood something like that, whether they fully lived up to it or not. They didn't claim to have invented the idea that everyone is created equal. They wrote that it was self-evident, endowed by our Creator — a truth they were reaching for, not one they owned. They put their names to it, some of them at real cost, and then left the rest of us holding an aspiration we still haven't finished living into.That's the thing about an aspiration grounded in God instead of in ourselves: it doesn't get to stay comfortable. It keeps calling us further than we've gone. We've had two hundred fifty years of getting parts of it right and parts of it wrong, and the creed is still out there, still unfinished, still asking to be lived rather than just framed and hung on a wall.It was never America's light to take credit for, any more than it was ever Gladys' light to take credit for, or mine, or yours. Jesus didn't say, "Let your light shine so they'll see you." He said, "Let it shine so they see the good works and glorify the Father." The light points past us. It always has. The country doesn't finish that work. People do — one porch, one welcome, one stranger treated like he was made the same as you, all the way down.So leave the light on. Full power. Whoever's out in the dark tonight, let them see it from a long way off — and let them see, past the light itself, who really left it on.Father, thank you for the light you've placed in us, brighter than we give it credit for. Help us leave it on for everyone still finding their way home. Amen.This devotional was written and read by Cliff McCartney.Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life. If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: [email protected]. First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.