“Your Light Shall Rise in the Darkness”
Isaiah 58:6-12; Matthew 5:1-16
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
June 19, 2016
It doesn’t take a whole lot of wind to wreak havoc on a vision for a candlelight vigil. There wasn’t a whole lot of wind on Tuesday evening, but there was just enough. A crowd gathered on the Framingham Centre common to remember the victims of the mass shooting at the Pulse night club in Orlando. We came there yearning to claim the power of light when the shadows of hate seemed overwhelming.
But we could barely get our candles lit. The wind blew out the flame before we could get it to our candles. Eventually, we got a few going and started trying to spread the light. That wasn’t very successful either. It is probably true that everyone’s candle was lit for part of the time, even if just for a few seconds. I am sure it is true that there was no moment during that hour when everyone’s candle was lit.
We learned a couple things about candles on Tuesday evening. We learned that when you have just lit one, you need to hold it close to your body—close to your heart. We learned that, if you want your candle to stay lit, you need to give up trying to look good for the newspaper photographer and use a dixie cup to protect your flame. We learned that sometimes dixie cups catch fire and you need a friend to pull it out of your hand and stomp on it. We learned that, when it is windy, the candle wax drips on your hands. We learned that the most vulnerable moment for your candle is when your neighbor wants to re-light hers from yours. I am sure everyone in the crowd faced the dilemma at least once: finally you’ve got your own candle stabilized and now your neighbor needs your help. You know that in trying to light his candle yours may go out. What do you do? You help each other, because one lit candle isn’t enough.
We came to the vigil to acknowledge our deep sadness—for fifty people who were killed, for 53 people who were wounded, for all their loved ones grieving and suffering. Each one of them is our kindred; our world is a lesser place because of the lives lost.
We came to acknowledge our anger, our outrage at this act of hate, directed at people who are lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender, directed at a crowd that was primarily Latina and Latino. So many of us have worked so hard to move our society toward affirmation for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities; this act feels like a slap in the face to all we have worked for and to the values we hold dear.
We gathered with a heightened sense of our own vulnerability. Are the places we think of as safe really safe? How do we protect ourselves when a single hate-filled person can do so much harm? We know there were many larger forces behind his actions—the homophobia he absorbed from many sources, the extremist ideologies that seemed to give him an excuse for his actions, the ease of getting an assault rifle, a faltering mental health system. There were many forces at work, and yet what we saw was the power of one person to destroy so much.
Perhaps the biggest reason we came was to reclaim the power of one person. One person can wreak horrible destruction. And one person can be a source of hope and healing for our world.
And so we gathered to light candles, to remind ourselves that a single flame can pierce the deepest shadow, to assure ourselves that our efforts matter, and to recommit ourselves to being a force for good even when we know how powerful the forces of hate can be.
I believe standing on the common lighting candles is important. It is an expression of solidarity. It bring us together and points us beyond ourselves. It is a symbolic act of caring for people we have never met. Lighting candles does matter.
Our reading from the prophet Isaiah reminds us that lighting candles is not enough. If we really want to be light for the world, we need to do so much more: “If you remove the yoke from among you,” Isaiah writes, “the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness.”
All the candles in the world will not pierce the shadows cast by hate and despair. Only our actions can do that. Isaiah points to some very basic, though not easy, acts to start us off: offering food to the hungry, and earlier in the passage, clothing the naked and housing the homeless. He also challenges us to remove from among us the pointing of the finger and the speaking of evil.
There has been a lot of finger-pointing and evil-speaking in our nation in recent months, and even more in the last week. The Pulse shooter proclaimed allegiance to ISIS, although it’s not clear he had any relationship with that hate-filled terrorist group. His declaration gave new fuel to the finger-pointing that was already being directed at our Muslim neighbors.
No, Isaiah says. If you want to be light for the world, you have to stop pointing fingers. You have to stop blaming an entire group for the actions of one person. You have to stop projecting all your fears onto a people you identify as “other.” Instead, acknowledge your common humanity. Instead, recognize that every person—Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Secular Humanist, gay, straight, trans, black, white, Latina—every person is capable of horrifying acts of hate and also capable of courageous acts of love. Only when you recognize both capacities in yourself, only when you honor the full and complex humanity of each person, then shall your light rise in the darkness.
Five hundred years after Isaiah, Jesus called the crowd to let their light shine. The exhortation followed the famous teaching we call the Beatitudes. The blessings Jesus offered build on Isaiah’s words of challenge, giving us further insight into what it means to be light for the world.
Blessed, he said, are those who mourn. When we grieve the loss of those fifty people, we are blessed and we are a blessing, for in doing so we honor that we are kin, that the death of a single person diminishes our lives.
Blessed, he said, are the poor in spirit. To be poor in spirit is to know how much we need God’s help. It is to recognize that our understanding is limited. We don’t have a monopoly on truth. We are a blessing to our world when we bring humility and wonder to our relationships with our neighbors who know God through different sacred stories.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. We are a blessing when we refuse to accept things the way they are, when we recognize we cannot fix everything but still keep doing our very best to work for what is a world of justice and love.
Blessed are the peacemakers. We cannot ignore the very real power of hate in our world. We cannot smooth it over and pretend everything is fine. We also cannot defeat hate with more hate. Only love—God’s love lived out in our human actions—is powerful enough to overcome hate. We are a blessing to our world when we dare to counter hate with love.
To be light for the world requires so much more than holding a candle on the town common. To be light for the world is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and refuse to point the finger. To be light for the world is to grieve, to acknowledge our need and limitations, to keep trying when we are discouraged, to face hatred head-on with love. To be light for the world is to be Open and Affirming, to host iftars, to speak up for those who have no voice. To be light for the world is messy, complicated, and impossibly hard work.
I am grateful for the breeze on Tuesday evening that made our candle-lighting messy, complicated, hard work. The lessons we learned on the common that night apply to our wider efforts to be light for the world.
We must hold the flame of our passion for justice close to our bodies—not as abstract principles but as convictions we live in our every-day lives, as actions that change our own hearts. We must hold our ideals for a just and loving world light enough that we can cover them with equivalent of a dixie cup. We are called to choose imperfect progress over perfect visions. We must recognize that sometimes our best efforts go up in flames, forcing us to start over. We choose to risk a little pain—wax burning our fingers—for a greater good. The most important lesson we learned from our windy candlelight vigil is that we need each other—to rekindle each other’s passion for justice, to ensure that the the flame of hope is not extinguished when one of us becomes discouraged, to allow light to multiply. It is risky to need each other—and it is glorious.
So let us keep lighting candles. Let us feed hungry people and refuse to point fingers. Let us grieve and listen and work and dare to trust that love is more powerful than hate. And then the promise of our faith will come to fruition. Our light shall rise in the darkness. Amen.