“Let It Shine”                                                                                               Vance L. Toivonen

READING                   Exodus 34:29-35

Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

READING                   Matthew 5:14-16 (from Peterson, The Message)

You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand – shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

SERMON

How often have we looked up into the sky on a clear night and stood in awe of a star-strewn sky? Even with our so-called advancement as a species on this planet we bear a connection to the ancients who looked up at a not dissimilar sky tens of thousand of years ago. Astronomers would be able to delineate the difference in the sky between then and now, but to the eye of the average citizen of planet earth it is a plethora of stars and varying degrees of that one moon that brings light to our nights..

I had never really put two and two together until fairly recently. On Wednesday night we will hear again those words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We are made of the same stuff as the ground upon which we walk, and subsequently made of the same stuff as the stars. We have a star connection. So I thought I would reflect on a few kinds of stars. Please understand that I do not actually know much about stars, and have no real right to stand up here and talk about them. Call it an astronomical disclaimer, if you will.

We all know that stars emit light to varying degrees. If we look carefully some stars are brighter than others. Some stars even seem to vary in terms of shading and hue, emitting not only different levels of brilliance but also a variety of colors. The physicist Paul Davies speaks of this variation by looking briefly at two different types of stars. He suggests that these two types of stars are indicative of what he calls a “very narrow range” as regards “the balance of forces inside stars.” Those two types, according to Davies, are blue giants and red dwarfs. (Davies, God and the New Physics).

The giants burn very hot from their core, but tend to burn out relatively quickly. There life expectancy runs merely tens or hundreds of millions of years.  According to current theories, they will likely end in a supernova, a grand explosion that may result in other heavenly bodies being formed. So here we have stars that burn hot, burn out relatively quickly, and may result in an explosion.

The dwarfs burn much cooler, about 80% cooler than the giants. They constitute the majority of stars in the universe, have a relatively long lifespan, in the trillions of years, and are not as bright as giants. They are sometimes difficult to see in the night sky unless they are much closer to earth. So what’s the point of all this?

Stars generate their own light, and do so to varying degrees. The moon, on the other hand, only reflects light. If the earth falls in a line between the moon and the sun, we see less of the moon, or in the case of a total eclipse, no moon at all. There is a dependency of light. The earth, too, is not a light producing entity, not naturally anyway. The earth has a dependency on the sun for light. Without the sun our cars wouldn’t start, and neither would we. We would be frozen for eternity. We could not live without this light. As inhabitants of this planet we are light-dependent.

Truth be told, and here is where I begin to tread the tender ground of analogy, I am not always so great at generating light. When I try to keep my light burning it seems to be more like the stars; either I burn bright but burn out fast, or I burn cooler but not bright enough to be seen. When I burn like a giant I am caught up in my ego, screaming, “Hey, look at me! I have the answer! I know what’s what! Watch me! Listen to me! Ain’t I something!” That happened last week. I won’t say when, but it happened.

When I burn like a dwarf I am self-deprecating, not wishing to be seen or heard, hiding in the sky hoping for a lack of detection. It is in this mode of existence that fear and anxiety win the day. That happened here last week too. I won’t say when, but it happened. In fact, my life, and I believe all of our lives, exist in this “very narrow range” of the “balance of forces inside” of us. If we are dependent only upon this variation of power and energy we run the risk of either burning out or never being noticed at all.

The moon reflects light, and therefore, again treading lightly in this analogous territory, we have a celestial body that is most conducive to the message in our readings today. Both are from the Bible, one Old and one New Testament. Both speak of light. And both declare that the primary source of light is God.

You see, I believe with my heart that when my life reflects God’s light it has the most profound and wonderful influence on the world. But in order for that to happen I must refrain from giving in to the temptation to generate my own light. I know, I know; some of us might say, “Hey, what’s wrong with my light? My light’s just fine.” But I am simply speaking of what I hear in these passages. This morning I am a messenger of the word and not an astronomer. So the astronomical community can breathe a collective sigh a relief. I will not continue to tread upon their discipline. Now I shall spend some time in my own.

Moses spent time on the mountain with God. When he came down off of the mountain he was shiny…so shiny, in fact, that he had to veil himself in order to protect others from what might be a life-threatening dose of light. This was not the light of Moses. This was not light generated by the great leader of the Israelites. This was God’s light, the residue of being in God’s presence.

Jesus suggests that we are not the light, but rather that we are light-bearers. The focus is not upon us, but upon God. It is not for us to stand and declare how bright we are, but rather how bright and wonderful and loving and magnificent and joyous and peace-loving and justice-doing and wisdom-bringing God is. We are to reflect God’s light more than to generate our own, for God’s light is not at risk of burning out, and it is not at risk of going unnoticed. When we reflect God’s light people know that it is God’s light they are seeing.

This is why people get confused about Jesus. They claim him to be God. It is highly unlikely that he himself ever suggested such a thing. He reflected God’s light, and like the stars we see in the night sky, stars that have been shining for millennia, Jesus shines too through the millennia right up to today. In the Middle East where there is much pain and suffering and warring, the light of Mohammed still guides good and faithful Muslims not to give in to hatred and animosity. Mohammed reflects the light of Allah, of the same God whose light Jesus reflects.

In more recent times we know those who have reflected God’s light. We know who they are. In fact, it is almost seems cliché to name them, so I won’t. And we know that it is not about them and what great men and women they were. We remember them because they reflected God’s light. Every human being on this planet reflects God’s light to varying degrees, but we cannot always see it. It does not seem to be enough to overcome the power of greed and ambition that holds this planet hostage. God needs to shine more. We need a full moon of God’s presence in this world. I’m not talking about religion here. We know it when we see it, and more often than not religion ain’t it.

On a cold winter night someone sets aside their warm, cozy game of solitaire and travels here to spend some time with others thinking about what it is that God desires. This is one of those moments when a person chooses to soak in the rays of God’s light. I suppose one could say that this morning is such an opportunity. It is not about assuming that God is simply at work no matter what. There is a call to deliberation here, a call to a willingness to climb the mountain with Moses, or to walk in the presence of God with Jesus.

Paul Davies tells us that the “very narrow range” and “the balance of forces inside stars” is a delicate situation. It is a delicate balance of gravitational pull and electromagnetic radiation. Without these forces in balance stars like our sun would simply not exist. There’s one thing to be grateful for, that somehow that delicate balance of forces inside the sun is maintained.

We are also fragile, delicate, and important in a similar manner. It is essential that we find a balance between the gravitational pull of our own egos, and the electromagnetic radiation of God’s love and presence. Both need attention. Both need to be carefully monitored so that the global community of humankind can better flow into the stream of God’s intentions for us. And that seems to me to be the goal, to flow as a species into God’s intentions for us.

Neale Donald Walsch writes,

All of us create variations in the energy flow around us. We produce fluctuations. We, ourselves, are fluctuations. We are ever-changing alterations in the energy field that swirls about us. Our fluctuations in turn create other fluctuations, or “disturbances,” in the energy field adjacent to our energy field, and those affect the field around that, and those around that, and so on—outward in an eternal distribution of energy that touches bigger and bigger fields of influence the farther it radiates from the originating Source, but with smaller and smaller impact the greater distance from that Source. In this way every thought affects the whole world – indeed, to some degree, the universe. (Walsch, What God Wants).

Then Walsch concludes, “Life proceeds out of your intentions for it…Pay attention to your intention..”

I am not a world renowned speaker, like Walsch. I am not an astronomer, or a philosopher, or a physicist. I am, plain and simple, a preacher; just a preacher in a little church in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. This is what I have been called by God to do. All I ask of us this morning is that we pay attention to our intention, and find more and more room in our lives to draw closer to the Source of the best intentions for us and for all people. All I ask is that we find some means to daily ask ourselves if we really want what God wants, to make it our goal to reflect God’s light in all we say and do, and then, to let it shine!