In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us that we are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14-16). He invites us to let our light shine before others so that they can see our good deeds and glorify our heavenly Father.
Jesus invites us to cast light, not to cast shadows. I borrow this metaphor from Parker Palmer, who cautions against the too-common tendency of Christians to sit comfortably in the light and enjoy casting shadows on those outside. This is not the mission Jesus gives us.
There is a sense of power in casting shadows. When I was a child, I loved playing imaginatively with my next-door neighbor. After dark, we would sometimes entertain ourselves in the floodlight behind her back porch. Sometimes the game was “shadow tag.” We skillfully dodged each other’s stomping feet while trying to “tag” the shadow of the other. That game was typically brief, inevitably bickering over whether we actually touched or missed each other’s shadow. At that point, we’d return to making ourselves feel fifty feet tall, casting huge shadows that extended far into the darkness down the hill. As little ones who often felt lost or trapped in our own homes, it was thrilling to imagine ourselves as giants.
It is well and good for children to feel powerful casting their shadows. It’s less life-giving when we live that way as “decent” society members or self-righteous churchy types. Perhaps we look for the latest celebrity gossip or the latest church gossip. Perhaps we complain or crack demeaning jokes about those who think, dress, live, or vote differently than we do. Perhaps we self-righteously point out all the ways that “those people” are wrong, or really relish in the fact that we are right.
Notice how well these attitudes serve to distract us from the dark places of our own hearts! “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…” No matter how much we’ve progressed in discipleship, we all have a shadow side we prefer to ignore.
Sometimes we have a speck in our eye, and other times a wooden beam. In its darkest form, shadow casting becomes a culture of abuse, in which a some enjoy consuming or humiliating others, while loyal companions collude in casting shadows on anyone who would dare shed light on what is really happening. I have walked with so many who have been harmed by the Church, or have been unbelieved, unprotected, and unnurtured when they turned to us for care. Not uncommonly, they live messy lives and don’t check all the boxes of a “good” churchgoer. Their stories may make us incredibly uncomfortable. So it’s just easier to keep them on the margins, languishing alone in the shadows.
Some of you may object that, in calling us to be a light for the world, Jesus invites us to be a city set on a hill. Doesn’t that mean setting ourselves apart from the sin and contagion of the world?
That depends on what kind of city Jesus is describing. I imagine it as a place of abundance and hospitality, a warm beacon beckoning all God’s exhausted and wounded children to come in from the cold and find safety and rest. Sometimes it feels more like a fiercely guarded fortress, designed to keep others out. The key line here is “so that they can see your good deeds and glorify their heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:16). Jesus desires to draw all creation to the bosom of the Father. His entire mission is “to gather God’s scattered children together and make them one” (John 11:52).
We are invited to share in that mission. The Church is called to be a place of hospitality and abundance, a place of warmth and welcome, in which people truly feel like guests at a wedding feast, received with honor and delight. We Catholics seldom pause to consider what it is like for those who are first-time visitors in our parishes. But it is not enough to wait for others to come to us. Missionary discipleship includes a willingness to go out into dark places, casting light.
During my eleven years as a pastor leading two parishes, there were many resources I wish I had. But the rarest resource was a missionary disciple who was really great at the art of accompaniment. God sent us so many little ones with wounded hearts and messy lives. They needed hundreds of hours of patient accompaniment from others who didn’t mind the mess.
There’s a reason why the Gospels spend so much time recounting the exchanges between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees. It’s just too easy for believers to prefer black-and-white thinking, rule following, and a transactional view of holiness. We become like the older son in Luke 15, joylessly toiling in the Father’s house, looking at “sinful” brothers and sisters with contempt. Meanwhile, all our good heavenly Father wants is to invite all his children to a feast! Yet we remain reluctant to set down our transactional yoke and risk real intimacy.
Why are we afraid to go into dark or messy places? Jesus invites us to be not afraid, and gives us assurance that he has overcome the world. If God is on our side, if we are united in the love of Jesus, the gates of hell can never stand against us! Yet we are afraid – like the priest and the Levite who keep their distance from the wounded man in the ditch (Luke 10:25-37).
We are afraid to the extent that we have not yet contended with the dark places of our own hearts. Each of us has far more harm and heartache in our story than we want to admit! We deny and minimize. We intellectualize and spiritualize. We stay busy and feverishly follow the rules. And the shadows remain.
The hardest thing for us to believe is that we are truly loved in those shadowy places. Jesus desires our whole heart. He wants to be in union with us – every part of us.
You and I cannot accompany others any further than we have been willing to go ourselves. If we avoid and resist going into the deep and dark places we know are there within us, how will we go into dark places with others? If we don’t grow in confidence and competence going into dark places with others, how will they experience the light of Jesus that they so desperately need?
We fear the darkness, giving it a power it simply doesn’t have. The devil pretends that his darkness can consume the light. But Good Friday proved the opposite. Light always dispels darkness.
The devil cannot create. He can only take the very good things God has created and distort, diminish, or fragment them. Light always dispels darkness. Jesus is God from God, light from light. No one has power over him unless he allows it. As the Gospel of John puts it, “All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).
Be not afraid. Be not afraid to allow Jesus and other trustworthy companions into your shadowy places. Be not afraid to go into dark places with others, radiating the light of Christ.