Let Your Light Shine: On Being Good Christians

Jesus said to the crowd:
“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel
or sets it under a bed;
rather, he places it on a lampstand
so that those who enter may see the light.
For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible,
and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.
Take care, then, how you hear.
To anyone who has, more will be given,
and from the one who has not,
even what he seems to have will be taken away.” Luke 8:16-18

I don’t know where I first heard the phrase, “let your light shine.” Yes, of course, I’m familiar with Matthew 5:16, but what I’m saying is that the memory of the passage seems to have been as a part of my memories for as long as I can recall. There is something elementary about it—it’s part of Sunday school culture: “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”

Doing good deeds is part of being a living witness of our faith for the world to see, which is possible because of Christ who is in us. For us, being able to witness to the power of God in the world through our actions is the essence of the gospel—the evangel—the good news.

One of the things I appreciate deeply about Catholicism is the emphasis placed on good deeds. My appreciation is partly because I have been in conversations with Evangelical Christians who have done everything in their power to attempt to convince me that human works of righteousness have nothing to do with salvation. I admit, it's an extreme view they hold, and not one that is necessarily common to all Evangelicals, but it is one that you may encounter, and this is especially true in certain quarters of the Evangelical Internet. In their view—one that is unbalanced—practically everything about sharing the faith has to do with the proclamation. “Sure,” they tell me, “once you’re saved naturally you're going to live your life accordingly, with good works, but your works have nothing to do with your salvation.” So sharing the faith, for many Evangelicals, emphasizes telling others about it rather than works. I've had my suspicions that sola fide came about from failing to understand salvation as an event taking place each day in the world of life, in the world where we "live and move and have our being."

However, looking at things from the opposite vantage, it's true also that I’ve met many Catholics who believe that everything hinges on works: for many, the verbal proclamation of the message of salvation might as well be left to others. Unfortunately, I sometimes see a tendency to let both proclamation and works go neglected as a witness to the presence of Christ, and no denomination has a monopoly on neglecting our call and duty to share the gospel: it’s something, regrettably, that we are all equally capable of doing.

Recently I overheard a conversation in which a Catholic was telling about being at the home of a Protestant Evangelical in-law. “I wanted to watch what I said,” she recounted, “since they’re all real good Christians.” If we as Catholics are to take seriously Jesus’ commandment that we let our light shine, we must be prepared to do and to say everything that is needed in order to give people the impression that we are good Christians.

Comments

[Gabrielle]

As individuals, we work with these tensions throughout our whole spiritual journey - faith/works, grace/merit, joy/sorrow, active/contemplative, and we grow, we change, we mature as we discover the harmony of opposites. Perhaps, with the much-needed gift for evangelization that converts bring, and the gifts of the Corporal/Spiritual Works of Mercy that Catholics demonstrate, together we will bring about this harmony of opposites within the Church.