Greetings all. If you've been following this blog and missing it, I am sorry. I'm trying to find a new routine as a dad of four, and part of that new routine involves driving the kids to the bus stop when I had previously been doing devotions. Praying for flexibility, and openness to a new way of finding time with God.
Observation:
Jesus' teaching here goes beyond the simplicity of, "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine," but it does start there. Just as it would be wasteful to hide a lamp in the cellar, so it would be wasteful not to share our gifts, and our hope in Christ, with the world.
But Jesus goes on to say that our eye is "the lamp of our body." It makes me picture an eye almost like a window, and our body as an empty house, which will be lit up if we keep our eyes open, but in darkness if we close them. It's a strange image if you take it literally, but in a figurative sense, our "eye" could be our perception. We can only shine with the light we have first been able to find and observe, and if our "eye", our ability to see God at work in the world, is not sound, then we will have no light to shine.
I can understand how for those with a disability that affects vision, this might be a challenging and perhaps painful text. But while we may not all have the same literal ability for sight, we all have been given by God the ability to perceive in a spiritual sense.
Application:
As Jesus talks about keeping our "eye", or our spiritual perception, healthy, I can't help but thinking about the many kinds of eyes, and the many kinds of perception we have in this world. Our perception is affected by where and how we grew up, who our role models were, and what our families and communities valued. To me, the idea of having a "healthy eye" means understanding what aspects of our own perception are valuable and "of God," and what things we may need to work past in order to receive God's light. We each have a different perception, and that's a blessing from God.
This calls to mind the recent movie, Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse. The main character of the movie, Miles Morales, is a biracial teen--his father is African American, his mother from Puerto Rico--living in New York City. By a fairly complicated turn of events, he find himself with new super powers, taking up the mantle of "Spider-man", but there's a twist: he's not the only one. Through a device that brings together alternate universes, Miles meets a whole team of "Spider-men," most of whom aren't "men" at all! Each "Spider-person" brings a unique perception, a unique background, and unique gifts, which combine to help each other grow, and of course save the multi-verse. Miles' perception is not identical to his fellow spider heroes, but that doesn't mean his "eye" isn't sound. It means God made different eyes to see different facets of reality.
Today I hope to take from this the lesson that different perceptions are a gift from God. We need each other in order to see the world, and God's work in it, in a more three-dimensional way. But that does not mean that each and every perception under the sun is equally valid. We also need those different from us in order to keep us alert and prayerful about how our spiritual "eye" could be more healthy, and where healing needs to take place.
Prayer: God, make sound my eyes. Help my spirit to perceive and to let in as much of your light as I possibly can. Remove the prejudices, the fears, the anger, the unhealed hurts, that could prevent me from perceiving what you want me to see. And help me to value the differing eyes and perceptions of others. Together, let us shine with the light we've been given. Amen.
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