I've been thinking of the summer "lectionary." My confirmation verse was Matthew 5-- about "your little light shine"/bushel basket. I found it a childhood dilemma... one message to show your light (your gifts) to the world... yet (as Garrison Keillor so sagely nails it) "Don't call attention to yourself." --Jan K
I ask you, can a sunflower stop being shiny? Heck no! Do we judge the sunflower for drawing attention to itself? Not if we are sane and well-adjusted!
Still, it's probably a good idea to balance, "Let your light shine," with "beware of practicing your piety before strangers, in order to be seen by them." Don't serve at the soup kitchen for the photo op. Serve at the soup kitchen so that people can eat, and thank God (not you) for the bread.
A family acquaintance belongs to a church that sends missionaries to the world's poorest people, and when they go they bring no food for the hungry, no medicine for the sick, they build no shelters for the homeless. They tell the people that if they believed in Jesus, they would have all these things. Now, that's just messed up. But here is the theology behind it: the members of this church are so afraid of "works righteousness" that they refuse to do any work at all, lest God think they are trying to buy their way to heaven.
Let your light shine! Let your salt season the bread! Let people see God's love reflected in you!
