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THE LIGHT THAT. 1s IN THEE

“If Therefore The Light That Is In Thee‘ Be 17811111858. How C:eat. Is That DarknessP-St M atthew 6: 23

(Rev. Samuel H. Shoemake ‘

None of us was asked whether we should like to become deniaens of this planet. We wakened in a mysterious world, and found our- selves he . What to make of life.

.how to walk through the world.

what to choose and whst refuse. how to regard other people, wheth- er to continue with it or protest against the whole business by sul- cide-these are confront all of us at times, and which we settle according to the kind of light we have.

mt light u partly inherited and inherent, and partly absorbed and acquired. We sll turn natur- ally for light to the experiments in living which other men have made, and by this we amend our own insights. For us who call our- selves Christians, and for most of enlightened mankind, the bright- est light that was ever shed upon the problem of human existence shone in Jesus of Nazareth. His influence upon human history has exceeded that of any other figure, and has been uniformly benign, whatever mistakes we men may have made in His name: and that these things are true adds to the probability that His light was clearer than that of any other man that ever lived.

Part of His light included two convictions about human nature.

Our Spiritual Capacity

The first was that we all have spiritual capacity. I believe Jesus thought that was as native to us as hunger. He took it for granted that liie without God was no life, that all of us naturally need and naturally seek God, that the way is open to Him if we oegin by re- penting of our sins, and that His own way of life was not a counsel of perfection for a few, but the most commonplace good sense for the many. He seems without ques- tion to have believed that He was Himself central in bringing God and man together. He so perfectly summed up in Himself what we need to know about God and life, and so simply communicated these things to us through the under- standablc medium of human per- sonality, that His early followers began to feel that there was lit- erally an organic connection be- tween Him and their own best selves. St. John puts it thus: “That was the true Light. that lighteth every man . . Christ is the in- carnate conscience of us all- There Ls a natural affinity between our souls and Him. This does not mean alone that we warm lo His ethical ideals as being right; it merjs that we warm 'to Christ Himself as if we instinctively knew and loved Him, u if He were the walking expression of tlie life we should all like to live at our best. It has been truly said that "Christ has become entangled in our in- stincts." That automatic compul- sion which He exerts upon us is not only proof of His unique cen- trality in this universe, but it is proof also of our spiritual capacity.

Light or Darkness?

ms other conviction about hu- man nature was that we all fall far below living’ up to that spirit- usl capacity. Jesus lived and died to tie people up with Ciod. That is rellrion. and that is what m was interested in doing in the world. He knew that if they were in touch with God, they would live as they should. I do not believe He sponsors the kind of man- made goodness which prides ltgglf

questions . which ‘

on living out Christian principles. and never says a word to God of contrition or thanks. Religion is living in touch with God. Jesus found the religion of His people reduced to rules and rites. His own religion has suffered the same de- cline and become in many quart- ers only the skeleton of ‘;‘ , with the life gone out of it. He saw sin as the barrier between us and God, between us and fulness of. spiritual life, and His Gospel began. "Repent." He was always wonderfully lenient with people who sinned in a gust of passlo ; but He was amazingly severe to- wards those who accepted the low level of sin as being the best that could be expected- It must have been the sight of so much com- promised religion all about Him’ that, made Him cry out, perhaps with some definite people in His mind, "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness!"

Let us take that word of terrible warning today. and search our own hearts whether the light that is in us be darkness. ,

Is It Really Light

First let us ask ourselves wheth- er the light that is in us concern- ing ourselvcs is really light, or is it darkness? Think of the way we deceive ourselves about ourselves. 1 think I can best put this before you in a picture from real life. Two years ago a certain man's health and home were saved be- cause he found an experience of Christ. It was only a rudimentary experience, and he took just enough to lift him above a be- setting habit.‘ He braced up and has not badly yielded to that habit since. But he has sedulously kept out of the way of further challenges in the Christian life, to other areas of himself, though he regularly says his prayers and goes to church quite frequently. He will not seek to help other men with his problem, because he prefers to let no one know what his problem has been: and this unwillingness he masks with the excuse that “he doesn't want to go around talking about religion all over the place.” The basic problem of dissipation usually goes back to some kind of fear or pride; and his real sin is notrdissipation but selfishness, and that selfishness has caused him to return ‘J his dissipation in a mild form, "like a gentleman" is his excuse. When I challenged him on the worry this was causing his family, he was silent, refusing any

‘ fresh conviction of sin, and only

remonstrating by saying, "I think I live a pretty damn good life in my community." A little later we prayed and had a quiet time to- gether. When I asked whether any guidance had come to him, he said. “Yes. You won't think it's guidance. But my guidance is that I am not so bad after all."

Now that man is not a monster _ of pride and self-satisfaction, he is an attractive. lovable, quiet. de- c-‘ent father, husband and citizen. respected in his city and made use of by his church. Yet his thoughts about himself are a tissue of heif- deception. The terrible thing about a man like that is that a wife nnd children have to live with him, live with those ideas of his, and all their compromised off-shoots: have, if not to scale down their own living to his, at least to slow it up and wait for him. He puts these things forth as the best that he knows. They are his lighiw-the best that he has. You and I see how much darkness there is in his light. But how do you and l de-

Good Will

To All

oeive ourselves? Do we look side-

wisc at others, and compare our- selves with them; or do, we look up to Christ, and seek the places where we ought to go forward? We have never come really near Christ till Ho becomes a mirror to us, wherein we keep lacing con- stantly true light on ourselves.

How lilncb Darkness .

Second, let u ask ourselves how

much darkness there is in the light which we call our religion. Did you ever hear a self-indulgent Episco- palian thank God that ws are not bound by a Puritan oonseien , and use the broad tradition of our church to excuse personal loose- ness? Did you ever know any Christians who, convinced of some point of faith where others are weak, baptize their own censor- icusness and narrowness with high- sounding phrases like "the funda- mental faith of the Church", and “God-given convictions", and the frequent quotation of some Scrip- ture verse that gives them com- fort, forgetful who it is who can also quote Scripture for the ends of hell itself? Do righteous people . over exercise rigid demands upon other people, not making right- eousness a lovely and attractive thing to them. but only letting their own talk about it satisfy a naturally dogmatic and self-rlght- eous disposition? Do we_ ever take Christ's warning against worry, “Take no thought for the mor- row", as an excuse for thoughtless improvidence and careless laziness? How many of us-excuse our pos- sessiveness towards someone in our family and our indulgence of them by calling it with the great Christian word "love", forgetful that Christian love, for family or any others, has in it the minimum of self-gratification and the max- imum of an almost stern concern for the ultimate spiritual welfare of that other person? How many of us, under s. general delusion that we are ‘spiritual’, justify whatever we want to do, no mat- ter how selfish or obviously wrong our course may appear to other morally mature people? It is often true that we dimly realize that we are allowing darkness to obscure the light of our religion in some of these various ways; but the terrible thing is that We can keep saying a thing to ourselves and to others, in self-justifiication, for so long that we come to believe it in our hearts. And then the whole of life has to be lived on‘ these half- truths or lies, as if they were the whole truth. Religious people, un- less they are constantly growing, are always in danger cf making religion an excuse for something wrong. And then the light that is in them is darkness.

Misrepresentation

Third, I want you to think of the way we turn our light into darkness by misrepresenting to our conscious minds and to others the true light that is in us. I have a. very healthy respect for the work- ing of ordinary human conscience- I think we all know very surely and very quickly the difference be- tween right and wrong. It is a. modern fad to talk about the dif- ference between conscience in one man and conscience in another. The other fellows conscience is not our business: but our own conscience is. Presented with any right course and wrong one, con- science like a judge on a bench renders a swift and sure verdict,‘ and we know at least what we should not do. But are we always honest in reporting what that conscience has said? Do we not sometimes turn to the morality of the times. to the counsel of friends who will be easy with us, to our own desires, to the example of someone of high character but weak in one convenient point, to a rationalization which we r\‘l common-sense, and seek to evade the clear dictate of conscience? The mischief 1n the world that is done by good people does not arise from their blindness to greater good, but from their dishonesty about it. Christ is that true Light that lightens the life of all of us. If we would consult that light simply, and report our findings honestly, we should live different lives and make a different world.

The Only Solution

Fourth, is the light which we shed on the problem of others really light, or is it darkness? About ninety-nine hundrcdths of good advice, is more darkness than light. A young man comes to one of you business men, asking what your advice is about his career. He puts before you, say. two courses: to go into a money-making ven- ture which will enable him to marry" the girl whose picture he brings out of his pocket and shows you with pride; or to take four years in a medical school, with the long interneship to follow. What do you say to him? The more material of you probabl incline to ealistic to the latter. And you are both wrong! You may be advising the right course, but you should not be advising at all-you should be getting that young man to the place where he asks Cod what to do. for God alone knows what he

ought to do. The folly of detsrmin- ,

ing a man's vocation by thsshape of his bead or his ,.. sent human aptitudes la evident enough. But your good sense and your idealism is no better in determining

right course. Help him winnow the facts. but hsl him in the last an- alysis to lo it with one alone. A girl comes to one of you women with an apparently hopeless home situation, and says, Shall I get a divorce? Don't answer itl You'll make a mistake as sure as you livs- You cannot know all the fac-

tors, even when you have talked at length. You must get her to the place where God can tell her what to do. She ought to do notlrng until she has, met. and had her husband meet, other people who

have solved a difficult home prob- 1

lem; and until each of them has found an experience of Christ. Then you can help them find

iighnwithout thrusting your light l

upon them. Have you enough faith in their spiritual capacity, and in the power of the living Christ. to know that divine Light is alone

the solution of a. problem like ftha? ,

Human Helpfulness

Fifth, I want you to investigate your human helpfulness in the light of this verse. Our human so- ciety today has gone beyond pagan indifference to a. wide-spread sense of responsibility for our brothers. Acutely today we feel that responsibility toward many out of work, and in need. Some of us are sharing our homes, our food, our money. Is that where your helpfulness stops? Is that all the light you have, as to men's need in this day? Then your light is dim to the point of darkness. With food and shelter people need‘ God, need Him more than ever they needed Him. Godless human service has probably let as many people down as it has helped. It never really cures the fears, the greed. the selfishness of people; and until those are cured, our so- ciety will go on ifs selfish way, with periodic panics telling the tale of a disordered society built up 1f and by disordered person- alities. I dare to say that human service which cares for bodies without reckoning with whole per-

sonalities, and thinks that the,

needs of personalities may be met by a little psychiatric tinkering, while it leaves out entirely men's faith about God and life as a whole. is one of the real errors of our time. We have not been led into that error by bad people. but by good. It is natural that men and women in physical need should think that that is all their need- The little you and I can do may but tide them over for a brief time: but if they can come by a real faith in God through us, they may be saved from temptation which might otherwise lead them to crime or suicide. God can pro- vide for people in a. time like this. as well as in good times. and I know plenty of people who have found that out: but He never can help us deeply without co-oper- ation. Some of the light -of our human service has been darkness, because it has not ministered to the whole personality. ‘

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Andlastlylwantyoufothink hichaaa

1y, but somewhat blindly, gropes through this world? Do you give off s light that has come to you ‘from God-or do you really give

;offdsrkneas.notthedarknes.of

wickedness but the darkness oi confusion? Do you make a major impression of peace and direction. or of perplexity and bewilderment upon people? How much happens when people fall into contact with you? Some of us keep our light under a bushel because we have never come up on the level when God works miracles in the touch and go of ordinary life. I know people who call themselves Chris- tians, ‘out are co much like every-

else, so self-conscious at

b0!!! -mentioning Christ, so mum about

the one thing in this world that matters, that I should never sus- pect they had any great secret about life. Light on a candle-stick la light; but light under a bushel is darknem. Have we ever learned how much can hapnen from a chance meeting with someone? Have we a ready experience of Christ and what He ls doing for us that will interest a casual friend? Do we know how to circle round him like an aeroplane till we find a landing place, and when we come to ground how to fas-

cinate him with the stor; o1 mod- ~

ern miracles? I. think the world is s little tired of hum-drum, lack- lustre Christians who just scrimp through, doing a little good, haven't anything personal to tell you about how Christ comes to life and what He does when He gets there. They are really Christians once-removed. To them the peop‘! they meet are like pictures in a gallery, to be seen and enjoyed. but not influenced, fenced away by the protective railing of some- body's self-consciousness. This age of ours is utterly bewildered and looking for a way of life. You know and I know that there is no way but the way that is in Christ. We have that light if we want to let it shine before men, but if it is reaped-over with timidity, self- ccnsciousuess, ineptness, it will be darkness to the world about us. Every one of us was meant not only to have light, but to be a light-bearer.

What We Need How, then, shall we ensure that

the light that is in us be truly light, and not darkness. Only by

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’Twas The Night

Before Christmas

i 'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the

Not a creature was stirring, not even a. mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with cars In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced, in their fiends; And mama in her kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for along Winter's nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed in see what was the matter. Away to the window I fled like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon 0n the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of midday w objects below When, what to, my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a. moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they cams,

And he whistled, and shouted, and call them by ham».

"Now Dssher; now Dancer; now Prancer and Vineni Donner and Blitaenl dash away alli",

eight tiny reindeer.

Now dash away; dash away; To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky 5o up m the house-top the coursers they flew. With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas, too.

And then, in a twinkling, 1 heard onithe roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof, As I drew‘ in myhesd, and was turning around, Down the crlmncy St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his headtohiafoot, A bundle of toys he had flung ‘on his bu: And he looked like a peddier Si!" 0176111118"

1-11,; eyqs-how they twlnkledl his dim His cheeks were like roses his nose like a cherryi His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin w ‘The stump of a pipe he held tight in his ibQth, And the smoke it encircled h He had a broad face and a round little belly, That shock when he laughed, n h on and plump, a right four old all. ' Agdwrlafigiliedywben I saw him. in 811i“ 9i m?!“

A ink fhiseysaudatwilt 59;; “f. me toknow i had nothingtodread.

He spoke not a word, but wggznaiarlillli V? ml "*1

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his team lava a whistle,

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to his sllllh. t0 H’ "m" flew nu But f heard him eaclaim. m "Happy Christmas to All, and

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bringing n1 the light we have to Christ In His lightour lilht will be like a candle on a brisht day of sunshine. What we need, far more than to develop our own light to great intensity, is t0 makfl of our minds clear, unsullied N- flectors, so that the light from 00d may shine in us, and then ricochet from us to the world about us. Let us, then, ask God to purge our light of all darkness. Int us askflim to take from us not only the. evil of our life, but also the in- adequate and insufficient good. Let us ask Him to transcend for us by His Spirit all our wisdom and good-nose and insight. let '11 pray to go forth illumined by the direct and abiding action of His Holy Spirit; so that the light that is in us may be His light, altogeth- er His. Int us pray: O God, e bless Thee that our dull spirits catch something of Thy glory and beauty and joy. Cleanse our spirits by Thy discip- line, we pray Thee, until Thy light becomes ours. And in that light may we walk, and by it let others also find the way, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. . -Calvary Evangel.