Let Your Light Shine
2nd Sunday before Advent – Year A (Family Service)
Let your light shine
Teacher: Hi Sunny. How are you today?
Sunny: I’m doing great! I just got back from visiting my grandmother.
Teacher: That sounds like fun.
Sunny: It was. I had a great time.
Teacher: What did you do?
Sunny: I got to go out in her backyard to catch fireflies. The only problem was I needed a jar first, and I couldn’t find one.
Teacher: Oh, really?
Sunny: All I could find was a new jar of peanut butter. So I asked Grandma if I could make us some sandwiches.
Teacher: But two sandwiches won’t empty out a full jar of peanut butter.
Sunny: I know. But 37 will.
Teacher: You didn’t. (Sunny just looks at the Teacher, Teacher sighs) You did.
Sunny: I brought some back if you want one.
Teacher: Ok, so you got your jar. Did you catch any fireflies?
Sunny: Not at first. When I went outside it was still a little light, so I had to wait. That was kind of annoying, because there were these bugs flying all around. But then I saw one.
Teacher: A firefly?
Sunny: Yeah, or at least I thought it was. It was a bug, and it was yellow. And I had it right in my hand. The only problem was that it turned out to be a yellow jacket.
Teacher: (shudders) Ouch.
Sunny: You know when people say that yellow jackets will only bother you if you bother them first? Well, I guess that bothered him!
Teacher: So what did you do?
Sunny: Something kind of like this. (starts bouncing up and down) AAAAAH! OUCH! OUCH! GRANDMA! AAAAH!
Teacher: Did you stop after that?
Sunny: No, after Grandma looked at my hand I went back out. And those bugs were still flying around. It was getting dark by now, so they got out their flashlights.
Teacher: Who? The bugs?
Sunny: That’s what I thought at first. They were flying around everywhere, and they reminded me of little sparks of fire. Flying fire. Fire that flies. Then it hit me, those were fireflies!
Teacher: No kidding.
Sunny: No, they really were! I’m so smart.
Teacher: How did you know?
Sunny: Because of their lights.
Teacher: Did you know, people can tell who we are by our light too.
Sunny: (looking out at the kids) You mean they light up too? This I’ve want to see!
Teacher: But we don’t light up the same way the bugs do. Jesus said to let our light shine. We do that by letting the love of God shine through us in all that we do. That’s how we can let people know that we have Him in our hearts.
Sunny: Sounds like a bright idea. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go have a sandwich.
Stay with this idea of people knowing who we are.
Anyone at the Aviva last night? Anyone wearing a South African shirt?
People want to show who they support – people in Ireland and South Africa shirts.
In our Old Testament lesson – Joshua asking people ‘Whose side are you on?’ Which gods are you going to serve?
As for me and my household – we will serve the Lord.
Next Sunday including 2 baptisms in our service of dedication.
At the heart of the service of Baptism is the question ‘Do you turn to Christ?’ – whose side are you on? Who are you going to serve?
Archbishop will be back in February for the Service of Confirmation.
This time he will be asking these questions not of the parents and godparents of 2 babies – he will be asking them of our confirmation candidates.
Our classes are now underway and a couple of the class have been helping this morning. Over the next few weeks we will be thinking through the questions the Archbishop will be asking, what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
As the puppet show demonstrated – we know a firefly by the light that it shines.
Gospel reading reminds us of the importance of letting our light shine – not just sometimes but all the time.
Following Jesus not a part time business – not just something we do on a Sunday – we do it from the moment we get up to the moment we go to sleep.