Matthew 5:16: Where the Glory Goes

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:16 (NIV)

Where the Glory Goes

He cuts the verge outside the old cemetery every second Saturday, both sides, from the corner down to where the wall starts. It takes him most of a morning and it happens on the road everybody uses to get to the shops, so he does it in front of whoever is driving past.

People wave. A fair number of them think the council pays him for it. Somebody stopped last spring to say thanks and to ask what the rate was, and he said there wasn’t one, and that was all he said, and the man drove off still not sure.

Jesus called the people listening to him the salt of the earth, and he said a lamp goes on a stand so it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

The good is meant to be seen. Jesus wants it done in front of people, on purpose, and he says where the looking is supposed to end up. It travels past the one who did it and lands on the Father in heaven.

So how do I let something be seen and then leave the seeing alone?

A lamp on a stand gives light to whoever walks into the house, including the ones who’d rather not be given any. Jesus wants the shining anyway. I can do the visible good and still want the thanks for it, and the wanting doesn’t undo the good. It leaves me needing mercy on the same terms as the people I did it in front of.

Somebody asked him once, straight out, why he bothered. He said it’s the cemetery and his own people are in it, and that God has been good to him, and then he pulled the cord on the mower. She may have caught the middle of that and not the end of it.

He is out there again on the Saturday after that, and the ones who think he’s paid go on thinking it, and he goes on not correcting them, and the verge gets cut.