Letting the light shine through

 This week's verses are 2 Corinthians 4:1-6:

Therefore, since we have this ministry, just as God has shown us mercy, we do not become discouraged. But we have rejected shameful hidden deeds, not behaving with deceptiveness or distorting the word of God, but by open proclamation of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience before God. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing, among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said “Let light shine out of darkness,” is the one who shined in our hearts to give us the light of the glorious knowledge of God in the face of Christ.

The Apostle Paul shares these verses after talking about how the Jewish people in their community weren't able to find the truth, even with access to the same scriptures that Paul and the other Christians had. So here he is basically saying "Look, they're not getting it, but it's not our fault. We don't have to jump through hoops. God will open their eyes when they are ready."

Paul says that we have rejected shameful hidden deeds. In other words, we don't slink around and try to manipulate people. We don't misrepresent things and twist the truth in order to appeal to more people. We're not marketing a product. We're pointing people at Jesus. It's up to them whether or not they look.

But when we share the gospel, is that how we see it? Isn't it tempting to edit things a bit, maybe downplay the whole "giving your life" thing or highlight the unacceptability of this or that pet sin of ours? Or maybe we want to lure people in with music and food and a nice show so that we can feel like we're making it happen? Or guilt them into it so that they're trapped? Can we really say that we are saying things as they are?

Paul says that we don't proclaim ourselves as Lord but Jesus is Lord. We're not campaigning for office. We're not inviting people to a club we are trying to build. We're not trying to muscle people into believing what we believe. We're simply the help -- the people in the background serving the master and passing along his invitation to join him.

But is that how we see it? Do we sometimes take things a little too personally if someone rejects Christ? Or do we secretly see his followers as our followers instead? Are we concerned with numbers as a measure of our success, not his?

Paul says we're all slaves. We're low, common people who only found our Lord through something uncommon. So why do we act like we need to reach them differently than we were reached? We are people, just like them. Can any of us explain why we became Christians while others with access to the same culture and scriptures and messaging did not? God's light shined in the midst of our darkness. We didn't somehow create light on our own.

So in reaching out to other people, the best thing we can do is let that light shine through us. But ultimately, no matter how eloquently we proclaim the gospel, there will always be some people who don't believe. But we are slaves, not the master being proclaimed. Slaves wearing the impossibly expensive garments of their master. Slaves who are unwilling to run away, who are content enough in their master that they are not ashamed of being slaves. 

Whether everyone or no one believes us, we will still have all we need. We have no reason to lie. We have no investment in the outcome except to hope for the best and to tell the plain truth. And in this plainness of being, in how ordinary we are, maybe the grace that God gave us will be all the more obvious.