Oct 2- Matthew 5:14-15

You are the light of the world.

A city built on a hill cannot be hid.

No one after lighting a lamp

puts it under the bushel basket,

but on the lamp stand, and

it gives light to all in the house.

Matthew 5:14-15

Having just returned from Israel, my favorite place was the region around the Sea of Galilee.

Not much has changed since the days of Jesus.

Galilee is really a lake more than a misnamed sea, just a couple miles across. And though this is the only freshwater body in Israel, they've kept it remarkably rural, agricultural.

If "Lake Genneseret" -- it's alternate title -- was in the U.S., there'd be scores of water skiers and jet skis. There'd be craziness and noise and commotion. But there must be a rule against motorized craft.

Thus, this quiet agricultural region is the easiest place to imagine a first-century carpenter wandering the hillsides and teaching beside the shore.

There's just one rising city nowadays near the shores of Galilee. Tiberius -- a literal city on a hill rising out the sea -- cannot be hid. No matter where you are at night in the Galilee region, the bright lights of Tiberius gives you your bearings. 

In Jesus' day, the villages would have been much smaller ... and obviously, the glows would have been much less bright without electricity. Nevertheless, the hills of nighttime Galilee would have been dotted with pinpricks of light, like little stars amid the hills.

"A city built on a hill cannot be hid."

Jesus calls you and me light. We shine whether we like it or not.

·       Some of us with brightness, reflecting the brilliance of the true and greater Light.

·       Others of us sink to level of the world, becoming part of the red light district. Indistinguishable from anything else -- except for our hypocrisy.

·       Others of us try to hide our light, not wanting to draw attention to the Light that we say lives among us.

And the problem is ... the shores of our Galilee are no longer peaceful. Our corner of the world is getting darker. Jesus is asking, will you leave the compromises of the red light district a and come out from under the bushel basket? Indeed, will you boldly shine?

In Christ's Love,

a Baked Alaska

(if I'm going to be

some sort of a flame,

I might as well be a

sweetly flaming desert)