SERMON
How many disciples does it take to change the world? – Matthew 5:13-16
If you’ve been down the lightbulb aisle at the supermarket recently, you will have discovered that there is an
overwhelming selection to choose from. Spot or globe? Bayonet or screw? 40 or 60 watts? LED or filament?
Traditional or low-energy? All you want to do is to light up your room again, and yet with head scratching and a
look of bemusement, you finally make a decision, reluctantly admitting that you’ll probably be back down the
same aisle tomorrow exchanging it for the right one. But still it has to be done. You have to take a risk and do
something about it if you want to see. And then when you have found the right one, you actually have to change
the old, blown one, in order to see. Yes, it’s just a light bulb. Yes, whether you change it or not will not transform
the world. But Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, tells us about a light which will transform the world – but only
if we take a risk, if we do something about it, and we let our light shine.
See Change
‘How many Christians does it take to a change a light bulb?’
‘Change? What do you mean – change?’
We’ve all heard the joke, and countless others, suggesting the seeming resistance of Christians to change.
Humour aside, isn’t it a little ironic that we – the passionate, radical, disciples of Jesus, who have been charged
to transform the world with the gospel – are so hesitant about rocking the boat? In Romans 12:2 Paul tells us:
‘Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (quotations from
NIV). If any group of people are to be innovative, to be change-makers, to be transformers in the world, then
surely it is to be the disciples of Christ, the followers of the one who came to save the world. Not change because
we want to be trendsetters, but change because the world is not as it should be, and we are part of the mission
to restore it to how God intended it to be. But to see change is to be change.
Remember Zacchaeus, ‘the very little man’, the tax collector? Because he was working for the Roman Empire,
his community saw him as a corrupt traitor. But something tells us that Zacchaeus wanted to see change.
Zacchaeus, with his expert tree-climbing skills, was perched in a sycamore-fig tree. And then he was spotted,
spotted by Jesus. And he saw change, because he became change. Immediately Zacchaeus welcomed Jesus.
He changed his behaviour. He transformed his attitude. And right there the lightbulb turned on.
Author Leo Tolstoy wrote: ‘Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.’
Zacchaeus saw that for his life to change, for his community to change, he needed to do something. It wasn’t up
to someone else to make the change; it was up to him. Just as our supermarket aisles are filled with countless
options of lightbulbs where only one will make our light shine as it should, being transformed by God isn’t about
trying to be a different person; it is about being you – but you wired into the power source.
In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul writes: ‘And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being
transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.’ We are here
to be transformed into God’s image. And that’s an image of grace, of love, of compassion, of forgiveness.
To forgive those who hurt us, to love those who hate us, to show compassion to those who frustrate us, are
some of the hardest things a person can be asked to do. And yet that is what God asks us to do. That is what
transformation is about. And God can help us do that. Jesus didn’t come to transform us into pew-filling, songsinging, rule-following Salvationists. He came to transform us into God-glorifying, grace-scattering, hope-plotting
disciples of love. It’s up to us how we let ourselves be transformed.
See Good
In The Message paraphrase of Matthew 5:14 we read that we are here to bring out the ‘God-colours’ in the world.
That’s our purpose. We are here to be in places which have been taken over by grey and to paint them with
colour. Places that have been forgotten and ignored, we are called to restore. We are here to help people fill in
their black-and-white images of God with the vibrant colours of who he is. For people whose image of God has
been marred by the darkness of this world, we are called to bring back the colour. We are here to bring out the
God colours in the world for people who can only see the world in black and white. We are here so that people
can see good once again.
To help people to see good means to be there. To be there with a smile, with a listening ear. It means to be there
with a bacon butty and a cup of tea. We are there to show that life can be beautiful again. So many people are
blinded to the beauty of life. Broken relationships, unbearable circumstances, a lack of self-worth have taken
away the colour, have taken away the beauty. But we believe in a God who can restore that colour and that
beauty. We believe in a God who can transform. And a God who will use us in that transformation.
Who remembers those colouring books where you just add water and the colours emerge? Our world, which
cowers in darkness, needs us to add compassion, to add love, to add forgiveness, to add God’s Spirit, for then the
colours will emerge. It is as simple as that. There is much goodness in the world. Evil makes the news because
goodness is the norm. We are here to see that goodness and to draw others to it. And beyond that we are here
to inject goodness into the evil that does exists. We are here to plant hope in the despair that drags down. We are
here to shine light in the darkness that brings fear. The brighter our love, then the more God’s goodness is seen.
Anne Frank, one of the most recognised Jewish victims of the Holocaust, arguably could have been blinded to
the goodness in the world. And yet she clearly knew how to see good and how to be good in the world. Anne
wrote: ‘How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.’ But why
is that? Because we start improving the world by loving creation where we are right now. We start changing the
world through being gracious to the people we are with right now. We start transforming the world by living a life
which shows that God is good.
See God
A scan of a newspaper or a browse of social media sees a population painting a picture of the world they want
to see. A world with security and peace, stability and positivity. All worthy and hopeful causes, but all merely
wishful thinking and idyllic ideas if they are without the presence of God. Yes, we long to see change and to see
good. But does our world really want to see God? Do those in power want to see a God who said ‘So the last will
be first, and the first will be last’ (Matthew 20:16)? Do the wealthy want to see a God who said ‘You cannot serve
both God and money’ (Matthew 6:24)? Do the pious want to see a God who said ‘I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance’ (Luke 5:32)? For our world to see God in the change and in the good, they
need to see our upside-down world turned the right way up.
As followers of Christ we are here to make an impact for change and to bring transformation – not always the
popular options. We were not made to fade into the background, to live a life which provokes no questions, which
doesn’t cause a stir. We were created to stand out, to live a life which prompts interest, which makes people
ask why. We were created to light up a dark world. Whilst others feel held back to conform and feel constrained
by the mould, we are called to not conform, to break the mould. We are called to colour in the black and white
outlines, because Jesus came to give life in all its fullness. Abundant life for everyone.
But to shine in ourselves we need to spend time with God, to know who he is, to know what he is like. We need to
know what change God wants to bring to our world. For us to bring out the God colours means to be a disciple.
To be a disciple means to be a follower, an apprentice. And to be a follower, stepping in the footprints of God,
means knowing the one we are walking with. And it is through reading his word, through listening to his voice,
through gathering together in worship, that we know the one who brings light to this world. And when we know
the artist, we must be bold and let the colours he paints in be seen by the world around us.
Imagine that dark room again, with the endless array of light bulbs waiting to change it. But there is only one
that will properly restore the light. We live in a dark world with so many options which claim to be able to change
it. But only one will properly restore the light. ‘I am the light of the world,’ Jesus tells us in John 8:12. Our world
is a beautiful place, but that beauty needs to be lit up. Our own lives can testify to the transforming beauty that
emerges when God’s light shines in our life.
And now the response is to go, to shine, to bring out the God colours. The response is to bring beauty to this
world through living a beautiful life. The response is to bring light to this world through living a life of light. The
response is to follow after Jesus and to be a disciple.
How many disciples does it take to change the world? One – and one, and one, and one… That’s me and you and
you and you. And as we let our light shine, the world ‘may see your (our) good deeds and glorify your (our) Father
in heaven’ (Matthew 5:16).