Hold Up the Light

In the Sermon on the Mount the Savior taught to his followers, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.  Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 5:14-16).  The general idea here seems to be that we shouldn’t hide our light and righteousness from the world but that we should allow others to see that and be brought closer to God because of it.  But, then later on in the Sermon on the Mount the Savior said this, “Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:2-4).  The general spirit of this passage to not show openly the alms that we do seems to be in opposition to the instruction to let others see our good works.  So how do we let our light shine before men while at the same time doing our alms in secret so as to not show them off before men?  

               The idea that ties these two passages together is a focus on the Father instead of ourselves.  We are to let our light shine so others may be brought to the Father.  And we are to not do our alms to be seen of men but rather should do them because we love the Father—we do them with the knowledge that He is watching us and wants us to do good.  These good works are done because we want to draw closer to Him and be more like Him and not because we want the praise of others. But we should not hide from opportunities to do good or to help others or to bring them closer to the Lord.  This doesn’t mean that we flaunt what we do before others, but as another parable teaches, we should not bury our talents out of fear when they could have been used to bless the lives of others.  Even in that parable, the focus again is on the lord in the story, and the one who buried his single talent instead of using it was condemned in these words: “Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury” (Matt. 25:27).  The goal of using the talent wisely was not to make the servant more popular or lifted up among men; rather, it was to further the work of his master.  In the same manner, if we hide the talents the Lord has given us so that we don’t use them—whether those are talents of music or speech or writing or cooking or serving in a thousand other different ways—then we are hindering the work of the Father to bless all of His children.    

            In the Book of Mormon the Lord gave the Nephites the same counsel in the Sermon on the Mount.  He also told them, “Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do” (3 Nephi 18:24).  I think this summarizes well what the Lord would have us do—ultimately we are to hold up the light of Christ to the world.  We don’t do alms or good works to be seen of men; rather we work righteousness so that Christ can be seen of men.