Here is a collection of verses and thoughts that have been bombarding my head this last week. They won't leave me alone. Maybe they will bother you too.
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Matthew 5:16 - "Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven."
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"It's not what I am underneath, it's what I do that defines me." Batman in Batman Begins.
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James 1:22-27 - "But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
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From Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship:
"Ye are the salt." Jesus does not say: "You must be the salt." It is not for the disciples to decide whether they will be the salt of the earth, for they are so whether they like it or not, they have been made salt by the call they have received. Again, it is: "ye are the salt," not "Ye have the salt." By identifying the salt with the apostolic proclamation the Reformers robbed the saying of all its sting. No, the word speaks of their whole existence which was the burden of the beatitudes. The call of Christ makes those who respond to it the salt of the earth in their total existence....
...The call of Jesus makes the disciple community not only the salt but also the light of the world; their activity is visible, as well as imperceptible. "Ye are the light." Once again it is not: "You are to be the light," they are already the light because Christ has called them, they are a light which is seen of men, they cannot be otherwise, and if they were it would be a sign that they had not been called. How impossible, how utterly absurd it would be for the disciples - these disciples, such men as these! - to try and become the light of the world! No, they are already the light, and the call has made them so. Nor does Jesus say: "You have the light." The light is not an instrument which has been put into their hands, such as their preaching. It is the disciples themselves. The same Jesus who, speaking of himself, said, "I am the light," says to his followers: "You are the light in your whole existence, provided you remain faithful to your calling. And since you are that light, you ccan no longer remain hidden, even if you want to." It is the property of light to shine.
