You Don’t Want Us Exposing Ourselves
Shining the Light of Christ in a World That’d Rather Keep the Ghosts in the Closet
During Eastertide, I am preaching through the Sermon on the Mount, considering what the sermon means in the light of Christ’s resurrection. This week, I have turned to salt and light. Here’s a quick devotion/reflection on the light portion of the passage that won’t make the final cut for the sermon.
There’s a line in the original Ghostbusters—yes, the 1984 masterpiece of theological insight and proton packs—that always gets me. The Ghostbusters are being cross-examined about their methods, and Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) delivers it perfectly:
“And you don’t want us exposing ourselves.”
It’s a cheap laugh (isn’t most of the movie?) but it accidentally lands close to something true. Because when Jesus says, “You are the light of the world,” he isn’t handing out cute metaphors. He is setting us up for conflict. Because—let’s be honest—most of us do not want to be exposed. And we certainly do not want to be the ones doing the exposing, at least not in a way that implicates ourselves.
The Light of Christ doesn’t just shine sweetly like a candle in a window.
John Wesley famously said:
“Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn.”
It blazes. It uncovers. It walks into the dark rooms we’ve closed off and flips on the switch.
You know the ones.
The closets where we’ve shoved our self-righteousness and resentment. The attics where our fear of the “other” is gathering dust. The basements where shame whispers, “Don’t let anyone see this.”
Jesus doesn’t walk politely past those spaces—he illuminates them. And when he tells us we are the light of the world, it means we don’t just carry the lamp—we become part of the confrontation.
This is where it gets uncomfortable. Because the world, like us, would rather the light stay decorative. A string of fairy lights—nice for ambiance, harmless to the status quo. But the light of Christ is not ambiance. It’s interrogation.
To shine this light is to name greed for what it is, to tell the truth about injustice, to say to empire and ego alike: “You’ve got something on your face.”
But—and here’s the grace—the light doesn’t just expose to shame. It exposes to heal. The surgeon turns on the operating lamp not to mock the wound but to stitch it up. Christ’s light reveals the broken things so they can be made whole.
We often assume the world hates the light because it’s moral. But maybe it’s because it’s so personal. It gets under our skin, into our stories, into the tangled mess of what we’ve done and what’s been done to us. No one wants to be exposed—unless there’s a promise of mercy on the other side.
And that’s what we offer, as bearers of the light. Not condemnation, but clarity. Not shame, but truth-telling with a hand outstretched in grace.
So go ahead. Shine. Not because you’re perfect, but because you know what it is to be found in the light and loved still.
And if anyone asks what you're doing, you can quote Peter Venkman:
"We're exposing ourselves."
But with Jesus, it’s not a scandal—it’s salvation.