Godspell

AM Psalm 45 • PM Psalm 47, 48
Exod. 32:21-34 • 1 Thess. 1:1-10 • Matt. 5:11-16

When I read today’s Gospel lesson, I can’t help but sing to myself “Light of the World” from the 1971 musical Godspell. When I was in eighth grade, my church youth choir performed Godspell on a tour through the Midwest. This show taught me a lot about God’s word as we hear it in the Gospel of Matthew. Rehearsing for the show, I memorized lines, stories from scripture, and put Gospel messages to music in ways that my body still recalls many years later. Creating a show with our small choir and then traveling to different churches gave me a new vision into what it may have been like to be one of the original followers of Jesus.

We ate together. We traveled together. We laughed together. We cried together. We prayed together. We sang together. We learned together. We played together. We met new people at every stop and experienced hospitality from strangers.

It strikes me that in this experience we were living out the call from Matthew 5. On our journey together we made sure we kept each other’s saltiness. At every stop, we shined the light of Christ through music and theater to a new group of God’s beloved.

I wonder if you have a story like this. Are there some verses or Bible stories that remind you viscerally of your own experiences? Do you have favorite hymns or prayers that bring you back to a point in your life? I wonder if that is also how the light of the world works in each of us. We are called to shine light in the world. At the same time, we create light together across time and space to remind us who we are and who we belong to.

I invite you to reflect on a memorable experience in your life. Give gratitude to the people who were part of that experience. Let that light shine in and through you today.

Written by Angela Williams

...who still holds open the possibility of a career on Broadway. Click here to listen to “Light of the World” from Godspell.