Curb Appeal

leaving the lights on

I used to love a good home improvement show — on my most-watched list were Love It or List It, House Hunters, Property Brothers, and before Chip and Joanna Gaines made it onto the scene, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Hearing “Move that bus!” triggered tears like the drool of Pavlov’s dogs.

Another one of my favorites was Curb Appeal. As its title indicates, this particular show focused on the outside of the homes featured. Think refaced exteriors, stunning landscaping, homey shutters, and dramatic front doors.

To me, nothing says “curb appeal” like an old-fashioned front porch, large enough to hold a couple of chairs or a bench swing. I imagine the cups of coffee shared with a spouse or friend. I idealize the quiet comfort of watching darkness slowly descend, casting its golden then blue hues and long shadows until finally licking up the last of the day’s light. I envision legs propelling the gentle sway of the swing and hear the song of a creaking chain with each back and forth.

Last week my work took me to Oregon where I met with a pastoral couple to coach and encourage them in their church planting work in Salem. As pulled into their neighborhood, I scanned mailboxes and front doors for the right house number. Not having been to their home, I didn’t know what to look for apart from the GPS announcing, “In 800 feet, your destination will be on the left.”

Thanks for that. I don’t know about you, but I have no reference point for 800 feet, and it’s typically farther than I would think.

Needless to say, I hoped to find a clearly visible street number so that I didn’t have to tentatively walk up to a door only to have a stranger staring at me through their Ring camera wondering what I was selling.

Thankfully, their mailbox clearly displayed their house number., and the front porch was the first detail I noticed as I pulled along the curb in front of their home. Two chair - check. One swing - check.

As I stepped out of the car and toward the house, I also noticed the lamppost in the front yard and the sconce to the right of the front door, lights shining in spite of the mid-afternoon sunshine. Their warmth and welcome greeted me well before my host opened the front door and bear-hugged me.

She offered me water, and we began chatting, catching up on life and ministry. Come to find out, the lamppost and porch light are far from an accidental forgetting to flip a switch; it’s an intentional and missional decision.

“The lights outside of our house are on all the time, 24/7. We leave them on as a visible sign that we’re shining the light of Jesus in the middle of the darkness in our neighborhood and city.”

And isn’t that what Jesus calls all of those who follow him to live? Lights shining in darkness, beacons of hope in a torrent of hatred and despair and brokenness and suffering.

I quickly recalled Jesus’s words from the Sermon on the Mount:

“Your lives light up the world. For how can you hide a city that stands on a hilltop? And who would light a lamp and then hide it in an obscure place? Instead, it’s placed where everyone in the house can benefit from its light. So don’t hide your light! Let it shine brightly before others, so that your commendable works will shine as light upon them, and then they will give their praise to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16, TPT)

Jesus also used these kinds of physical, tangible reference points to reveal deeper spiritual truths.

Still, we tend to understand this passage to mean simply that, as God’s chosen people, we’re special or that a holy glow somehow illuminates from us at the point of our salvation. Or perhaps we’ve emphasized that shining our light means speaking out about our faith. All good things and partially accurate, but leaving it there misses the point.

Jesus seems to take it a step further, saying that your light is not actually what you believe or think about Jesus; your light is what you do to love and serve Jesus in the world.

Your light is your very life lived as an offering to God.

And what does that life look like? Well, to answer that question, we have to look to the life of Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. For the past several months, I’ve been reading through the Gospels and recording what I notice about Jesus’s character and life. Here are just a few of my observations:

He extended healing and compassion to all who came to him in faith.

He loved people, not in theory or from a distance, but practically and proximally, over meals and in their homes and neighborhoods.

He called out the women, the diseased, the riffraff, the despised — all who were deemed “less than” — and offered them a seat at his table.

He often sought solitude to rest from his work and to pray and listen to his Father.

He always invited people to offer their allegiance to God and his expansive kingdom, not to a religious system or an earthly ruler or government.

In light of the Light of the world, how is my life lighting up the world?

Other parts of Scripture also teach us what is good:

• Acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God (Micah 6:8)

• Watching out not only for my own interests, but also for the interests of others (Phil 2:4)

• Being kind to one another, tenderhearted, and forgiving one another (Eph 4:32)

• Doing all that we can to live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18)

• Abiding in Jesus, the Vine, and loving each other as Christ has loved us (John 15:4, 12)

Of course, the list goes on . . . honestly, if I could just get the last one right, all of the rest would be lived from the overflow.

But too often we rely on the wrong measuring sticks, things like the right worldview, the right doctrine, the right political party, the right ______ . . . fill in your own blank.

While right thinking is not unimportant, discerning truth ought always to lead us to right action. In an effort to counterbalance a works-based faith, I wonder if the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

And have our lights dimmed in the process?

What would happen if the fruit of the Spirit’s presence — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — lit up our lives as others observed and rubbed up against us?

Let’s stop hiding our light, obscuring it behind empty words, earthly comfort, grabs for power, and spiteful rhetoric.

Now more than ever our world, our cities, our neighborhoods need lights shining in the darkness, lights that reflect the goodness and compassion and mercy and humility and generous love of Jesus, the Light of the world.

Go and do likewise.

Until next time,

Kerry

Front cover photo by Francesca Tosolini on Unsplash