Gospel – Matthew 5:13-16    People of Light

The hymn “This Little Light of Mine” was written as a Gospel song for children in the 1920s.  It later became an anthem for the civil rights movement in the US in the 1960s.  It’s associated in particular with Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist who dedicated her life to the struggle for Black voting rights and against racial segregation and injustice.  Hamer was threatened, arrested, beaten and shot at, yet not deterred from her cause.  Her most famous saying – ‘I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired’ – shone a light on the plight of the Black community.  Hamer was a powerful singer whose favorite song was, “This Little Light of Mine’.  The song came to signify hope in the fight for equal rights and freedom.

The lyrics are based on the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus instructs his disciples, ‘You are the salt of the earth … You are the light of the world.’  The ‘salt and light’ saying point outwards to their mission in the world.  Salt must hold its taste in order to season, and a lamp must be lit in order to shine.  Jesus is preparing the disciples to go out, to shine brightly and so to glorify God.  What is this light?  Some might call it the ‘divine spark’, God’s presence in us.  We recognise this light in the shining example of how one person or group can change the world.  Without the efforts of Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and all who were part of the Civil Rights Movement, our world would be a different place.  These ‘salt of the earth’ people brought light to many.  Their fight for justice continues today in those who lift up their voices to ensure people are treated fairly.  People of light sit with those in darkness, in pain or who are persecuted.  They challenge unfair systems.  It can be tempting for people of light to become disheartened.  But they carry on, bringing about change, however slowly, shining light in the darkness.

© Triona Doherty & Jane Mellet, 2022.  A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Matthew.  (Dublin: Messenger Publications 2022).

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“Sometimes it seems like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed.  But if I fall, I’ll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom.  I’m not falling back.        – Fannie Lou Hamer