“You are the light of the world.” When you hear Jesus’ description of his followers as a lamp placed upon a lampstand, I wonder what image comes to mind? A small bedside table lamp? One of those desk lamps with the bendy necks? A camping lantern? An elegant, tall, freestanding sitting room lamp? When I was thinking of this passage in the context of our service tonight, following on from our Pentecost Prayer Day and our theme of how we can keep on glowing in the power of the Holy Spirit, the image that came to my mind was of Lumiere. Not the festival in Durham, but the character in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast! Lumiere is a living candelabra (he was maitre’d to the prince, but when the prince refused to show hospitality to an enchantress disguised as a beggar, her curse was to turn the prince into a beast, and all his servants into living household objects). As a living candelabra he continued to be both kind-hearted and somewhat rebellious, often thinking he knows best and acting accordingly. Now I’m fairly sure this isn’t the image Jesus had in mind when he described that lamp being placed on the lampstand, but I wonder if that’s sometimes why we don’t glow in the power of the Holy Spirit? Are we sometimes a bit like Lumiere (I know I am!) – a lamp who thinks we know best, a lamp that is able to walk off to where we think we need to be, maybe even a lamp who’s a little bit rebellious? Do we glow a little less bright because some of the time we are using up our energy trying to be the one who does the placing rather than simply being a lamp? In the image that Jesus uses there is the lamp, and there is the one who lights it and places it. If we are that lamp, would we glow brighter and longer if we were content to be where the one who lit us has placed us? What if we were just to trust that God has placed us where we are now to shine God’s light on the people around us and the places we’re in right now? What if we take seriously where we are, and simply get on with shining God’s light to those we know in the places we are? Now of course many of you will have been doing that over the last weeks and months especially as we’ve responded to Covid-19 and lockdown. Your light has been shining on the places and people around you. And it’s not always been easy. In fact although many of our usual activities and ways of doing things have stopped, it’s been quite a demanding time. Many of us are feeling quite tired and exhausted. Perhaps this is where we really need to get Lumiere out of our minds and have some idea of the type of lamp Jesus might have had in mind. Jesus was probably talking about a simple oil lamp. Made of pottery it would have had a well to hold the oil, and then some kind of funnel through which the wick would have come. The wick would be poking out the top. It’s this that would be lit, and that would shine its light around the room when placed upon the lampstand. When looking at the lamp, the oil would be hidden inside the pottery. Unseen, it is the oil that would have kept the lamp burning. Pull the wick up too high and it would burn for a while with the oil it had absorbed, before then burning through the wick itself, and burning itself out. Oil has often been used as a symbol of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. If we want to stay alight as lamps, if we want to continue to glow, we need to ensure we stay in touch with the oil within. That which is unseen from the outside, but essential for the lamp to function. This imagery of the lamp comes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, but later on Jesus will talk of the need to pray and to fast in secret. Two unseen ways in which we continue to draw on the power of the Holy Spirit. We see this pattern in Jesus’ own ministry – drawing away to spend time alone with God, that his words, action, and being might continue to shine before others. Sometimes we can get caught up in the shining, the doing of good deeds, that we find our wick runs dry. It’s no longer the oil that’s burning but just us. The imagery of the oil lamp reminds us that we need to pay attention not just to where we are, and trust where we have been placed, but also to be attentive to the oil within, that which cannot be seen from outside but which is essential for the lamp to burn. What are the ways that you draw on God’s Spirit, that you get filled with God’s power, love and life? How have you been spending time with God? Have you been paying attention to this so that you can continue to burn bright, to glow with the power of the Holy Spirit?