Years ago, before computers were commonly owned and used regularly by most of us, I remember my first lesson on the shared machine in the office. The software concerned was Lotus 1-2-3, a spreadsheet programme. I had been taught that this wonder device could help me with costings for the transport fleet I was running then. I was concerned that once I could see what I needed on the screen, I could then print it. My tutor taught me the phrase WYSIWYG, ‘what you see is what you get’.
That is quite enough office reminiscences for one morning. When light shines through moisture droplets, the prismatic effect produces a rainbow. We know that if we walk to where the rainbow appears to be and take a bucket of water, what we see will not be what we get.
Jesus used the parable of the lamp (Luke 8:16-18) to encourage his followers to speak out clearly and tell openly the truths of his teaching. Jesus concludes by saying (v18), ‘Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them’. Reading a comment on this short passage this week has woken me up to a point I had not considered before.
The point made by a commentator was that in this case, Jesus is not referring to truths that people have being removed, but to losing what they thought was truth, but which was not so. When the light plays on the mist in front of a waterfall and produces the effect of coloured water, that colour is only an effect, it is not real. The effect may be beautiful, but it cannot be bottled and kept because only photography can capture a light effect, not a bucket or a bottle. Jesus teaches things that are tangible, where what you see is what you get.
A prayer:
God of miraculous effect and wonderful visions, we pray that the truths we rely on in our lives, and the hope we have in you may be such that we can preserve and keep going back to for refreshment and inspiration. We thank you that your teaching is not illusory but can be captured, developed, and learned. Thank you too for the passing visions that enhance life and even if they cannot be bottled, we are glad that they brighten our days and shorten our nights, metaphorically at least. We pray this for Jesus’s sake, the source of gospel truth. Amen.