Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
September 8, 2002
Romans 13: 8-12
“The night is far gone, the day is near.” Hopeful words. But do we believe them? I found them hard to believe last Sunday when the Giants blew a 9th inning lead to the Diamondbacks. I was in Arizona at the time and had to read the headlines about the D-Back’s marvelous comeback. All about how it was their most important rally of the year and how satisfying it was to put an end to the Giants’ winning streak. At that moment things sure looked pretty dark to me!
I read this text and I recall a conversation I had with a man not long ago. His wife is ill and has been ill for a long time. She is not getting better. He is her chief caregiver. They have lost thousands of dollars in the recent market downturn. He worries how they will afford more extensive care for her when that becomes a necessity. As we talked, he just shook his head and said, “This isn’t how I thought it would be.” Talk about for better or for worse. All he can see is the worse. He is worried and he is depressed. If the night is far-gone and the day is near, he sure doesn’t see it. In his world, night shows no sign of giving in to day.
And, of course, this morning we worship just days away from the first anniversary of the attack on 9/11. On that day we were reminded, suddenly, tragically, violently, just how deep and dark and persistent the night can be. Has the day broken through that dark night? On the surface, I suppose so; it would seem we are back to normal. I like what Anna Quindlen wrote in the most recent Newsweek: “’Is everything back to normal?’ someone asked me in another country not long ago, and I said yes. And no. The closest I could come to describing what I felt was to describe a bowl I had broken in two and beautifully mended. It holds everything it once did; the crack is scarcely visible. But I always know it’s there. My eye worries it without even meaning to.” We now live somewhere between the mundane and the monstrous. In the words of Bruce Springsteen, “Tell me how do you live brokenhearted?” How do we affirm the day when the night is so deep and so dark, when the possibility of even deeper darkness lingers just below our consciousness? I know I look at my fellow passengers on an airplane just a little differently than I used to. And now it seems we are daily being prepared for the inevitable news that this country has launched an attack on Iraq. Self-defense or an act of unprovoked aggression? The promise of the day, or just more seemingly endless night?
Returning to our text, Paul is writing to a church in Rome that had experienced persecution, exile, dissension and conflict. This was a church that had known far more night than day, a church that was struggling for its very survival. And yet, through it all, seemingly in spite of everything, Paul still affirms, “The night is far gone, the day near.” What is he telling them…what is he telling us?
Madeleine L’Engle tells of a time, near her birthday, when she was reading some birthday cards: “An extraordinary and unexpected blessing has been birthday cards and even presents from people who have read my books and become my friends. I opened several of these, my heart melting within me with love and gratitude. One card seemed to be full of what I took to be potpourri, a thoughtful gift. But then I noticed that it was a get-well card and not a birthday card, which struck me as strange since, thank God, I had not been ill. Then I sniffed the dried flowers and they had no scent. Then I looked closer.
“I called Hugh, ‘Please come here.’ He got up from his chair and came at the tight urgency of my voice. ‘Are these cockroaches?’”
“They were. Someone had taken the trouble to collect about a cupful of cockroaches and put them in a get-well card, and send them to me. For a moment I thought I was going to vomit, so physical was my reaction. Then I got the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed the bedspread, the rug, clean of all trace of the shiny brown deadness of the roaches. I said quite calmly to Hugh, ‘If life in an old building in New York were not a constant battle against cockroaches, this would be even more horrible.’ But it was horrible enough. It was a manifestation of a sick hate. I do not know who it was, and I will probably never know, that is just as well.
“That night we had seats at the ballet, seats ordered months before. I took Mrs. O’s rosary with me and held it in my hand all evening, tangibly holding off the powers of darkness. Because those small beads were icons of love, (Mrs. O was a dear friend, almost a second mother, who had recently died) hate could not surround me entirely; the circle of love was stronger than the strangling bonds of hate.”
“The circle of love was stronger than the strangling bonds of hate.” Not a bad commentary on our text. This is the affirmation Paul invites each of us to make. “Wake up, people,” he says, “Do you know what time it is? I think of the song by Chicago: “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?” Well, Paul cares and he wants us to care. And why? “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light – the armor of Christ.” There is no longer need to fear the darkness. Instead, let us dare to live with honor and love and faith. This is what it means to put on the armor of light, to dare to believe that the circle of love is stronger than the strangling bonds of hate.
How can he be so sure – how can he be so sure in a world where it seems we spend so much time in the night? You see, when Paul talks of time, he is not talking about time as we measure it with a watch or calendar, time of past, present and future. He is talking about God’s time – kairos time. “The time has come…know what time it is…salvation is nearer to us now…”. Paul has a sense of the immediacy of God’s time of liberation. There is a certain urgency in his words. Is Jesus coming again in the future? Yes! Is Jesus present with us now? Yes! Will God establish God’s reign in the future? Yes! Is that reign present in our midst even now? Yes! Is the darkness of night deep and discouraging? Yes! But is a new day dawning, even the midst of the darkness? Oh Yes! God’s time, breaking into our time; day breaking into night.
I think Frederick Buechner sounds a lot like Paul when he writes, “Deep is the darkness of our time – of our land and of all lands and of all of us. And most of what light comes our way is as random and elusive as the lights of cars winding up the long hill at night. It is not a great light we have seen but only a small light. But we have come here anyway because somewhere, sometime, once, for all of us, an exodus happened, a grim sea parted, and we were delivered enough from bondage to ourselves to see at least where true deliverance lies. And the great light that our small light foretells is that the one who from the beginning has led us out, led us forth, and who has been with us through the perpetual ruins we have wandered in ever since, is the one whom we wait for in great hope and who in great hope waits also for us. Listen to your lives for the sound of him. Search even in the dark for the light and the love and the life because they are there also, and we are known, each one, by name.”
That is what Paul is saying. Believe that the light and the love and the life are there, even in the darkness, and then live that way. Put on the armor of light. Dare to love even in the face of hate, dare to reconcile even in the face of anger, dare to forgive even in the face of hurt, dare to make peace even in the face of war. I like these words of John Buchanan, Presbyterian minister: “Peacemaking requires the very best of us. It requires a strong military and the willingness to use it. But it also requires tenacity, courage and hope. My personal prayer is that Israel will not respond militarily to the next attack but instead will say something like this: ‘To honor our innocent victims, to consecrate the precious lives of our young people who have died, we will not respond by killing your innocent civilians. This time we will do nothing but grieve – and we invite you to join us in our grief.’”
Concludes Buchanan, “Military types will laugh at the naiveté and weakness of that response. But I sense that I am not at all alone in concluding that it is perhaps the only realistically hopeful response left.”
Replacing retaliation – an eye for an eye – with shared grief, with a recognition of our shared, broken, suffering humanity. Putting on the armor of light is something like that. And, again, we can dare to do it , dare to wear that armor, take the risk, because truly the day is near, even now God’s time is invading our time.
So let us go out. Go out from the old, tired stuff; go out from fears that divide us; go out from old quarrels unresolved; go out from sins unforgiven; go out from old decisions that have scarred and wounded us. Yes, let us go out. Go out into God’s new day; go out, like father Abraham, to a new way and place of life; go out, like mother Sarah, surprised by new life; go out to family and neighbors, indeed to a world, waiting for love and caring acts of generosity
Some might say that it is madness to proclaim the coming of the day in the midst of so much night, madness to hope such a hope, to peer beyond the limited possibilities of today to the impossibilities of God. But it never stopped Paul and I hope it doesn’t stop us. And so, in Christ’s name, I commend this madness and this fantastic hope. Thy Kingdom come, we pray. And, just maybe, the very madness of our hoping, of our faith, will make it happen.
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