Rev. John Simmons.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
January 2, 2005
John 1:1-9, 10-18
It has been a mixed week for me after a perfectly wonderful Christmas experience. There were lots of little nagging things and then Thursday a meeting that should have been pleasant but instead, ended in a sour note which left me feeling somewhat bleak.
After a good night’s rest I found the bleakness still surrounding me. I did my exercise routine and talked with a couple of friends, and I was determined to lift the blackness surrounding me. I didn’t want to write a sermon in the midst of my despair. Then I opened my e mails. There was a letter of sharing from a friend who hasn’t been in touch for years. It was a warm and glowing letter. It was as if whatever rift had existed between us had disappeared. I felt flooded with joy. The bleakness and despair had disappeared with only the memory of events still present in my mind. Lightness came shining into my life from the joy of a friendship renewed.
This past week the world has experienced an act of nature not seen since 1883. The death toll from the tsunami has yet to be determined. The reconstruction of lives is beyond comprehension. There is no easy answer to the grief experienced by people all over the world. Where is the light shining in this? It is in the rarely experienced outpouring of generosity from individuals, corporations, and nations. We do know how to open our hearts even when it seemed that this was no longer possible in a world overshadowed by self interest and greed.
The struggle and turmoil in Asia and Africa will not come quickly to an end. We must be prepared to continue to open our hearts and our pocketbooks to those in great need. We all can have a part in continue to let the light shine through our generosity.
The writer of the gospel of John is frequently more concerned with theology than the acts of Jesus amongst the people in his land. Yet the theology in the prologue to the Gospel of John does allow us to focus on the light, which is a central theme in this preacher’s gospel. It also reminds us to look to Jesus for the way in which he was involved in the world of his day.
The basis for his ministry in found early in the Gospel of Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. We know that this is a compilation of themes found throughout Jesus’ ministry.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
You are the light of the world. . . .Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. …
Love your enemies . . .
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear, is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Do not worry about tomorrow . . . today’s trouble is enough for today.
Do not judge . . .
In everything do to others as you would have them do to you. . . .
Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be a wise man who built his house o rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it has been founded on rock.”
These are words to remember and to guide our lives. These are the kinds of thoughts that can sustain us as we move through the moments of our lives. They also call us to know that as Christians we are called to a life of service and compassion. Justice is such a central theme in the message of Jesus to the world of his time and to all of us at all times.
It is sometimes hard to focus on justice when there is so much injustice in the world. Yet focusing on justice is one of the ways that we keep our light shining out into a dark and dreary world.
Perspective can be a significant help in finding light. I gave a friend a book entitled “The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker”. As he leafed through it he found cartoons of the 20’s that were making a political commentary as apt today as it was then. We obviously survived the 20’s, so there is hope that we will move through the current dilemmas of our day.
Keeping things in perspective allows our energy to continue to flow in ways that can serve justice and not mire us down in despair. I think that this is basic in keeping the light shinning in our lives.
Wendell Berry writes in his collection of poems entitled A Timbered Choir, this poem is simply titled Number VIII in the year 1989:
One day I walked imagining
What work I might do here.
The place, once dark, made clear
By work and thought, my managing,
The world thus made more dear.
I walked and dreamed, the sun in clouds;
Dreamer and day at odds.
The world in its great mystery
Was hidden by my dream
Today I make no claim;
I dream of what is here, the tree
Beside the falling stream,
The stone, the light upon the stone;
The day and dream are one.
I love being with my grandson. He is so in the moment and joy can be so radiant in his face. Being in the moment when some mishap happens, his mood changes, and yet how quick he is to recover. He lets go of the mishap and goes on to the next moment in his life. While too young to understand the poem just read, he embodies it. His day and his dream are one.
I love that we have a happy ark on the side of the church facing Highway 116. It is such a wonderful message of hope and humor. I recently drove by it to show a friend. She wanted to stop and get out and walk around it. It never occurred to me that the ark was more than symbol; it is also a place to view and take in the different aspects it presents. It is a way of keeping out light shining out into our community.
It is so impressive to me that there is a group of our members assembling each week to learn conversational Spanish so that when they go to Nicaragua in 2006 they will be able to talk to the people. It is another beacon of light.
In November and December the Drama Department at Analy High School put on the production, “The Laramie Project”. It is the story of the experience of a group of interviewers that talked to the people in Laramie over a period of many months about their experience living in a town that gained notoriety when a young Gay man was hung on a barbed wire fence and left to die. The drama was the way in which the townspeople began to accept what this experience meant to them and how it changed many lives and people came to grips with the destructiveness of hate. The message of the play was a message of hope. The performance of the cast was a message of hope. Another light shined in our community. It was also a story about justice and how people grew into accepting responsibility for letting hate grown in their community and resolved to be more aware of ways in which it can happen to all of us.
There is a wonderful picture on the front page of the Press Democrat showing a prayer vigil in Thailand where Thais and foreigners, Muslims, Christians, Buddhist, Jews and people of many faiths gathered together lighting candles outside of a shopping Mall. It is an image I want to keep in my mind when I hear people of judgment railing against those who don’t share the narrowness of their particular faith.
I take heart that there are people in Iraq who are beginning to assert themselves, not in defense of the American invaders, but in defense of their own values, against the carnage of the insurgents in that country. It is a small flicker of hope in a land where people have experience much horror and destruction.
I love the movies but I try to avoid those with unhappy endings. I know enough about unhappiness. I recently was watching a DVD of the movie “The Cold Mountain”. I had been warned that it did not have a happy ending so I turned it off when it showed the reuniting of the lovers and the joy they shared in each other. It was a much happier note on which to retire for the evening.
One of my concerns for the year 2005 is the Middle East and I want to find someway to be involved in the healing of relationships between Palestinians and Israelis. Last year I went to a program at Sonoma State in which an Israeli and a Muslim Mullah talked about their experience of being involved in the peace movement in both Israel and Palestine. Both risked their lives in coming together as Muslim and Jew and both were dedicated to expanding their dialogues to more and more people in that ravaged area. It was a light shining. It is an image I will keep. I hope we will have such a gathering here in Sebastopol this spring and can have Israeli’s and Palestinian’s in dialogue and that we can be a part of that dialogue. It is another way that we can honor the teachings of Jesus the keep our light out from underneath the bushel basket of our hurried lives.
One of my favorite Old Testament stories has to do with Sarah, the wife of Abraham. God tells her that at 80 or 90, she is going to conceive and a bear a son. She laughs at the preposterousness of such an idea. Now I know it’s a made up story and that the facts of Isaac’s conception and birth are not the point of the story. The point of the story is that the preposterous can happen and it is the faith in the unbelievable that marks us as Christians. Hope is a candle that is always aflame no matter how hard it may be to see or experience in certain moments of our lives.
I have two dear friends who live in the suburbs of Washington D. C. When they were finally ready to start a family the wife was already 39. For six years they spent thousands of dollars and endless hours taking medications, keeping records and visiting hospitals and clinics. At 45 they finally gave up. She was too old. And yes, she got pregnant, no medication, no in vitro fertilization implants, just pregnant in the old fashioned way. And nine months of a difficult pregnancy produced a whole and healthy daughter. Was it a miracle? Of course the birth of a child is always a miracle. It was also a wonderful light of joy shared by the parents, their family and their friends.
Yes, I know the other stories. My own first child, difficult to conceive, died in the process of being born. I grieved. But I decided to celebrate the nine months of joy my wife and I shared during the pregnancy. We were never to have another pregnancy but we did end up with two wonderful children. Grief, sadness, joy and life are a mixture most of us have experienced. If we look closely at our lives there is always the flame of hope and joy burning somewhere in our hearts.
Some of us, about half of us nationwide, a higher percentage in Sonoma County, are not happy with the way the national election turned out. There has been increased interest in explore immigration to other countries in the world for deeply concerned individuals. Most of those not pleased will stay right were they are. I must admit that I am one of those not pleased with the election but the idea of leaving my country because of the results of an election seemed out of keeping with my idea of what it means to be both a Christian and an American. I certainly have not given up my faith although the way some people interpret being a Christian is so different than mine, I wonder if we are all followers of the same Jesus. No I’ll stay and do whatever I can to continue to stand for justice and understanding. I stay committed to my identification as a Christian who participates in a church community of other Christians.
The Apostle Paul says in the closing verse of the 8th chapter of Romans, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, not angels, nor rulers, not things present, not things to come, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is certainly a scripture to remember during the days ahead.
It is not the President, nor the Supreme Court, nor the Senate nor the House of Representatives, nor the heads of corporations that will come between us and the love of God. Nor can we let the controversies ahead separate us from the love of each other. For we are a community bound together in the love of the spirit and in the spirit of love. It is not always easy to love our enemies, nor does loving our enemies mean submission to them or to their ideologies. What it means is that we remember that they are not objects to be hated, but people who are a part of God’s creation. These are easy words to say, but not always easy to practice. Yet that is what we are called to do. I will forget these words on occasion and so will many of you, but let us be aware when we stray and remember that we can always come back to the basic beliefs in creation that bind us together.
One of the survival techniques in a world of divisiveness is to look for the things that unite us. I like what some of the leaders of the civil rights groups championing gay and lesbian concerns said after the election. I read one article when a leader said, “The lesson I have learned from this election is that we need to spend more time educating than litigating.”
I think that we as a church could profit from the part about educating and our denomination is leading the way with its advertising campaign about who we are. I love the slogan “God is Still Speaking”. I also appreciate that they are talking about our inclusiveness. We have a lot of education we can do in our community about the way we deal with the justice issues we are facing. We also are in a position to demonstrate our inclusiveness not only those who are liberal and on the cutting edge but those who are more conservative in their beliefs. All have a place at the table of our Lord.
In about six weeks we are going to have an all church retreat. The emphasis is on listening. Some of this is listening to “the God who is still speaking”, some of it is listening to the issues in our community, our state, our nation and the planet that are needing our attention, and some of it is listening to each other that we might build a framework of ministry together. There may be an additional way for us to share our light in the community than the ways we have traditionally followed. The issue for us is to listen so that we might be more responsive to the ways, in which we can share the light of our faith in a world that desperately needs candles along the way.
This year I will celebrate my fiftieth anniversary of my ordination to the ministry. Never in my wildest dreams did I think my life would take me on the journey it has. I have so many members of people who have kept the light of faith glowing for me.
I’m sure if all of you would take a few moments that you could think of people in your life who have kept the light of hope glowing for you. You might even think of those for whom you have kept your light glowing. It is as we focus on the light in our lives that we see more clearly the vision of the message in John: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Small things keep the lights glowing in our lives and they are all about us. Take the hand of a person near you. For a moment look into their eyes. See the light that is there? Feel the warmth of the hand held. And if there is no one near enough for you to hold their hand or look into their eyes, conjure up an image of someone you care about and imagine yourself holding their hands and looking into their eyes. See the light that is there.
Now let go of your glance and the hand and hold your own hand. Feel the warmth that you generate in this simple act. Look around the sanctuary and see the people who are potentials lights along the way for you and for whom you, in your imperfections, are a potential light for them.
We are God’s Creation; we are bound together with all of creation. We are one with all there is. Let us rejoice as we move into this new year remembering the gifts we have received, the gifts that we have given and the gifts that are along the way of our many and varied journeys. We are God’s people. God is speaking through us. Let us shine in the darkness for ourselves and for the world that greatly needs our light.