In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Imagine with me for a moment that the person sitting next to you knows everything (and I mean everything) about you – even and especially what St. Paul describes in our epistle today as those “secret” and “unfruitful works of darkness,” which, from time to time, we all have wrought.
In Prayer Book parlance, he’s referring to those things “known and unknown,” things “done and left undone” that have become “grievous unto us,” whereby “we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep,” revealing – yea verily – there is “no health in us.”
But hold on and don’t get squeamish in your seat, thinking you’ve been discovered only to be chastised or written up. That’s not the goal of this little exercise and it’s certainly not the life-giving message of the gospel.
But – and I’m being quite serious now – if Lent is to truly prepare us for the joy and light of Easter, it does, we must face it, beckon us to seriously consider the reality of our “unfruitful works of darkness.”
But yet again, I must ask you to hang in there. Don’t tune me out yet or misunderstand me, because I have to tell you right up front that when St. Paul reminds the Ephesians of their “unfruitful works of darkness,” he, like me, isn’t nagging, brow beating or finger waving. He’s actually bringing up something much, much more serious.
He’s accusing the Ephesians of neglecting grace!
Notice how he begins the passage we have before us: “Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light.” Notice he doesn’t say, “Well, you’ve really done it now, you dumb reprobates; Jesus is really going to get you this time; your darkness has finally caught you and there is no hope.” No, he makes the shocking, radical and scandalous claim that those who are “in The Lord,” – even those whose works of darkness he says are too “shameful to mention” – are actually still LIGHT and should walk in the LIGHT because they are light! “Once you were darkness,” writes St. Paul, “but now in The Lord you are light. Live as children of the light.”
The issue in this little homily, then, is not about beating ourselves up over our “works of darkness” only to craft some grand plan for behavior modification that, like those pesky New Year’s resolutions, will only end up lasting about two days. Rather, on this Fourth Sunday in Lent, St. Paul is begging us to take it a step further, to stop neglecting grace and to do something much more risky and dangerous — but something infinitely more rewarding.
He tells us to expose our darkness to the Light. (And one more side note — All of us who are pompous enough to be tempted to cast stones upon our neighbor’s darkness, although we live in tinted glass houses, should remember he doesn’t say expose your neighbor’s darkness. This is about our own individual, spiritual darkness…so we can’t weasel out of this like the tax collector and Pharissee, saying, I thank you Lord that I’m not like my sinful neighbor.) St. Paul simply and firmly declares that our individual darkness should be exposed to the light…to the only balm that soothes the sin-sick soul.
And there’s the rub, is it not? Why am I so afraid of being found out and discovered? Why do I live in denial? (I love what Bill Watterson, the creator of the comic Calvin and Hobbs says about denial – “I’m not in denial; I’m just selective about the reality I accept.”) Why do I spend more time keeping my works of darkness tucked away in the dark than letting the Light of Christ do something to me and for me? Why am I so blind to the Light? And I know I’m in good company, beloved. Sometimes the way I deal with darkness is no better than a post-modern agnostic, who doesn’t even believe that sin exists and certainly doesn’t understand that light, forgiveness and love have the final answer. And you know the mindset I’m talking about; it’s incredibly popular in our day and age.
I love the story that Bishop Ed Salmon tells about working in the DC area before coming to Nashotah House. He kept noticing that lots of young college-aged folks were always in Starbucks near the parish he served in Chevy Chase and he finally hung around enough and drank enough skinny lattes that they invited him over to their table, where, like most young would-be intellectuals from Georgetown U, sat around and solved the problems of the world. Eventually they trusted him enough to let him speak. He invited them to the parish, saying, “You know, we’d love to have you visit the parish. We have four masses on Sunday and would love to have you join us.” He said one young guy looked at him and said, “Oh Bishop, we can’t do that. You Christians believe in sin and we only believe in love.” Bishop Salmon’s response is a classic. He looked at the guy and said, “You mean to tell me you live in Washington D.C. and you don’t believe in the reality of sin!?!”
Brothers and sisters, it is fundamentally impossible to overestimate the power that is released when our secret fears, sorrows, disappointments and sins are finally disclosed in a relationship of love, forgiveness and support. That is what happens when our works of darkness are exposed to the Light of Jesus Christ.
We may appear to have it all together, but not a single one of us does. Every human with a heartbeat has a secret sorrow, a quiet wound, a private desperation and certainly some works of darkness. And the one thing that scares us more than all of that stuff combined is the fear that we will be found out. And yet, our being “found out” by He who gives life and light to the world is exactly what we need in order to find freedom from our fear, solitude and darkness.
Jesus is the light of which St. Paul speaks and He is working to reveal Himself to us this Lent as the One who knows everything we have done, thought, felt, or suffered; He is the One who is with us throughout it all; He is the One who loves us unconditionally.
Jason Murbarger – excuse me – Fr. Jason Murbarger, with whom I was ordained, was always keen on reminding me in our seminary days that any old Tom, Dick or Harry can say the Creed, explain a perfectly coherent doctrine of sin and redemption and even perfectly describe the person and ministry of Jesus Christ. But, he always cautioned, that it’s an entirely different matter for someone to actually receive mercy, forgiveness and love and let it define our lives. In other words, that’s what a life lived as Light in the Light looks like. Want to walk as a child of the light? Want to follow Jesus? That’s what St. Paul’s 5th chapter of Ephesians – and indeed Lent – is all about.
So, on this, the fourth Sunday in Lent, let the last word be St. Paul’s:
“Sleeper, awake.
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
Sermon preached by the Rev. Charleston D. Wilson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
4th Sunday of Lent
30 March 2014