Genesis 1:1-5
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
This sermon was written for last Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent, but was put off to this week because we had so much illness and absenteeism last week. This year I plan to group our Sunday Lenten discussions under the central theme of “Looking for God in the Dark,” and I wanted to wait until we were all here to introduce this topic. Today I want to look at what that word “dark” means to us – what it has meant historically in our theological language, and also get started on what it means for each of us as individuals.
From the very earliest days of Christianity – when that originally purely Jewish belief in a crucified and risen Lord began to grow outward into the European world – that thinking was heavily influenced by Greek philosophical thought of the time, which was heavily dualistic. Everything existed in paired opposites: Good/Evil; Spirit/Matter; Light/Darkness. These things were held pretty much in balanced opposition – with neither side triumphing over the other but in a state of continuous struggle for mastery.
The Greeks were not unique in thinking this way, either. The Zoroastrianism of the Persians – the next major culture to the east of the Hebrews – was also heavily dualistic, and the Persians had a huge cultural impact on the Jews of Old Testament times through war and exile, so such thinking had been introduced into Jewish thought long before Christ, and then strengthened by the Greek thought that came in with the Roman conquest. It was almost inevitable that the new-born Christianity would be influenced in this direction.
While Good and Evil and Spirit and Matter are more philosophical concepts, Light and Dark are things we live within every moment of our lives. Half of each 24 hours is spent in the light of the day, and half in the darkness of night – every single day of our lives. We know the difference between Light and Dark – we see it all around us – it is something knowable – and this makes this particular dualism a perfect metaphor for so many things. And Christianity fell right in with it.
How often is Jesus referred to as the Light of the World? Think of the hymn we began with today: The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin, the Light of the world is Jesus. It is hammered into us over and over and over: Light equals Good, Dark equals bad. This dualism has become so ingrained in us that we don’t ever think about it, or even recognize it - even when it is pointed out to us. We use it to rank social status, for instance: the poor live in little dark holes-in-the-wall, while the wealthy build their homes largely of glass and blazing with lights. It affects things as silly as our cultural preference for white flour over whole (dark) grains, and as deadly serious and insidious as our still all-too-painfully-common perception that people with light skins are somehow intrinsically “better” than those with dark skin. This light=good, dark=bad is so deeply ingrained in us that it shapes us in ways we never, ever think about.
But – did not God create the dark as well as the light? Are not both part of that Creation that God declares to be Good? To be VERY good?
When I was a child I was terribly afraid of the dark, but it was a carefully parsed out fear – applicable in some things but not in others. I grew up in a small town in the house my great-grandparents had built. It sat in a big lot - probably equal to 2 or 3 city lots today – and because it was already old it had lilacs as tall as the house, an ancient elm that was older than God, a fig tree I loved dearly and a big empty field just perfect for crawling through on my belly, playing cowboys. Some of my happiest memories are of summer evenings, long after the last daylight had gone, playing hide-n-seek in that big, dark space. I wasn’t afraid of that darkness. But when we went to bed and the lights were turned out the closet and the floor of my room became filled with unnamed horrors and I was terrified to turn over in bed.
I don’t recall ever sharing this fear with my mother or sister. I would have been embarrassed to admit to something so dumb. I just lay there, frozen in fear, until I fell asleep. And the interesting thing I’ve realized as an adult is that, even as young as 6 or 7 I knew perfectly well – intellectually – that this fear was ridiculous. I knew perfectly well there was no horror in the closet or under my bed. But knowing these things did not lessen my fear one bit. Because I really wasn’t afraid of monsters - I was afraid of that great “unknown” out there. I was afraid of things well beyond my control – beyond even my mother’s control – and when you’re small and your parents can’t control things it is time, in a child’s world, to be very afraid.
I recognize now that my fears were largely based in loss. There was a lot of death in my childhood and I needed the light to be able to see the people I had left so I could hang on to them and they couldn’t slip away in the darkness, too.
But this is exactly my point, this Lent – for each of us, our fears stem from different life experiences and darkness means different things. For some it may manifest itself in a fear of the literal dark. For others it may be a fear of the unknown future. For others it might be an unnameable fear that clouds our spirits. The dark takes many forms: depression, despair, poverty, illness, heartbreak, anger, jealousy...and on and on.
Where is the darkness is your life? What is the fear that lies at it's roots? My hope is that, over the weeks of Lent, we may be able to find – in ways we can truly believe – that God is, and has always been, in our dark places as well as the light. And maybe we can even find that we can learn to live at peace in that darkness, with the grace we find there.
This is not a new or original thought - people have been writing about it for years - not just 'getting through' our dark places but actually growing and learning from them -- finding comfort and affirmation in them. I admit to having been stimulated into thinking about the dark again by discovering and reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark. This is a wise woman and I hope to share some of her wisdom with you in the coming weeks, and maybe discover some of our own.
Here’s a sample of her thinking: When, despite all my best efforts, the lights have gone off in my life (literally or figuratively, take your pick), plunging me into the kind of darkness that turns my knees to water, nonetheless I have not died. The monsters have not dragged me out of bed and taken me back to their lair. The witches have not turned me into a bat. Instead, I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.
Next week I would hope that some of you may feel free to share some of your understanding of the dark and how we can find God there. Meanwhile, here is one more quote from Barbara Brown Taylor to ponder over until we gather here again for Part 2 – something she offers as “good news”: ...even when light fades and darkness falls – as it does every single day, in every single life – God does not turn the world over to some other deity.
Good News, indeed – to know that God is still one God, not two halves of a dualism.
From the very earliest days of Christianity – when that originally purely Jewish belief in a crucified and risen Lord began to grow outward into the European world – that thinking was heavily influenced by Greek philosophical thought of the time, which was heavily dualistic. Everything existed in paired opposites: Good/Evil; Spirit/Matter; Light/Darkness. These things were held pretty much in balanced opposition – with neither side triumphing over the other but in a state of continuous struggle for mastery.
The Greeks were not unique in thinking this way, either. The Zoroastrianism of the Persians – the next major culture to the east of the Hebrews – was also heavily dualistic, and the Persians had a huge cultural impact on the Jews of Old Testament times through war and exile, so such thinking had been introduced into Jewish thought long before Christ, and then strengthened by the Greek thought that came in with the Roman conquest. It was almost inevitable that the new-born Christianity would be influenced in this direction.
While Good and Evil and Spirit and Matter are more philosophical concepts, Light and Dark are things we live within every moment of our lives. Half of each 24 hours is spent in the light of the day, and half in the darkness of night – every single day of our lives. We know the difference between Light and Dark – we see it all around us – it is something knowable – and this makes this particular dualism a perfect metaphor for so many things. And Christianity fell right in with it.
How often is Jesus referred to as the Light of the World? Think of the hymn we began with today: The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin, the Light of the world is Jesus. It is hammered into us over and over and over: Light equals Good, Dark equals bad. This dualism has become so ingrained in us that we don’t ever think about it, or even recognize it - even when it is pointed out to us. We use it to rank social status, for instance: the poor live in little dark holes-in-the-wall, while the wealthy build their homes largely of glass and blazing with lights. It affects things as silly as our cultural preference for white flour over whole (dark) grains, and as deadly serious and insidious as our still all-too-painfully-common perception that people with light skins are somehow intrinsically “better” than those with dark skin. This light=good, dark=bad is so deeply ingrained in us that it shapes us in ways we never, ever think about.
But – did not God create the dark as well as the light? Are not both part of that Creation that God declares to be Good? To be VERY good?
When I was a child I was terribly afraid of the dark, but it was a carefully parsed out fear – applicable in some things but not in others. I grew up in a small town in the house my great-grandparents had built. It sat in a big lot - probably equal to 2 or 3 city lots today – and because it was already old it had lilacs as tall as the house, an ancient elm that was older than God, a fig tree I loved dearly and a big empty field just perfect for crawling through on my belly, playing cowboys. Some of my happiest memories are of summer evenings, long after the last daylight had gone, playing hide-n-seek in that big, dark space. I wasn’t afraid of that darkness. But when we went to bed and the lights were turned out the closet and the floor of my room became filled with unnamed horrors and I was terrified to turn over in bed.
I don’t recall ever sharing this fear with my mother or sister. I would have been embarrassed to admit to something so dumb. I just lay there, frozen in fear, until I fell asleep. And the interesting thing I’ve realized as an adult is that, even as young as 6 or 7 I knew perfectly well – intellectually – that this fear was ridiculous. I knew perfectly well there was no horror in the closet or under my bed. But knowing these things did not lessen my fear one bit. Because I really wasn’t afraid of monsters - I was afraid of that great “unknown” out there. I was afraid of things well beyond my control – beyond even my mother’s control – and when you’re small and your parents can’t control things it is time, in a child’s world, to be very afraid.
I recognize now that my fears were largely based in loss. There was a lot of death in my childhood and I needed the light to be able to see the people I had left so I could hang on to them and they couldn’t slip away in the darkness, too.
But this is exactly my point, this Lent – for each of us, our fears stem from different life experiences and darkness means different things. For some it may manifest itself in a fear of the literal dark. For others it may be a fear of the unknown future. For others it might be an unnameable fear that clouds our spirits. The dark takes many forms: depression, despair, poverty, illness, heartbreak, anger, jealousy...and on and on.
Where is the darkness is your life? What is the fear that lies at it's roots? My hope is that, over the weeks of Lent, we may be able to find – in ways we can truly believe – that God is, and has always been, in our dark places as well as the light. And maybe we can even find that we can learn to live at peace in that darkness, with the grace we find there.
This is not a new or original thought - people have been writing about it for years - not just 'getting through' our dark places but actually growing and learning from them -- finding comfort and affirmation in them. I admit to having been stimulated into thinking about the dark again by discovering and reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark. This is a wise woman and I hope to share some of her wisdom with you in the coming weeks, and maybe discover some of our own.
Here’s a sample of her thinking: When, despite all my best efforts, the lights have gone off in my life (literally or figuratively, take your pick), plunging me into the kind of darkness that turns my knees to water, nonetheless I have not died. The monsters have not dragged me out of bed and taken me back to their lair. The witches have not turned me into a bat. Instead, I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.
Next week I would hope that some of you may feel free to share some of your understanding of the dark and how we can find God there. Meanwhile, here is one more quote from Barbara Brown Taylor to ponder over until we gather here again for Part 2 – something she offers as “good news”: ...even when light fades and darkness falls – as it does every single day, in every single life – God does not turn the world over to some other deity.
Good News, indeed – to know that God is still one God, not two halves of a dualism.
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