Psalm 139:1-12
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
My original plan was to spend the Sundays of Lent meditating upon and talking about “Looking for God in the Dark.” What with one thing and another, today is the 4th Sunday in Lent but this is only our second talk on darkness. That’s how things work out sometimes. God had other plans for those other weeks.
Each of us has had times of light and times of darkness. Some of us have seemed to skip through life with grey and cloudy times, but no real blackness. Others of us have spent small eternities in hell. Darkness takes many forms: worry, confusion, grief, guilt – if you find it helpful to do so feel free to substitute “fear” for the word darkness in any these discussions. That is basically what our talk of trying to find God in the dark boils down to – fear that we somehow deserve our misery; fear of the unknown lying before us; fear of loss; and, overall, a fear God has left us here in the dark, with no light to show us the way out.
Before we go any further, let me state, quite simply and loudly, that I do not (repeat, DO NOT) for one moment believe that God ever puts us in the dark to teach us a lesson. I think that is a hideous teaching and quite unworthy of the good God who loves us beyond measure. If we heard of a person who deliberately infected a child with a deadly illness to teach them some sort of lesson we would classify that person as abusive and mentally ill. And yet, people quite casually accuse God of this kind of behavior, and much worse. Don’t fall for it. Bad things happen. It is the nature of human life. God does not send them to us.
So, God doesn’t cause our dark times – our times of fear and suffering – but yet we can and should – we MUST look for God there with us – and if we allow God to be with us and love us then we find hope and healing there, as well - even in the darkness.
You know I wasn’t here last week (at least I hope you noticed I was gone!) because I was in Sacramento with my son, Joel, who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He is undergoing some really nasty hardcore chemo right now and simply cannot work, and, like too many of us – no work equals no paycheck. So a group of his friends - many of them going all the way back to Junior High – put together a benefit concert to raise money to help him pay his bills. It was a most incredible day – filled with incredibly beautiful people – many, as I said, old friends, but many others just people who heard about it and wanted to be part of doing something to help. I can still hardly talk about it without crying – there was so much love and goodness there in that one building. God was so very present among us. When you are a parent whose child (of whatever age) has a possibly life-threatening illness, it can seem pretty darn dark and fear does it’s best to take over inside your head. But this kind of love can do wonders against that fear.
A friend mentioned after my first ‘darkness’ message that they found God most easily in the darkness, because everything is quiet and it seems there is only God and you – no distractions. This is the physical darkness that we occasionally seek out specifically to spend time with God.
But there are the times when the darkness is not of our own seeking and we have lost even God and are afraid we are truly out there all alone – those are the times of true terror and despair. And when we finally do hear God’s voice (which has been speaking to us all along - it just takes longer some times than others for us to hear) – then it is more grace-filled, more life-giving – then it truly becomes a word we will carry with us forever.
My point here is, as Barbara Brown Taylor, the author whose book started all this for me, says: “...new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.” We do not choose the paralyzing, fear-filled kind of darkness, but new life can begin even here. We learn in the dark that our fear is not really running the show. If we have to be in the dark of fear and uncertainty, we can at least choose to accept any new growth and new hope we find there, and carry them with us - long after we are released from that particular trauma.
My bet is that we have each of us experienced that kind of darkness for ourselves or a loved one. I’d ask you to think about that for yourself, but first I have one more story to share. I was watching the evening news a couple of days ago when I saw a story about a man named Chris Rosati. Mr. Rosati is living with ALS - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. It is medically manageable to some extent, but there is no cure and, from all I've heard, is not a kind way to go. And yet, this man, confined to a wheelchair and growing weaker all the time, is spending his remaining life spreading as much kindness in the world as he can manage. He points to the "Butterfly Effect" which is part of Chaos Theory and refers to the tiny change cause by the movement of a butterfly’s wing, which can, by spreading out through time and space, eventually grow to the force of a hurricane.
He chooses to participates by randomly handing out $50 to people and challenging them to use it to do something kind. Sometimes he hears back, and sometimes he doesn’t. But as word of mouth passes on his story, his kindnesses grow - spreading out away from him like waves on a pond – the butterfly effect. I know nothing about this man’s beliefs, but he has clearly found a way to do something other than sit and curse the darkness. And it appears to feed him as much as those his kindnesses touch. (I posted a link about him on our facebook page - you can read about one example of his giving there.)
New life begins in the darkness.....Have you had an experience of one day finding yourself beyond darkness? A time when you have actually moved through and beyond what had seemed at the time to be an all-encompassing, never-ending darkness? A time when you found yourself on the other side, in a new life - one where you had never dreamed of being - one to which you have been led by what you learned and experienced in the dark?
Have you known the presence of God in the darkness with you?
Each of us has had times of light and times of darkness. Some of us have seemed to skip through life with grey and cloudy times, but no real blackness. Others of us have spent small eternities in hell. Darkness takes many forms: worry, confusion, grief, guilt – if you find it helpful to do so feel free to substitute “fear” for the word darkness in any these discussions. That is basically what our talk of trying to find God in the dark boils down to – fear that we somehow deserve our misery; fear of the unknown lying before us; fear of loss; and, overall, a fear God has left us here in the dark, with no light to show us the way out.
Before we go any further, let me state, quite simply and loudly, that I do not (repeat, DO NOT) for one moment believe that God ever puts us in the dark to teach us a lesson. I think that is a hideous teaching and quite unworthy of the good God who loves us beyond measure. If we heard of a person who deliberately infected a child with a deadly illness to teach them some sort of lesson we would classify that person as abusive and mentally ill. And yet, people quite casually accuse God of this kind of behavior, and much worse. Don’t fall for it. Bad things happen. It is the nature of human life. God does not send them to us.
So, God doesn’t cause our dark times – our times of fear and suffering – but yet we can and should – we MUST look for God there with us – and if we allow God to be with us and love us then we find hope and healing there, as well - even in the darkness.
You know I wasn’t here last week (at least I hope you noticed I was gone!) because I was in Sacramento with my son, Joel, who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He is undergoing some really nasty hardcore chemo right now and simply cannot work, and, like too many of us – no work equals no paycheck. So a group of his friends - many of them going all the way back to Junior High – put together a benefit concert to raise money to help him pay his bills. It was a most incredible day – filled with incredibly beautiful people – many, as I said, old friends, but many others just people who heard about it and wanted to be part of doing something to help. I can still hardly talk about it without crying – there was so much love and goodness there in that one building. God was so very present among us. When you are a parent whose child (of whatever age) has a possibly life-threatening illness, it can seem pretty darn dark and fear does it’s best to take over inside your head. But this kind of love can do wonders against that fear.
A friend mentioned after my first ‘darkness’ message that they found God most easily in the darkness, because everything is quiet and it seems there is only God and you – no distractions. This is the physical darkness that we occasionally seek out specifically to spend time with God.
But there are the times when the darkness is not of our own seeking and we have lost even God and are afraid we are truly out there all alone – those are the times of true terror and despair. And when we finally do hear God’s voice (which has been speaking to us all along - it just takes longer some times than others for us to hear) – then it is more grace-filled, more life-giving – then it truly becomes a word we will carry with us forever.
My point here is, as Barbara Brown Taylor, the author whose book started all this for me, says: “...new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.” We do not choose the paralyzing, fear-filled kind of darkness, but new life can begin even here. We learn in the dark that our fear is not really running the show. If we have to be in the dark of fear and uncertainty, we can at least choose to accept any new growth and new hope we find there, and carry them with us - long after we are released from that particular trauma.
My bet is that we have each of us experienced that kind of darkness for ourselves or a loved one. I’d ask you to think about that for yourself, but first I have one more story to share. I was watching the evening news a couple of days ago when I saw a story about a man named Chris Rosati. Mr. Rosati is living with ALS - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. It is medically manageable to some extent, but there is no cure and, from all I've heard, is not a kind way to go. And yet, this man, confined to a wheelchair and growing weaker all the time, is spending his remaining life spreading as much kindness in the world as he can manage. He points to the "Butterfly Effect" which is part of Chaos Theory and refers to the tiny change cause by the movement of a butterfly’s wing, which can, by spreading out through time and space, eventually grow to the force of a hurricane.
He chooses to participates by randomly handing out $50 to people and challenging them to use it to do something kind. Sometimes he hears back, and sometimes he doesn’t. But as word of mouth passes on his story, his kindnesses grow - spreading out away from him like waves on a pond – the butterfly effect. I know nothing about this man’s beliefs, but he has clearly found a way to do something other than sit and curse the darkness. And it appears to feed him as much as those his kindnesses touch. (I posted a link about him on our facebook page - you can read about one example of his giving there.)
New life begins in the darkness.....Have you had an experience of one day finding yourself beyond darkness? A time when you have actually moved through and beyond what had seemed at the time to be an all-encompassing, never-ending darkness? A time when you found yourself on the other side, in a new life - one where you had never dreamed of being - one to which you have been led by what you learned and experienced in the dark?
Have you known the presence of God in the darkness with you?
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