On December 28, 2014, I was blessed to preach my first sermon at St. Phillip's Episcopal Church in Circleville, Ohio. The text was the gospel for the day, John 1:1-18.
Word and Light
As many of you know, The University of the South and Sewanee, Tennessee has become my temporary home. A place atop the mountain, shrouded in mist and mystery, separated from the world, closer to God. It is a place of beautiful peace, removed from the noise and bustle of the OTHER world. Though the Domain of the University is a sacred space, it is not entirely immune to the darkness of our modern society.
At the start of this last term, my classmates and I journeyed on pilgrimage to Hayneville, Alabama, to honor the memory and sacrifice of Jonathan Myrick Daniels. Jonathan was a seminarian at Episcopal Divinity School in the early 1960’s. He answered the call of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to journey to Alabama and stand with the African American community in Montgomery and on the Selma March. After the march, many of Jonathan’s friends and classmates returned home to Massachusetts, but Jonathan remained to continue his work for the Civil Rights movement. During that summer of 1965, Jonathan befriended a young white catholic priest from Chicago, Fr. Richard Morrisroe, and someone you might have heard of, Miss Ruby Sales. Jonathan and his companions were arrested for their attempts at peaceful civil disobedience. They were jailed in the small town of Hayneville. After a few days of incarceration they were released without any explanation. Upon their release the group made their way to a local store to purchase some drinks. When they arrived at the store, they were met on the steps by the shop owner, holding a shotgun, and refusing to serve them. When young Ruby attempted to enter, the proprietor raised his weapon. Jonathan pulled her to safety, but in the event, took the bullet himself. More shots were fired and Fr. Richard sustained injuries. He would survive, but Jonathan was pronounced dead at the scene. Very soon thereafter, the shop keeper was put on trial for the murder of Jonathan Daniels. After rushed proceedings, the jury found the shopkeeper not guilty.
We returned to our safe mountain, struggling to process what we had just experienced. That week, a young man named Darren Wilson was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson Missouri. I will spare you the details as I am sure you know, but I could not shake what I had just experienced in Hayneville, while reading reports of the events in Ferguson.
Through the course of the semester, other such dramas continued to unfold. Not just matters of race, but war in Israel, ISIS in Iraq, death and disease, sexual violence on college campuses across this country, Sewanee not excluded. Violence and more school shootings, one just a few weeks ago. Hatred seemed to be everywhere. The darkness was deep, and it continued to encroach. The words I heard were of pain and fear, anger and confusion.
Then we entered the season of Advent. As one professor put it, Advent comes, whether you are ready for her or not. I love the season, I put up my decorations, lit the Advent candles each week, but I continued to struggle with the darkness. I was seeing a season of hopeful anticipation shrouded in shadow. The words I heard from the lectionary were of people walking in darkness, a thief in the night. Yet as I said, these came with a glimmer of hope with words of comfort and a promise of light. Then last week, the Annunciation and the Song of Mary.
To return to Jonathan Daniels for just a moment; it was the Magnificat which convicted Jonathan to answer the call and to put his vocation into action. To quote the song of Mary:
He has shown the strength of his arm,
He has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
And has lifted up the lowly and meek.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich he has sent away empty.
The words of Mary’s song continued to ring in my ears and enter my heart throughout the semester just as they had for Jonathan in his experience.
Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the Festival Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in All Saints Chapel at Sewanee. The service began in darkness, only the light of the flickering candles to remind us where we were. The University choir was stationed at the west end of the nave so that in our position we could not see but only hear. They sang the words of O Oriens, one of those ancient antiphons of the Advent season. Translated, the text reads, “O Morning Star, splendor of light-eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.” The readings and carols continued in subtle darkness, leading us to see with our hearts and not with our eyes. The final lesson of the evening was the Gospel passage we heard this morning. I was already thinking about this morning’s homily at the time and in doing so I prayerfully took note of two themes: word and light.
With these in mind, let us recall the text.
“In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God.”
Skipping ahead a few verses, “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 does not overcome it. There was
a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the LIGHT, so
that all might believe through him. He himself was not the LIGHT, but he came to testify to the
LIGHT. The true LIGHT, which ENLIGHTENS everyone, was coming into the world.”
Then in verse 14 we come to Christmas. “And the WORD became flesh and dwelt among us, and we
have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
I sat in my seat in the chapel and pondered this text. It sounded so very familiar, not only because I had been reading it in preparation for today, but from somewhere else. Oh yes, I remembered, in Genesis. At the start of creation there was darkness, and chaos covered the abyss of the earth; encroaching, swirling chaos and darkness, full of fear and anger and hatred and confusion. Then God spoke a WORD, “Let there be . . . LIGHT.”
From WORD and LIGHT was born creation; and now at Christmas we celebrate the new creation when WORD took on flesh to be the LIGHT of the world; an incarnation born to bring peace to the chaos and confusion. We know this WORD and LIGHT as Jesus, God incarnate. The translation we read for John says that he came and DWELT among us. The Greek word is εσκηνωσεν, which literally translates to tabernacled among us. As Father Dave offered last week, God now makes a home within each of us.
So as we enter the coming year how do we contend with the difficult WORDS of pain and hate and confusion in the world of DARKNESS? We speak the WORDS of love and peace, compassion and hope, so that we might take the incarnate WORD, the enfleshed LIGHT into a world so desperate for it, just as Jonathan Daniels did in his own time. In this we become what John the Baptist was, not the light ourselves, but witnesses to the light.
In the days following the grand jury decision in Ferguson, protests erupted in cities all over our country. At one such protest in Portland, Oregon, a twelve year old African-American boy carried a sign. This sign was not of anger or hate, this sign simply offered FREE HUGS. In one scene captured by a local photographer, the young man is giving one of his free hugs to a police officer sent to control the crowd. The photo has since been dubbed “The Hug felt round the World.” This image offers us just one example of being a witness to the light in a world that can only see darkness.
As the Collect for today says, “Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”
