Darkness and Light

Posted on January 15, 2012
Filed under Worship | by Don Leave a Comment

Reflections for January 8, 2012 – the First Sunday after Epiphany…

Some introductory thoughts: In recognizing our faith, worship & life journey this year as one of pausing to take time for some spiritual discernment… we moved last Sunday from celebrating Jesus as the Christ-child to celebrating ourselves within a spirituality of being children of God. And as we recall today that Jesus grew in wisdom as he matured into adulthood… we want to take note of the story of The Magi and the degree to which he might have been influenced by eastern wisdom. So we will reflect today on a spirituality of creation with its emphasis on the metaphors of darkness & light in pursuing a transcending immersion in a spirituality in which we see God in everything and in each other.

So we began with a hymn lifting up the spirituality of THE MAGI… one that helps us understand what worship is all about… and following their sighting of the star the lines go on…

As with joy steps they sped to that lowly manger bed,
There to bend the knee before one whom heaven and earth adore;
So may we with willing feet ever seek your mercy seat.

As they offered gifts most rare at that manger plain and bare,
So may we with holy joy, pure and free from sin’s alloy,
All our costliest treasures bring, Christ, to you from whom they spring.

… suggesting a spirit of joy in offering all that we are and have… putting self at the disposal of others… not a spirit of individualism but of community…

And there are some important lessons here. If we come thinking about me – How am “I” going to get “my” bucket filled? (a metaphor some have used) or – How do “I” get something that takes “me” through the week? So If we only come with our expectations… they may, or may not, be met… and then we may feel unfulfilled. But, if we are coming in the spirituality of the Magi… with total and joyful giving… the door is opened to the possibilities of receiving… and it’s just possible we might indeed get something fulfilling… we may find something to take us through the week… not always what we wanted but maybe what we needed. (One of these days we can devote some time to a spirituality of worship itself; but for now we might just reflect on the notion that it’s what we BRING to worship that determines what we might RECEIVE, not only for ourselves, but something that we can than SHARE as we go… as we say when candles are extinguished: Taking our LIGHT into the world….

Prompted by the star that led The Magi, we moved on to recite some excerpts from the mystical story of creation in the Book of Beginnings…

In the beginning when heaven and earth were evolving and everything was just a formless void and in deep darkness… God’s creative spirit began sweeping over the waters… and God said:
Let there be light, and there was light.
And God saw that the light was good and separated it from the darkness. God called light “Day” and darkness “Night”… and God said:
Let there be a canopy that separates the waters, and so it was.
And God called the canopy “the sky”… and there were two great lights in the sky… a greater one to govern the day and a smaller one with all the stars to govern the night… And God said:
Let the waters under ‘the sky’ be gathered into one area and let dry land appear. And so it was!
God called the dry land “earth” and the mass of waters “seas”… and the earth produced vegetation and all kinds of living things… and the seas produced fish… and the skies were filled with birds…
And God saw that it was good.
But God’s creative spirit was still at work as human beings began to evolve and God said:
Let them be care-takers of the earth and all living things…
And God looked at everything that was evolving… and God said:
IT IS VERY GOOD!

What the creation mythology of Genesis illustrates is a dialogue between faith stories and cultures… (shaped in those days when some of Jesus’ Judean ancestors were in exile in Babylon)… and it reflects a re-working of eastern mythologies regarding the beginnings and origins of life… re-shaping a dualistic conflict between LIGHT and DARKNESS into a monotheistic unity in which LIGHT (DAY) and DARKNESS (NIGHT) are both celebrated as GOOD…

A Reflective Hymn, O How Glorious, Full of Wonder, followed and one of its themes reflects a marveling at God’s mystic ways, acknowledging the God who became known in the mysticism of a prophetic imagination of those filled with The Spirit of God. And what comes through in the hymn is that even though humanity has too often failed in its calling to be care-takers of the earth and all living things… God never gives up on us and is always forgiving us and urging us on to a spirit of compassion and love… always urging and nudging us on in becoming and being the very image of God that we are meant to be – a spirituality expressed in the hymn lifting up this important principle – that Yours (is) the will our hearts are seeking – a spirituality in which The Spirit can then be speaking and living in us.

And that is what we see in the NEW and CREATIVE BEGINNINGS in the story of Jesus of Nazareth…. Mark 1:1-11…

The story of Jesus, called Christ and Son of God, based on the commentary of a follower of Jesus named Mark, begins with using the words of some prophetic mystics to describe the preaching of John the Baptizer . . .

A voice cries in the wilderness:
Prepare a way for Yahweh… a way for the coming of God . . .

and so it was that John appeared in the wilderness preaching an immersion in new ways of thinking and acting for the forgiveness of sin. People from all over the Judean countryside and from Jerusalem were coming to him for this baptism and were confessing their sin. John wore a garment of camel-hair with a leather belt around his waist, and he lived on locusts and wild honey. And in his preaching he said, “There is someone coming after me, someone more powerful than I am; indeed, I’m not worthy of kneeling down to undo the straps of his sandals. I’ve been baptizing with water, but he will baptize with the Holy Spirit.”

And that’s when Jesus arrived from Nazareth in Galilee to be baptized in the Jordan by John. Then, all at once, as he came up out of the water, he saw the heavens split open, and the Spirit coming down on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven was saying: “You are my Son, the Beloved, in whom I take great delight!”

When you hear that story, does it surprise you that Jesus was himself in need of… in search of… a new way of thinking and acting? That he was conscious of the sin of traditional religion… that he was conscious of the sin of the nation… and that he was conscious of the fact that as long as he remained silent and uninvolved, he was participating in that sin?

He might have privately harbored the spirituality of all of the mystical prophetic imagination that was always so evident in the scriptures of his ancestral faith story; and he might have privately understood the meaning of a covenant with God to pursue justice as a way of life; but until he became public about it, that spirituality meant nothing at all. Only when he began acting and preaching in those terms did it begin to make a difference in the lives of the oppressed and the poor… the marginalized and the outcasts… and it’s in anticipation of all that that he hears God’s stamp of approval: You are my Son, the Beloved, in whom I take great delight!

We went on to sing a reflective hymn, Touch the Earth Lightly . . .

Touch the earth lightly, use the earth gently, nourish the life of the world in our care:
Gift of great wonder, ours to surrender, trust for the children tomorrow will bear.

We who endanger, who create hunger, agents of death for all creatures that live,
We who would foster clouds of disaster—God of our planet, forestall and forgive!

Let there be greening, birth from the burning, water that blesses and air that is sweet,
Health in God’s garden, hope in God’s children, regeneration that peace will complete.

God of all living, God of all loving, God of the seedling, the snow, and the sun,
Teach us, deflect us, Christ reconnect us, using us gently, and making us one.

We noted the hymn reflected a spirituality in which we see God in everything and each other… and that in Christ we are reconnected with that ultimate concern of being united as a human family… and reconnecting us with a recognition of an interdependence of all living things… indeed, uniting us with The Spirit of God. It’s a spirituality expressed in a contemporary mystical prophetic imagination term called panentheism. It’s not a word you’ll find in most dictionaries; but you can google it and find 8500 pages with that word.

We celebrated those reconnections that invite us to remember we are created in the likeness and image of God… and went on to sing about that in the hymn, God, Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens… recalling that we share creative powers with God that can really make a difference in the world… and opening ourselves up to a spirituality in which we receive a guidance that makes our goals and the goals of God ONE AND THE SAME!

Then… in the spirit of the Magi… we brought our offerings and meditated through some offertory music….

And then, in acknowledging there are continuing realities of darkness & light in our lives… we lifted up the following Litany of Darkness and Light to introduce our prayers of joys and concerns… recognizing and taking note that God is present in both the darkness & light of life…..

We wait in the darkness, expectantly, longingly, anxiously, thoughtfully.
The darkness is our friend. In the darkness of the womb, we have all been nurtured and protected. In the darkness of the womb, the Christ-child was made ready for the journey into the light.
You are with us, O God, in darkness and in light.
It is only in the darkness that we can see the splendor of the universe – blankets of stars, the solitary glowing of distant planets. It was the darkness that allowed the Magi to find the star that guided them to where the Christ-child lay.
You are with us, O God, in darkness and in light.
In the darkness of night, desert peoples find relief from the cruel, relentless heat of the sun. In the blessed desert darkness, Mary and Joseph were able to flee with the infant Jesus to safety in Egypt.
You are with us, O God, in darkness and in light.
In the darkness of sleep, we are soothed and restored, healed and renewed.
In the darkness of sleep, dreams rise up. God spoke to Jacob and Joseph through dreams. God is speaking still.
You are with us, O God, in darkness and in light.
In the solitude of darkness, we sometimes remember those who need God’s presence in a special way – the sick, the unemployed, the bereaved, the persecuted, the homeless, those who are demoralized and discouraged, those whose fear has turned to cynicism, those whose vulnerability has become bitterness.
Sometimes in the darkness, we remember those who are near to our hearts – colleagues, partners, parents, children, neighbors, friends. We thank God for their presence and ask God to bless and protect them in all that they do – at home, at school, as they travel, as they work, as they play.
You are with us, O God, in darkness and in light.
Sometimes, in the solitude of darkness, our fears and concerns, our hopes and our visions rise to the surface. We come face to face with ourselves and with the road that lies ahead of us. And in that same darkness, we find companionship for the journey. In that same darkness, we sometimes allow ourselves to wonder and worry whether the human race is going to survive.
We know you are with us, O God, yet we still await your coming. In the darkness that contains both our hopelessness and our expectancy, we watch for a sign of God’s hope. [A litany prepared by Department of Parish Development and Mission, New Zealand]

We went on to pray The Prayer of The Children of God… Our Father…

And then, before leaving, sang a hymn as a final reminder that we do not own the creation… we are part of it… part of all that is…

We cannot own the sunlit sky, the moon, the wilds flowers growing,
For we are part of all that is within life’s river flowing.
With open hands receive and share the gifts of God’s creation,
That all may have abundant life in every earth and nation.

When bodies shiver in the night and, weary, wait for morning,
When children have no bread but tears, and war-horns sound their warning,
God calls humanity to wake, to join in common labor,
That all may have abundant life in oneness with their neighbor.

God calls humanity to join as partners in creating
A future free from want or fear, life’s goodness celebrating.
That new world beckons from afar, invites our shared endeavor,
That all may have abundant life and peace endure forever.

[Garnered from the worship experience at St. James United Church of Christ in Lovettsville, Va… January 8, 2012… the First Sunday after Epiphany]

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