This sermon was delivered at the One Worship service at St. John's, Ellicott City. It's an informal, outdoor liturgy, and the sermon was delivered without a manuscript. Variations from delivery guaranteed. I am grateful to Jim Harnish and Christine Parton Burkett for inspiration and to Michael Brown for the story from the ministry of Leslie Weatherhead.
A few years ago now, a friend of mine asked me to preach for her
while she was vacationing in Greece.
(I can assure you that she got the better end of that deal.)
She offered to let me stay at the parsonage the Saturday night before Sunday morning,
and before she left she sent me detailed instructions for how to operate everything
in her home from the dishwasher to the oven to the alarm system.
Now, I should confess to you that I am not the world’s most technologically savvy person,
but as I skimmed through the instructions for everything from the coffee pot to the washing machine,
I thought to myself, “I am a capable person. I can do this.”
You see where this is headed already.
When I arrived at her house that Saturday evening, I let myself in.
With the instructions to the alarm in hand, I made my way to the laundry room and the control panel.
I entered the code according to the sheet and then I was to hit the “off” button.
But there was no “off” button. Just an infernal beeping …
that was getting louder and faster as the seconds ticked by.
But there was still no “off.”
Finally, with an ear drum-piercing wail, my time to find “off” ended.
I had visions of a SWAT team surrounding the parsonage and then carting me off to the Union Co jail.
After what seemed an eternity of wailing, the phone rang.
It was a very serious man, named Chuck from AlarmForce, calling from Dubuque.
Chuck was calling to make sure everything was alright.
“No, Chuck,” I told him. “Everything is not alright.”
He didn’t seem to care all that much. He just had two questions:
who are you? what are you doing there?
I tried to explain. My name was Nathan, and I was the visiting preacher who couldn’t find the “off” button.
Chuck seemed unimpressed, until I gave him the magic password which proved I was alright.
He remotely deactivated the alarm and hung up,
leaving me alone with an alarm system that was flashing "not ready to arm."
I worried that the Union Co sheriff might descend on the house at any moment,
with the same two questions: who are you and why are you here?
So, I took every card out of my wallet that had my picture and my name on it and held it in my left hand,
while holding my alb, stole, and Bible in the other.
What my Sam's card couldn't prove, the Bible might.
Long story short,
the sheriff never came.
After an hour of nervously waiting on the porch, I went in the house again
to face "not ready to arm."
In the years since that Saturday evening,
I have come to see how Chuck’s questions are
ones that we live beside and bump up against throughout our lives.
Who are you? What are you doing?
Almost entirely regardless of who we are, there they are:
who are you? What are you doing here? again and again.
The scriptures offer some help in answering them.
In the reading from Genesis 1, we hear of a cosmic, created order
in which we take place as Godmade, loved, and good.
That's who we are.
In the verses beyond the reading, we hear that we are made
in the image of God -- giving us some sense of why we are here
and what we ought to be doing here.
Of course, the interesting part, though,
is that the Scriptures spend more time worrying
not about who we are as individuals and what we are doing here as individuals,
but about who we are and what we are doing here
as a community, as a community of faith, as the Church.
In John 1,
we are told that Jesus is the Light that is coming into the world,
the Light that darkness can never overshadow,
the Light that shines on all people.
It is amazing, then, that this same One who is Himself the Light of the World,
in the fifth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, turns to His followers and says,
"You are the Light of the World." As He is, so you shall be in the world.
You really shouldn't read John 1 apart from Matthew 5 and the sermon on the mount.
That which He is in the world, we are called to be for the world, too.
The Apostle Paul says it this way in Philippians,
"in this age, you shine like stars in the sky."
it is who you are as a church;
it is who we are as the Body of Christ.
Here, at St. John's,
you say it this way: "be the Light."
But when we remember and embrace this identity, there comes with it an obligation.
The difficulty of being the Light and bearing the Light
is that we must wade into darkness.
If we are to be the Light of the World
then we must go where the Light of the World led -- straight into the darkness,
we must be with those who sorrow and suffer,
we must be those who know more than their share of tragedy and temptation.
If we are the Light, then this is what we are doing here.
The story’s told that,
in the darkest days of the second World War,
the famous preacher Leslie Weatherhead was preaching
at a church in Inner City London, in one of the roughest parts of town.
He didn’t worry that much about it because he had his collar and his Bible.
Then one night, after the service, he was walking from church,
when the air raid sirens sounded, and the city was plunged into darkness.
And he realized that, in the darkness, no one could see the collar,
and no one could see the Bible.
And he was afraid.
Then, he heard footsteps behind him, and he was really afraid.
He slowed down, the footsteps slowed down;
he sped up, they sped up.
Finally, not knowing what else to do,
he wheeled around, faced the dark and shouted,
“Who are you and what do you want from me?”
And there came a tearful reply from a child who said,
“Mister, I’m scared, and I need someone to stay close to.”
Not far from this place,
there is a parent who watched the President address the nation on Wednesday night,
and all he or she could hear was the darkness of another year with a child in harm's way on foreign soil.
Not far from this place,
there is a coworker who knows the deep darkness of being desperately alone.
Not far from this place,
there is a child who knows the darkness of being bullied or beaten ... by parent or sibling or classmate.
Not far from this place,
there is a person who knows the darkness of spending another night on the streets,
wondering when and if the next meal will come.
Not far from this place,
there is a person who lives in the darkness of shame and stigma,
under the shadow of prejudice and persecution.
Not far from this place,
there is someone in the darkness crying out,
"Mister, I'm scared, and I need someone to stay close to."
And in their darkness,
you are the Light.To them, you bring the Light.
And why wouldn't you?
It's who you are, and what you're doing here.
