Sermon of December 31, 2006
Dr. Jim Standiford, Senior Pastor “A NEW LIGHT”Ecclesiastes 3:1-13 |
Come, Lord Jesus. Fill our minds with your word. Fill our hearts with your love. Fill our lives with your light. Come, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen. Through Advent we were preaching on the theme, “Light Shines in Our Darkness.” The light is the presence of God in Jesus Christ. Since we have celebrated Jesus’ birth in Christmas, we now look to the future, and today I invite you to think with me about “A New Light.” This will be the first sermon in a new year’s series, each with the word new in the title. Thus they will be “New” Sermons. Raccoons visit our backyard goldfish pond with great regularity late at night or very early in the morning. They make a terrible racket trying to get to the goldfish. Consequently, I find myself, along with our two barking dogs, trying to scare them away. I’m sure all we usually accomplish is to waken the neighbors. Two problems have confounded the process. I can never locate the one flashlight we have in the house and it offers a terribly weak light. For Christmas I received two new high- powered, industrial strength, steel encased flashlights. They are more like portable searchlights. They are the equal of the light of God’s glory that shone on the shepherds on our hill here on Christmas Eve. There is almost a recoil factor when one turns them on. I can’t wait to surprise the raccoons with this new light. What new light do you take into the new year? There are some who would say there is no new light. According to these people life doesn’t ever change. It is always the same. They experience nothing new. There is no turning of the tide. Their attitude is well summed up in the statement from Ecclesiastes, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” This attitude asserts that it doesn’t matter what we do because it won’t make any difference anyway. All life is on some predetermined course we can’t change. Certainly there are times in each of our lives when that feels like the truth. There are also times when world conditions seem to be on some collision course with disaster and it feels like we can’t make any difference. The writer of Ecclesiastes lived in a time when the worldview was greatly influenced by such skepticism. What we have as the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament is most likely a lecture from a professional wisdom teacher in the Hellenistic period, probably around 300 B.C. He is very aware of the transience of life. His understanding of time is very much like verse five of our opening hymn, “O God Our Help in Ages Past”: “Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all her sons away. They fly forgotten as a dream fades at the break of day.” This depressing skepticism, which reflects a determinism verging on predestination, dominated Ecclesiastes’ time and writing. Yet this is not his message. Rather in our text today he states there are times and seasons for everything. There is variety in life and changing life situations enable us to change. For those caught in oppression – violence and the downward spiral of poverty – this is a good word, a word of hope and encouragement. Similarly to what God says in Job, Chapter 38, Ecclesiastes says humans can’t know everything God knows. Yet he affirms a confidence in God. In the New International Version it reads like this: “God has made everything beautiful in its time. God has also set eternity in the hearts of people, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in their work—this is a gift of God.” (v.11-13) Every time has a purpose and is an opportunity that invites a particular action. As we stand at the end of one year and prepare to enter another; this is a ripe time, a time of possibility, potential, and hope. It is a time to shine a new light. In the passage from Matthew, Jesus tells what some scholars call an apocalyptic drama. It is not a parable, for parables start with a this-worldly scene and then modulate into a new dimension of meaning. This scene begins as an other-worldly depiction and modulates into affirmations and encouragement for this-worldly actions. Jesus has already called himself the son of man, so he is speaking here of himself in a future role at the end of time. He will be like a messianic shepherd and judge, separating the sheep and goats. The sheep are the blessed ones, those who have cared for others. The goats are cursed because they have not expressed care. There are no questions of faith asked at this judgment, no questions about one’s background, or political ideology. What counts, what judges us, is whether we have acted with loving care toward others. Jesus has already called himself the son of man, so he is speaking here of himself in a future role at the end of time. He will be like a messianic shepherd and judge, separating the sheep and goats. The sheep are the blessed ones, those who have cared for others. The goats are cursed because they have not expressed care. There are no questions of faith asked at this judgment, no questions about one’s background, or political ideology. What counts, what judges us, is whether we have acted with loving care toward others. By placing this drama just before the trial of Jesus, Matthew is asking his church, are you living as Jesus lived? Are you following his example? He is saying to the church, even as those who feel oppressed by the entire Roman Empire, those who feel like outsiders, those rejected and persecuted, you can still live as followers of Christ. This was a word at a pivotal time. It was a word to a people tempted to give up. The drama states life is not determined by the powers of this world as strong and oppressive as they are. The determinates of your life are not your ethnic background, those who hold power, or what party is in control. What determines the ultimate end of our lives is whether we have demonstrated care for others. Matthew is saying to his church, you know how to live, follow the example of Christ. To put it another way, there are some who view the Kingdom of God as an apocalyptic dream, as something that will take place only at the end of time. The Kingdom of God will only come about when all else is brought to fruition. But Matthew is saying no, the Kingdom of God is now. Jesus has been living this way, and you and I can too, and that is the beginning of the Kingdom of God here and now. In this past week, two heads of state have died. Gerald Ford is being remembered as one who used his energy to try and bring our nation together. He is being remembered as a healer. Sadam Hussein is being remembered as one who divided his nation, who set one people against another, who was a mass murderer. Those are polar opposite examples. They are dramatic examples of what it means to be a part of the Kingdom of God and what it means to be working against the Kingdom of God. Cory Booker is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He grew up in the projects of that city. He said in a recent NPR interview there was one person who helped him more than anyone else. An older woman, also from the projects, told him one day, “What you see is a projection of what’s inside you. If all you can see in these projects is a slum, violence, and drugs, that’s what’s inside you. But if you have hope in you, then even in this slum you will be able to see small but sure signs of hope.” Christ has come to us once again. The light of Christ once again shines in us. What do we see? Are we a new light shining forth the light of Christ by our action? At the end of our service today we will sing a variation on the second verse of “O Come All Ye Faithful.” This variation is written by Cynthia Douglas. It is from a collection called “Carols With Justice,” which seeks to connect the message of Jesus with real-life in our time. What do we see in our selves and the world around us; do we see cause for pessimism, skepticism and depression, or do we see opportunities for faithful living? Will the new light shine from our lives? Too often we study, pray, and worship, but then fail to act. Being mind-ful is empty if we are heart-less. We need an interrelationship of heart, mind, and strength—of feeling, thinking and acting to bear witness to God’s presence in life. As we move to a new year let us do so full of faith in God. Let us express that faith in our actions. One possibility for action is our Big Mission Project. I hope you are prayerfully and positively considering being a part of this effort. The first endeavor is to volunteer in the schools in mid-city. If you would like to help elementary age students with their reading, I remind you of the training this Saturday, nine to noon, in the Cove. You may sign up to be a part of the project and for this training session in the church office. Let your new light shine. The movie Casualties of War tells the true story of a squad of soldiers which fought in the Vietnam War. While there they both saw and participated in some terrible crimes. One of their crimes was to abduct and rape a young Vietnamese girl. The lead role in the film is played by Michael J. Fox. He takes on the character of a Private Erikson, a soldier who is part of the squad but didn’t join in the abduction and rape. As he struggles with what has happened, he says to the other men in his squad, “Just because each of us might at any second be blown away, we’re acting like we can do anything we want, as though it doesn’t matter what we do. I’m thinking it’s just the opposite. Because we might be dead in the next split second, maybe we gotta be extra careful what we do. Because maybe it matters more. Maybe it matters more than we ever know.” Let us choose to be a new light for Christ.
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