Light Joined to Light

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
March 26, 2006
The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Light Joined To Light
Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21

Which is it?
You want it both ways.
but you cannot have it both ways.
You want it your way,
convinced of your own sense of righteousness,
convinced of your own sense of faithfulness.
But when was the last time you looked in the mirror?
Really looked in the mirror?
You cannot answer because you have been too busy
looking at others,
talking about them,
complaining about them,
their faults, their faithlessness.
If you were to look in the mirror
you would not like what you see looking back at you,
for you would see someone who was dead:
Dead in the flesh,
because that person in the mirror is focused on the flesh,
lives in the flesh.

You think yourself alive,
but you are not.
In order to be alive, you must live in the Spirit,
live through the Spirit,
be guided by the Spirit,… be filled with Spirit.
But you -
you are filled with your own desires, your own whims,
your own feelings.

You hear the words, but denial washes over you:
“he’s not talking about me;
he’s talking about someone else.
I am filled the Spirit,
I am righteous;
I walk in the ways of the Lord.”
But you deceive yourself.
Your eyes are open but you do not see;
your ears are open, but you do not hear.

Your heart is not open,
nor is your mind.
You have walled them up,
closed them off.
You have been the master mason,
laying every brick in place,
binding them with the mortar of
arrogance and self-righteousness,
building the wall higher, stronger, more impenetrable.

Have you not heard?
Have you not seen?
No you have not, for you have been too busy talking,
too busy justifying your own actions;
too busy complaining about the actions and words of others.
Don’t look away,
Don’t turn away,
for God will speak to you
here and now.

Deny it at your peril.
Deny it all you like,
but the fiery fangs have already pierced your flesh
and the venom is coursing through you.
And only the power of God’s love can save you.

A scene in the desert three thousand years ago?
Or a scene here and now?
The answer of course is both.
We think we are different from our ancestors in faith,
that we are better, that we have improved ourselves,
over the past 3,000 years.
But don’t we continue to follow the same path
as the children in the desert?
Are we really any different from the men and women
who followed Moses out of Egypt and into the wilderness?

Here it is the middle of Lent
and we still deny we need healing,
that we need to repent.
We say we are all right;
if there is a problem, it is the other person.
Three thousand years have passed and are we any different?
We carp, we criticize, we condemn, we complain.
Family members, neighbors, one another here in church -
our focus is always on the other person,
he or she is the one with the problem, never yourself.
Even now, as I say these words,
who are you thinking about?
Whose image has taken front stage in your mind?
A spouse? A parent? A friend?
Someone here in this church?
Why isn’t the image of yourself?
How many more times do you want to be bitten?
How much more venom do you want to flow through your veins?
Why won’t you surrender to God?
Why won’t you seek healing?

We think ourselves different from the complaining crowd
following Moses through the desert,
and we are: we don’t feel the bite.
We are not even aware of the bite,
but we have been bitten
just as surely as our ancestors in faith
had been 3,000 years ago.
They complained, complained about God,
complained about the man God called to lead them,
and with every complaint, venom filled them.
Complaints begetting complaints;
Complaining voices, angry voices
through the centuries,
until they culminated in a chorus
intoxicated with power
shouting “Crucify! Crucify!”

And the voices succeeded; they got their way:
and the world fell into darkness,
the light of the world gone,
God’s light extinguished.
And all men and women dead;
dead in the flesh,
dead still;
dead because we deny we need healing;
“I don’t need healing
but I know at least at least three people who certainly do.”
Admit it: that’s what you think;
that’s what you say.
And in thinking that, saying that,
you acknowledge you are dead.
Acknowledge that you prefer the darkness.

In his book entitled “To Heal a Fractured World”,
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain,
tells of an old story that speaks of God’s light
being so bright after creation
that it was too much for humanity,
and so the light was fractured and broken
by disobedience and sin,
light beams scattered everywhere.
Our calling as children of God is to find those light beams
and gather them up and bring them together.
Your job as a child of God is simple:
Find just one beam of God’s light
and carry it with you into your home, your work,
this church, everywhere.
Join your beam with that of another
and the world will become that much brighter:
Light joined to light
love joined to love.

The other option you have is overlook the light beam
and spend your time like the children in the wilderness
complaining, complaining,
Carping, criticizing, condemning,
living in darkness, living in denial,
living without healing.
If you are not busy gathering light,
joining beam to beam, you are dead,
dead, dead in the flesh
But if you focus on gathering God’s light beams,
you are alive to the Spirit, alive to Christ.
healed, purged of the venom that fills you in the flesh.

Your healing in the light cannot begin
until you acknowledge your need for healing.
And healing is yours not through a bronze serpent on a pole
but through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Healing love just waiting for you in Jesus Christ.
Healing love even though you walk in darkness;
healing love even though you are filled with venom;
Healing love to help you find the light.

“God did not send the Son into the world
to condemn the world….” (John 3:17)
God sent his Son to save the world,
save the world,
to save you, to save you from death by your own hand,
your own words, your own acts.
God sent his Son to heal, to lead, to teach,
for us to follow,
follow in how he lived his life.
Follow so that we might be gatherers, gatherers of light
bringing light and love.

Anthropomorphism is a big word,
and one we don’t use very often.
It means attributing human features
to something that is not human.
We do that with God to help ourselves understand God.
So, in the wonderful Old Testament blessing
we say, “The Lord make his face to shine upon you…
The Lord lift up his countenance and give you peace.”
(Numbers 6:25)
We want to think of God’s face smiling, shining on us.
We speak of God as merciful, loving, kind and forgiving.
using human characteristics to describe God.
What Rabbi Sacks reminds us, though is that when we ascribe
these behaviors to God,
we are doing more than just describing God;
we are setting the standard for ourselves and our own lives.
If God is merciful, loving, kind, and forgiving,
then we are called to be merciful, loving, kind, and forgiving.

We are called to work at becoming more godly,
more Christ-like in how we live, how we treat one another,
how we go through every hour of every day.
We cannot do that if we are filled with venom,
dying in the flesh, walking on the same path
as the children in the desert.
Thomas a Kempis, the 15th century theologian,
wrote in his masterful work “The Imitation of Christ”
“If only we were completely dead to self…
we could savor spiritual things.”
But we are not dead to self, he tells his reader:
for we prefer to stay focused on our lives in the flesh:
the things you want, the world your way,
and still denying that you are that way.

God watches us live our lives in ways that kill us,
hear us speak words to one another that are venomous
killing two spirits simultaneously, the speaker and the hearer.
God watches us continually choose paths
that lead to darkness and death,
away from his light, his love, and his life.

But God never loses his hope in us.
for through Christ, we are offered new life,
here and now.
All we need to do,
all you need to do is acknowledge your own darkness,
your own venomous ways,
your own selfishness,
your own self righteousness.
And God will wash you clean;
life will begin anew.

But that isn’t the hardest part;
the hardest part is working at the new life,
not to slide back to old ways, old habits.
The hardest part is looking to God to help you through the Spirit
to navigate through each day,
to help you focus more and more on living in the Spirit,
and less and less on yourself
as you seek the light.

You need no bronze serpent to be healed,
you only need the love of God that is ours, yours,
in Jesus Christ.
And what does Jesus teach us:
it is by our love for one another
that we are known as his disciples.
Love for one another:
by your efforts in gathering light
and helping others as they seek to gather light,
so we can join light to light, beam to beam
that God’s light might shine that much brighter.
As Sacks writes,
“And when light is joined to light, mine to yours …,
the dance of flames, each so small,
yet together so intricately beautiful,
begins to show that hope is not an illusion.” 271
That we can truly create a community
that is the Body of Christ
here in this church,
and then from this church take that light out into the world.

Sacks concludes his book by writing,
“We are here because God brought us into being in love
and gave us work to do, saying in his still small voice,
‘Bring a fragment of my presence into the lives of others.” 253
Are you doing that?
Are you?
Or do you need healing first, so you can do that?
Do you need healing in Jesus Christ?
Are you dead in the flesh?
Or are you alive in the Spirit?
Stop denying and come before God
to acknowledge your dark ways.
Be washed clean and start afresh and anew
here and new,
purged of the venom that fills your veins.

Walk in light that you might find the light,
and then join light to light
with family, with friends,
with those you even consider to be an enemy.
Join light to light
to the glory of God.
Then, and only then, will you feel God’s face
shining upon you;
Then and only then will you know that the
Lord has lifted up his countenance,
that you might know his peace.
AMEN