January 23, 2011 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

When Light Comes

Calum I. MacLeod
Executive Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 40:1–11
1 Corinthians 1:1–9
John 1:29–36

The mighty vision of the prophet Isaiah is founded on the liberation of oppressed men and women through the disarming birth of the divine child. Its goal is to turn from bloody war to the peace that endures and is unbroken. . . . He lets his vision of the birth of the child and the appearance of the peace of God shine like a light into the conflicts and experiences of real life.

Jürgen Moltmann

On a day such as today, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the momentous sporting occasion that is about to come upon us: the mighty Chicago Bears taking on a team from a small town in Wisconsin. I am too wise, though, to pray for a particular outcome of the game. I learned that lesson well: Seared in my mind is an event in my youth when I was at church one Sunday at youth group and it was tradition for one of the youth to lead the group in prayer. This particular morning Johnny got up and in his prayer prayed to God that his preferred team would win the big match that afternoon. He was publically dressed down for that, and so I am not going to risk it, but it’s also important to hold the space as well because in my family, when it comes to the Bears and the Packers, we are a divided household: Missy, my wife, and Maddy, my stepdaughter, are rooting, of course, for the Packers, and me for the Bears. Missy happens to be in New York at a conference today, but I know that anything I would say would get back to her, so all I’m going to say is let’s hope for a good fair match and may the best team win.

And I want to touch as well on Tom Rook’s announcement this morning about how Fourth Church is being dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century as we launch this week our page on Facebook. I was reading the Guardian newspaper from Britain online yesterday, and their front page was around the controversy on social networking media—about how it has the danger in it of keeping people apart. We really hope that Facebook will be a tool for us to foster greater community. I do hope that all of you who are on Facebook will look us up and see what’s going on, friend us, in the idiom, and tell us what you’re enjoying and liking about Fourth Church.

This morning in many ways the theme of our readings is a Christmas theme. Christmas may seem like a long time ago to you, but our texts this morning point us towards Christmas and Epiphany, the revelation of God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ. At the time of the Reformation, the Calvinist churches, the Reformed churches of which we are inheritors, did away with the concept of the Christian calendar. They argued with Rome and said that the church shouldn’t be split up into a Christian year where you take special Sundays for special events. I think it’s been a good development in Protestant practice to reclaim aspects of the Christian year, but there’s also a kernel of truth in what the Reformers were saying: that every Sunday is the day of resurrection, Easter Sunday; that the good news of God’s coming to earth and clothing God’s self in humanity is not just a message for the twenty-fifth of December, but something we should reflect on often of our journey of faith.

Today is called the Third Sunday after the Epiphany. We are pointed by our texts to the coming of the light, the Christmas message of hope and joy and love. Indeed our text from the prophet Isaiah is one that is often read the week before Christmas: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined.” Isaiah is speaking to the people of Israel at a time of great danger for them. The specter of military occupation and oppression surrounds them as the great power of the day, the Assyrians, were rampaging through countries building up their empire, and it is in this context of real fear that God gives Isaiah this word to the people. Light has shined, do not be afraid; do not give up.

Light is a very important theme throughout the scriptures, from the very start in the creation of light through the psalms. The first verse of the psalm we read this morning is “The Lord is my light, my light and salvation.” Obviously for the prophets light is a metaphor that is used often to reference God’s presence. In the beginning of John’s Gospel we read “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” And here Matthew invokes that theme as he relates that story of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Matthew, as he often does, searches the scriptures, and in this situation he uses geography to root his understanding of the being of Jesus. This is Matthew offering Jesus as the light of the world.

Now if we believe the Christmas story that in a particular time and place God, transcendent creator of all that is, the very ground of our being, took on what it is to be human—the meaning of incarnation—if that is indeed what we believe, that has implications for us as individuals and as a community of faith that resonate far beyond just the twenty-fifth of December. When light comes there are implications for us. One commentator reflects on this and notes that light, when it comes, doesn’t merely illumine; it brings a changed situation. That’s Isaiah’s promise. And it’s right there in the first words that Jesus says in his public ministry. John the Baptist, who brought the message of repentance, has been arrested, and in a sense Jesus picks up the baton and calls, “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is near.”

Repent: it’s one of those scary words that we use in church that may have memories from the kind of fire-and-brimstone sermons that you may have come across. What it really means is that Jesus calls us to change direction, to gain a new set of values for how we live our lives. When Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven, he’s not referencing what happens after we die. Jesus is speaking of the new reality of the reign of God present in our time through his coming, a reign that is marked by shalom, by peace and justice and wholeness and love.

So this message that Jesus brings is not about the individual’s sins and salvation, but rather it is a call to action now, to partner in the coming of the kingdom. And we see that clearly in how the events unfold. Jesus’ call to action for justice and love is immediately followed by the call for the first disciples, Peter and Andrew. These fishermen are not tweedy, well-to-do gentlemen with fly rods and expensive equipment and a guide helping them cast for salmon and trout, but rather rough, tough working men, working hard to scratch out a living. In that sense, perhaps their response is more remarkable. They immediately left their nets. They immediately bought in to Jesus’ call to change direction, to live life with a new set of values.

When light comes, there are implications for us all. When Jesus calls, there are implications for us all. There is often a danger in preaching about call, a danger that people are going to stop listening because call is what happens to other people; it is what happens to ministers: they are called. Elders: they are called. But I don’t want you to stop listening this morning. The people have seen a great light. What does that mean for your call? For our call as a faith community? For surely it is in a baptism that that call first happens. Harvard academic Stephanie Paulsell reflects on this in an article. We are called to share the light that we can see and feel, she says. The minister Joseph Campbell talks about this call as being a call to adventure. And so it is for us in these days to reflect on what adventure we are being called to because the light has come.

This theme of light, of course, is an important one for us here at Fourth Presbyterian Church as we seek at our best times to live up to our motto of being a light in the city. And I think we can use our current situation as an illustration for this, for I believe that this community has discerned for itself a call to adventure, a call to do a new thing with the plans for our new building. As we are all experiencing—hopefully with patience and flexibility—building has started to allow us to live in this space while we prepare for demolition and then the building of the new facility. We’re very excited about this; many around here have caught that vision. We’re excited about those who already have made financial commitments; we’re excited about the opportunity that the Griffin Matching Challenge that was announced last month gives us. We are beginning to get some response to that, but of course we are looking for all of our members, all of you, to get involved, to share with us in that sense of call.

Of course this call is not about building a building for its own sake, I think we’ve been clear about that all along. Project Second Century entails a building as a means to an end—that end being the opportunity to move in new directions; to find new values; to live together in community with, to enable our mission to, our wider community; to deepen the ways that we can form disciples among our young people and our older people. It is our response to God’s call, that we might continue to proclaim that light shines in the darkness.

That light has come in Jesus, and that has implications for who we are and for how we live. So may we be faithful indeed to the light that shines in the darkness and the one who says, “Follow me.”

Amen.