Hello darkness

Ephesians 5: 8-14
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
March 26, 2017

In the spring of 1967, in suburban northern California, a high school history teacher by the name of Ron Jones conducted a weeklong experiment with his sophomore Contemporary World History class.  The current subject was Nazi Germany and fascist regimes.  Most of Jones’ students could not believe the claims that the majority of the German population was unaware of the concentration camps; neither could they comprehend such a thing could ever happen again, that humanity was now more enlightened.  To prove his point, Ron Jones organized his class with rigid discipline, rules about behavior, armbands and membership cards, even a hand salute, and a name for their movement—the Third Wave.

            Now that his class was organized around an authoritarian structure, he found his students more alert, more responsive to questions and eager to participate, and more accepting of those around them.  Many students outside the class asked if they could join.  In three days more than 200 students became members of the Third Wave and began enforcing members to comply with the rules of the movement or suffer consequences.  One student even went so far as to volunteer as Mr. Jones’ bodyguard.

            By Thursday Jones was exhausted and wanted to conclude the experiment.  Things were getting out of hand.  The Third Wave was becoming the center of students’ lives.  Jones found himself slipping into his authoritarian role even when it was not necessary.  He couldn’t let the experiment continue but neither could he just end it abruptly.  Students who normally were bullied were now enjoying an equality that gave meaning and purpose to their lives.  All of the participants were vulnerable to the potential for extreme self-doubt and humiliation.  Something had to be done.

            Jones assembled his class, which had now swelled to 80—students were cutting other classes to join his.  He told them that the Third Wave was not just singular to their school but a national movement to discover young people who would be willing to work for political change, a national youth movement.  He announced that there would be a rally the next day, on Friday, for Third Wave members only.  A national candidate for president of the Third Wave would be making an announcement about the formation of a national Third Wave youth program.  1000 other youth groups would be receiving the same message and would be asked for their support.

            At noon on Friday, over 200 students assembled in the school auditorium.  On the stage was a television set to air the supposed national press conference.  Jones gave the hand salute and led the members through their recitation of the Third Wave motto:  Strength through discipline.  Strength through community.  Strength through action.  Strength through pride.  Jones then turned on the TV set and everyone waited with expectation.  After a few minutes, nothing appeared on the screen but static.  Students began to wonder if there really was a leader, if there really was going to be a national movement.

            Jones said to them, “You thought that you were the elect. That you were better than those outside this room.  You bargained your freedom for the comfort of discipline and superiority.  …You think to yourself that you were just going along for the fun.  That you could extricate yourself at any moment.  But where were you heading? How far would you have gone? Let me show you your future.”

            Jones then turned on a rear projector and scenes from one of the massive Nuremberg rallies played on a large screen behind the TV set, illustrating just how far the students might have gone had the Third Wave continued and gained momentum.  The presentation ended with these words on the screen:  “Everyone must accept the blame.  No one can claim that they didn't in some way take part.”  

Jones apologized for his manipulation, and to an extent, for abandoning his role as teacher.  After a protracted and stunned silence, students began asking questions and breaking down into tears.  Among his comments to his students were these words:  “[We] know in a small way what it feels like to find a hero.  To grab a quick solution.  To feel strong and in control of destiny.  We know the fear of being left out.  The pleasure of doing something right and being rewarded.  To be number one.   To be right.  Taken to an extreme we have seen and perhaps felt what these actions will lead to. 

 "…We have seen that fascism is not just something those other people did. No, it's right here, in this room.  It’s in our own personal habits and way of life. Scratch the surface and it appears.  It’s something in all of us.  We carry it like a disease: the belief that human beings are basically evil and therefore unable to act well toward each other; a belief that demands a strong leader and discipline to preserve social order.”

            This has been the belief, the myth about the role of religion for millennia: that human beings are basically evil and therefore unable to act well toward each other, thus we must have discipline and a strong leader to preserve social order.  We can’t trust each other to do what is good and right and true; therefore we must be coerced with the threat of damnation, the promise of eternity, and a proscribed way of life.  So if the Church is for sinners as much as it is for saints, it means we never really get well.  We never really experience transformation.

            In his letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul writes of this transformation as moving from living in darkness to living in the light.  But it’s not as simple as that.  It’s not like changing your address or your clothes.  We all have dark and light within us; it comes with being human.  Embracing both is what makes us a whole person.  Neither is one bad and the other good.  A room with the lights turned off is still the same room.  Ron Jones’ experiment was not conducted in darkness or in secrecy but out in the open, for all to see. 

            It’s tempting to believe that we could never behave in ways that lead to evil, which is why Paul exhorts his readers to expose what he calls unfruitful works.  Or in 12 step programs what’s called a fearless and searching moral inventory.  Yet there are times our ego yearns to be the hero, to expose others in their barren pursuits as Eugene Peterson puts it.  In the United Church of Christ statement of faith we read: You call us into your church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be your servants in the service of others, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil.  

There are times we are keen to do battle to resist those powers, but more often than not, it is not an external battle but an internal one that needs waging.  As Ron Jones said to his students, ““[We] know in a small way what it feels like to find a hero.  To grab a quick solution.  To feel strong and in control of destiny.  We know the fear of being left out, but also the pleasure of doing something right and being rewarded.  To be number one.   To be right.” 

            Our pride can goad any of us, all of us—liberal, conservative, moderate, right, left, centrist, Republican, Democrat, Independent—into wanting to be on the right side of history, into believing we’re on the right side.  There are times we downright enjoy our exaggerated distinction between good and evil, right and wrong.  Yet God doesn’t take sides.  In God’s eyes we’re all late to church, and yet God calls all of us children.  God names all of us beloved.  We’re all made out of the same stuff of this universe.  The liberation of one is bound to the liberation of all.

            And yet we use words like “nuclear option” but accuse others of triggering Armageddon.  Republican lawmakers did not succeed in their attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act but the opposition spent much of Friday night gloating.  When we see ourselves as right and others as wrong, when we expose others’ flaws and ignore our own, none of us really gets well.  None of us ever really experiences transformation.

            Indeed we are to resist the powers of evil but it begins with us and our own participation in and benefit from a system that inflicts evil upon the most vulnerable of our society, including this earth in which we live and move and have our being.  It begins not only with how we treat others but how we think about them as well.  It begins with waking from our own sleep, viewing our lives through God’s eyes, climbing out of our own coffins (thank you, Eugene Peterson)—the places where our lives are dead—and rising to something new.

            The something new?  A clean heart.  A new and right spirit. A restoration of joy.  And a justice that includes forgiveness, the willingness to shoulder not only the burdens of others but also their wrongs, patience—oh how we need patience—and a love never gives up, keeps the faith, is always hopeful and endures through everything.  

          We resist the powers of evil by persisting in love.  Love for everyone.  That’s how love wins.

          Amen.