Not overcome

 

John 1: 1-18
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
January 3, 2021

“In the beginning was the Word”. The word logos, Greek for ‘word’, can also be translated as message, theory, idea, motive, reason, wisdom, and probably the best one of all—story. In the beginning there was a message, a theory, an idea, a motive or reason, there was wisdom, there was a story, and this story was with God, and the story was God. All things came into being through this story. Without this story not one thing came into being. What has come into being through this story was life, and the life was the light of all people.



And yet in that light, in that life, in that story there is darkness. Author Terry Pratchett wrote, “Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” And yet neither light nor darkness is either good or bad, despite the false dualism and racism that continues to permeate our culture and our stories. Instead, what we have, both in the light and in the darkness, is the full range of human emotion and experience.

This past year we have certainly experienced a wide range of emotions. To cast emotions like grief, anger, sadness, and anxiety as darkness would mean to acknowledge and express them does not save us but the opposite. To say that emotions such as gratitude, joy, and love are of the light and have power to dispel the darkness suggests a forced positivity. It’s like the closing scene of the Monty Python movie, Life of Brian, in which Brian has been falsely convicted and crucified and everyone else nailed, well, tied to their crosses leads him in a rousing chorus of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, complete with whistling as if it is was Disney’s Snow White or Mary Poppins. 



To be sure, it is a good practice to give thanks and to count one’s blessings, but at the same time it is also a healthy practice to lament and name those things that are terribly, horribly wrong and worthy of grief and protest. Did you know there is a hotline titled “Just Scream”? The phoneline isn’t staffed by anyone. You just call the number, based in Palm Beach County, Florida, wait for the beep, scream as loud as you want, and hang up. Each day all the grunts, cries, and screams from around the world are recorded and uploaded to a website. If screaming isn’t your thing, you can also send a friendly text to this number and you will receive a friendly text back. When we avoid our more difficult emotions, we deprive ourselves of much-needed catharsis.

On New Year’s Eve my family and I burned a very long piece of brown packing paper with the twelve months written on it, ending with 2020, littered with graffiti and a lot of strong language—things that need to die in order that new life might come. Without a doubt, we have many things to be thankful for, but the status quo isn’t one of them.



When we are in the midst of trauma—we are still living through a global pandemic and attempting to get out of an abusive relationship with our government—it’s not really a time for self-improvement but self-preservation, expression, and connection. Usually, at this time of the year, we set goals and resolutions for ourselves to be better than we are now, but when do we ever set the goal of loving and accepting ourselves just as we are? This is a time to be tender. Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber tweeted on New Year’s Day, “Yearly reminder: no one has ever become their ideal self. After all those resolutions and elimination diets and strivings. It’s always a moving target. Your ideal self doesn’t exist. YOU do. Your actual lumpy, shimmering, inconsistent self is the one that is loved and needed here.”

The gospel of John says that Jesus “came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” While this and more of John’s gospel have been used as a hostile polemic against people of the Jewish faith, it’s more like love enfleshed came home and none of us saw ourselves, recognized ourselves, and yet that is who we are. We are love enfleshed which means we will know joy and grace and gratitude, but we will also know grief and anger and anxiety and pain.



And yet as Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed.” The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. We are not overcome. The story is not over yet. Our story is not over yet. God’s story is not over yet. We commune with Jesus’ death but also with his life. We commune with our grief but also with our hope. We gather separately in our own homes, but we also gather together in spirit. We mourn and we celebrate. We lament and we lift up. We curse and we bless.



And this Table is the safe space where we can be vulnerable, imperfect, authentic, and accepted. It is the liminal space where we are held, in the light and in the darkness, until the trauma is over. It is where we can acknowledge our brokenness and our need for healing so that holiness, wholeness can begin. It is where Jesus told us the bald-faced truth, all of it, including that he would come out on the other side. And so will we. Amen.



Benediction

In the midst of trauma
I don’t know that it does us good
To pray to be stronger people
And for power equal to our tasks
But instead to be human
Which is the miracle
To know love and grief
And still be human
As Jesus was human
Full of grace and truth