Living in the Son-Light

Ephesians 5:8-14  NRSV

8 For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— 9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; 13 but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Sleeper, awake!
    Rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.” 

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Most of you know by now that I am a bit of a sci-fi nerd.  I love Star Trek - the original,  The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, all the movies . . . I still have to catch up on the newest series, which pre-Stardates the original series, but I imagine some day I will get around to that.  The thing about science fiction is that it often addresses social issues in a way that makes one think, but doesn’t feel “political.”  It’s fiction, after all. 

In the Star Trek episode “Bread and Circuses”  the Enterprise arrives at a planet where they intend to rescue the crew of a stranded merchant ship.  They a bit confused by the situation they found on the planet, which had a culture closely resembling the Roman Empire with mid-20th century Earth technology.  Beaming down Captain Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy discover that most of the crew were  killed in the arena at the orders of their own captain, who had risen to a position of power by providing the Emperor with forbidden technology and a whole shipload of new slaves to entertain the masses with.   Just about everything that was evil in our ancient Rome is there. The powerful do what they want, and the vast majority of folks are bought off with food and entertainment,  thus the episode name - “Bread and Circuses.”  The arena slaves are mostly captured rebels, converts to a cult of sun worshippers who preach against the status quo and for the equality of all persons under the sun.  Naturally, Captain Kirk and all are saved by Chief Engineer Scotty and technology.   Back on the ship, Spock expresses surprise at a sun-worshiping cult preaching universal love and brotherhood, opining that most sun worship is primitive superstition with no such philosophy behind it.  Lt. Uhura, having monitored the planet's communications all this time, has the answer: "It's not the sun up in the sky they worship. It's the Son of God." 

The slaves on that planet preached universal love and brotherhood and were willing to go to their deaths for what they believed - just like Christians under Roman persecution in our own world.  They didn’t have time to waste, as we do,  fussing over denominational rules or differing worship styles or theological differences. For many early Christians and for the Son Worshippers of Star Trek, believing was a matter of life and death, literally.  It would have been much easier for them to just give in, to try to fit in with the rest of their society, to abide by the cultural norms of their day, but that would have been acting in a way exactly opposite the directions Paul gives in this passage from Romans.  “Take no part “ he said, “in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”  “Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.”    

We know as a matter of historical fact that Christians did have to go underground during times of extreme persecution, in some cases literally.  By the 3rd century Christians who refused to participate in emperor worship were often given opportunities to avoid punishment by publicly offering sacrifices or by burning incense to Roman gods. Refusal was punished by arrest, imprisonment, torture, and executions.  In the 4th century, all Christians in the empire were commanded to sacrifice to the Roman gods or face immediate execution.  So going underground became a matter for survival.  It did not, as we know, mean an end to Christianity, but it did mean that being Christian was vitally important to those who believed.  There were no wishy washy Christians.  Being Christian wasn’t something they just did on the Lord’s Day and ignored the rest of the week.  It was the way they lived - counter-culturally.  They did things that were the very opposite of their society’s expectations - free persons sat down with slaves, women and men worshipped together, they refused to participate in activities that everyone else was doing, and they went out of their way to help others, even others that weren’t themselves Christian.  And as we know, doing these things even when their very lives were at stake if they were known to be Christians, were the very things that most often got them caught, and killed.   

It’s easier to be a Christian today.  At least, it’s easier to say we are Christian today.  Some may ridicule us for believing in something we cannot see. Some may revile us because they think that all Christians are like Westboro Baptist Church.  But no one is likely to kill us for our faith.  Well, maybe a crazed individual with a gun - but there is no socially sanctioned death sentence for being Christian today.  So I think it may actually be harder for us to live as children of light than it was in Paul’s time and thereafter.  Or perhaps I should say, it’s easier for us to go along with the way things are.  It’s easy for us to remain silent in the face of oppression and hate, because after all, no one is coming after us.  

This week I heard on the news that Alex Jones, founder of Infowars.com, has apologized for his promotion of the theory that the massacre at Sandy Hook was faked.  Well, he didn’t apologize exactly - he said he must have been suffering from a form of psychosis that caused him to believe things that were not true.  One result of his numerous repetitions of this theory is that people who believed him started going after the parents of children killed at Sandy Hook, threatening them with physical harm if they didn’t tell the “truth” that there were no such children, that the whole event was staged.  How do we stop things like that?  How do we stand up for people who are being persecuted like these parents?  No, really, how do we?  Cause I don’t know. I don’t know how to combat willful hatred and ugliness like this.  But I feel like we need to.  And somehow just turning off the radio, or signing off Facebook so we don’t have to see the darkness is not enough. 

In his new book, Outlandish: An Unlikely Messiah, a Messy Ministry, and a Call to Mobilize, Derek Penwell asks, Why live the sort of life that stands against the things the rest of society finds normal?  And my answer to that is “because Jesus said so”. (Actually, that’s Derek’s answer, too.)  And if our society finds anger and hatred toward the other “normal’ then we need to stand against that, because  Paul said, “ Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”  When we hear lies, when we hear racist, sexist, homophobic lies, we really do need to speak up and speak out.  We need to stand in the light of Christ, in the Son-light, and expose the works of darkness.  And we need to do it without ourselves descending into angry, hate-filled speech.  Author and blogger John Pavlovitz said,  “I’m fully convinced that the greatest thing you can do for someone; the most Jesus-like, God-honoring thing, is to err on the side of loving them.”  

As Christians, we are called to love all of God’s children, we are called to treat all persons as we wish to be treated.  So somehow, whenever we hear or see hate, we need to act against the hate with love.  We need to expose these acts of darkness to the light of Christ.  How we do that will be different for each of us.  It might be something sort of public, like showing up for a PRIDE parade, or participating in a Poor People’s Campaign rally. It might be writing blogs and articles.  It might be something as simple as turning our back on the person who is hating, or speaking kindly to the person who has been subjected to bullying.   If we are truly kingdom people, if our goal is to bring God’s kingdom to existence on earth as it is in heaven, then we need to stand up, wake up, try to find what is pleasing to the Lord, expose that which is darkness to the light of Christ, and live as children of the light.  And when we do, the Son-light will shine upon us and through us, for once we were darkness, but now, in the Lord, we are light.  Amen.