Healing Light

Healing Light

Ephesians 5:8-14[1]

  Another popular misunderstanding about the Christian faith is that if you just give your heart to Jesus, then you will immediately find your life transformed.  To be sure, many people experience the release of surrendering  control of their lives into the hands of one whom they trust.  Many experience the euphoria of their new-found way of life and their new extended family of faith.  But, all too often, without proper guidance, many of these new believers cannot be found anywhere near a church within a year.  Sometimes less!  The truth of the Christian life is that lasting change takes place over time.  And despite stories of miraculous transformations, the reality is that it takes concerted effort for most of us to experience genuine change.[2]

  I’m not proposing here that finding the joy and peace and love of the new life is some kind of massive self-help project.  It always has been and always will be the work of God’s Spirit.[3]  But we do have to “work out our own salvation,” as confusing as that may sound to us.  I think at least part of what that means is that we have to do the kinds of things that make our hearts and minds available to God’s Spirit.  The changes that lead us to the joy and peace and love of God’s kingdom come as the result of a definite decision on our part to take a different direction in our lives.[4]

  I think that this is something of what St. Paul was trying to convey in his letter to the Ephesians.  Many of the Christians in that area had converted from the worship of local idols, and they were still surrounded by constant reminders of their former life.  Even the local Jewish Christians must have experienced the tension of being surrounded by vivid images that Caesar was “Lord,” or Zeus was “Lord.”  And so the Apostle was writing to teach them how to reinforce their new faith by making changes to their behavior (Eph. 4:17-24).  These changes were specific, including speaking truth, dealing with anger in healthy ways, doing honest work, avoiding slander and gossip, practicing kindness, and showing God’s love to one another (Eph. 4:25-5:2).[5] There was a lot about their former lives that was incompatible with their new faith.[6]

  I find it interesting that in our lesson for today, St. Paul tells them that the way they could make these changes was to expose their former way of living to the light of Christ.  He likens the promiscuity, depravity, and corruption of their former lives to living in darkness.  Using images from Easter, he speaks of the living Christ as a light that has shined upon them.[7]  And he observes that whenever the light shines on what is in the darkness, it reveals the true nature of what is going on, whether good or bad. 

  But more than that, Paul speaks of the light of Christ as a healing light, a light that effects change.  He says, “everything exposed by the light becomes visible” and continues by saying, “everything that becomes visible is light” (Eph. 5:13-14).  I think what he is saying is that when we open our hearts and our lives to the light of Christ, it changes us[8].  It transforms us from where ever we’ve come and from whatever we’ve been into people who reflect the very same light in our lives.[9]  And so Paul calls us all to open ourselves to the healing light of Christ.

  Part of how we do that is by moving our lives in a different direction.  We have to change how we respond to what comes our way if we want to change how we experience life. [10]  I think St. Paul was hinting at what he had said earlier about re-directing their behavior when he says that “the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true” (Eph. 5:9).  It seems to me that “all that is good and right and true” is a pretty good summary of what the Christian life is about.[11]  If you want to know what changes God’s Spirit will make in your life when you turn to the healing light of Christ, I would say it will be “all that is good and right and true.”  That was the goal that St. Paul had for the converts he was encouraging.[12]

  I think his instructions for the Christian life still have value for us as well. There is much about our world that is different from St. Paul’s.  But there is also much that is very similar.  This world surely can feel like a dark place sometimes.  And it can seem like an impossible task for us to keep from succumbing to the darkness, or at least being deeply affected by it.  I think we need his words now more than ever.  If we want to live in an authentically Christian way, if we want to experience genuine change, if we want to learn to practice “all that is good and right and true,” then we too need to open our lives to the healing light of Christ.  When we do, it might be painful at first, as all healing is.  But the outcome will be joy and peace and love as we reflect his healing light in our lives.

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[1] © 2014 Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/30/2014 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] Cf. Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart, 151: “the phrase, ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together’ says it well: When we repeatedly direct our minds toward thoughts and memories that evoke feelings of love (or safety or strength), the very structure of our brains is altered.’  This perspective is the basis of a whole field of scientific research into how the brain works, from the connections between our thoughts and our feelings and our bodies to how to retrain a person who is learning to use a prosthetic limb.  Cf. also Margaret M. Polski, Wired for Survival; and Norman Doige, The Brain that Changes Itself.

[3] Cf. Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, 41-42, “God does not love us if we change, God loves us so that we can change.  Only love effects true inner transformation, not duress, guilt, shunning, or social pressure.”  But as he later adds (p. 52), “it is a lot of work to get out of the way and allow that grace to fully operate and liberate”!  Cf. also Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossian, and Philemon, 65.

[4] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.3:512-13, saying of the believer, “ What makes him a Christian is that he has a Lord who to his salvation will not leave him in peace but constantly summons him to wake up again.”

[5] Cf. Martin, Ephesians, Colossian, and Philemon, 60-61, where he attributes these new “down-to-earth behavior patterns” to “living in the network of new social relationships,” and more importantly to their “being-in-Christ,” or their “faith-union with Christ” (p. 58).  On the latter idea, see A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, 327, where he says that the believers “have become identified with the light because of their identification with Christ.”

[6] Cf. Pheme Perkins, “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible XI:437, where she recalls the “ridicule and abuse” suffered by new Christians in the Mediterranean world as described in 1 Peter 4:3-5.  She goes on to point out that while they are to dissociate from their former behaviors, they are nowhere instructed to dissociate from their former acquaintances. However, in contrast to the approach I am taking to the passage, she suggests that the “exposure” is to take place as Christians call out the behavior of those outside the church.  Cf. Similarly, Lincoln, Ephesians, 330.  This difference of interpretation is reflected in English translations: for the idea that the light transforms us, see the TEV: “anything that is clearly revealed becomes light” (cf. also TNIV, CEB, and ESV).  For the idea that the light exposes the deeds of others, see NLT: “And where your light shines, it will expose their evil deeds” (cf. also MSG, CSB, NIV, NIRV, CEV).  It seems to me that Paul’s focus in this passage is primarily on the effect the light has on believers, and so I opt for that interpretation despite the fact that there are many who take the other view.

[7] Cf. Martin, Ephesians, Colossian, and Philemon, 63, where he also points out that Eph. 5:14 is a reminder of baptism (which in the days of the early church was typically observed in connection with Easter).  Cf. also Lincoln, Ephesians, 326, 332.

[8] Cf. Rohr, Breathing Under Water, 39, “you cannot heal what you do not acknowledge, and what you do not consciously acknowledge will remain in control of you from within.”

[9] Cf. Brach, Finding Refuge, 151; see also Tara Brach, “Opening the Gateway of Love,” The Huffington Post 12/3/2012; accessed at http://www.huffington post.com/tara-brach/love-healing_b_2192030.html. While I would agree that we can change our outlook, our emotions, and even our lifestyle by focusing our attention on what we want to become, I would say there’s more than that going on in the mind of St. Paul (no pun intended!).

[10] Cf. Brach, Finding Refuge, 118, where she points out that our earliest hurts in life often shape our assumptions and experiences as adults.  She says, “As the saying goes, ‘Our memories are Velcro for painful experiences and Teflon for pleasant ones!’ We are very inclined toward building our core beliefs out of experiences of hurt and fear, and holding on to them (and the underlying fears) for dear life.”  Cf. also Tara Brach, “Loosening the Grip of Core and Limiting Beliefs,” The Huffington Post 11/29/2012; accessed at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tara-brach/core-beliefs_b_2204891.html.

[11] Cf. Rohr, Breathing Under Water, 62, “there are ways of living and relating that are honest and sustainable and fair, and there are utterly dishonest ways of living and relating to life.  This is our real, de facto, and operative ‘truth,’ no matter whose theories or theologies we believe.”

[12] Cf. Rohr, Breathing Under Water, 31, “the goal is actually not the perfect avoidance of all sin, which is not possible anyway ..., but the struggle itself, and the encounter and wisdom that comes from it.

Seeing the Light

Seeing the Light

1 Jn. 5:9-13; Jn 17:11-18[1]

I still remember my first inter-faith encounter, even though it was almost 30 years ago.  I had already completed my college degree in Bible, and I was a seminary student in my second year—and I thought I knew quite a bit about spiritual things.  One evening, a friend told me he had met two Muslim men who just moved to our apartment complex in Fort Worth, and asked me to go with him to talk to them.  Well, of course I went. When we got there, we started talking with them, and the conversation quickly moved toward faith.  Assuming that their religion was completely “man-made,” I began to talk about how I experienced the presence of God in my faith.  I will never forget my feeling of shock when one of the men said, “I, too, experience God’s presence through my faith”!  I was young, and had not been prepared adequately to dialogue in a meaningful way with people of other faiths.  I had operated with the standard prejudices that the Christians I knew cherished about other faiths—that they were simply human substitutes for the “real thing,” faith in Jesus Christ! My encounter with those two men was the beginning of a fundamental shift in my outlook toward people of other faiths.

When we read our lessons from Scripture for today, it shouldn’t surprise us that so many Christians throughout the ages have tended to hold some kind of prejudice or another toward those “outside” the church.  In 1 John, the distinction seems clear enough—those who believe in Jesus as the Son of God have life, those who don’t believe don’t have life (1 Jn. 5:12).  Similarly, the reading from John 17 sounds like the Christians were under attack from the outside world.[2]  At the very least, the “world” was something from which one had to protect oneself.  While these kinds of negative statements can be found in various parts of our Scriptures, what we have to understand is that they were addressed to a very specific time and place.  

It would seem that, for the most part the Christians for whom the Scriptures bearing John’s name were intended lived in Asia Minor—modern day Turkey.  Toward the end of the First Century, we have evidence that these Christian communities were under mounting pressure—both from the outside as well as from within.  They felt their very existence was threatened.  So it’s no wonder that they looked at the outside world as something dangerous.  They even viewed former members of their communities to be a threat because they disagreed over the question of Jesus’ identity as human and divine.[3]

While we can certainly understand thoughts like these when a community that feels threatened, we have to remember that taking Scriptures that were intended to address a specific situation and lifting them out of context to apply them to our day and time can be a risky venture.  In a very real sense, it can enable the “oppressed” to become the “oppressors.”  And in fact, you don’t have to work very hard to find all kinds of examples throughout the history of the church where that was exactly what happened—Christians took Scriptures like these and used them to justify all kinds of hateful and even violent acts against those deemed “other” and “outside.” 

But the very Scriptures themselves point us to a higher road.  Some of the very books of the Bible that suggest the “world” is such a threat to the Christian communities also clearly speak of the “world” as the object of God’s redemptive love in Jesus Christ.[4]  In fact, in the same prayer that expresses concern for the Christians due to the threat of the world, Jesus also speaks of sending them out into the world just as he was sent into the world (Jn. 17:18)! 

I think that part of what we find in 1 John might help us out here as well.  The Scripture says that those who believe “have the witness in themselves” (1 Jn. 5:10).  There is some debate about what this means, but I think it means that when someone’s faith in Jesus is real you can see the life that is in them.[5]  It’s obvious by who they are and how they live.  You can’t miss it.  But I think the same can be said for a lot of people who are “outside” the church. There are a lot of people out there who have the light of God’s life within them.  All we have to do is open our eyes and see it.[6]  Whether we’re talking about Mohandas Ghandi, a Hindu, or the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist, or Mother Theresa, a Catholic nun, or Pearl Buck, a Presbyterian missionary.  You can see the light of God’s life in and through their lives.  They “have the witness in themselves.”

I think this kind of approach is a much better option for us in our day and time.  Instead of looking at others with shallow prejudices and dismissing their religions, if we will open our eyes we can see many people of all faiths who shine the light of God’s love all around them.  Rather than getting them to “see the light” and come around to our way of looking at things, perhaps we should first be open to seeing the light they already have within them.  We may be surprised to find that it looks a lot like the light of God’s life in us, and that we have a lot more in common that we expected!

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[1] © 2012 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 5/20/12 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.a

[2] Cf. Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,” New Interpreters Bible IX:793; contrast the overly subtle approach of Paul Minear, Interpretation 32 (April 1978): 178-79, where he insists that the “world” is not humanity or those outside the church, but “the hidden jurisdiction of the Evil One.”

[3] Cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Epistles of John, 31–35; cf. also Stephen S. Smalley, 1,2,3 John, 291. The group that left had so emphasized Jesus as divine as to deny that he was human.

[4] In John’s Gospel, it is clear that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” and that “God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved” (Jn. 3:16-17).  On this ambiguity regarding the “world” in John’s Gospel, cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, 763-65.  Cf. also Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.1:73-76, where he points to a similar dynamic in Paul’s writings, and yet emphasizes that Paul says “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).

[5] Cf. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, 285-86; and C. Clifton Black, “The First, Second and Third Letters of John,” New Interpreters Bible XII:440.  Cf. also G. Strecker, and H. W. Attridge, The Johannine letters, 195–196: “The Christ-event is not a thing of the past to which one may look back with an objectifying glance. … It occurs hic et nunc in the community, as a reconciling, life-giving reality. Christian life before God is life in the Son.”

[6] Cf. Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance, 301, where she speaks of this in terms of recognizing “the spark of God in others.”  Cf. similarly, Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World, 92, where she recognizes that this is a challenge, the challenge of “escaping the small self long enough to glimpse the wholeness” in which everything that is exists.  She says, “Everything that lives, lives in this light”!

Defining Truth

Defining Truth

1 Jn. 5:1-6[1]

It seems to me that our culture is locked in a battle over truth.  Unfortunately, in our debate over truth, we are simply talking past each other rather than actually discussing our differences.  I think part of the problem is that we have very different views on “truth.”  We differ greatly over the central idea that shapes us, forms us, and defines how we live our lives.  Is it that we are a society governed of the people, by the people, and for the people?  Or is it that common people have to be supervised by the millionaires and billionaires that have the money to buy out our government?  Is our defining truth that we are a beacon of freedom and compassion for the whole world, seeking to help those who are suffering and struggling?  Or is it that we are the world’s only remaining superpower, able to exert our will wherever and whenever we please?  Is our defining truth that we are an increasingly diverse people, and that diversity is our strength?  Or is it that we are a people who insist that everybody conform to the same ideals—mine!

We might call these central ideas our “defining truths.”  Defining truths are very powerful.  They determine a great deal about us—from what we think about political and social issues to how we relate to others and ourselves to what we hold as our faith convictions.  Unfortunately, many of us were instilled from childhood with defining truths like, “you’ll never do it right,” or “you’ll never be good enough to be worthy of love,” or “you don’t deserve to be here.”[2]  These kinds of statements may have been imposed verbally on us by parents who couldn’t handle their own feelings.  Or for some of us, our childish minds came to the conclusion that they must be true based on the way we were treated.  Sadly, those defining truths have a way of controlling our whole lives.  From work to family to money to faith, our defining truths have a way of running our whole lives.  And they can have a way of ruining our lives.

Our lesson from 1 John for today tells us that our faith gives us victory. [3]  I think part of the victory that our faith gives to us is to expose the lies that masquerade as our defining truths.  As we discussed last week, the Christian Gospel is that in Jesus God somehow came among us to walk in our shoes, to experience the fullness of our suffering, our struggles, and even our loneliness. One of the most important reasons why God went to all that trouble was to make it clear that we are not worthless, rejected, unloved people.  Rather we are—all of us and every single one of us—the focus of God’s unconditional and irrevocable love!

Some in our day will debate whether this version of “faith” as a “truth” that defines our lives is really all that helpful.  They will point instead to the idea that faith is simply a matter of trust.  I certainly would not want to minimize trust as an important aspect of our faith.  And I agree that when our defining truth becomes “THE defining truth,” we can do great harm in the name of that truth.  But that doesn’t mean that we should discard the notion of truth entirely from our faith.[4] 

One of the most important facets of Jesus’ birth, ministry, death, and resurrection is that all of it is a magnificent demonstration of a defining truth.  It is the truth that God loves us all, and will stop at nothing to reach us with that love.  It is the truth that there is no depth to which God will not go to embrace each and every human being with that love.  It is the truth that even death and hell itself cannot prevent God from reaching us with that love. When I think of faith as the “victory,” I think of it as not overcoming the “world,” so much as overcoming the fear and the shame and the pain that the defining lies we have lived with have inflicted on us all.  I think our faith that Jesus shows us God’s love for us all is a “defining truth,” an idea that sets us free to live the lives we were meant to live.

And when we can embrace that defining truth so completely that it frees us from the lies that have kept us bound—some of us for decades!—then we can also take that freedom and share it with the people around us, most of whom also have their own lies that defined them and have kept them bound and chained.  Then we can become the kind of people who love one another like Jesus loved us, by laying down our lives for our friends (Jn. 15:13).[5]  And when we embrace the truth that God loves us all unconditionally and irrevocably, then we can understand that there’s nobody out there who falls outside the definition of a “friend” we are called to love by laying down our lives for them.[6]

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[1] © 2012 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 5/13/12 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] Cf. Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, 20. She calls this “the trance of unworthiness.”

[3] Cf. G. Strecker and H. W. Attridge, The Johannine Letters, 182; cf. even more definitively Stephen S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, 271: faith “ amounts to a ‘confession,’ or ‘acknowledgment,’ about Jesus as both divine and human.”

[4] Cf. John Caputo, On Religion, 20: “We all need a ‘way,’ I am not denying that, but I deny that anyone has the authority to Capitalize their way.”

[5] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.2:835, where he defines the “victory” of faith in terms of the love that St. Paul describes in 1 Cor. 13:7 as “bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things.” He compares it to  “the victory which takes place in and with the fact that love cannot waver, tire or cease in relation either to God or the neighbor …. It bears and believes and hopes and endures.”

[6] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 117, 120-21, where he defines this attitude as “open and total friendship.”  Cf. also Brach, Radical Acceptance, 301, where offers an excellent definition of “friendliness” when she says, “We only need to pause, see clearly who is before us and open wide our heart.”