WALKING IN DARKNESS
Earth Sunday, April 23, 2006

TEXT: I John 1:1-2:2
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

TEXT: John 20:19-31
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

The 1960's was a decade of transformation in the United States. It was a time of protest and social unrest, when a new generation of Americans were throwing off the complacency of the past and moving toward a new frontier in order to create a better world. It was a time of fear and uncertainty with a looming nuclear holocaust in our minds. It was a time of violence and racial tension as our cities became smouldering cauldrons of pent up anger. We were reminded over and over again that Creation itself emerged from chaos and was called forth by God’s word, and so we sang with Mama Cass “There’s a New World Coming,” and the Fifth Dimension’s “Dawning of the Age of Aquarius.”
Students for the ministry at that time were traditionally prepared for their roles as pastor, priest, and prophet. Pastors were those who ministered to the needs of their people through care and nurture. Priests were those who administered the sacraments and rites of the church and were the repositories of the church’s theological structure. Prophets were those who spoke out on behalf of the poor and the oppressed, and preached God’s judgment against governments and institutions that ignored the basic and fundamental teachings of Christianity.

The social climate of the 60's demanded an emphasis on prophetic ministry. As a seminarian I was involved in the Civil Rights movement, working locally to send a contingent for the march on Selma and meeting Martin Luther King when he spoke at Franklin and Marshall College. In my first pastorate I incurred the enmity of several groups when I proclaimed the teachings of Jesus regarding peace and justice as it applied to the war in Viet Nam.

When 1970 came, we hoped for an end to the turbulence of the previous decade. Among other things, 1970 in the United States brought with it the Kent State shootings, the Beatles' last album, the death of Jimi Hendrix, Simon and Garfunkel’s "Bridge Over Troubled Water," Apollo 13, and the meltdown of fuel rods in the Savannah River nuclear plant near Aiken, South Carolina—an incident that was not acknowledged for 18 years.

It was into such a world that the very first Earth Day was born. Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, proposed the first nationwide environmental protest "to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda."

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 engines. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the cost of prosperity. Environment was a word that appeared more often in college text books than in the daily newspaper.

Denis Hayes organized massive coast-to-coast rallies and enlisted help from thousands of local co-ordinators. I signed on as a co-ordinator for the Lehigh Valley, working with Lehigh University, Muhlenberg, Moravian and Lafayette Colleges, and several local groups. With help from Bob Rodale and others, we joined thousands of colleges and universities across the country to protest against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized that they had shared common values.

In the thirty-six years since that first Earth Day, I would have hoped that we made a difference in taking care of our planet, but unfortunately an environmental apocalypse is closing in on us. You are all aware of the catastrophic consequences of global warming, depletion of fossil fuels, and rainforest deforestation. We still continue to deceive ourselves about the fragility of our earthly home and persist in walking in darkness.

The writer of the first epistle of John was concerned about those who walk in darkness. The early church was struggling with the embryonic stages of Christianity. There was much conflict in the church as they were trying to determine what was true doctrine and what was false. There were many who were writing letters, treatises, books with their own particular take on what Jesus had to say as well as what he did. This year the “Gospel of Judas” made it into the mass media. This book, dated to the end of the second century, was rejected by the early church as nonsense. It, like so many other spurious gospels purportedly written by Mary Magdalene, Barnabas and others, were inconsistent with the established canonical texts that we have in our Bible. That’s why John says at the end of his gospel “these are written so that you may believe.” It is always a matter of faith as to how you will interpret what you read, but you do so with common sense and reason. Unfortunately in the early church there were those who believed everything that came their way. There were so many false teachers, proponents of various interpretations of the message of Jesus, that it is no wonder that they were “walking in darkness.” They needed to find the right path. As the Ethiopian eunuch said to Philip, “How can I understand unless someone guides me.”

To walk in darkness is to be alienated from God. We live as though God no longer matters. We cannot find the way, and so we move through life, the blind leading the blind.. We may live in denial, believing that the earth can take care of itself, or that we can take care of ourselves. It only takes a little adjustment or some minor accommodation. Our priorities are distorted and our values are warped. We need to come out of the darkness. We need to see God more clearly, love God more dearly, follow God more nearly, day by day. We need to emerge from the shadows of self-deception and walk in the sunlight, the light of God’s desire for ourselves and our planet.

That means opening our eyes to what is happening around us. With leadership who are blinded to the perils facing the earth, who serve the desires of the wealthy at the expense of the poor, who are myopic in valuing short-term prosperity against an impending global crisis, we are surely walking in darkness.

Thomas had his doubts in the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus offered him evidence so that he could believe. What will it take for us to believe? How many glaciers must melt, before they are washed to the sea? How many years can some people exist, before they're allowed to be free? And how many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see? The answer, my friend, is not just blowing in the wind. The answer is in walking out of the darkness into the light, and becoming partners with God in caring for the earth.

The writer of John’s epistle says that if we walk in the light we have fellowship with one another. In the light of God we work together for the good of all. Fellowship is not destroying the home in which we all live, but cooperating in a common task.

As a community of faith, we walk in the light when we forgive one another. There is no such thing as a Christian nation, for no nation has ever practiced the teachings of Jesus, especially when it comes to forgiveness. But as gathered individuals who love and forgive one another, we are one in Christ. If we believe that and admit our wrong-doings, John says that God will forgive us and work with us to become better persons.

We need God’s forgiveness when it comes to our stewardship of the earth. And forgiveness is what God does best.

There was a story about a man whose shirts were dirty and needed to go to the cleaners. He threw the shirts into the trunk of his car and promptly forgot about them. He also forgot when he changed a flat tire the week before that he had left the jack lying loose in the trunk. Several days passed and the man remembered his shirts and took them to the cleaners. When he opened the trunk to get the shirts out, they not only had the normal dirtiness but were also streaked by the grease from the jack. They were a mess.

When he walked into the cleaners with his dirty shirts, he began to apologize for bringing in such filthy clothes. The young lady at the desk broke in abruptly and said, "Don’t apologize. That’s why we are here. If you could take care of them yourself, you wouldn’t need us." (from Homiletics, April 2006)

We depend on God for forgiveness. We depend upon God for healing and restoration. The first step in that process is to realize that we’ve got dirty shirts in the trunk. The first step in healing ourselves and our planet is to realize that we have done something wrong and that we desire to make it right. That’s walking out of the darkness and into the light. We live in the light of the resurrection. Let the earth come alive to new life.


Harry Serio