Laetare: We Are All Light to the World
Fourth Sunday of Lent
By Rev. Dr. Beverly Bingle
March 14, 2021
It’s Laetare Sunday.
We may be singing “Rejoice!” today, but it’s not a happy time in big parts of our world.
Too much looks like March 16 of the year 597 BCE - 2,618 years ago this coming Tuesday - the day the Jewish people who weren’t killed by the Chaldeans were made slaves in Babylon for decades - as we heard in that first reading.
It tells about how an evil king and unfaithful priests and people became slaves in a foreign land because they didn’t listen to the prophets.
Today people the world over are still running for safety, crossing borders to find relief from oppressive rulers.
Even here, the prophetic voices speaking truth about votes and the climate crisis get mocked with shouts of “fake news.”
And with COVID-19 still raging among us, we feel like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
Any inclination we might have to rejoice seems as misplaced as that Babylon story, and as misplaced as the question we heard in psalm 137, “How could we sing a song of God in a foreign land?”
Remember those Westerns from the ‘50s when a thug would pull out a six-shooter and make somebody “dance” by shooting at his feet?
Like that scene, the psalm tells the story of suffering at the hands of bullies who hold power, a scene we see played out on the nightly news in countries around the world and in the streets of our own cities.
_________________________
Then there’s the gospel, written after Rome’s destruction of the Second Temple.
They were hard times - the people were emigrating from their homeland, fleeing the Roman oppression at the same time that the Jewish Christians and the Jews were heading in different directions.
John wrote in what’s called a “spiritual” way, what we might today call “mystic,” and we don’t get the whole story from the little piece that we heard today.
Before the 8 verses of today’s reading there are 13 more verses of the Nicodemus story that we didn’t hear.
In the next chapter John tells the story of Jesus and the woman at the well as they debate the theologies and practices that separated the Jews from the Samaritans.
John had a reason to put those two stories together.
The Pharisee Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the dark of night, and the questions that Nicodemus asks show the literal mindset that he brings to the conversation.
He just doesn’t understand.
He’s still in the dark.
In contrast, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at high noon, and they have an enlightened discussion about their religious differences in terms that are both theological and mystical.
She understands...but Jesus’ own disciples are still in the dark.
____________________
It’s hard to rejoice when we know that the theologies of darkness are still with us.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, for example, there’s the idea that we are saved by faith alone, no matter how we act.
We can’t help but notice those John 3:16 posters at football games: just SAY you believe in Jesus, and you’re saved.
Everyone still suffers from the belief that “What you DO doesn’t matter.”
_____________________
As followers of the way of Jesus, you know it’s not enough to SAY you believe.
You have to DO what he did.
Our times cry out for peace and justice, which means you take the counter-cultural stance of nonviolence and non-consumption.
You drive less, use less electricity, lower the thermostat.
You buy local, patch the old clothes instead of buying new ones, and these days, you find yourself practicing prayer in place of argument.
It’s not just how you live your own life but also how you act toward others. So you are NOT children of darkness, all head and no heart.
You are the bearers of LIGHT to the world.
And in that, you can rejoice!
Indeed, we can all rejoice!
Laetare!