Why We Stay--January 7, 2021

Why We Stay--January 7, 2021

"[God] has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." [Colossians 1:13-14]

I have to confess something: it is a great deal harder to read these words at the end of the day on January 6 than it was even twelve hours ago, and still to believe them.  

It is hard to mouth an "Amen" over the claim that God has already "rescued us from the power of darkness" like it is an accomplished fact after seeing angry mobs storm the United States Capitol Building, armed and equipped for a pre-meditated confrontation.  

It is hard to believe we have been already "transferred into the kingdom of his Son" like it is a done deal when we have just witnessed violent clashes that claimed at least one life and led to several other severe injuries fueled by blind rage and fear.  

It's hard to believe that redemption is something we already have, after seeing Confederate flags, that old symbol of both treason and enslavement, waved proudly through the halls of our government's heart when they had not ever made their way inside even during the Civil War itself. 

And it is very hard for me, as a would-be representative and follower of Jesus, to see the cross of Christ used as a symbol in such a violent insurrection, as though Jesus in any way supported what happened today in our nation's capital.

This is one of those days it's hard to believe the promises and claims of the Scriptures.  I'll own it--and I'm the preacher.  It's also one of those days that raises the recurring question, "Why would you, or anybody else, stay in the midst of a place where such rotten things happen--or, God forbid, where they are cheered?"

And again, to be really honest, that is always a difficult question to keep finding answers for.  Why stay in the midst of a situation where there is so much rottenness, meanness, and hatefulness?  Why stay in a place--a community, a country, a world--where such terrible things not only happen, but are all too often celebrated or defended rather than unilaterally lamented?

Well, okay, here's my answer.  Maybe it only makes sense to me, and I won't assume it will be persuasive for everybody.  But to me, the challenge of these verses is the same challenge of staying in a world, a place, a time, and a situation that doesn't feel like it's been "rescued from the power of darkness."  And facing that challenge looks something like this:  to say we have been "transferred into the Reign of Christ" doesn't mean we have been taken out of the world--after all, it is the world, all creation, and the whole universe that is Christ's rightful domain.  To say, as Colossians does, that we have been rescued from the powers of evil and transferred into the Reign of God means that we are freed from having to live under the rule and order of the rottenness and wickedness around us.  We do not have to participate in it.  We are freed from having to live under its terrible logic, and we do not have to give our allegiance to its loud bellowing voices.  We live, right under the nose of the powers of the day, free from their domination over us.  We are freed to live by a different set of values, a different vision of life, a different Lord--the Crucified One, Jesus Christ.  But we don't leave the world in which we live to do that--we just discover that we can stop listening to the angry shouting voices that still think they are in charge of us. 

Well, they ain't.

In a way, it's almost like every day we are presented with the same dilemma that theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer was given about whether to stay in a comfortable teaching position at a university in America, or to return to Germany during the days of Hitler's Reich, knowing he would be called to resist its evil if he went.  In 1939, Bonhoeffer told an American colleague that he knew he had to go back into the belly of the beast--back into the midst of the evils of Nazi Germany, and it was his faith in Christ that led him there.  He wrote, "I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people....Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make this choice in security."

In other words, for Bonhoeffer, his faith in Christ was not permission to go somewhere easy and safe where he never had to be a part of resisting evil and speaking up for the powerless.  Rather, his faith in Christ was the very reason that he chose to stay, and first to go back, in the places that were most difficult and hostile.  Bonhoeffer believed, like the letter to the Colossians says, that he had been rescued from the powers of darkness--but he knew that didn't mean he didn't have to engage or face it.  It meant he didn't have to be ruled by it as its subject anymore.  Bonhoeffer could go back into the presence of the worst human evils and the demonic powers of the Reich and resist it--to say "No" to it as he said "Yes" to the way of Christ.  And he knew that only if he was there in the midst of that situation could he also say "No" to the way Hitler's Reich was co-opting the church to make it give its loyalty and blessing to the Fuhrer.

Let me say it again, then, for clarity's sake: yes, we are freed from the grip of evil in the sense that we do not have to play its games or by its rules, and we do not have to believe its lies anymore.  But we are very much called, with Jesus himself, to find ourselves in the midst of that rottenness as a presence of salt and light.  We are called to embody the alternative. We are called to say our "No" when the signs and symbols of Christianity are co-opted by angry mobs storming the Capitol, too, alongside Confederate flags, long guns, and bombs.  We are called, on more ordinary days, too, to say "No" to the ways the name of Jesus gets mingled with hatred and self-centeredness in the name of being "great."  We are called to name not the big idolatries we cannot ignore when they make the day's headlines, but also the countless little ways we are tempted to sell our souls for a little more influence, a little more money, a little more comfort or power or reputation.  We can only do that if we are willing, like Bonhoeffer and the ancient Christians in Colossae, to continue living in resistance in the midst of the tension, rather than looking to leave it.

The early Christians, after all, all lived under the rottenness of the Roman Empire, and they didn't run away from it to go live in some imaginary "other" place where it was easy to live.  They lived their lives right under the nose of Caesar and all his violence and arrogance, but they knew that they did not have to listen to his orders or his propaganda.  They had indeed been rescued from the powers of the day--but they never left the places they lived when it happened.  They chose to stay, because it allowed them to be faithful witnesses to Jesus.

So here's the deal, dear friends: I hope and pray we never see another day like January 6, 2021--I hope that this is a lone day of infamy that my kids will remember as a terrible exception rather than the norm.  But I know that there will be other rottenness, other meanness and hatred, other crookedness and wickedness, and other evils that they--and I, and you, too--will have to face, no matter where we go and no matter what happens.  We aren't given a pass to "beam out" of the world, and we aren't given permission to just go somewhere where there will be less tension or less hostility or less friction.  We are called to go where Jesus sends us, even if that feels like living our lives right under the noses of the powers of evil.  But we are freed in that living, too, because we don't have to accept the terms or play by the rules of the powers of the day, either.

That's how a light is seen to be shining, anyway--you notice it when it is put in a dark place.  If we're called to be a light, then we had better get used to the idea that we may be called to remain in situations that feel gloomy and dark.  That's why we stay.

They may think (and say, or shout) that they have power over us, but they don't.  We are freed, by Jesus himself, to tell them "No, thank you," and instead to live like we have been made citizens of an alternative domain--the Reign of Christ, whose way of being King was to lay down his life, and whose throne is a cross borne for the love of even his worst enemies.

The powers of the day won't have a clue as to what to do with us if we live in the freedom of that kind of love. We don't have to go anywhere else to live in Christ's Reign--we can do it right here, right now, even though it is hard a lot of the time.  

Come on, let's make them wonder--whatever else comes our way in this day.

Lord Jesus, free us and remind us we have been rescued already so that we do not have to live by the ways of the rottenness around us.  Help us to stay where you have placed us, and give us the courage to offer light to places of gloom.