Lives of Shadow and Sun--March 24, 2023

Lives of Shadow and Sun--March 24, 2023

"For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light--for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and just and true." [Ephesians 5:8-9]

It's worth remembering that the name attached to the letter these verses come from is none other than the apostle Paul--the formerly infamous persecutor of the church and enemy of the way of Jesus.  Floating around in the background of these few sentences are the memories of how even someone dead-set against Christ could come around 180 degrees, and conversely, how someone who was a crucial leader in the early church could bring the baggage of a violent past and still be accepted.  Paul hadn't reasoned his way into Christianity or made the choice by his own intellect to believe in Jesus--it was the living Christ who knocked him off his high horse, grabbed hold of him, and claimed him. Paul's own life story made it clear that being brought into the light isn't an accomplishment to brag about--it's a gift of grace.

That's vital if we want to hear this talk of leaving the shadows and living in the light without it all going to our heads and making us unbearably arrogant.  And seriously, that is easy to do with such stark imagery.  It's easy for church folk to cast ourselves as nothing but good and holy and righteous, and the world as totally evil.  It's easy to split the world into neat and tidy categories of "light side" and "dark side" like we're living in a Star Wars movie talking about the Force.  And it is awfully tempting to cast everybody else that I don't like as "trapped in darkness" while I envision myself as the hero wearing the white hat from the old Westerns.  

But maybe a more honest way of seeing ourselves is as people who struggle with the ongoing pull in each direction... and who know that Christ has called us and claimed us to belong in the family of God even in the midst of that tension.  We live each day as a composite of shadow and sun, Christ-likeness and crookedness, love, apathy, and hate. Like Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it, "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart…even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an uprooted small corner of evil."  It's all there, inside us, swirling around and struggling--and yet, we dare to believe that God's claim on us is real, sure, and unwavering even while we wrestle with them. 

After all, if the apostle Paul himself could be claimed by Christ even when he was completely turned away from the way of Jesus, surely God's grace can claim us wherever we are in that struggle, no matter how much we keep turning back into the shadows.  In my particular branch of the Christian family tree, the Lutheran way of talking about this is that we are always "simul justus et peccator," which is to say we are simultaneously sinful and justified. God's claim on us that puts us in right standing with God and pulls us out of the shadows comes even while we remain sinners who keep sinning.  It means that God's claim on us comes regardless of the ways we keep clawing our ways back into the gloom.  And that also means that we don't get to wear the title "children of the light" as a badge of honor like it's something we've earned for our goodness or purity--it's a gift God gives us despite the ways we still keep giving in to our worst impulses.

Day by day, God keeps turning us around, pointing us in the direction of what is "good and just and true," and calling us to BE what God says we already are.  But our belonging doesn't depend on how well we do at that; it's not even a matter of being "mostly sunny" rather than "mostly gloomy."  And once we are clear about that, we can strive for that goodness and truth and justice without either worrying about our final test scores or looking down on someone else we don't think is as virtuous.  Being a "child of the light" is not grounds for arrogant self-congratulation, but a recognition of the power of God's love to take hold of us even while we're turned away from the sun.

So on this day, our calling is to dare to believe what God says about us and trust that we are made for goodness, justice, and truth.  And when we let God's claim on us take hold, we'll find ourselves embodying that goodness, justice, and truth.  But we won't use our status as God's children as a reason to be jerks toward other people or look down on them.  We won't pretend that we've earned our position in God's family; we'll see it as a gift we have received.  And maybe then we can see everyone else who crosses our path as a candidate for God's generosity--and maybe we just might be the people God has sent to reflect a little light their way.

Lord Jesus, let us reflect the light you have first given to us, without pretending it is our creation.