Preached Sunday, June 15, 2003 by the Rev. Steven J. Lashbrook, Pastor

First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Manistee, MI

I’ve been thinking about someone I know. He’s young and intelligent and very personable. He could have an absolutely wonderful life, but he doesn’t. He’s miserable, because he drinks himself, regularly, into an alcoholic stupor. He can give you all the reasons why he drinks and what it means and how it will happen that he will stop. He can recite all the psychological descriptions and all the details of a life history that nurtured and even encouraged his habitual drinking. He can recount all the dire results, the devastated home life, the embarrassing work situations and the empty, nearly non-existent social life. He can tell you about guilt and pain and shame. He’ll look you in the eye and say, "I’ve wasted my life. I don’t want to be like this." And when he leaves, he’ll head directly for another drink and another and still another, until he feels nothing, knows nothing, is nothing. He does not change.

I will tell you, quite frankly, that I was hesitant about sharing that experience with you, but I will also tell you, frankly, that it is my thinking about him and the scripture lessons we have heard this morning that have led me to this sermon. It is my thinking about him that started my thinking about change, about people who do change and about people who should change but don’t, and about what all of that may mean for us.

Two threads keep running through my mind and crossing over each other. Two thoughts are present in our scripture reading from John this morning. As Jesus sat with Nicodemus in the dark of night, already confronted by the powers of the Pharisees and the power of darkness, he discovered that all around him were unprepared for his coming and living in total darkness, as well. They were not ready to hear what he was trying to say. They were unable to understand the message he had set out to proclaim. So we hear of Nicodemus – a wise man, a leader of the Jews, who comes to Jesus seeking, searching for the light, searching for God, wondering whether there is more to faith than what he has always believed. We hear a respected member of society meeting with a renegade, itinerant preacher, daring to challenge not only himself and all he has believed, but the institutions and leadership of his own faith and time. But it is more than that. Caught unprepared for what he would hear, Nicodemus could not see that his life was empty. He was unaware of the darkness around him. He knew he had come in the middle of the night, but still he could not find light. He saw the shadows, but he found no brightness. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Life can be dim and dark and overshadowed. Life can be filled with nasty reflections of truth and faint illusions of life. Life can come in parts and pieces, complicated and very complicating.

Those poetic images from the Bible express some very real truths, not only about the person I’ve been thinking of, but about all of us, for even the bravest and surest of us are not always prepared for the darkness. None of us are always ready for what we will be told and hear. Occasionally, the light will flicker for each of us. In fact, sometimes I think we are more comfortable and at ease with those times of darkness and shadow and that we work harder at those parts of our lives than we do with any challenge to live in the light. We are better at dissecting than we are at putting things back together. We spend more time, much more time criticizing than we do praising. And we easily dismiss the dark failings of society, government, the church and other human beings in general. But when asked to come up with a solution or two, we quickly gather together those two familiar friends: the blank stare and the changed subject.

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the News. He came to Jesus by night… All of that is true for me, at least. You may decide for yourself if you are one of those who finds the real work terrifying and would rather live with your own illusions in a small, self-contained world. One describes this way of coping: "We prefer to watch reruns of M.A.S.H. than to confront the film accounts of Hiroshima. We prefer the politics of "Law and Order" to judicial reform. We would rather watch the triumphant struggle of "Home Alone" to the sight of Church World Service’s undramatic battle against hunger’s skin-stretched skulls. And even as our world teeters on the brink of destruction by design, or through the obscenity of insensitivity, we are protected by what we want and others want to see."

We live in the darkness of unprepared lives. We are in the shadows and take comfort. We say we are living, when all the time we are ruled by the fear of having to be prepared, the boredom of waiting and watching, the apprehension of responding to God’s coming.

A man came to church one Sunday and found that the only seat left in the whole sanctuary was one in the back pew. As the minister began the sermon, the man had trouble hearing, so he cupped his ear but it barely helped at all. After a while he leaned forward over the next pew, but was still unable to hear. Finally, realizing that the sermon was nearly half over, he stood in desperation and shouted, "Preacher, I haven’t heard one word you’ve said." Before the startled minister could respond, another man in the front pew called out, "You can have my seat, cause I’ve heard all I want!"

Some of you may be feeling the same way, at least so far. But I said there was another feeling I had about the scripture this morning, another thread that was winding its way through my mind. The second thread is this: For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. Those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.

Jesus says that we can change. We can live in the light. We can come out of the darkness. We can start to live and not just pretend to be happy. We can change. We have it with us and in us to do it. We have the possibility to see life, to see ourselves in a whole different way. When we pay attention to Jesus, when we want to have him in our lives, when we listen to what he is saying, when we ask him to be in our every moment, when we come with Nicodemus, whether under the cover of night or in the light of day, we walk out of the shadows and into the light. We are changing.

There are two threads: there is darkness, but there is also light. There is pain, but there are ways to live with pain. There is a life that is much like death, but there is a death that brings life that is deeper and stronger than any death. And there are many who see that. There are many who understand and who reach toward the living Christ. There are those who want their lives to be different and will do something about it. There are those who do want to change their lives.

When I think of my young friend I told you about at the beginning of this sermon, my first question still stands. Why do some people change, and others do not? Why do some people fight back at the darkness and avoid the shadows? Why can some see wasted life and leave it behind and others cling to it with what is, ironically, a death grip? Why are some people courageous enough to ask for help and others pretend that all is well? Why can some step out of their illusions and fears and darkness and see life and their lives clearly? Why do some change and turn their lives around? Why do some of us never change, even in the face of misery and self-destruction? Why do some do nothing, even when they say, "I’ve wasted my life?"

We never know what time will bring. Standing by the hospital bed of one we love, seeing the birth of your own child, loving through the loss of work and struggle of unemployment, lying in the dark pit of despair or walking through the darkest valley, are all moments that change our lives. And there, in each of those times, the warm touch of love and flicker of light can touch us all. We never know.

For me, that is helpful. And for those of you, who perhaps have been thinking of someone in your life, I hope it is helpful, too. We never know why, we never know when, we never know if, with more time, change will come. We never know when we will hear the words of promise and hope: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Christ will come to us. We will find Christ’s life within our own. We can find God. And it is then that we will see for certain, there is no darkness, and our lights will never go out.

Amen.