“In
all this darkness -- some light”
That
was the headline of a story in The Hamilton Spectator this week about the birth
of Dominic Steve Mesic to Sharon Dorr, the partner and fiancée to Steve Mesic
who was shot to death June 7 in an encounter with Hamilton Wentworth
police. Steve’s death is still being
investigated and the 3 ½ months since have been a dark nightmare for Sharon and
all of her and Steve’s family. But with
the birth of little Dominic -- the child she and Steve conceived, some sense of
thanksgiving for life has re-appeared in the family’s story.
In
all this darkness -- some light.
Isn’t
that what we all hope for, and live for?
The
world looks dark at times -- I don’t need to tell you all the ways. We read the paper either in print or on-line,
watch or listen to the news, see the changes right around us, share in the
anxiety and anger of our time.
Our
lives feel dark or shadowed at times -- we talk about it a lot, and I’m sure we
don’t tell one another the half of it.
And you don’t need to be a senior, or have gone through mid-life crisis,
or be unemployed, or poor, or a young adult trying to make a start to be able
to feel it. Teenagers and young children
with all kinds of opportunity and possibility ahead of them can -- and do, also
feel angst and depression and darkness.
So
what’s the plan in a world and a life like this?
Some
people are tempted to stop. There have
been times in the midst of war, or in the wake of war, when people have simply
stopped making babies. They haven’t felt
good or hopeful enough about life to want to bring new little ones into the
world as it is. Some also felt this way when
we first became aware a generation ago of how polluted and threatened the life
of Earth has become. How many people said
things like, “The world is such a mess; it might not have a future; how can anyone
choose to bring a child into this mess?”
Some
are tempted to run and hide. The world
out there is bad, but we want to keep going, so we create safe spaces for
ourselves to be, and we spend our time and money maintaining and insulating our
havens. I think of rec rooms that
replaced the street as places for children to play, of tax shelters that
replace contributing to the common good, of private schools that take the place
of working for a good public curriculum, of gated communities that supposedly protect
from the world by keeping evil and anxiety out.
I
wonder what options tempted Jeremiah and the more astute people of his day? Jeremiah sees very clearly that their kingdom
lives under a shadow of judgement it cannot escape. And it’s not just a few who will suffer --
not just a few bad apples that can be removed to make things better. All the kingdom, from top to bottom, is going
to fall. All people, from rich to poor,
will suffer dislocation. And even the
land itself -- Earth and the good order that God ordained and spoke into being
from the beginning, will be shaken and will fall into disarray. The corruption is that profound; the decay is
that deep.
In
the midst of this Jeremiah and other people of vision are tempted. As we read through the book of Jeremiah’s
prophecies, there are times he wants to be able to stop seeing and speaking,
stop caring, stop being part of the kingdom’s ongoing life. There are times he wants to retreat and find
a little place of his own to be, away from the turmoil and the inconvenient
truths of his time, shut away and insulated from the dark and shadowed journey
that the kingdom is on.
But in
the midst of darkness -- some light.
Jeremiah
does not stop -- is not allowed by God to stop -- because in the midst of all
the bad news about the end of what has been, he is also made to see a glimmer of
light -- an embryo of hope, that as we read through the rest of the book
becomes a spark of new direction, then light just enough to see a next good
step, and finally light enough to lead the whole nation towards the hope of a
new day beyond the end of the old one -- the light and the hope that in time becomes
incarnate in Jesus as he is presented in the Gospels.
That
little seed -- the embryo of hope, is buried in the reading this morning. It’s just a little half-verse embedded in the
litany of woe. All we know, Jeremiah
says, is coming to an end. The end is
near, and it’s God’s work and will; it’s the only thing we can really expect
because of how we have been. But … and
here it is … he says, but “I will not make a full end.” In verse 27:
“For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I
will not make a full end.”
That’s
the seed of hope Jeremiah is given and that he gives to the people -- the seed that’s
enough to encourage them to still want to share in God’s good work of bringing
new life into their land -- to still work with God in creating hope -- to still
share with God in bringing God’s good will for the life of the world into their
time -- to walk the shadowed path their kingdom must walk with their eyes set
ahead on a new day and new way of being beyond the present darkness.
Our
baptismal liturgy begins with two lines drawn from A Song of Faith -- the most
recent statement of the faith of our church, adopted in 2006:
Before conscious thought or action on our part
we are born into the brokenness of this world.
Before conscious thought or action on our part
we are surrounded by God’s redeeming love.
These are two
realities of our life that we remember and celebrate in baptism. On one hand we are born into the brokenness
of the world, meaning not only that we suffer from its sin and its mistakes,
but we also share in its sinfulness and mistakenness in the ways we live, the
choices we make, the kinds of lives we create for ourselves and for others. On the other hand, though, in spite of our
own and the world’s brokenness, we are surrounded by God’s redeeming love,
meaning that as with the people of Israel, as with poor and broken people
anytime and everywhere, as with all creation, God does not abandon us, does not
give up, but always and continually holds us in an embrace of love -- forgiving
our sin, blessing us with good things, and always
breathing-breathing-and-breathing-still a good and holy spirit in us for healing
and wholeness.
This is true
for each one of us. It’s true for all
people we know. It’s true even and
especially today for little Sawyer Levi Trebovac, which is why, as the
statement of faith says, we have “received him into the covenanted community of
the church,” celebrated “the nurturing, sustaining, and transforming power of
God’s love” in his life, and committed ourselves to helping him grow into the
knowledge of that power of good for himself.
And how do we do that -- for him, for any of the children in our church or in the community, for ourselves even?
That’s
the million dollar question. And we
don’t always have answers, do we? I know
I didn’t always as a parent. The jury’s
still out on whether I do as a grand-parent.
Or as a husband. Or as a
minister. Or as a citizen of a
community.
And
maybe you’ve felt the same. How do I
help my children or grand-children see the light of God and truly good life in our
time? How do I learn to see it and live
in it myself? How do we as a church do
right for the children who are here? How
do we reach out and help enlighten the lives of other children and families and
households in the community?
In
all the darkness -- what light?
Light
and hope are given -- a seed, an embryo, a little new life that comes into our
midst as gift and miracle. And as we tend to it and care for it, bend it
slowly and lovingly toward the light of God’s love, and find ways to shine the
light of God’s love upon it, it shall grow -- and so shall we -- grow up and
grow strong towards the new world, the new kingdom, the new and renewed Earth
that God desires and never stops working for.
So as
a congregation -- and as parents and god-parents, we commit ourselves to
nurturing the holy spirit within Sawyer, knowing this also means caring for and
nurturing the holy spirit in ourselves as well, that we y be faithful together to
the hope and light we are given.
Because,
as we say,
We are not alone, we live in God’s
world.
We believe in God:
who
has created and is still creating,
who
has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in
us and others by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church …
Thanks be to God.
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