First delivered on Saturday, October 3rd, at Morning Prayers, The Memorial Church of Harvard University.
But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then, let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 1 Thessalonians 5:4-8
Living in the country, far removed from the noise and the light of the city, you gain a greater appreciation for the night, for darkness, and the quiet that often comes with it.
I can remember driving along the two-lane highway that led to my house, fields of cotton on either side going out as far as you could see. On cloudy nights, there was pitch-blackness all around; I know it sounds cliché, but it was the kind of darkness that wouldn’t allow you to see your hand in front of your face. But on clear nights, there were thousands, maybe millions of stars. More stars than I ever knew was possible to see from earth. My wife doesn’t like me saying this, but every once in a while, if there was no one else on the road, as was often the case, I would turn off my headlights, and drive with ease, guided only by the light of the moon. The moon and stars were so bright that I could see my shadow as I walked my dog through the cotton fields across the road from my house.
I worked for Habitat for Humanity in the Mississippi Delta for two years before entering Divinity School. I lived in an extremely small town, so small, in fact, that it isn’t really considered a town, per se. This is often true of places where stray dogs outnumber people. But there was a real town not too far down the road and along its main drag there was a Michelin Tire store. The sign outside this store did not change the entire two years I was down there, and it read in bold lettering: “Character is who you are in the dark.” Meaning, presumably, that it is not what we do in public, or “when the lights are on,” that defines us, but rather what we do when we are by ourselves, when no one else can see. Now, there is nothing especially earth shattering about this message, many of us have probably heard it somewhere before, but after a while I found it to be a bit jarring—besides the oddity of it being on the sign for a tire store.
This passage from the last chapter of Paul’s letter is his final words of support and hope to the church. He reminds them to whom they belong. They are God’s children, “children of light and children of the day.” They belong to the light of the age to come, not the darkness of this present age. For Paul the cycle of night and day, light and darkness provides a potent metaphor for who the church is to be in the world.
About a year, ago near the beginning of winter, National Geographic magazine featured an article about light pollution with the provocative title “The End of Night: Why We Need the Darkness.” The article explains that as humans we are, at least biologically, meant to be creatures of the day. Our eyes are meant to function in light, thus our difficulty seeing and orienting ourselves in darkness. Modern technology has tried to correct this by harnessing electricity to provide light at any time of day. As necessary as this is for civilization as we know it, the article goes on to say that the development of this technology comes with consequences. It explains that darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself. And yet the article ends on a somewhat philosophical note: “In a very real sense, light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way arching overhead.”
Upon reading this article I could not help but think back to my time in Mississippi and the breathtaking dark nights. You see it was during these nights, as I looked up at the darkness above that seemed to go on forever that I was most aware of my true place in the universe, and the true scale of my being. This is God’s creation, and I am only one small part of it. Sitting out in the cotton fields on those clear, dark nights, it was the darkness that enabled me to see the light of the stars and the moon more clearly. The darkness illuminated the light, and the light the darkness.
If biologically we need darkness to help regulate our internal clocks, and philosophically we need darkness to help us understand our place in the world, perhaps theologically we can understand light and darkness to be a part of the ordering of creation. God separated the light from the darkness creating day and night. Light and darkness are a part of creation, which God tells us is fundamentally good. We might say that they are also a part of us, which Scripture tells us is fundamentally very good.
“But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.”
Paul reminds the church of its true identity, of who they are in the dark. And so to amend this message from the good people of Michelin, if not somewhat awkwardly, perhaps “Christianity is who we are in the dark.” Not the darkness found in solitude, but the darkness of the very world that surrounds us, the necessary darkness. It is the both the moonlight that allows us to drive down empty highways, and the light of stars piercing the blackness of a night that covers our imagination. It is who are, and what we must do as we prepare for the morning that is on our horizon. Amen.