John
8:12-20
April 14, 2013
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I
am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but
will have the light of life.’ Then the Pharisees said to him, ‘You are testifying
on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.’ Jesus answered, ‘Even if I
testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have
come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where
I am going. You judge by human standards; I judge no one. Yet even if I do
judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the
Father who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two
witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me
testifies on my behalf.’
Then they said to him, ‘Where is your
Father?’ Jesus answered, ‘You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me,
you would know my Father also.’ He spoke these words while he was teaching in
the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not
yet come.
I don’t know if you recognize the name James Zwerg. I’d
be surprised if you did, especially if you were born after 1961. Zwerg gained
national attention for several photos of him that went newspaper viral in 1961.
One picture was of him slumped against a wall and covered in blood. Another was
of him in a hospital bed with bruises all over his face, eyes swollen shut,
with a newspaper showing the picture mentioned before on the front page. What
had happened to him to make his picture so widespread?
It all started when he was a freshman, attending Benoit
College in Wisconsin. His roommate there became a huge influence in his life.
This young man was someone Zwerg admired and respected, yet he was also deeply
effected by how his roommate was treated by the other students at Benoit. You
see, Zwerg’s roommate was African American, and Zwerg witnessed this young man
of dignity, intelligence, and compassion being called n***er, being pushed and
shoved, and otherwise denigrated.
Zwerg became so convinced that he needed to understand
life from his friend’s perspective that he took advantage of an opportunity to
be part of an exchange program with Fisk University, an all-black university in
Nashville, Tennessee. It was there that he first heard of the idea of Freedom
Riders. These were college students who chartered buses to cities in the South
where desegregation protests were taking place. The buses were symbolic of
their standing with those asking for local mass transit buses to be
desegregated.
Zwerg boarded a bus for Montgomery, Alabama, along with
forty others, both black and white. He was terrified of what might happen. What
made it worse was that he had had a terrible fight with his parents the night
before on the phone. His father was so angry with him that he wouldn’t speak to
him. His mother just kept repeating that Zwerg was going to give his father a heart
attack. He kept trying to tell them that it was their Christian ethic and
example that was leading him to do this, but they wouldn’t listen. Still, he
knew deep in his heart that he was doing what Christ wanted him to do.
As the bus got closer to Montgomery, Zwerg’s prayer
became more intense. He prayed over and over again these words from Psalm 27:
The Lord is my light and my
salvation;
whom
shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my
life;
of
whom shall I be afraid?
As he thought about his parents, he also kept praying the
last verse of the psalm:
If my father and mother forsake me,
the
Lord will take me up.
As they pulled into the Greyhound bus station, an angry
mob of 300 awaited them. They were armed with baseball bats, two-by-fours, and
chains. They had threatened and intimidated both reporters and police, so few beyond
the mob were there to witness it, let alone prevent it. As Zwerg and the other
students disembarked, they were grabbed by the mob who started clubbing and
beating them. Zwerg crumpled to the ground quickly, but a man pulled him up and
held his shoulders so that the crowd could keep beating him.
In those moments, Zwerg had an experience that he would
later say was the most beautiful one of his life. He bowed his head and asked
God to give him the strength to remain nonviolent and to forgive those beating him.
He only felt the first blow. After that, all he felt was an intense peace and
calm. He knew that no matter what happened to him, whether he lived or died, he
would be okay.
Photographers took his picture after the beating, and
from there they were published on the cover of newspapers worldwide. A
particularly poignant one was of him next to John Lewis, who eventually became a
U.S. Congressman from Georgia, both of them covered with splatterings of blood.
What led Zwerg to become so brave? What led him to join
with others in these Freedom rides? Ultimately, Zwerg understood what it meant
when Jesus said, “I am the light of the
world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light
of life.”
Zwerg lived in a time of darkness that had encompassed
much of American life for over 300 years. It began with slavery and continued
on through the brutality of segregation. Despite the election of an African
American President, some of the same feelings of bigotry still exist today.
Prejudice and bigotry are always a beguiling darkness because
it feels like “rightness” to those immersed in it. People who are prejudiced
never think they are prejudiced. In fact, often they think that they are
upholding God’s natural order of things. Most slave-owners, and the people of
the South during slavery, thought there was a natural order to the world, and “Negros”
were on the bottom—that their God-given purpose was to be slaves to enlightened
whites. Those who supported segregation thought much of the same thing. Even in
Jesus’ day, the Jews who had become Christian believed that the natural order
was that Jews were chosen, and the Gentiles were not. So the integration of
Gentiles into this new, primarily Jewish/Christian faith was considered to be wrong.
The fact is that most of us never know we’re in darkness.
Whatever darkness we walk in feels either right or inconsequential when we are
taking part in it. That’s the problem with the world’s darkness. It doesn’t
feel like darkness, and it can even feel a bit light-ish. Whenever we walk in
darkness, we can be deluded into thinking that we’re promoting God’s order or
God’s will.
When Jesus says that he is the light of world, he’s being
literal. He’s telling people that if they open up to him personally, if they
are willing to really listen for his voice, and not just follow a principle or
policy, they will see life the way Christ sees it. This is what we talk about
when we use the word “discernment.” We seek to live by Christ’s light by living
in a way that looks for where the light of Christ is shining in the world. When
Jesus says that he is the light of the world, he is saying that through him we
can see how God wants the world to be. We now recognize that James Zwerg was
living and acting in the light of Christ, but that’s because we’ve managed to
mostly step out of the darkness of prejudice against African Americans—mostly.
The key isn’t waiting for the passage of time to
reveal Christ’s light, but to see by it in the present. One of my big complaints
about America is that while we are very religious, we’re often not very
spiritual. We often fight about religious stuff without ever really seeking
what God wants. The Civil Rights movement showed how religious people can
mistake darkness for Christ’s light, and religious belief for the Spirit’s
work. It is possible to read the Bible, go to church, know Christian theology
backwards and forwards, and still not see by Christ’s light. It’s because we
aren’t used to looking at what Christ shines on, so instead we look at what the
world shines on.
One of my favorite stories of this way of preferring
darkness to light is from a 13th century Sufi Muslim mystic who
taught deep spiritual lessons by making fun of himself. His name was Nasruddin.
One day a man found Nasruddin on his hands and knees outside of his home,
looking intently for something on the ground. The man asked Nasruddin what he
was doing. Nasruddin said, “I lost my keys.” So, the man got down on the ground
with him and began looking. For thirty
minutes they both looked intently, but neither could find the keys. Finally,
the man asked Nasruddin, “Where exactly did you lose your keys?” Nasruddin responded, “Over there by the
bushes.” Incredulous, the man asked, “Then why have we been looking over here?”
Nasruddin replied, “Because the light is so much better over here.”
Today, so many people choose the world’s light over Christ’s
light because they think it helps them see, even if it means they miss all the
good and important stuff that Christ’s light is shining upon. Many of these
people have strong religious opinions to go with their strong political
opinions. The problem is that these beliefs become their light. They substitute
religious light for Christ’s light. They can be just like the Pharisees Jesus
was speaking to, whose belief in law was much stronger than their openness to
God.
We’re all like this at times. For example, our political
identity as Republicans or Democrats is stronger than it is as Christians. Or
our philosophical identity as conservatives or liberals is stronger than it is
as Christians. What our passage is saying is that we need to put Christ at the
foundation, rather than our political, philosophical, or even religious beliefs.
The point is to be a Christian first, and let that influence our politics,
beliefs, and religious practices, not the other way around.
The light of Christ is much like our doggy light. I have
a special flashlight. If you look at it in normal light it looks like a weak,
purple-y light. It doesn’t give off much visible light. But if you shine it in
pitch black, it shines on doggy pee so that you can see where the dog has
decided that it’s much better to stay indoors than to brave the snow and cold.
Basically, this is a light that shines on things we can’t see without it.
This is what the light of Christ is like. It shines not
only on the parts of life we can’t normally see, but also on what we don’t want
to see. It shines on the poor, the struggling, the imprisoned. It shines on
people who suffer from bigotry, indifference, and hatred. It shines on what we
can do to make the world a better place, even if it means we might suffer in
the process.
Christ’s light shines on those who we need to care about,
on life the way we need to live it, and on the Spirit who is always present. My
question to you is what light do you
live by?
Amen.
