Light & Grace
4-19-09
Verna Harelson
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of every heart present here be holy and acceptable to You our Guide and Redeemer.
I would also like to open and close with a prayer by Marianne Williamson from her book Illuminata:
Dear God,
Show me the light at the center of my brother (and sisters).
Show me the light at the center of myself.
Show me the light at the center of the world.
Where I see guilt, show me innocence.
Where I focus on mistakes, show me how to focus on efforts as good.
Help me have faith in Your Spirit within me.
Thus may darkness be cast out.
May I cleave to the light that is in my heart.
This is my prayer.
May I see light in everyone.
Amen.
As I read and re-read the four possible texts from the lectionary, I began to resonate with this one from 1 John, titled Walk in the Light.
This title implies to me a contrast, a dichotomy, the interaction of two opposites. Can we appreciate "The Light" if we have not experienced darkness? Of course, as spiritual beings having a human experience, we have been there in the "dark night of the soul" and "the valley of the shadow of death." My mother used to say that those were the dark times when she couldn’t look up and see bottom.
What is this pure light that has no darkness in it? It comes from no physical source. It must be from our "Higher Power", divine consciousness, or what I choose to call God (as manifest in Jesus, the Christ.)
A match lit in the large cavern in the Oregon Caves, and the passing of the light from candle to candle in the Christmas Eve candlelight service are two powerful examples of light overcoming the darkness, but they cannot compare to the twinkle in the eye of a loved one or the radiance that shines through a person with an open heart full of love and forgiveness.
How do we access this Light in our lives?
John suggests that we must admit our "sins" or the times that we have separated ourselves from God and been unloving to others. If we are truly repentant, we will receive the gift of grace: forgiveness and cleansing, or a "purging us of all our sins." Then we must practice what Jesus said were the two greatest Commandments: love God and love one another. Let us open our hearts wide enough to include God and all of God’s children. We wil see this Love manifest in what John calls a "shared life" or fellowship with others who practice this openness and unconditional Love.
Perhaps, some of you left the church because you could not support what you perceived it to be: hypercritical, irrelevant, cruel, constricted, intolerant, stuck in the past, or any other reason. Perhaps you have come back because you have learned that there is something here that your spirit longed for: fellowship; with others wherever they are on their journey of faith; with others who are practicing loving, nurturing and acceptance of one another; with others who pray for one another and trust that they can safely share their joys and concerns; with others who h ave heard the message of Jesus’ love and who believe or want to believe that they too can live and share in that love.
When we are joined to this fellowship, we have a common bond, for we are all related to God through the example of Jesus. One common theme is to try to imitate Jesus, to do the deeds of light that made him so beloved. These deed of light fill us with joy as we see love in action, love spreading from heaven to us and out into the world. Our relationships are enriched in this body of Christ.
Look at faces around you and silently say to yourself, "The light of God in me salutes the light of God in you." Try this for five minutes at a time wherever you might feel the urge, or hear the still, small voice and feel yourself resisting the urge. Try it when you are with loved ones, or out in public. See how you feel after you have done it several times. My guess is that you will begin to feel that joy that comes only from God, the joy that pass-eth understanding.
As much as we would love to think of ourselves as loving all of the time, we would be less that honest if we said that we are. In fact, we all trip over other people and situations where we are tempted to judge. All of these "speed bumps" are challenges and opportunities to practice increasing our capacity to be loving, and our willingness to be completely hones and ask God to remove all unloving, critical, or judgmental thought from our minds.
Let’s move on to the world in general. Let’s look into our hearts for any prejudice or intolerance. Where we find ourselves with a bigoted thought toward someone else’s religion, nationality, color, or sexual or political orientation, let us ask God to remove those thoughts, to rid our mind of any hatred or judgment.
"No," you might say, "I am not a bigot, and perhaps you are not. But who among us can honestly say, "I do not judge"? Let us take this moment now to consider the places where we hold a sword of judgment over someone and, in this moment, let us pray to be healed.
It is important in saying such a prayer, that we get specific in admitting our darkness. Here are many possible targets for judgments or prejudices that we still might hold:
"Lord, heal our hearts of any judgments or prejudices involving: blacks, whites, Hispanics, American Indians, Asians, Jews, Catholics, New-Agers, born-again Christians, non-born-again Christians, religious people, old people, hyperactive children, men, women, Muslims, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, homosexuals, heterosexuals, atheists, agnostics, the rich, the poor, the dirty, Northerners, Southerners, fundamentalists, someone who hurt us, someone we love…etc.
Perhaps we learned loveless attitudes form our parents, or form experiences in the past. Wherever we picked up judgmental attitudes, they do not serve us now. They do not serve God or the creation of a more gentle and loving world, and serving God is our only goal. To serve God is to think with love. In prayerful request, let us give up all thoughts that are not of love. Try saying this prayer from Marianne Williamson’s book Illuminata:
"Dear God,
I surrender to you my thoughts of judgment.
Please heal me of my temptation to blame Your children who You adore.
Teach me to love as You do.
Teach me to see the reality behind the superficial masks, the truth in the hearts of all your children.
May I see the innocence in all humanity, that I may see the world of Your creation, the world anew, the world that shall be.
I relinquish my mis-creations, I surrender my belief in guilt.
Bring me home to the truth at last.
May all God’s children be innocent in my eyes, for they are all my brothers (& sisters.)
May I see that the world might heal.
Dear God,
Give new eyes, Your eyes.
Amen