"The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

A sermon by The Rev. Keenan Kelsey
Noe Valley Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA)
March 6, 2005

Ephesians 5:8-14

⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹ (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰ and find out what pleases God. ¹¹ Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹² For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. ¹³ But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, ¹⁴ for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

I had a hard time watching "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" when it came out in the late 80’s – too slow, too esoteric. But I remember enough to know that the characters in the interlocking stories of four relationships all struggle to construct lives of individual value and lasting meaning. Existence is measured in terms of weightiness or lightness, "What then shall we choose?" the narrator asks at the beginning. "Weight or lightness?"

The apostle Paul asks the question another way: “What then shall we choose? Darkness or lightness?”

Although the movie eventually concludes that these are not polar opposites, that weight and lightness seem to add up to the same thing; for Paul, the difference is nothing short of life or death. Although unbearable lightness of being is an ambiguous goal in the movie, for Paul it is the only goal.

This metaphor of light and dark of begins in the Scriptures as far back as Isaiah,"... the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned." It travels throughout the prophets and ends up a major theme in the New Testament: Jesus is the Light of the World.

"What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (John 1)

Paul himself, once an enemy of those who called themselves "Followers of the Way," came to truth when he was blinded by a brilliant light, and knocked to the ground. No wonder that Paul speaks of new Christians as those who have moved into the light, indeed who are light!

We certainly see this theme in the letter to Ephesus, the capital city of western Asia Minor. Ephesians is Paul’s most generalized letter; it was probably meant for circulation among a circuit of churches rather than a particular church in a particular circumstance. He describes the dead-end road of sin and death, and the open horizons of God’s grace and purpose. Echoing what he said in Romans, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Colossians, Galatians, Timothy, Paul says that those who live in the light are the ones who in all their actions, words, and choices seek to please God.

Then, he summons his readers to a new level of integration. He emphasizes that being, thought, and action belong together. How we are governs how we think which governs how we act. Experience determines theology determines ethics. And God’s love, God’s light, informs them all. We are God’s new society, a people who have put off the old life and put on the new. Holiness, Paul emphasizes, is not a condition into which we drift. We must actively resist all conduct that is incompatible with light, becoming saints who are reconciled to God and to one another. Over and over, Paul declares: good conduct comes out of good doctrine. It is only when we have grasped who we are in Christ that the desire will grow within us to live a life worthy of our calling and fitting to our character as God’s light in the world.

For Paul, Light is renewal, decisive and radical transformation, the defining state of the followers of Jesus Christ.

It is interesting that these designations of light and dark were also found in the Qumran community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. They saw themselves as the children of light and all others as the children of darkness. They responded by withdrawing from society and formed their own community, apparently leaving the rest of the world to the dark destruction it so richly deserved. Similarly, the Manicheans, a 3rd century group descended from followers of John the Baptist, preached the dualism of light and darkness. Mani also urged his followers to forsake the darkness in order to purify the light, to separate from the darkness of the world into a life of extreme aestheticism. But for Paul and the early Christians, the light was not to be separated out; rather, it needs to be shined on the darkness in order to illuminate it. Christians, said Paul, were to mingle with the world in order to enlighten it; to stay in the world where they will have to make moral choices and decisions all the time. If Christ is not in the political process, or if Christ is not in the marts of trade and commerce, or if Christ is not in our marriages and families, He is nowhere.

Over and over, Paul says, living in the light must produce fruit. If Christians are children of the light, then there will be evidence of that in their lives.

How do we do this?

Do we ourselves exhibit a lifestyle of light that is painful for those in darkness?

When do we confront evil with actions and words?

How can we do that without sinking into judgmentalism, inquisitions, and self-righteousness?

Or is the church and individual Christian guilty of what Leonard Sweet calls "the whussiness of the church"?

We are challenged at every turn of these scripture lessons to reconsider our understanding of sin. Sin is no longer as simple as keeping God's rules, one through ten, or a matter of a scrupulous following of the Levitical codes of what to eat or what to wear. Rather it is about the messy and confusing matter of being in relationship with God. It is about discovering what is "pleasing" to God, and seeking that relationship, first and foremost. Good behavior, solid moral conduct, will flow not from rules, but from that relationship. "You were once in darkness, BUT now you are light in the Lord."

God looks on the heart. Belief opens the eyes of the spirit. The opened eyes of the spirit open the heart to love. Love opens the soul to new behavior. Light shines in the darkness, and we try to learn what is pleasing to the God. Indeed, our Christian faith at its best isn't so much about casting aspersions as it is about casting light.

Toyohiko Kagawa, a great Japanese Christian, summed it up in a tiny verse that says:

I read
In a book
That a man called
Christ
Went about doing good.
It is very disconcerting to me
That I am so easily
Satisfied
With just
Going about

When John Kerry accepted the Democratic nomination as Presidential Candidate, he declared, “...faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side. And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: the measure of our character is our willingness to give ourselves for others and for our country.”

The 1980’s movie was called “ The Unbearable Lightness Of Being.” Paul would call it the incredible lightness of being. Being filled with God’s light is that saving grace which drives us to our best selves, not our worst. In the movie’s final scene Tomas and Tereza find themselves in a small country hotel after a rare evening of dancing. When Tomas turns on the light in their room, "a large nocturnal butterfly" rises from the bedside lamp and circles the room in which they are alone with their happiness and their sadness. One has the feeling this is God’s light, finally invading their ambiguity and giving them wings.

Let’s turn on the lights. Let’s bask in God’s light. Let’s let our own lights shine.

“Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”