SermonStudio

One of my favorite cartoons appeared in The New Yorker magazine. It showed the building which housed the pressrooms of The New York Times. And from the windows of the building oozed words, words, words like streaming waterfalls down into the street to form a flood tide of words, words, words. The cartoonist surely must have decided on his satirical sketch after leafing through the Sunday Times for five or six hours. In one proverbial picture worth a thousand proverbial words, the artist commented forcefully on our age of verbal overkill. We have been deluged with words, words, words, written and spoken, loud and soft, stupid and wise, frivolous and poignant.

The deluge of words is well illustrated by the book publishing industry. Prior to the year 1500, Europe was producing books at the rate of about 1,000 titles a year. It took a century to produce a library of 100,000 titles. But by 1950, Europe was producing 120,000 titles, not a century, but a year! By the mid-'60s the world output of books, including that of Europe, was nearly 1,000 titles per day.

If 2,500 years ago the author of Ecclesiastes could sigh, "Of the making of books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of flesh," what would he do in our day of actual mountains of published glut? If, after the initial shock, he were able to avoid complete desperation he would, like us, resign himself to the fact that he never would be able to read all the books that aroused his interest. And upon entering one of our libraries or bookstores, would he not wonder along with us if amidst all these words there might be a word for us, a word of hope, of help, of significant personal meaning?

It is an age of verbal overkill. There is the endless chatter of children, the perpetual pulp of television, the nauseous drone of a jaded teacher, the innocuous harangue of the sales manager, the insidious graspings of ruthless greed cloaked beneath some of the nation's most creative artwork. Television talk shows, lectures, radio talk shows, speeches, trial summations before judge and jury, charge and countercharge, cocktail party chatter, seminars, reports, arguments and debate, the endless drivel of the disc jockey, the pulpit tone drone of sermons. (Did I say sermons? Yes, even sermons!) Talk, talk, talk; words, words, words.

So after our eardrums have been assaulted long enough, after coming to the brink of losing the privacy and control of our inner self, after the nerves have been frazzled again and again by words, words, words, do we not want to breathe deeply, collect our strength, and cry out in the rage of our last reserves of emotional energy, "Is there not a word for us, the word that would put all the other words in perspective to give coherence and meaning"? Six hundred years before Christ, the Judean king, Zedekiah, was seeking the counsel of the prophets of the land, who falsely assured him that God was with him. Yet amidst the babbling of the court prophets, King Zedekiah went secretly to the room where the true prophet, Jeremiah, was imprisoned, asking, "Is there any word from the Lord?"

We too have come aside from all the false prophets of the world, away from all the strident voices of cocksure advice, aside from the rude interruptions of jangling telephones and blatant commercials to ask in the silence, "Is there today, amidst all the words, words, a word from the Lord?" And like Jeremiah, we answer, "Yes, there is a word from the Lord." In fact, the very Word of God himself would speak with us. And he is saying two things: Grace is greater than law, and light is greater than darkness.

I

We've heard the law more times than we like to remember. We know that in the Law God said,

"Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother."

And we said,

"To hell with my old man


and my mother is too naive to understand.

We'll do it our own way,


because in our day of exploding knowledge,


pieces of which we all get at college,

The sons now know more than their fathers


and daughters are much more well-known


than their mothers, so they say,

Gone away to college as they are,


mini-skirted, maxi-skirted, minus-skirted,



plus car.

They are cool,


and cold, we might as well say it,


and not play it false,

Their gain is everyone's loss."

But the Law was repeated,

"Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother."

And we said,

"They live too long

and know too little,

for the wiser son's honor or

active daughter's admiration."

And in the Law God said,

"Thou shalt not steal."

And we said,

"Get out there and get it while the getting's good;

ask questions later;

take or you'll be taken.

And we took and were taken

by our father's brother and

our sister's son, fakin' it,

uncle and nephew, telling nephew and uncle, sorry,

but that's the way it's done in the system, you know.

Your loss is, heh, heh, our gain, no personal offense,

of course,

it's the rules of the game,

of course."

And in the Law God said,

"Thou shalt not murder."

And we said,

"It's the furthest thing from our minds,


about as far away as Vietnam,


or maybe Afghanistan

Or our battle plan for attacking the freeway




at rush hour,


with three double martinis and a heavy foot.

Murder has never entered our minds,


but a man has to unwind


with a little hate here and there,

In Greenwich or Haight-Ashbury;

And it's quite unfair to say that


longing for his or her death in place of divorce




is murder,


or so we said in our tears at the grave."

And in the Law God said,

"Thou shalt not commit adultery."

And we said,

"Adultery? What is adultery? Whatever it is,


everyone's doing it,

said the blue-eyed syphilitic blond,

and the all-American AIDS-stricken boy."

And in the Law God said,

"Thou shalt not bear false witness."

And we said,

"If we tell the truth our product may not sell,


and it would not be well

to lose our jobs or not pay our bills.

And so the government passed the laws:

Truth in packaging, Truth in lending,

Truth in advertising,

not, of course, because we're dishonest men,

goodness knows we wouldn't wrong our neighbor."

And in the Law God said,

"Thou shalt not covet."

And we said,

"Of course not, but remember come September,

we want discontent

with last year's car, and furniture that's mellowed with

memories, soiled and sat-in.

And God said, and my mother said,

and, said my father, so said my brother.

The boss said his wife said, and the president said

what ought to be said when I said I could no longer

say what ought to be said; but the teacher said

do not leave off saying when what ought to be said can

be said with knowledge of the saying.

And the psychiatrist said that

what he was saying, was that what I had said was well

worth saying

(about $200 an hour). And I said to the preacher

all I'd been saying, and he said, try praying,

Then you'll remember this saying, That God said,

'Thou shalt not....' "


Oh no, no! No more! Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips. Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. I have sinned and fallen short of your glory. I am a lawless man, overcome with my iniquity, and my sins are ever before me. Now let me die the death I deserve.


Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

"The Word became flesh;


he came to dwell among us,


and we saw his glory,



such glory as befits the Father's only Son,



full of grace and truth.

Out of his full store


we have all received grace upon grace;

for while the law was given through Moses,


grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

II

In the second place, light is greater than darkness.

Some of us talk a lot, not because we have a lot to say. Quite the contrary. We talk excessively in an effort to cover up the fact that we really have nothing to say. Just as Jesus observed that many people like, in their prayers, to impress God with their "much-speaking," so too do they like to impress us.

I remember well a seminary classmate who was afflicted with "running-off-at-the-mouth" disease. Upon encountering him we regularly would receive a massive oration on the latest philosopher or theologian which he had finished reading. When he paused for a breath, we politely would turn to leave for our next class, only to be accompanied down the hall with a continuation of his rapid-fire summary.

It was not that he lacked intelligence. He had plenty of that. Rather, he lacked security. In his endless spate of words there seemed to be no word for him or us. He never came in for a landing, but zoomed off again like a professional tourist who could not bear the thought of staying in one place long enough for his life to catch up with him. He was afraid of finding out who he really was. The fear of discovering the real problem of his true identity was such a threat that he was off and running before an honest-to-God reflective moment could settle in upon him. Such is the problem of many professional students and tourists. They cannot face up to themselves. Their pathological insecurity will not allow them to stop long enough to hear the word about them and for them.

We see similar patterns in the person who drinks excessively. Instead of words or places, it is drinks. Is it not the same with those involved in the excessive use of tranquilizers or marijuana or barbiturates or cocaine? Are they not devices for flight from the self? Are they not methods of escape from harsh reality? Are they not testimonies to our inadequacy for life? They serve to illustrate the point -- that the realities of life seem unbearable, that the fear of death haunts us all.

But we need not stop there. The excessive use of food often signifies the same malaise, as does the obsession with material goods. Many of us discover that at various times in our lives we are little more than sophisticated pack rats. And it matters little whether we pack away lands, houses, money, antiques, or the very best art. Any or all of these may be evidences of a deep emptiness, or inner void, or a basic feeling of insignificance for which we must compensate, and indeed, overcompensate.

The rich man by his riches seeks to prove that he is not poor. The compulsive talker seeks to demonstrate that he is not without the word, the truth. The glutton seeks to forestall insecurity, and thereby, symbolically, death. The professional tourist avoids his finiteness, as does the professional student. Existential reality and the threat of death are thus avoided. So too the compulsive worker finds his identity, significance, and self-justification by way of his impressively busy schedule. So too the insecure man who becomes a policeman. Irony of ironies, the insecure man becomes a security officer.

And now a word of caution. Note that we are not saying that food, work, money, travel, study, alcohol, drugs, words, culture, or any such things are inherently wrong. It is rather their use by the self to deceive the self so that the self is unable to come to itself, to come clean with itself and God, which is the perversion.

Ah, but such deception, such lying, such darkness. Oh, my friends, this is what the Christ, the Word of God, uncovers and reveals. This is what the author of Hebrews meant when he said, "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4:12-13).

And is this not what John's Gospel means when it says, "The light shines on in the dark, and the darkness has never mastered it." That is the joy of the Gospel, of the Word amidst all our words, that Jesus was not afraid to face up to himself, to the void within, to the question of the meaning of his existence.

And since he was true to God and true to himself, he became the truth. Since he was able to confess the darkness, God gave him light and made him the light. Acknowledging the ultimate futility of man's words, he received God's Word and became the Word of God for all men. Confessing God's goodness instead of presupposing and defending his own, he became God's good man par excellence. Seeking not to grasp after the status of God, as most men, he humbled himself in faith and obedience so that God grasped and exalted him to the status of divinity. He did not presume upon God by means of genealogical pedigree or cultural-economic status, but yielded instead, without presumption, his faith and allegiance to God.

The deceivers of this world and those being deceived and those deceiving themselves did not receive him and do not even yet. "But to all who did receive him, to those who have yielded him their allegiance, he gave the right to become children of God, not born of any human stock, or by the fleshly desire of a human father, but the offspring of God himself" (John 1:12-13). Light is greater than darkness.

"In the beginning,
The Spirit of God brooded over the icy wastes


of remote matter which sat there,


sullen-like in the darkness,


an impregnable cold mass

eternally resistant to penetration --


or so it seemed,

condemned forever to the void --


we thought;


Until in the blackness a voice was heard,


bouncing from eon to eon,

echoing back into light-year spaces,


with all the graces of a bird in free flight.

Out of the night it came,


and in a word

'Let there be light' and light became,

never to be overcome by the darkness.

In the beginning-again,


the New Beginning,

The Spirit of God broods


over the icy wastes of remote hearts,


masses of impregnable cold,



eternally resistant to penetration --




or so it seems,


condemned forever to the abyss,


or so we have been thinking;


Until in the black, desperate void,


a voice was heard,


ever so faintly in the deep reaches of the mind,

echoing back along endless corridors


of forgotten memories and extinguished



hopes,


saying,

'I am the way, the truth and the life.

He who believes in me shall never die,


but have life -- life everlasting.'


And the light shines on in the darkness,


and the darkness has never mastered it."


And never will.


Prayer

Eternal God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our Father; out of whose Being have come all light and life, and out of whose eternal presence all time has come to be, we bow humbly before you to acknowledge your holiness and to adore you for wonders and mysteries we perceive but cannot comprehend. So conscious of our frailty and so aware of the brevity of our days, in this holy season we are drawn to you with yearnings beyond the temporal and with longings beyond human satisfaction.

We thank you that through Jesus Christ you have drawn near to us, that your eternal wisdom has focused upon him to give the fullness of meaning to our time, and that your heart of love has suffered through his heart to manifest your grace and truth for our human living. Praise be to you.

With worries over food and families and gifts given and received, we confess our difficulty focusing upon your peace, good will toward men. Help us to be open to you, that you might cleanse us of all unworthy thoughts and fill us with grace and serenity.

O God, who through the life and death and resurrection of Christ has placed infinite value upon human life and living, be pleased to reassure us again of your love and compassion. If doubt and cynicism have gripped our minds and hearts, grant us a breakthrough to new understandings of your designs for our lives. If disease and hardship have weighed heavily upon us, heal us and infuse us with hope for a better day. If family feuds and tensions with friends and associates have made us tense and uneasy, bring us again to compassion and understanding.

Look mercifully upon the world this night, O Lord. If friends and families have difficulty getting along, how much more the nations of the world. We so much long for justice and peace, and so much deplore war and the threat of war. Help us to remove from our own hearts those things which lead to violence, and grant to all nations the wisdom and grace needed for establishing peace on earth, good will to men.

Be close to each of us with our personal needs. We pray comfort for those who mourn, encouragement for those depressed, reconciliation for those estranged, wisdom and help for those overextended financially, rest and refreshment for the weary and overburdened, and a new measure of grace and love for us all. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.