Lux Lucet in Tenebris

Lux Lucet in Tenebris

Psalm 134

            St. Stephen Episcopal parish began its life the way many of its neighbor churches did.  The concrete floor laid mostly level by volunteers supporting four cinder block walls.  The roof began as metal, but was finished with palm fronds when the money ran out.  And, like its neighbors, St. Stephen has seen better days.  The roof was taken by hurricane Thomas; the south wall by Martha.   What remains stands open to the world and subject to the elements.

            The agent sante’ or local parish nurse lives in a small house near the church.  She helps the medical staff set up early.

Pews are moved out to the makeshift waiting room.  Tables are rounded up for exams.  The children will be weighed and the mothers taught about hygiene. 

There will be simple colds and severe malaria.  Some will get referred to the hospital in Leogane.  Everyone goes home with vitamins.

            It’s all in a day’s work in a medical mission clinic in Haiti.

            With the doctors and nurses occupied, the preacher is left with the remaining tasks; traffic cop, travel advisor and, perhaps most dubiously, pharmacist.  It is the pharmacist’s job to dole out the simple medicines the doctors prescribe and explain their use in, at best, pidgin Creole. 

            Troi foi shak ju.  Three times a day.

            After a few hours the words begin to echo in your head.

            At night, after the last patient is seen, when the medical staff have gone off to bed and the translators have gone home, the make shift pharmacist is charged with sleeping in the make shift pharmacy to ensure that no one makes off with the medicines.  On the black market they are worth a fortune, so someone has to stay with them.

 Laying on the floor, looking up at the black Haitian sky, the reality of night sets in.  There is no electricity for 50 miles in any direction, so no city lights.   A light covering of clouds keeps the moonlight from filtering through with any real force. 

There are no birds rustling because there are no trees in which they may roost. 

            There are no cattle lowing, because there are no cattle.

            There is only the silence of the desolate landscape of this ravaged island.

            The night is quiet.

            Deep.

            Dark.

            And still.

            There on the concrete floor of St. Stephen church, the darkness is complete.  

            “Come, sing the LORD, all you

            Servants of the LORD

            Who stand by night in the house of the LORD.”

The psalmist says, calling upon the people who stand in the darkness, sing praise to God.

            But in the deep blackness of the Haitian night, no song comes.  There is only the completeness of the dark.  It surrounds you and there seems no escape from its grasp.

            One of my good friends is a child psychologist and she is fond of saying to nervous parents that God has not made the person who cannot benefit from a little therapy.  I would wager to say that God has also not made the Christian who has not spent the night in the darkness of St. Stephen’s floor.

            Psalm 134 is a psalm for those times of darkness.   Historically, it was likely written as instruction to the Levitical priests who would remain in the temple after the worshipers had gone home.  Like so much of scripture, though, if we press down on the margins of the text there is more to be found.  

The night that follows day, yes, but also night in its many forms is encountered in the psalmist’s words.   Night may come stealing slow or crashing down.  Night has many faces and many voices and it can overwhelm us if left unchecked.

            Not long ago I was in a discussion with a friend in Little Rock who is a professor of information technology.  His specialty is the internet and how to make it more efficient and effective.  During our discussion, he kept trying to convince me that the internet and electronic media technologies represent the future of civilization and the model of communities to come.  They are, in short, the most important places for us to invest our time and energy and intellect.

            At first, I took on the posture of indignant theologian, supremely put off that he would have the temerity to assume that his work was of greater significance to humanity than that of we who serve the intellectual life of the church.  After all, we pastor-theologians spend our time contemplating the metaphysical realities of human existence in relationship to the creator God, while he spends his time perfecting a more efficient delivery system for pornography, Paris Hilton news and Viagra ads!

            In hindsight, what he was telling me had implications beyond what I was able to see in that moment.  There is a new language and new community surrounding us.  It is a seductive and tempting new voice for an old familiar place.  Paul called it “the world” and its powers are still clamoring for our attention.  

            The language and voice have changed with the times, but the message is as old as time itself.   Eat of the fruit of the tree and you will be like God.  

            It is the commercial that reminds you that happiness is shopping with your Visa.

            It is the voice of the announcer who proclaims that if you take this drug, you will live, if not forever, at least long enough to run along this beautiful beach with this beautiful woman.

             It is the image on the page that tells you that your car is good, but this one is better.

            It is the payday lender who says he is going to do you a favor and, for a small fee, will give you an advance on that paycheck.

            It is the voice of a leader who keeps telling you that your safety will be assured if only a few thousand more families will sacrifice their sons and daughters on the altar of military domination.

            The voices grow and grow, they clamor louder and louder promising to keep the dark at bay if only you will

Buy to be happy,

Medicate to stay young,

Consume to be fulfilled,

Refinance to look successful,                    

Conquer to be safe!

Until finally  in the midst of it all, with the darkness closing in when you feel surrounded and that there is no means of escape, your soul cries out, “what am I to do?”

            “Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord.”

            From amidst the din of noise from the world, when life is not a dewy garden path and the darkness of the world threatens to consume, comes the whisper of the Psalms bringing the word of authentic Christian practice.  

When you find yourself in the darkness, “Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord.”

            Each summer, my mother and I have camp for my niece and nephew.  It is a chance for us to spend time with them and a break for their parents and it is absolutely my favorite week of the year. 

            Over the course of our week together we do everything, from the alphabet song to the zoo.   Each day is packed and each night sleep is a welcome gift. 

            One night this summer, when I was walking past my niece Mary Chandler’s room I heard what I thought was her crying.  I peeked in the door to see her sitting on the bed, holding her doll, singing Jesus Loves Me and crying.  I went in and sat next to her and asked what was wrong.

            With absolute sincerity, she looked at me with those five year old eyes and said, “I was sad, so I am singing to Jesus.” 

            Even in a moment of darkness and sadness in her five year old life, she sang that Jesus loves her and she meant it and knew it.

In that moment, I was witnessed to and indicted by my five year old niece.

            You see, unlike Mary Chandler, when I have a night like that, I get out of bed.  I clean the house.  I catch up on email.  I shop on Amazon. I alphabetize the spice rack.  Anything…anything at all to keep myself busy so the darkness will go away; to take my mind off of it!  If I can only stay busy, I can forget whatever it is that is bothering or occupying or indicting me.

            How often we have bought the myth sung by the world.  The myth that salvation and redemption are just a trip to the mall away; that eternal life is found in a pill or a face cream; that we are the authors of our own salvation, our own redemption, our own sure fortress in the face of danger. 

How many of us fall back on I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke, when the words we need to hear and the words we need to sing are Jesus Loves Me?

We sing, but too seldom is our song to the God of heaven and earth.

            And, when we fail to sing praise to God, it is so easy to forget to listen for the singing voices of God’s people all around us.

            This will come as a surprise to most who know me at all, but I have a deep and abiding belief in angels.  In fact, I have trouble imagining belief without them. 

            Angels are those heavenly gifts from God who remind us that we are not alone.   Who sing the words we have forgotten.

            Those singers of the songs of God who, speaking through men and women and children, remind us…

            …that a dollar is good for more than a shot of vanilla in your latte,

            …that in the face of war, there is yet a Prince of Peace,

            …that in the darkest moments of the night, Jesus Loves Me.

            Angels are the leaders in the songs of God, and we are invited to lift our hands and voices to the LORD and join in the sacred practice of their chorus.

            Laying there on the floor of St. Stephen church in the pitch black of night, thinking the night would never end, I remember the feeling of great relief when I heard the distant song of the women readying themselves for the walk down the valley to the river for the morning’s water.  With their song came the promise that the dawn was not far away.

            So it is with us.  When the darkness of the world is closing in and there seems no escape from the night, the voices of angels come to carry us into the dawn.    For if there is one irrefutable Gospel truth in the middle of the darkest night it is that, in Jesus Christ…

 …morning happens.

            May the LORD, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.  AMEN.