I have two sons and a daughter – but my daughter never gives me any trouble, unlike my sons. Now I don’t want to give you the wrong impression about my boys – it just seems like they are always up to something.  I remember one day when the boys were in grade school – they were playing upstairs and I thought to myself: ‘I really should go check on them and see what they are up to’ but then I found myself thinking: ‘do I really want to know?”  You know that phrase: ‘ignorance is bliss’ or ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you’ began to run through my thoughts.  In the end – I decided to investigate.  As I started to move towards the stairs - I noticed what looked like drops of water on the floor in front of the stairs - I was confused and thought: ‘where did these drops of water come from’ – then I heard little giggles above my head – I looked up and there were my two sons leaning on the railing of the stairs.  I said: “How did these drops of water get on the floor?”  They said, smiling, “Oh those are not drops of water that’s our spit.”  I calmly asked: “Why were you spitting?”  and they said, “to see how far it would go.”  And I said, “Well it looks like it went all the way to the floor – so go get some towels and clean this mess up!” 

Sometimes we like being in the dark. We are okay with not knowing the truth.  Unlike the story I shared – staying in the dark; not asking the tough questions – has consequences.  Today we will be reading from 1^st John and in this letter Johns shares with us that being in the dark is no way for us to live and it is also problematic for us who claim to follow God for we cannot continue to walk in the darkness and also confess to be in relationship with God, for God is light and there is no darkness in God.

1 John chapter 1 verses 5-7.  5 This is the message we have heard from him (meaning Jesus) and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; ⁷but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

Once again we find this image of light contrasted with darkness.  God is light and if we walk in light then we have a fellowship with God and we have fellowship with all of humanity. But if we choose to walk in the darkness then we fail to be in fellowship with God and with humanity – in fact if we continue to walk in the darkness then we are actually lying to ourselves and to everyone else about our relationship with God and our relationship with others. 

What does it mean then to walk in the light?  Well you may be thinking isn’t the answer obvious?  We walk in the light by being good people.   

And yet even Jesus asked: What is good?  See what we may think is good someone else might think is bad.  For example:  A child might believe that having ice cream for dinner every night would be good – after all if my parents really loved me then they would let me have my way – but as a loving parents we would know that letting our kids have what they want is not always a good or loving thing to do. A student might think having a teacher that gives everyone an A in the class without doing any work would be not only good, but awesome – but anyone who runs a business or company would know this would be a terrible thing with serve consequences for us all.  We might think it would be a good practice to be honest with our friends and family when asked our opinion – our friends and family might think our truthful response was unkind and hurtful.   

The problem with being ‘good’ is that it is subjective – not always, but the examples I have shared are very common occurrences.  Not everything that we want is good and not everything that is good - is good for every person.  And it works the opposite way – there are things we know that are good for everyone but we fail to ensure that everyone has the same opportunities and access for these good things – like reasonable wages and health insurance.   We can be a good person and still walk in the darkness.

So maybe we need something more concrete.  Perhaps like the 10 commandments – maybe walking in the light is about following the commandments.  They are after all concrete and fairly straight forward. 

Let’s take the 4^th commandment as an example – we are instructed to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy.  Seems reasonable – in order to walk in the light we need to remember to worship God – we need to not work one day a week and attend church.  And yet we can read in Matthew’s Gospel a story about Jesus and the Sabbath.  Jesus and his disciples are hungry and so they begin to pull the tops off of the grain and eat them.  But the Pharisees become angry with Jesus and the disciples because to them and their understanding – the gathering of grain was considered an act of work.  Jesus replies to them by saying” “God desires mercy not sacrifice.”  

The word Sabbath in Hebrew means ‘to cease.’  We are called to rest from our work –so that we have time to be in relationship with God and with others – the Sabbath is not a matter of a prescribe day but rather a way of life.  We need periods of rest from work so that we can focus on our relationship with God and with others – this can and should occur through any given day, not just one day.  We can follow all the rules and commandments that the scriptures teach us and still walk in the darkness.

So what do we do?  If walking in the light is not about being good and not about following all the rules then what does it mean to walk in the light? 

When I was in seminary we were required to be a part of a cross-cultural experience.  So I choose to go on a week-long trip to South Dakota where we took part in a learning process through the eyes of the Lakota Indian Tribe.  We stayed on the reservation, we ate what they ate, we listened to their stories – stories that didn’t line up with our understanding of US history, we saw the poverty and the hopelessness in their lives – we experienced the ill effects of years of poor decisions making on all sides.  It was a tough trip – because now I knew and saw for myself that just 5 hours from where I lived there were people –people made in the image of God – that had inadequate food supply, none to little health care, in constant chaos and turmoil – and had lost all hope; there was no light that I could see.   

It is one thing to read about the plight of others and it is a completely different to actually experience and live what they live – even if it is only for a week. 

John uses the word fellowship twice in this passage – walking in the light means being in fellowship with both God and people.  And to be in fellowship means that we have empathy and compassion for one another.  We do this by spending quality time together – sitting down sharing a meal, listening to peoples life stories, asking questions when we don’t understand – seeing ourselves in their situation; putting their needs above our own.  When we do this we begin to understand why God requires mercy, not sacrifice.  

I wish I could tell you that walking in the light is about being good or following all the rules – because on some level both of those are easy.  And I think that is why as humans we like being in the dark – we want to believe that ignorance is bliss or that what you don’t know won’t hurt you – because it is easier;  I can go on doing what I want to do without ever thinking about how it might affect someone other than me.  But to be in fellowship with God – to walk in the light requires us to see things we cannot unsee, it calls us to do things we don’t want to do - it requires us to go beyond our wants, it causes us to look inward – to examine our motives and re-evaluate how we view our circumstances and the situations of others.  Walking in the light is both difficult and messy.

In order to walk in the light we need to be aware – aware of what is happening all around us – and so we must begin to ask those tough questions: who are the people who suffer right here in Strasburg?  Who are the people that go hungry, the people without hope?  And it is not enough to ask who - we need to also start asking why?  Why are there people who are hungry? 

And these are tough questions to ask and yet if we do not ask the tough questions that is when we face consequences; when we continue to walk in the darkness.  Whether we realize it or not – when one person suffers - we all suffer.  Or at least that is what I think John is trying to say here – God is a God who walks with those who suffer and if we ignore the sufferings of others – if we believe the lie that what we don’t know wont’ hurt us, then we are walking in the darkness.  It is in our best interest as one community to help one another; to support each other.  Darkness is not just what we do as individuals – darkness is also what we fail to do as a community.  And so we must begin to ask not just who is hungry but why are people hungry – and those are tougher questions to answer because why is so more complex than who.  If I ask who is hungry – then all that is required of me is to share what I have – and yet if I ask why then it requires me to change systems – systems that have been in place for thousands of years – systems that I support, systems that don’t want to change and will do anything to avoid changing – why because it is not in their best interest and so it will require me to take a stand – it will require me to change and ask other people to change.  And no one likes change – but we worship a God who is a God of transformation – a God who says – I am not going to leave you where I found you – I want more for you than what the world has to offer. 

Jesus gave us one commandment and that is to love God and to love others – I think what John is trying to do; to reaffirm this same idea of love.  See the reason why being good and or following all the rules doesn’t work is because everything we do needs to be rooted in love.  Love doesn’t give our kids ice cream for dinner and love doesn’t ignore the sufferings of others.  Love doesn’t keep the Sabbath while people go hungry – no - love does what Jesus would do and that is to forgive those who hurt us, to walk with those who suffer, to ask the tough questions that can make us unpopular, to feed the hungry, to put the needs of others above our own wants. 

What does it mean to walk in the light – it means to love.  Amen.