The Light of Life

February 20, 2022 • 7th Sunday after Epiphany
Scripture Reading: Genesis 1:1-3 & John 1:1-5 (The Inclusive Bible)
Pastor Jeff Wells

[You can view the worship video recording at: Facebook.com/churchofthevillage/videos.]

I love that translation of Genesis 1:3 – “God said, “Light: Be!” and light was.” And, clearly, the author of the Gospel of John made a direct connection with the passage from Genesis with his first words: “In the beginning” and then described the Word as “life” and that life as “humanity’s light – a Light that shines in the darkness, a Light that the darkness has never overtaken.” Light has been important from the beginning and, though they did not have the scientific knowledge behind it, the Israelites and other ancient peoples recognized it was crucial to life.

So, let’s talk about sunlight. We have a sensory experience of some effects of the Sun’s light. We can feel its heat. If we stay out in it long enough without protection, by the next day, we usually feel the effects of ultraviolet rays having burned our skin. On a very sunny day, we have to squint and are compelled to shade our eyes. Other effects of sunlight are invisible to us. Sun exposure produces or regulates production of vitamin D, essential for our well-being, melatonin for sleep, serotonin that helps improve our mood and stay focused. Yet, over-exposure can cause cancer. Looking directly into the Sun can blind us. So, we have to respect the power of the light.

Now, we come to photosynthesis. Okay, I know this is starting to sound like a science lecture, but bear with me. I am getting to the spiritual point soon. The photosynthetic process uses the energy in sunlight, along with carbon dioxide and water, to create carbohydrates that plants use as food. Plants are the foundation of the whole food chain. Thus, Nuclear reactions on the surface of the sun produce light that fuels photosynthesis, that feeds vegetation, that gets eaten by a deer, who gets eaten by a wolf or a human. So, light powers 99 percent of Earth’s ecosystems! Oh, and by the way, the oxygen we breathe – and without which, we could not exist – is a byproduct of photosynthesis! Talk about the light of life! Think about that the next time you are out soaking up the Sun. 

We are focused on light this morning, but I feel compelled to defend darkness. So often, darkness has been imbued with negative connotations – even demonized – including in Christian thought. That contributed to it being used to justify racism and color prejudice. We read in the Gospel of John that the darkness has never overtaken the light, but it is just as true that the light has never overtaken the darkness. And we cannot forget that darkness is as crucial for life as is light. Plants, fungi, insects, insects, and animals all require the darkness of night to thrive.

Usually, we take sunlight for granted. It’s just there. Isn’t that true about the Divine light too? Don’t we fail to appreciate it – treat it as if “it’s just there.” This is an apt metaphor in other ways too. As with the Sun’s light, we may experience some of the impact of Divine light in our lives, but other effects are invisible to us. 

So, here is where the science lesson and the spiritual reflection come together. Let’s take the “divine light” metaphor and imagine how a kind of “Holy Photosynthesis” works in our human lives. Maybe it works in the lives of other creatures as well, but we’ll focus mainly on us humans today. 

We may not see or feel the Divine light – the light of God, the light of Christ, the light that is the Word from the beginning – but we couldn’t exist, create, grow, become, or transform without it. Just as plant photosynthesis brings the energy of the Sun into dynamic collaboration with other elements in the ecosphere to produce food for growth, the Divine light interacts with elements in the universe, and specifically in our human composition and connections, to produce a kind of “food” that sustains and grows our hearts, minds, and spirits.

I think of the Divine Light as God’s love and lure – the ways God tries to draw each of us and every element of the universe toward particular possibilities that offer the best individual and collective results and outcomes. God’s love and lure interact continually with the creative capacity of the universe, with the limiting reality of what has already happened, with the vast possibilities and permutations that God can envision, and with the choices freely made in each moment by every human, as well as non-human entities. And, as we know it’s all deeply relational. God’s light, love, and lure pour into our relationality and, at every moment, result in something new.

What are the products of this “Divine photosynthesis”? Among them, I would list love, compassion, beauty, truth, goodness, joy, forgiveness, and hope. These are food for our souls. And the light of God is absolutely essential for all of them. We may not be able to physically see or feel God’s light, but I am certain we have all experienced it with our spiritual senses. And certainly I feel God’s light when we gather for worship every week.

Of course, the results of “Divine photosynthesis” are not always positive. Sometimes, our spirits or minds develop a sickness. That’s not the fault of the Divine Light. It’s because we humans, more than any other creatures, have the freedom to make poor or mistaken choices, to harm one another, and to damage or destroy ecological systems on which we depend. Yet, we wouldn’t be able to experience either the highs or lows of life without the constant presence of God’s Divine Light.

Our interaction with God’s light continually changes us. Because of God’s light, you and I are not the same today as we were yesterday or any day before that. This is a beautiful and, sometimes, painful process of growth and change. As Pastor Alexis said in the first sermon of this series, sometimes light illuminates things we would rather not look at. I do not relish every lived experience, but I do embrace who I have become and am becoming.  

Plants store food for later use. They also pass on some of that food in their seeds so new plants can grow. I have been thinking a lot about our ancestors and our current elders in the Church of the Village and the church communities that preceded it. Those ancestors and elders, shaped in the light of God, stored and passed down food for us in the form of love, care, experience, wisdom, joy, and hope. We are who we are in part because of who they were and are.  I feel similarly about my involvement with John Cobb and the Living Earth Movement that we will publicly launch on Friday this week. I hope you all saw the invitation this week and that many of you will be able to attend on Zoom. 

I believe it was under the light of God that John spent most of his life promoting process theology and saving the Earth from ecological disaster. For decades, he was pretty irrelevant and ignored in academic circles. Yet, over time, he shared his light and energy and food, teaching and mentoring people like Ignacio Castuera, Catherine Keller, Rita Nakashima Brock, Rebecca Parker, and so many others who then passed on the light to still many more. All of the members of the Living Earth Movement organizing committee are connected in some way with John. We are all very different, from diverse backgrounds and experiences, but all committed to working, against a lot of odds, to see if we can create a movement to inspire global cooperation, beginning with China and the U.S., to urgently confront the ecological crisis. With hope and action, we are planting seeds and waiting to see what might grow from them. 

I think of both the Church of the Village and the Living Earth Movement as examples of Divine Photosynthesis – of God drawing together a specific configuration of people with histories, experience, gifts, and passions to create the possibility of contributing to something good, something loving, something transformative. 

This week, I began reading a book by Jane Goodall published in October 2021, titled, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. In a chapter called, “An Invitation to Hope,” she writes about the extent of evil and suffering in the world and admits to feeling depressed on occasion at what sometimes feels like a losing battle. Then, she writes, “But each time I become depressed I think of all the amazing stories of the courage, steadfastness, and determination of those who are fighting the “forces of evil.” For, yes, I do believe there is evil amongst us. But how much more powerful and inspirational are the voices of those who stand up against it. And even when they lose their lives, their voices still resonate long after they are gone, giving us inspiration and hope – hope in the ultimate goodness of this strange, conflicted human animal.” [1] I contend that kind of hope – hope that leads to action – is only possible because of the energy we receive from God’s Divine Light.   

(c) 2022 Jeffry Wells
All rights reserved.

[1] Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times (Global Icons Series, Celadon Books, 2021).