The twilight zone
Commentary
Object:
Many will remember the television series, Twilight Zone, that aired in
the early '60s and in various formats in succeeding years. At the center of the series was
always a sudden plot twist that gave a jolt to the characters living in the twilight zone and
to the audience that came for their weekly visit to a land beyond normal imagination.
Many of us find ourselves beginning to believe that we have never quite gotten out of the twilight zone. National and world events seem to mimic many of the events foretold in the series including one episode where the earth begins to get hotter and hotter. The capacity to sit at a computer and go online and enter into virtual reality, defying all known time zones, and read newspapers that have not yet hit the streets where they are published makes the twilight zone the next stop on your journey.
Writing about All Saints day after having watched a July 4 Twilight Zone TV marathon leaves me wondering if the twilight zone is not just a stopover but my permanent residence.
Over the years there were several imitators of the Twilight Zone. Most of them were able to capture to some degree the eeriness of the original but none of them were able to capture the moral force of Rod Serling's seminal effort. His agenda was not merely to tantalize the viewer each week with thoughts of how reality might be twisted out of shape into a mysterious plot line.
What was particularly chilling was how the macabre and distorted might break out in the lives of ordinary folks going about their business in familiar contexts. In most of the episodes, we see the principals as people very much like us. Who would ever have thought that they would be candidates to find themselves wresting with the dark side that is about to be revealed in the twilight zone? This was Serling's point -- that ordinary people were actually, even in the prosperity and calm of the late '50s and early '60s, living in the twilight of a vulnerable way of life that had not yet risen to the reality of racism, materialism, violence, and dehumanizing technology. Serling was protesting in his own way against the complacency that comes from having other god's before the one true God. His writing was not the first nor will it be the last to use science fiction to gain a hearing for a message that might otherwise be rejected.
Certainly the apocalyptic writings of scripture such as Daniel are attempting to convey a message that otherwise might not get a hearing. Daniel warns his readers that soon they will be living in the twilight zone of the last of the fallen empires. However, for the saints the twilight is also the time of daybreak when the cock crows its message that despite our betrayals, denials, faithlessness, and the impending darkness, the Sun (Son) is raised.
The saints are those who live in the context of both of these realities. They live in the context that the powers that be are on shaky grounds to the degree that they diverge from the intentions of God. Secondly, such times are not merely times of the verdict being rendered but of people being empowered by a new reality that is trying to break into the world.
Each of these texts give definition to the term saint as one who sees the fading reality while recognizing the impending dawn and is able to live faithfully in the tension between the two. Most of the people who I would define as saints have a dual capacity to see others as they are and as they might become, an ability to live in the tension between the now and the not yet, and the capacity to stand with the hurting and up to the hurters. "God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come" (Ephesians 1:20-21).
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Watching the Twilight Zone marathon I quickly became aware of the basic sensitivity that motivated Rod Serling. In the face of fear and stripped of the comforting trappings and services of the empire, normally reasonable people would become an irrational mob. In an episode titled, "Shelter," nuclear war breaks out, and the only shelter available in a respectable neighborhood is the home shelter of a doctor and his family. Of course, the shelter is only big enough for the doctor's family. The neighbors cannot come. The story narrated the breakdown of human decency as neighbor rises against neighbor to save themselves. As Rod Serling says in his closing narration "No moral, no message, no prophetic tract. Just a simple statement of fact. For civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. Tonight's very small exercise in logic from the Twilight Zone."
What stands between us and annihilation is the ability to move beyond being a mob to being a community of saints. Sainthood, here, does not mean moral perfection but the ability to recognize that we are all in it together and that we need to tend the garden of the things that make us more alike than different. Choosing to be part of the community of saints over the mob is to acknowledge that the greatest human victories come not from the force of arms but the force of open arms.
Rod Serling's moral compass intrigued and frightened the viewer at the same time. The truth found in the episode where earthlings surrender their responsibilities and sensibilities to travel to a planet hosted by aliens who have promised to "serve man" are shocked when they discover that the book bearing this title is a cookbook. How easily do we become a mob when we believe that all our needs will be met, and we are afraid that we will be left out of the coming good times? One need only think of those who will stand in line or fight in line for the latest Christmas fad or the most recent version of the iPhone. Watching the Twilight Zone, I find myself feeling like Daniel, who saw in his "vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another ... As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me" (Daniel 7:2-3, 15).
It takes a community of saints to help us value ourselves not for what we have but who we are. To value us even at our worst, we need a community that is strong enough, and that we trust enough, that we can be enough of ourselves that we do not seek status through fads and the getting of things.
One of the themes of Serling's work is the readiness of the mob to seek out a scapegoat for its fears and failures. The episode titled "The Monsters On Main Street" has the residents of a Leave It To Beaver street quickly turning on each other in the midst of the sudden loss of all forms of power. They cite each other's eccentricities as clear evidence of guilt. The mob always has a clear profile of the guilty: particularly in the twilight of fear. The saints know that "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). The mob thinks that the perfect profile will cast out all fear. The saints proclaim love that seeks to know and be known.
The vision given to Daniel is disturbing in its form and content. However, it is also promising. As the psalmist puts it, "The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge" (Psalm 46:6-7). Daniel seems to have gotten over his fear. Though he may, as we do, live in the twilight zone, the community need not surrender to the impulse of the mob for, "As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever -- forever and ever" (Daniel 7:17-18).
Ephesians 1:11-23
The letter writer gives thanks for the faith of the Ephesian community. They persist in living faithfully in the midst of their own twilight zone where life is liminal between the decay of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the present and coming rule of Jesus. Many have criticized the early church for the kinds of compromises it made in the process of trying to get along by going along. We are naturally troubled by passages from the Christian scripture such as this from Romans 13, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment" (Romans 13:1-2). For many today it is like living in the twilight zone, giving loyalty and respect to institutions that they feel are corrupt, self-serving, and incapable of giving a straight answer when going to war. Ever since Jesus prayed for his people who were in the world but did not belong to the world his people have had to struggle with what it is like to live in the twilight of this age and the dawn of the age to come.
For the most, part churches are not likely to win plaudits for living with this struggle. If anything, given the religious tenor of our times, faith communities are likely to be appreciated more for helping people escape or find a respite from this struggle.
Here are six ways of living in this twilight zone.
We are living in an in-between time that requires vigilance to watch our institutions precisely because embodying noble aims is a fragile business. Carl Shurz, a civil war general and former senator, enters into the field of sainthood when he wrote, "Our country right or wrong; if right kept right and if wrong to be set right."
More often than not the real saints are those who have been able to see both how wrong we can be and how right we might be. Winston Churchill wrote in the idiom of his day that. "Man's capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary and our capacity for justice makes it possible." People who faithfully live in the twilight zone of the letter to the Ephesians find themselves saying such things.
Those who live in the twilight zone between the realities of the age that is, and the consummation of the age to come have learned how to pick their battles. In the twilight zone, God is as likely to use our failures to build to his kingdom as our successes. We don't have to win every battle to win the war. Indeed, fighting every battle suggests that the ultimate triumph of the kingdom is more contingent on our efforts than on the hand of God. Living in the twilight zone demands something more of us than picking our fights. It requires us to discern which battle we believe, in God's plan, we are called to wage.
Saints have a prayer life, a communal life, and a biblical literacy that facilitates the discernment process.
Saints know that because they are saints they need not demonize others. They seek to keep the humanity of the other in focus. In the twilight zone, one never knows when the other will be given an opportunity to act like a saint and, given the right circumstance, might do so. It is easier to demonize than to keep one's eyes on this prize. Ephesians reminds us, "That, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you" (Ephesians 1:18).
The saints know that if their hope is to have their names written in the book of life, to enter the world to come they need not write anything in concrete in the world that is. The things that they most value are always subject to development and growth. The ideals of liberty and justice that founded the United States have grown to eliminate officially sanctioned racism and sexism as well as include the rights of labor and religious minorities. If you live in this twilight zone, you can count on the refinement and development of your most cherished values beyond all human calculation. What is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe?
The saints know that the one who has been made "head over all things for the church" (Ephesians 1:22) is the same one who came "not to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12:47). The task of the church is less to judge than to connect with the world.
None of these will help us avoid the twilight zone. All of them will help us live through the experience of the time between the twilight and the dawn.
Luke 6:20-31
One of the themes of the Twilight Zone is that human beings cannot count on an ordinary way of calculating and calibrating their lives. Things do not add up in the way in which we expect. Reality twists and turns beyond human comprehension in ways that leave us vulnerable to having our world turned upside down. As much as I would like to believe that I live in safety beyond the vagaries of the twilight zone this pretty well describes my reality.
I buy a computer with the idea that it will save work time only to discover that the computer has a life of its own that overtakes me. Now I can do more things that have a way of quickly taking up the time that I thought I would gain through better organizing my time. Welcome to the twilight zone. Technology does not save work, it only makes new forms of work. I find myself gaining just enough mastery of the computer to increase the number of times that I am infantilized and reduced to tears by ever-advancing technology. Welcome to the twilight zone.
Part of learning in life is that I should count on having landed immigrant status in the twilight zone. Just about nothing that I was told I could count on has stayed in place. As I write this, the New York Times is running an essay contest for college students on the topic, "College education as we have known it has ceased to exist in America." When did that happen? Welcome to the twilight zone. I attended a workshop this past summer where the leader said that organ music sounds to the current generation about like hard rock sounds to most middle-age people -- total cacophony. Welcome to the twilight zone.
Something more than Future Shock is at work here. As I recall that work by Alvin Toffler, it was a reasoned explanation of the consequences of rapidly advancing technology. It feels like I am in a twilight zone of unforeseen consequences where I can count on very little. In the words of the gospel lesson for All Saints, things become even more unsettling. "Then he looked up at his disciples and said, 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets' " (Luke 6:20-23). Here, again, is one more excursion into the twilight zone. As Frederick Buechner reminds us, this is living by a different set of calculations altogether when you say that those who give get more, that you ought to go after the one missing sheep as against the 99 that you have, or the pay off for those who show up late is the same as for those who are the early hired. This confounding of the conventional shorts out my mind once again.
Whenever I have been part of a prolonged electrical blackout, the march of the electrical workers down the street to restore the energy flow looks to me like the saints marching. The saints are the ones who get the energy flowing. The energy flow here has less to do with calculation than with connection to God, each other, and myself. Out of the twilight zone comes a new light that can be cast on things -- another example of the way the gospel has of confounding the conventional.
Application
When do you find yourself living in the twilight zone? Certainly, when it can be defined as that place that is in the shadows between the known and the unknown. However, as I reflect on that, I find myself realizing that I actually never leave the twilight zone. Things have a way of defying my plans, what I count on, and the folks I depend on can often disappoint me. What gets one into ministry is far from what keeps one there. New occasions do teach new duties and time does have the irritating way of eclipsing all my certainties. Clear logic and convincing arguments routinely fail to win the day or even make headway in my home or in my church. Welcome to the twilight zone. This is enough to cause anyone to want to change the channel.
For me, a saint is one who first and foremost knows that in this life, if the light does shine in the darkness, it is nevertheless at best a glimmer. When I was a child, the adults around me were fairly well convinced that Americans had all the light and other Anglo nations were in possession of it to the degree that they sought to follow the American model. It felt like entering the twilight zone when I discovered early on that America may not be the absolute light of the world and that it had a shadow side. It came as a shock to find out that we did not invent the television or the telephone and that Thomas Edison may have been as inventive in some of his financial arrangements as he was in anything else.
Saints know better and anticipate the shadow side of every glorious moment. Saints know that it is not our light but how the light has been refracted through our tragedies, miscues, and blunders that brings any hope into the world. Knowing that it is but a glimmer, saints welcome light from any source. They know enough that they should look to see how their faith commitments and mission appear in the light of others' experience.
On this day, I give thanks for all the saints who have helped me live faithfully in the twilight zone.
Alternative Application
Luke 6:20-31; Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Of course this imponderable mystery has kept minds going for years. Does sainthood lead to belonging or does belonging lead to sainthood? Can we believe without belonging or can we belong without believing? I struggle with the reality that of the many of those whom I would call saints in my life I have not a clue as to what their religious background was. Coaches, teachers, some coworkers, who knew what their background was, but clearly in the foreground of their lives was a transparency that revealed a quality of life that invited one to thought and even reverence. Some were found in the church; many would not let themselves be found in church. Many of my saints were from well beyond the safe and familiar religious traditions that I have grown comfortable with. The holy comes at you from many different directions.
The visions of Daniel gave him a serious headache. "As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me" (Daniel 7:15). The blessings and woes contained in Luke's gospel are troubling if they express what nearness to God is and what distance from God is. There is much to ponder in my experience of sainthood and the scriptures. The route to sainthood has less to do with explaining it than receiving it wherever it shows up as a gift. Being in that number when the saints go marching in will have less to do with explaining it than accepting it.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 149
Within the confines of our cultural reality, those who take things into their own hands are showered with praise. Words like, "initiative," and "take charge," describe those who get ahead. But for the faithful of Israel, and thus for those claiming Judeo-Christian roots in this moment, God is the one who is in charge. Not us, not our kings or leaders, but God.
This psalm articulates this awareness as Israel celebrates God's power with rejoicing and with music. The language is beautiful but could be misunderstood as a nod to holy warriors and such. The praise of God is in their throats, and the two-edged sword is indeed held high. But the words and the weapons wait upon God. An old cliché comes to mind that describes the sense of this psalm extremely well. "Work as though everything depends upon you, and pray with the knowledge that everything depends upon God."
It turns out that it's not the aggressive or the initiative-takers who win in the end. It's God's humble and faithful followers who wait upon God's will, rather than their own agenda. The question comes about today's faithful and the willingness to abandon agenda and initiative to wait upon God's will and direction. What would happen if pastors and leaders did that in churches today? The ready answer is that nothing would happen. Things would drift, and the people would be directionless. But is that really true?
For those who depend upon God, hard work can never be abandoned. Striving and struggle are part of God's plan. The important thing, however, is not the doing, but the focus upon doing God's will rather than our own.
And herein lies the day-to-day struggle all people of faith face. Each moment, each action, each word must be accompanied by the perpetual question. Is this about me ... or about God? Is this project about my ego and sense of accomplishment? Or is it about advancing the community, the kingdom of God? Are the words about to be spoken by me words that build up God's purpose or my own? Call it discernment. Call it prayer. Call it spiritual attentiveness or whatever name can be summoned up, but it is a key process in faithful living.
This is the victory that comes to the humble. This is the glory exalted by the faithful. And it is the joy that bubbles forth from the couches and from the pews.
Many of us find ourselves beginning to believe that we have never quite gotten out of the twilight zone. National and world events seem to mimic many of the events foretold in the series including one episode where the earth begins to get hotter and hotter. The capacity to sit at a computer and go online and enter into virtual reality, defying all known time zones, and read newspapers that have not yet hit the streets where they are published makes the twilight zone the next stop on your journey.
Writing about All Saints day after having watched a July 4 Twilight Zone TV marathon leaves me wondering if the twilight zone is not just a stopover but my permanent residence.
Over the years there were several imitators of the Twilight Zone. Most of them were able to capture to some degree the eeriness of the original but none of them were able to capture the moral force of Rod Serling's seminal effort. His agenda was not merely to tantalize the viewer each week with thoughts of how reality might be twisted out of shape into a mysterious plot line.
What was particularly chilling was how the macabre and distorted might break out in the lives of ordinary folks going about their business in familiar contexts. In most of the episodes, we see the principals as people very much like us. Who would ever have thought that they would be candidates to find themselves wresting with the dark side that is about to be revealed in the twilight zone? This was Serling's point -- that ordinary people were actually, even in the prosperity and calm of the late '50s and early '60s, living in the twilight of a vulnerable way of life that had not yet risen to the reality of racism, materialism, violence, and dehumanizing technology. Serling was protesting in his own way against the complacency that comes from having other god's before the one true God. His writing was not the first nor will it be the last to use science fiction to gain a hearing for a message that might otherwise be rejected.
Certainly the apocalyptic writings of scripture such as Daniel are attempting to convey a message that otherwise might not get a hearing. Daniel warns his readers that soon they will be living in the twilight zone of the last of the fallen empires. However, for the saints the twilight is also the time of daybreak when the cock crows its message that despite our betrayals, denials, faithlessness, and the impending darkness, the Sun (Son) is raised.
The saints are those who live in the context of both of these realities. They live in the context that the powers that be are on shaky grounds to the degree that they diverge from the intentions of God. Secondly, such times are not merely times of the verdict being rendered but of people being empowered by a new reality that is trying to break into the world.
Each of these texts give definition to the term saint as one who sees the fading reality while recognizing the impending dawn and is able to live faithfully in the tension between the two. Most of the people who I would define as saints have a dual capacity to see others as they are and as they might become, an ability to live in the tension between the now and the not yet, and the capacity to stand with the hurting and up to the hurters. "God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come" (Ephesians 1:20-21).
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Watching the Twilight Zone marathon I quickly became aware of the basic sensitivity that motivated Rod Serling. In the face of fear and stripped of the comforting trappings and services of the empire, normally reasonable people would become an irrational mob. In an episode titled, "Shelter," nuclear war breaks out, and the only shelter available in a respectable neighborhood is the home shelter of a doctor and his family. Of course, the shelter is only big enough for the doctor's family. The neighbors cannot come. The story narrated the breakdown of human decency as neighbor rises against neighbor to save themselves. As Rod Serling says in his closing narration "No moral, no message, no prophetic tract. Just a simple statement of fact. For civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. Tonight's very small exercise in logic from the Twilight Zone."
What stands between us and annihilation is the ability to move beyond being a mob to being a community of saints. Sainthood, here, does not mean moral perfection but the ability to recognize that we are all in it together and that we need to tend the garden of the things that make us more alike than different. Choosing to be part of the community of saints over the mob is to acknowledge that the greatest human victories come not from the force of arms but the force of open arms.
Rod Serling's moral compass intrigued and frightened the viewer at the same time. The truth found in the episode where earthlings surrender their responsibilities and sensibilities to travel to a planet hosted by aliens who have promised to "serve man" are shocked when they discover that the book bearing this title is a cookbook. How easily do we become a mob when we believe that all our needs will be met, and we are afraid that we will be left out of the coming good times? One need only think of those who will stand in line or fight in line for the latest Christmas fad or the most recent version of the iPhone. Watching the Twilight Zone, I find myself feeling like Daniel, who saw in his "vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another ... As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me" (Daniel 7:2-3, 15).
It takes a community of saints to help us value ourselves not for what we have but who we are. To value us even at our worst, we need a community that is strong enough, and that we trust enough, that we can be enough of ourselves that we do not seek status through fads and the getting of things.
One of the themes of Serling's work is the readiness of the mob to seek out a scapegoat for its fears and failures. The episode titled "The Monsters On Main Street" has the residents of a Leave It To Beaver street quickly turning on each other in the midst of the sudden loss of all forms of power. They cite each other's eccentricities as clear evidence of guilt. The mob always has a clear profile of the guilty: particularly in the twilight of fear. The saints know that "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). The mob thinks that the perfect profile will cast out all fear. The saints proclaim love that seeks to know and be known.
The vision given to Daniel is disturbing in its form and content. However, it is also promising. As the psalmist puts it, "The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge" (Psalm 46:6-7). Daniel seems to have gotten over his fear. Though he may, as we do, live in the twilight zone, the community need not surrender to the impulse of the mob for, "As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever -- forever and ever" (Daniel 7:17-18).
Ephesians 1:11-23
The letter writer gives thanks for the faith of the Ephesian community. They persist in living faithfully in the midst of their own twilight zone where life is liminal between the decay of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the present and coming rule of Jesus. Many have criticized the early church for the kinds of compromises it made in the process of trying to get along by going along. We are naturally troubled by passages from the Christian scripture such as this from Romans 13, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment" (Romans 13:1-2). For many today it is like living in the twilight zone, giving loyalty and respect to institutions that they feel are corrupt, self-serving, and incapable of giving a straight answer when going to war. Ever since Jesus prayed for his people who were in the world but did not belong to the world his people have had to struggle with what it is like to live in the twilight of this age and the dawn of the age to come.
For the most, part churches are not likely to win plaudits for living with this struggle. If anything, given the religious tenor of our times, faith communities are likely to be appreciated more for helping people escape or find a respite from this struggle.
Here are six ways of living in this twilight zone.
We are living in an in-between time that requires vigilance to watch our institutions precisely because embodying noble aims is a fragile business. Carl Shurz, a civil war general and former senator, enters into the field of sainthood when he wrote, "Our country right or wrong; if right kept right and if wrong to be set right."
More often than not the real saints are those who have been able to see both how wrong we can be and how right we might be. Winston Churchill wrote in the idiom of his day that. "Man's capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary and our capacity for justice makes it possible." People who faithfully live in the twilight zone of the letter to the Ephesians find themselves saying such things.
Those who live in the twilight zone between the realities of the age that is, and the consummation of the age to come have learned how to pick their battles. In the twilight zone, God is as likely to use our failures to build to his kingdom as our successes. We don't have to win every battle to win the war. Indeed, fighting every battle suggests that the ultimate triumph of the kingdom is more contingent on our efforts than on the hand of God. Living in the twilight zone demands something more of us than picking our fights. It requires us to discern which battle we believe, in God's plan, we are called to wage.
Saints have a prayer life, a communal life, and a biblical literacy that facilitates the discernment process.
Saints know that because they are saints they need not demonize others. They seek to keep the humanity of the other in focus. In the twilight zone, one never knows when the other will be given an opportunity to act like a saint and, given the right circumstance, might do so. It is easier to demonize than to keep one's eyes on this prize. Ephesians reminds us, "That, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you" (Ephesians 1:18).
The saints know that if their hope is to have their names written in the book of life, to enter the world to come they need not write anything in concrete in the world that is. The things that they most value are always subject to development and growth. The ideals of liberty and justice that founded the United States have grown to eliminate officially sanctioned racism and sexism as well as include the rights of labor and religious minorities. If you live in this twilight zone, you can count on the refinement and development of your most cherished values beyond all human calculation. What is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe?
The saints know that the one who has been made "head over all things for the church" (Ephesians 1:22) is the same one who came "not to judge the world, but to save the world" (John 12:47). The task of the church is less to judge than to connect with the world.
None of these will help us avoid the twilight zone. All of them will help us live through the experience of the time between the twilight and the dawn.
Luke 6:20-31
One of the themes of the Twilight Zone is that human beings cannot count on an ordinary way of calculating and calibrating their lives. Things do not add up in the way in which we expect. Reality twists and turns beyond human comprehension in ways that leave us vulnerable to having our world turned upside down. As much as I would like to believe that I live in safety beyond the vagaries of the twilight zone this pretty well describes my reality.
I buy a computer with the idea that it will save work time only to discover that the computer has a life of its own that overtakes me. Now I can do more things that have a way of quickly taking up the time that I thought I would gain through better organizing my time. Welcome to the twilight zone. Technology does not save work, it only makes new forms of work. I find myself gaining just enough mastery of the computer to increase the number of times that I am infantilized and reduced to tears by ever-advancing technology. Welcome to the twilight zone.
Part of learning in life is that I should count on having landed immigrant status in the twilight zone. Just about nothing that I was told I could count on has stayed in place. As I write this, the New York Times is running an essay contest for college students on the topic, "College education as we have known it has ceased to exist in America." When did that happen? Welcome to the twilight zone. I attended a workshop this past summer where the leader said that organ music sounds to the current generation about like hard rock sounds to most middle-age people -- total cacophony. Welcome to the twilight zone.
Something more than Future Shock is at work here. As I recall that work by Alvin Toffler, it was a reasoned explanation of the consequences of rapidly advancing technology. It feels like I am in a twilight zone of unforeseen consequences where I can count on very little. In the words of the gospel lesson for All Saints, things become even more unsettling. "Then he looked up at his disciples and said, 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets' " (Luke 6:20-23). Here, again, is one more excursion into the twilight zone. As Frederick Buechner reminds us, this is living by a different set of calculations altogether when you say that those who give get more, that you ought to go after the one missing sheep as against the 99 that you have, or the pay off for those who show up late is the same as for those who are the early hired. This confounding of the conventional shorts out my mind once again.
Whenever I have been part of a prolonged electrical blackout, the march of the electrical workers down the street to restore the energy flow looks to me like the saints marching. The saints are the ones who get the energy flowing. The energy flow here has less to do with calculation than with connection to God, each other, and myself. Out of the twilight zone comes a new light that can be cast on things -- another example of the way the gospel has of confounding the conventional.
Application
When do you find yourself living in the twilight zone? Certainly, when it can be defined as that place that is in the shadows between the known and the unknown. However, as I reflect on that, I find myself realizing that I actually never leave the twilight zone. Things have a way of defying my plans, what I count on, and the folks I depend on can often disappoint me. What gets one into ministry is far from what keeps one there. New occasions do teach new duties and time does have the irritating way of eclipsing all my certainties. Clear logic and convincing arguments routinely fail to win the day or even make headway in my home or in my church. Welcome to the twilight zone. This is enough to cause anyone to want to change the channel.
For me, a saint is one who first and foremost knows that in this life, if the light does shine in the darkness, it is nevertheless at best a glimmer. When I was a child, the adults around me were fairly well convinced that Americans had all the light and other Anglo nations were in possession of it to the degree that they sought to follow the American model. It felt like entering the twilight zone when I discovered early on that America may not be the absolute light of the world and that it had a shadow side. It came as a shock to find out that we did not invent the television or the telephone and that Thomas Edison may have been as inventive in some of his financial arrangements as he was in anything else.
Saints know better and anticipate the shadow side of every glorious moment. Saints know that it is not our light but how the light has been refracted through our tragedies, miscues, and blunders that brings any hope into the world. Knowing that it is but a glimmer, saints welcome light from any source. They know enough that they should look to see how their faith commitments and mission appear in the light of others' experience.
On this day, I give thanks for all the saints who have helped me live faithfully in the twilight zone.
Alternative Application
Luke 6:20-31; Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Of course this imponderable mystery has kept minds going for years. Does sainthood lead to belonging or does belonging lead to sainthood? Can we believe without belonging or can we belong without believing? I struggle with the reality that of the many of those whom I would call saints in my life I have not a clue as to what their religious background was. Coaches, teachers, some coworkers, who knew what their background was, but clearly in the foreground of their lives was a transparency that revealed a quality of life that invited one to thought and even reverence. Some were found in the church; many would not let themselves be found in church. Many of my saints were from well beyond the safe and familiar religious traditions that I have grown comfortable with. The holy comes at you from many different directions.
The visions of Daniel gave him a serious headache. "As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me" (Daniel 7:15). The blessings and woes contained in Luke's gospel are troubling if they express what nearness to God is and what distance from God is. There is much to ponder in my experience of sainthood and the scriptures. The route to sainthood has less to do with explaining it than receiving it wherever it shows up as a gift. Being in that number when the saints go marching in will have less to do with explaining it than accepting it.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 149
Within the confines of our cultural reality, those who take things into their own hands are showered with praise. Words like, "initiative," and "take charge," describe those who get ahead. But for the faithful of Israel, and thus for those claiming Judeo-Christian roots in this moment, God is the one who is in charge. Not us, not our kings or leaders, but God.
This psalm articulates this awareness as Israel celebrates God's power with rejoicing and with music. The language is beautiful but could be misunderstood as a nod to holy warriors and such. The praise of God is in their throats, and the two-edged sword is indeed held high. But the words and the weapons wait upon God. An old cliché comes to mind that describes the sense of this psalm extremely well. "Work as though everything depends upon you, and pray with the knowledge that everything depends upon God."
It turns out that it's not the aggressive or the initiative-takers who win in the end. It's God's humble and faithful followers who wait upon God's will, rather than their own agenda. The question comes about today's faithful and the willingness to abandon agenda and initiative to wait upon God's will and direction. What would happen if pastors and leaders did that in churches today? The ready answer is that nothing would happen. Things would drift, and the people would be directionless. But is that really true?
For those who depend upon God, hard work can never be abandoned. Striving and struggle are part of God's plan. The important thing, however, is not the doing, but the focus upon doing God's will rather than our own.
And herein lies the day-to-day struggle all people of faith face. Each moment, each action, each word must be accompanied by the perpetual question. Is this about me ... or about God? Is this project about my ego and sense of accomplishment? Or is it about advancing the community, the kingdom of God? Are the words about to be spoken by me words that build up God's purpose or my own? Call it discernment. Call it prayer. Call it spiritual attentiveness or whatever name can be summoned up, but it is a key process in faithful living.
This is the victory that comes to the humble. This is the glory exalted by the faithful. And it is the joy that bubbles forth from the couches and from the pews.
