Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
03.03.11; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Reading: Ephesians 5:8-14
Earlier this week, I sat down on the sofa with the wife and my boys and, like a good 21st century net-connected family, we shared our favorite viral videos from the week. A significant sub-sample of my Facebook universe had been pitching out that “twin baby boys having a ‘conversation’” video, so I made a point of sharing it with them, after which they shared with me a mindbendingly bizarre Olson Twins video. If I don’t get that song out of my head soon, I’m going to need some therapy.
In the unlikely event you haven’t seen it, my video was just what it says. Two cute babies stand in front of a refrigerator. “DAAADADADADADA?” says one. “DADADADADADADADA!” says the other, laughing. They gesture. They point. They clearly think they’re having a conversation. It’s totally cute, and funny, perfectly suited for going viral. You can check the viral video checklist: 1) Does it have a cute thing, like a baby or a puppy or a kitten? Check. 2) Is that cute thing laughing or doing something bizarre? Check. 3) Is there more than one cute thing, interacting with the other cute thing? Check. If you can meet that checklist, virality is almost a guarantee, because we all love seeing cute little babies and wuvable puppies and fuzzy kittens doing cute fuzzy things.
But not all viral videos follow that checklist. Some...well...some are harder to explain. One in particular. There are now dozens of versions of this mashup video on YouTube, based on a scene from a 2004 foreign movie. In a room sits Adolph Hitler. His advisors bring him bad news. He refuses to believe it. They reinforce it. He goes into a ranting, screaming spittle-flecked raging hissy fit. It’s all in German, so because we don’t speak German, the dubbing can say...well...anything. One parody “dubbing” has him screaming about how he’s been kicked from World of Warcraft. Or about how his new iPhone has an antenna problem. Or about how badly his real estate investments are doing. Or about how he can’t find Waldo in one of those “Where’s Waldo” books. There are literally hundreds of screaming Hitler parodies out there, and let me tell you, they don’t seem to work at all against the “cute” viral video checklist.
Years ago, I watched the movie Downfall, from which this strange little internet phenomenon is based. It’s a brilliant but brutal drama, set in the last moments of World War Two. The film revolves around life in the Berlin bunker in which Adolph Hitler and the tattered remnants of his Third Reich finally came to their end. It is entirely in German, and is taut and intense and brilliantly acted. Much of that brilliance comes from the acting of Bruno Ganz, who plays Hitler. As everything collapses around him, Hitler cannot bring himself to see what is real. He clings to his illusions about his own power, even though that power has...in reality...been completely destroyed. He is in utter darkness, trapped not just in a physical bunker, but in the bunker of his own lies to himself. The light of truth is something that he vehemently, psychotically resists for much of the movie. He’s a tormented, warped shadow.
It’s not a funny movie. At. All.
Because without light, without really seeing where you are and what you’re doing, life can become a broken and terrible thing. That’s the essence of the message from the letter to the church at Ephesus today. This letter is one of what Bible scholars call “deutero-Pauline” letters. That means that it was most likely not written by the Apostle Paul himself, but by one of his disciples writing in his name. Scholars believe this for a variety of reasons. Ephesian 2:20, for example, seems to assume that the apostolic period is over, which would be odd had Paul been the one writing it.
Even if this isn’t written by Paul, it’s still clearly written from the perspective of someone who was formed in the crucible of Paul’s teaching. From that foundation, the author of this letter presents us with how we are to deal with life, once we’ve had the audacity to assert that we are disciples of Jesus Christ. That’s the entire point of this fifth chapter of Ephesians, and it’s some pretty bright white line stuff.
Ephesians is not the letter to go to if you’re looking for permission to goof around as a Christian. In setting out a pattern for Christian moral behavior, Ephesians gets pretty binary. There is darkness, and there is light. The goal of the Christian, as we hear it from this letter, is to be visibly, obviously, and intentionally different from the world around you.
What’s important, though, is not to primarily read this section as meaning we should be judgmental of the world around us. It’s important that we not view it’s primary purpose as being to keep us from ever spending a moment with all those pesky sinners out there. Ephesians 5:1 reminds us to be like God in Jesus, after all, and if we’re imitating Jesus, we can’t refuse to hang out with people because we’re, like, so much holier than them.
Instead, we should take this as a reminder that we’re to primarily live by example. If being Christian means anything, then we need to be living our discipleship out in the light. And if we’re in the light, then we’re not hiding away in our own delusions. We’re not hiding away behind the false idea that anything we do is automatically fine.
Ephesians is not a letter that tolerates excuses about how you’re just showing that you’re like everyone else, or that you’re just being authentically you when you tie one on because, heck, it’s Tuesday, or make suggestive comments to someone who’s not your wife. It’s not a letter that tolerates our own rationalizations about how we’re a complicated person, or that accepts that we have those secret parts of ourselves that make us...you know...interesting.
It’s easy to have those bunker places in our lives, where we hide away from the light and from the reality of our relationships with God and with other people. We feel safe there, secure from having to challenge ourselves, sheltered away from coming to terms with things that are tearing us apart.
But that sense of security is a false one. We’re still clinging to an illusion about ourselves, one that doesn’t speak into the reality around us. If we have any interest at all as living as children of light, we need to be open to light.
We experience that, first and foremost, in our relationships. Are we really listening to the cues we’re getting from people around us, or are we letting our own pride cast a dark shadow over the reality of how we connect to others?
Are we paying attention to those who would guide us towards the good? Or are we surrounding ourselves with only our own lies about the world?
We have to move out of the fallen darkness of our own bunker of lies and pride and shame. We have to live in the light.
If we live in the light, then we live into the true and the good.
And if we live in the light, we also share the light in the world.
And if we live in the light, we’re doing what Christ asked us.
Let it be so. AMEN.
