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"Night Without Vision But Not Without Hope"

Rev. John L. McCullough Photo: CWS

August 13, 2006

A sermon by Rev. John L. McCullough,
Executive Director of Church World Service

Delivered August 13, 2006
The First United Methodist Church
Erie, Pennsylvania

Micah 3:5-8
Therefore it shall be night to you without vision... (verse 6a)
Habakkuk 3:17-19
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord... (verse 18a)

My calling began in the darkness of the night.

In the broad daylight of one crisp September afternoon in 1975 I literally saw signs and wonders convincing me not only of the reality of God, but that God could and did speak directly me. Rain and rainbows, and a bright and shining star will forever hold deeply personal and immense meaning for me. But it wasn’t until night had fallen that I understood and reconciled the implications of the message of which God spoke.

My calling began in the darkness of the night.

It was in the quiet of a small dormitory room of a New Hampshire retreat house that I encountered my calling to ministry and mission. No sounds were to be heard either from outside or inside of the room. With the door closed, and the light extinguished, I lay upon my bed. In the deepest darkness of the night the silence was permeated – not with spoken words, but revelation – a knowing of God’s presence, and embrace, and purpose for my life. It came at a time when my life was adrift, without direction, and in danger of falling off the proverbial edge of the earth.

Recently, given the popularity of the book titled The DiVinci Code, many people have been reminded of the historical Quest of the Holy Grail. The Grail was said to be the cup of the Last Supper and at the Crucifixion to have received blood flowing from Christ's side, then brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, where it lay hidden for centuries. The search for the vessel became the principal quest of the knights of King Arthur.

Another historical quest is the mythical Quest of the Golden Fleece. At the prompting of his uncle Pelias, King of Iolcus in Thessaly, Jason, son of Aeson, led a large company of Greek heroes on a long voyage in the Argo to Colchis on the eastern shores of the Black Sea. His task was to remove the golden fleece of a ram from the dragon that never slept.

Part of humanity's endless and perhaps most important quest is to see the face of God. I guess I should wish that I could easily draw the image for you – doing so might guarantee fame or fortune. But I seek neither, nor would I find personal satisfaction or fulfillment were I to have one or even both. And I don’t find attempts to resonate with any specific image to be particularly important or even helpful. God appears to us in whatever way God chooses, and I am satisfied with that. In my thinking, this makes God’s appearing no less relevant or authentic. God is who God is.

At the same time I need to confess that it is not a matter of personal choosing that I do not give an exact depiction – as if some feeble attempt to conceal God’s face or the truth of God. I can only tell you that in the darkness I could see nothing, but I knew that I was not alone; I could hear nothing, yet I knew that my heart and spirit and intellect were being spoken to. I have learned to be satisfied with that, and can only ask that those who believe in the integrity and authenticity of my ministry to be satisfied as well.

The scripture readings bear messages from two prophets. Micah, whose name means “Who is like Yahweh,” was from Moresheth, which was taken into captivity around 701 BC. Historians have surmised that he probably witnessed the invasion and destruction of his hometown, along with the killing and enforced enslavement of family and friends.

Micah's purpose in writing was to show Judah that a necessary product of her covenant relationship to God was to be justice and holiness.

Habakkuk’s name means “to embrace” or “to wrestle.” If God is good, Habbakuk asks, then why is there evil in the world? And if there has to be evil, then why do the evil prosper? What is God doing in his world of 650-627 BC?

I make no personal claim to be a modern day prophet, but do understand myself as being called and challenged to participate in a tradition of prophetic witness. This means offering a clear articulation of how I see the world in light of my faith, sharing my views of the consequences of inaction where there is injustice, and calling for repentant behavior.

Though Micah and Habbakuk were not contemporaries, nonetheless they both raised critical topics with which their respective societies needed to address: Justice, and consequences of the absence of Holiness; Evil, and consequences of Prosperity for some at the Expense of others. What is quite interesting is that though the historical situations have changed, nonetheless, both topics are pertinent to our current times. We might phrase these topics a little bit differently – Peace with Justice, and the Burgeoning Gap between the Rich and the Poor – but fundamentally they are the same, and it is to these that we must speak with candor.

Church World Service was founded in 1946, in the aftermath of World War II. The world had never before seen or experienced a time such as that. Cities in Europe, Asia, and Africa lay in ruins; millions of people were displaced and separated from their families; hunger and poverty threatened the survivability of countless others. It was a desperate time that reflected a depth of inhumanity beforehand unimaginable. Yes, in earlier times, people likely thought the destruction of their communities had global consequences because for the most part one’s local reality was their global reality, but it never was the equivalent of what was experienced in WWII. In earlier times, people had no idea just how large, diverse, and complicated a place the world is. By WWII people had a pretty good idea, so a world at war meant something completely different, and had implications far beyond one’s local situation.

It was an utterly dreadful time, after one nation, then a second, and finally a third attempted to assert nationalistic and ethnic superiority. Thankfully, they were all flawed attempts – as is the notion that any one people is inherently superior to any other – but nonetheless they wrought destruction with devastating impacts. As is often the case, millions became dispersed often without knowing the whereabouts of other family members or even if they too somehow survived. Homes and communities needed rebuilding, and many people literally owned just the shirt on their back. It is sixty years later, and still the world is trying to heal from the war’s social, economic, and political impacts. Nothing demonstrates that better than the war that now threatens to consume Lebanon and Israel.

At night, scores of refugees huddled amongst the ruins wrestling with their own feelings of hatred and retribution for what had happened. The euphoria of the news announcing the end of the war was one thing, but how were all the pieces going to be put back together again. Last year when I witnessed the devastation of the tsunami on Banda Aceh, Indonesia, I was left speechless. The virtual absence of life made it too difficult to think of the horror people experienced with the onslaught of the tidal waves. But as I wound through the debris of what once was a thriving community I caught sight of one solitary man sitting in front of the ruins of what was now a solitary house. All the other houses were destroyed, swept away in the flood, and so were his neighbors. Somehow the remnants only of his house remained, somehow only he survived. I looked at him and could only imagine his anguish.

How does one reconcile surviving a catastrophe when so many others don't; and how does one begin to rebuild, when there are no neighbors to lend a helping hand and offer words of encouragement? He sat in the depths of his own despair. He too saw signs and wonders, the rumble of the earth in its quake, and the awesome power of the sea to cleanse the earth and make all things new again. Soon the daylight would fade, and he too would sit through the night, alone. What would happen for him, to give him hope; what would convince him of the reality of God?

I suppose it is human instinct to especially fear the night when we are already afraid. Depending upon the depth of the darkness, and the limitations of our vision, our sense of aloneness can be magnified well beyond personal comfort. Its not the same as choosing to be alone, all of us do that at some time or other, but when separation from others is thrust upon us by the confusing and chaotic swirl of life it is a different matter all together. Then, we don’t choose or even want to be alone; then, we need to feel presence, and embrace, and purpose for life itself.

That's the challenge isn't it for those of us who dare to call ourselves Christian: to reach into the lives of others during their nighttime of despair, to be for them signs of hope, to be present, to offer an embrace, and to speak about restored purpose. Yet that is what people of faith did following World War II. The birth of Church World Service in 1946 is due precisely to the fortitude of people of faith and good conscience to see the face of despair despite distance and circumstance, to offer acts of faith and compassionate response, to their determination to make a profound difference and break the silence with the voice of hope. Our founders were not confused by the need to cast blame or judgment, or to hold victims responsible because they did not observe the warning signs leading to their own despair. They saw the face of hunger and they fed it, they saw wandering spirits and gave them a place to call home. That is the prophetic tradition through which Micah and Habakkuk spoke to their communities and gave witness to their God; and that is the tradition not only to which I am called, but you are called as well. Yes, people often times make bad decisions, but it doesn’t mean they can’t be redeemed, and it doesn’t mean their hope should not be restored.

I believe that at no time since 1946 has the world been in as great a state of confusion and chaos as it is today. Of course I am aware of the Korean War, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Cold War, and in no way would I try to understate their importance, but these and other intervening crisis largely involved a particular set of nations as opposed to enough that we could say the whole world was potentially consumed by these events. Today, however we face a convergence of events that not only heightens the vulnerability of all of us, but also literally threatens to leave no nation unscathed.

The War on Terror – including protracted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, bombings in Indonesia, the prospects of war with Iran, and the Middle East War between Israel and Hezbollah – missiles flying back and forth, mothers buried under the rubble still clinging to infants who never had a chance to live, and play, and dream, and become somebody. But we cannot stop there, because of a belligerent war in Sudan and the sufferings and inhumanity on display in Darfur; and the quickly deteriorating situation in the Ivory Coast. And what of the increasing specter of a nuclear war in the Korean peninsula that would involve at least six nations and five of the most powerful militaries on earth?

Meanwhile, HIV/AIDS continues its relentless and unabated march towards decimating the adult population in Africa, threatening to leave it as a continent of children; while China and Russia desperately try to gain some measure of control within their own populations. Why is hunger on the rise in America – with food pantries unable to keep up with the demand of those who can no longer make their dollars stretch far enough to feed their families; and what can be done about the burgeoning gap between the rich and the poor not only in this country but between the first world countries and all the others that are falling further behind in both debt and development?

And what of the fury of nature such as we saw just last year through hurricanes and typhoons, and which this year despite saturating rains and flooding in the northeastern United States now is spreading drought across the rest of the country, as well as in East Africa? Do we need more convincing about global warming?

Clearly acts of war, and hunger, and poverty, and displacement are man-made disasters. And frankly, we are hearing more and more about a direct correlation between climate change and the consumerist choices we make every day. Micah warns about those who deceive others leading them toward despair. The issue is not so much about the choices of any one person, or even about a set of policies, though I don’t want to minimize the significant – of either. If we are not willing to take collective responsibility and pull us – all of us back from the abyss then the consequence is Night Without Vision – without presence, embrace, and purpose – the antithesis of the quest to see the face of God.

Prophetic witness calls us to the realization of the dangers that are inherent in life, but also calls us to action. The daylight is setting, and so much of our global family once again huddles in fear of what has become of them, or it sits in despair confused and wondering what happened – what went wrong – and wanting to know, where are my neighbors?

Habakkuk declares, "The Lord God is my strength; he will make my feet like deer's feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills." Habakkuk prophesies that even if at times it feels as though there is no presence, no embrace, no purpose; yet shall I believe that we might have Night Without Vision But Not Without Hope.

Faith summons us to a great and noble cause: to see the face of God in each other as persons of sacred worth, to value and honor each other’s humanity even as we seek to resolve our differences, to make sure that no one is left without the necessities of life, and, to be present, embracing, and purposeful in the living of our lives.

Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, CWS/New York, 212-870-2676;
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526;

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