May 31, 2009
Grace Church
Rev. Robert E. Hensley

Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104:25-37; 1 Corinthians 12:4-13; John 20:19-23

      Let us Pray.  Holy God, the promise of Pentecost is the promise of power – the power to be peacemakers in a world torn by violence; the power to forgive our own guilt and the guilt of others; the power to be courageous in the face of danger; the power to offer hope and joy in the midst of pain and suffering. Embolden us, we pray, to testify to your presence in the world, to exemplify your love for all humanity and to open our hearts to being radically changed by your Spirit. Amen.

      One June evening, just as it was getting dark, a little boy was playing outside his home when he noticed some fireflies. He was fascinated by their brightness, and so he ran inside the house and excitedly asked his dad, “Daddy, what makes the fireflies glow?”  

      His dad, not sure how to answer, said to his son, “I really don’t know, son. Why don’t you ask your teacher at school?”  

      The boy was not discouraged by his father’s non-answer; he just ran back outside to admire the fascinating creatures some more. He tried to catch one. Several times he swatted at them with his hands but missed; but then his hands clapped together on both sides of one’s flight, squishing it between his palms. Making a face as he felt the mashed insect’s body between his hands, he slowly opened them to see the wasted creature. To his surprise the dead firefly was still glowing in the palms of his hands.  

      Filled with excitement, he ran back into the house, yelling, “Daddy, Daddy, I found out what it is that makes the fireflies glow!”  

      His father, very pleased and somewhat amused that his son had figured out the answer to his own question, asked, “And what is it, son?” 

      “It’s the stuff inside!” he replied proudly, showing him the palm of his hand. 

      I think that it can be safely said that the same thing is true of followers of Christ. What is it that gives us that glow? The answer is simple. It’s the stuff inside.”

      There are a multitude of helpful “lights” in the world. We can be illuminated by them without letting them extinguish the light of the Spirit.  But I want to speak with you a bit this morning about fireflies.

      Fireflies are a fond memory many of us have from warm summer evenings in our childhood. Their cheery glow drew our attention, and my brother and sisters and I used to capture them and try to keep them in an old Mason jar. Whether you called them fireflies, lightning bugs, as we did, or glowworms, we all saw their tiny lights as one of the marks of summertime. 

      So now let me ask you, when did you last see a bunch of fireflies? You probably haven’t thought about that before, but now that you do, chances are your answer is something like “It’s been a long time” or “I can’t remember when.”   We see them out on the lawn of the Rectory, but only occasionally. 

      That’s not because you’ve become less observant. While there’s no way to tag and count insect populations, experts think that fireflies are dwindling, perhaps by as much as 70 percent in recent years, and lots of anecdotal evidence supports that claim – so much so that more than 100 entomologists and biologists gathered in Thailand just this past summer for an international symposium on the “Diversity and Conservation of Fireflies.” 

      One bit of anecdotal evidence comes from a man in Thailand who used to take tourists by rowboat on the Mae Klong River with the sole purpose of seeing the riverbanks aglow with fireflies. Now, however, the only lights seen from the river are the fluorescent ones from hotels and restaurants. These days, you must row more than two miles from the city to see any lightning bugs. 

      And the same thing appears to be happening on other continents as well. Researchers in places as diverse as Switzerland and the United States have made similar observations. A woman who spent 10 years studying fireflies on her farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, finally gave up on one species of the glowing insects because she stopped seeing them. 

      There is probably no single factor to blame, but likely causes include urban sprawl and the continued pollution of our environment that obliterate the insects’ habitat. Another probable cause – and this one is rather surprising – is the spread of artificial light. The glowing fireflies that we see are the males of the species, who use their flashing lights to attract the females. (The females spend most of their time on the ground and don’t flash.) Researchers suspect that so much artificial light around is interfering with the mating ritual, and thus they are not responding and reproducing. 

      Because insect populations are all but impossible to count and so little money is available to fund studies, experts are turning to volunteers to report changes in firefly populations. There are now even sites on the Internet where you can report your observations. 

      Researchers acknowledge that the concern over fireflies may not seem as urgent as that over some other dwindling species, such as polar bears and tigers, but they see the fate of these tiny light-bearers as a harbinger of unhealthy changes in our entire ecosystem. 

      Remembering their cheery lights from warm summer evenings in our childhood, we can only hope that they will still be around for subsequent generations to enjoy. 

      Speaking of light-bearers, today is the Day of Pentecost, the anniversary of that first-century day when the Holy Spirit came in a mighty way upon the disciples of Jesus hunkered down in an upper room in Jerusalem. The Bible’s description of the sudden filling of those disciples with the Spirit includes this: “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.” Ever since then, fire, which, of course, is a source of light, has been a symbol of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, that symbol also connects to Jesus, who said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).  

      The fact that these tongues of fire rested on each of Jesus’ followers on Pentecost is a way of showing that when the Spirit fills us, we, too, radiate the light of God. Thus, Spirit-filled Christians are light-bearers. And over the centuries, Christians have “glowed” with that light as they have spread the gospel, shared the good news, gone about doing good, committed sacrificial acts of love for neighbor and even for enemies, and have sought to understand and do the will of God.  

      In some of Jesus’ subsequent followers, that light of the Spirit can be almost visually seen. Several years ago, after the English writer Malcolm Muggeridge spent some time observing Mother Teresa working in Calcutta, India, taking care of dying people she plucked off the streets, he wrote a book about her he titled Something Beautiful for God. In it, he said, “God’s universal love has rubbed off on Mother Teresa, giving her features a noticeable luminosity, a shining quality” (italics added). 

      In most of us who follow Jesus today, the light within us may not be quite that apparent to others, but when we confront darkness in our lives, we often become conscious of how the way of the Lord is the primary light of our lives. 

      But the fact is that in this world, there are lots of other lights, some that seem more glitzy or powerful or, in some fields, even more illuminating. And just as fireflies are finding their inner lights overpowered by bright but artificial lighting, so, too, we Christians sometimes find the light of God within us – especially if we don’t tend it and feed it – growing dim. 

      When John wrote about Jesus’ coming into the world, he described Jesus as “the light of all people.” Then he went on to say, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:4-5). Yes, the darkness – sin, despair, evil, troubles and so on – may not overcome the light of Christ within us, but other lights may overcome it. 

      For example, the light of education. Some of us who first encountered Jesus as children or teenagers had a little spiritual light glowing inside us when we went off to college. There, we encountered not only new information, but also new ways of thinking about it, all emanating from the lamp of scholasticism. On balance, that’s a good lamp, one that has been helpful to our world, but its nature is such that our spiritual light can look pale by comparison. And for many, the scholastic light seemed, at least for a time, to overpower our inner light of the Spirit. 

      Then there is the light of psychology. Perhaps you have struggled with some personal baggage from the past that interfered with your ongoing life. You may have prayed about it without finding the kind of help you needed, so eventually, you sought some professional counseling, and through it, you found some relief and new perspectives that set you free from the old bondage. Given those results, the counseling certainly qualifies as light for your darkness, and therefore a good light. But it does not necessarily follow that it is a better light than the light of the Spirit. It is a different light, a more specific light for a specific need, but it is not a light for what’s at the root of every one of us: our need to get right with God and to open ourselves to the Savior who can save us and make us holy. 

      And let us not forget the light of contemporary culture. Secular life itself has a glitter that sometimes seems to outshine the light of the Spirit within us. If you’ve ever been with a group of people who seem quite happy without the morality and values of religion, you may have wondered if you were mistaken to cling to the way of the Lord. The light of secularity can appear powerfully bright at times. It can illuminate certain pleasures. At times, it can even shed a benign glow. Yet it has neither the heat of inspiration nor the inner-path-lighting ability of the Spirit’s light. 

      To get back to fireflies for a moment, the fact is, it may not be possible for fireflies to survive forever in a world whose nights are increasingly ablaze with artificial light. I, for one, hope they can adapt. But as new lights of a different sort are introduced into the world, Christians need to adapt, as well. Whether they are the lights of medicine, learning, behavioral studies, sociology, human motivation, technology, sports, or anything else, it is important to understand that these lights do not require us to make an either-or choice as in, “either we will follow Jesus or we will follow science.”  

      In many cases, it is quite possible – quite important, even – to allow more than one light to illuminate our lives. But one of those lights always needs to be emanating from the fire of the Spirit. That’s because while some of what science, behavioral studies, technology and so on shows us is important for our daily existence, our lives are always more than daily existence. The light of the Spirit is a light not only for day-to-day living, but also for eternity, and we make a mistake to let its light get washed out by the seemingly brighter light of human discovery or secularity.  

      One way to see this is to think about global warming. For a long time, the only warning lights about the negative effect of human activity on the climate were from scientists and ecologists. Gradually other groups, including churches, have started to take global warming seriously. Many congregations have begun measures to reduce their impact on the environment. Here at Grace, we have begun using environmentally sustainable products for our lobster rolls and coffee hours.  We have joined the Interfaith Power and Light movement and Green Faith.  In addition, many environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, are reaching out to faith communities as partners in efforts to protect the planet. We can and must do our part to make a difference.  Yes, it does take a bit more thought and effort and it will cost a bit more while the consciousness of the community is raised.  But the cost of not doing it is much higher. 

      Among some Christian groups, however, that has produced an odd kickback. While acknowledging that Christians should be good stewards of God’s world, some cannot conceive of joining forces with entities like the Sierra Club because they are viewed as entirely secular or “worldly.” Of course, some things that at first appear as a light are really darkness in disguise, but part of the purpose of the light of God is to expose darkness for what it is. The fact is, the green movement does seem to be one of today’s lights.   We who claim to be Christians need to neither hide from that light nor refuse to let it shine in our arena. We need to be illuminated by it and act on what it reveals. But at the same time, we need to recognize that it is not our primary illumination. 

      The coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost lit the fire of the church. It is a pure and clean burning fire that leaves no carbon emissions to pollute the environment.  God’s Spirit is still and must always be the main source of light for Christians. Individually and as the church, we should do what is necessary to keep ourselves good places for the Spirit’s flames to burn hotly and the Spirit’s light to shine brightly. It is not for us, it is not our job to extinguish lesser lights that shine for the benefit of humankind so that we are the only light in town; indeed, sometimes we must help those other lights be seen as well.  

      Yet at the same time, we should never be so dazzled by other lights that we no longer shine for Christ or no longer “reproduce” and bring forth new generations of Christians.   Amen. 

Sources: 

Casey, Michael. “Experts fear fireflies are dwindling.”
ABCNews, August 30, 2008. abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=5691154.  

Firefly Watch. mos.org/fireflywatch. 

Muggeridge, Malcolm. Something Beautiful for God. Harper & Row, 1971. 

“The UK glow worm survey.” galaxypix.com/glowworms. 


From YouTube:  

The Link: (1) youtube.com/watch?v=-xdm_dVkR9s. Time: 2:29. (2) youtube.com/watch?v=9OJpcBGPSEs. Time: 1:41. 

The Content: (1) A guy shows how to make a firefly jar with fake fireflies. (2) Fireflies filmed in New York along the Hudson River