Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 14, 2021
2 Chronicles 36.14-17a, 19-23 | Psalm 137 | Ephesians 2,4-10 | John 3.14-21
Adam and Eve were content with their nakedness until they disobeyed God’s command. “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” (Genesis 3.7) Adam and Eve felt unworthy. The coverup had begun. Since that day, we have made nakedness our enemy. Not just physical nakedness, but more importantly moral nakedness. We cannot abide that our failings and dirty deeds should be dragged into the light of day.
After the first couple put on fig leaves, they hid from God. Where once they had walked with God in the cool of the evening, now they cowered in the bushes, away from God’s sight.
Today, a lot of stuff that once was held secret is being exposed. Social media, investigative reporting and the willingness of people to speak of how they have been abused have challenged a culture of power, privilege and secrecy. Negative judgments have been made against perpetrators, and people’s reputations have been ruined. In many cases, deservedly so. The mighty have been cast down from their thrones.
In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “All who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.” Often we hide our own actions from ourselves, either because we unconsciously minimize the effects they have had or because we refuse to face what we have done.
Adam and Eve, however, had active consciences. They were too awake to ignore the rift they had created with God. Yet, although they knew that they could not escape the consequences of what they had done, they still covered their nakedness and hid from God. Maybe God would not notice.
Ron Rolheiser recently wrote about opening our secrets to the light. He provided an apt image that can apply to the secrets conscience tries to ignore: “Denying our thoughts and feeling is akin to living on the ground floor of a house and taking any garbage or anything else we do not want to deal with and simply tossing it down into the basement and closing the door. Out of sight, out of mind. For a while. Garbage doesn’t cease to exist just because we have pushed it into the basement. Eventually it ferments and sends its poisonous gases up through the vents to contaminate the air we are breathing.”
Our attempts to cover our nakedness are not as successful as we hope they might be. Those around us may not be able to detect the precise evils we have committed, but they know something smells. While one may confidently act as though nothing is wrong, they fool only themselves.
We all carry the stench of sin. The sooner we bring it into the light and fumigate the basement, the better. People may not be forgiving, but God is.
I have memories of dark confessionals from my childhood and even from recent times. The darkness was to ensure anonymity, but it also left a taste that our confession of sins in the sacrament of Reconciliation was something dark and hidden. But in the sacrament, we bring our sins into God’s light where God forgives them and puts an end to our cowering.
Back to Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Living in the light is possible. We just have to want the light and commit ourselves to making ourselves transparent to the loving God.