"Gifts of the Dark Wood: The Gift of Emptiness" - Sermon March 15, 2020
Community UMC, Quincy
“Gifts of the Dark Wood: The Gift of Emptiness”
Rev. Andrew Davis
March 15, 2020
Numbers 12: 1-9
Proverbs 9: 1-12
As we begin our third week of the Lenten Journey, we continue exploring Rev. Dr. Eric Elnes’ book, Gifts of the Dark Wood. As we journey with Jesus through the valley, dark wood, or wilderness to the cross, we are thinking about how to be fully human and live wholeheartedly. At the same time, the gifts of the Dark Wood might feel more like curses, yet it’s about seeing things from a different angle. Today, we come to the gift of emptiness and in the opening words of this week’s chapter, Eric Elnes mentions a similar scene to encountering a clearing, which brings to mind the words of the mystic Sufi poet, Rumi:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn’t make any sense.[i]
As we suspend our regular services this week and the remainder of March, it feels very empty this morning here in the church, while the rest of the world feels too full to talk about. Even while it feels good, the emptiness from getting away from the news and our social media feeds at the moment can be refreshing. When we consider emptiness, emptiness feels like it could mean being super lonely, feeling down, or depressed and it does to a degree, especially as we may feel isolated during this time of social distancing. On the other hand, we need to empty or unload our souls of what troubles us, which Lent gives us an opportunity to.
When I think of emptiness, I find nature the perfect place to empty my soul, talk with God, and encounter God in one of those thin places, much like in Rumi’s poem. In the introduction to the gift of emptiness, Eric Elnes explains that
The Dark Wood gift of emptiness brings us straight to this place beyond notions of wrongdoing and rightdoing. It’s not a place beyond morality. Rather, it’s where our fractured humanity finds its most intimate connection to divinity and an astonishing fullness is discovered within our deepest emptiness.[ii]
Lent is a time in which we are not only allowed, but encouraged to come face to face with emptiness and fractured humanity. In the midst of our deepest emptiness, we can encounter God in a profound way, especially as we empty ourselves of things that tear us apart from God or each other.
These last couple weeks, we have considered about how we can bring our fears, doubts, struggles, and failures to God, yet “few people have the courage to face their inner emptiness.” While not having church or some of our regular activities due to concerns of Coronavirus, we can take the time to connect with God and give those fears and doubts to God as we have the extra time to do so as we help take care of each other when we fill that void of not having our regular opportunities to connect. That’s where we can allow God to fill us and find rest in God, even after we have sat with our emptiness for a while. When we think of emptiness as a gift, “imagine what it would be like to be free – free not of your faults but your fear of them. This is precisely what the Dark Wood gift of emptiness brings.”[iii]
In the Dark Wood gift of emptiness, scripture can fill us as we see how others have experienced emptiness or how God can fill that emptiness. In our reading from Numbers, we encounter a little exchange between God, Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. While Miriam and Aaron talk smsack about Moses, Moses is one of the most humble people and one of those who faced uncertainty in the beginning of his call from God. As Moses demonstrates here, his “humility is about human worth and fulfillment” and “authentic relationship with the Holy Spirit.”[iv] Moses had to overcome his own fear, doubts, and uncertainties while allowing God to fill that emptiness and didn’t lash out at Miriam or Aaron. By allowing God to fill any emptiness, Moses “ultimately trusted his call, not his lack. He trusted that whatever abilities he had been given would be enough to carry out his calling as long as they were surrendered to God.”[v]
In the wisdom literature of Proverbs 9, it says that wisdom can fill us when we put our faith and trust in God, allowing God to fill our emptiness. However, another form of emptiness we can embrace, although one that sometimes leads to deeper questions or inner struggle is that of the cross, which is important to consider as we make our way to Easter, although not directly addressed in both lessons.
In this long quote from the book, Eric Elnes shares that
In my experience, the Cross acts like a kind of giant black hole. Black holes in outer space are places of extreme gravitational pull that act on objects orbiting them in such a way that they draw ever closer until finally passing what is known as an event horizon. At the event horizon, the force of gravity is so strong that not even light can escape its grasp. Everything is drawn into the black hole’s mysterious center – a point or region of infinite density known as a singularity…
The Cross of Jesus draws me to it much like a black hole, and acts on me much like reaching a singularity point. I begin to sense the gravity of the Cross when I ask myself the question that many Christians ask themselves: If I had been alive in Jesus’ day, would I have crucified him? My initial reaction is “Of course not! I’m a Christian minister, after all! I would never have sent Jesus to the Cross.” Yet before I have even finished making that response, I can already feel the Cross’ pull more strongly.[vi]
Although we are still a few weeks away from the events of Holy Week and as we empty ourselves of things that keep us from fully living, we do need to come face to face with the ways we fall short, along with facing the cross just like Jesus did, along with emptiness. And yet, facing the cross and its meaning can be a challenge, even though the empty cross is the symbol of Jesus’s victory over sin and death, meaning sin and death would not have the final word. While our scripture lessons this morning don’t necessarily directly talk about the cross, we hear about the ‘fear of God,’ which can mean “awe struck reverence” such as when we encounter a clearing in the Dark Wood where we experience God.[vii] It’s in these moments that Eric Elnes mentions that in the moment
Where [we] accept the full weight of [our] brokenness, it becomes clear that [we] have no inherent ability to find [our] true path in this world, or follow it, while relying on [our] own power, reasoning, intelligence or even [our] own faithfulness or morality. If [any of us are] to experience what is like to be fully alive before [we] die, [we] must – must – depend on a power far greater than [ourselves] to make the journey with [us].[viii]
When we face the cross, or have to rely on something higher than ourselves, we can be filled with the Holy Spirit and God’s power by experiencing the gift of emptiness. Like skilled living, or “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord” (Proverbs 9: 10, NRSV),
the ‘black hole faith’ to which the Cross draws us reveals that [the fear of God] is not the sort we expect. It is not a form of terror or trepidation….It is this form of fear we encounter when we lose faith in ourselves and place it in [God]…Standing in this place is the beginning of all wisdom, and all true understanding. What we thought would be the place of our greatest emptiness and fullest, negation proves to be the safest and most beautiful spot in the world on which to stand.[ix]
As we continue our journey through the Dark Wood toward Jerusalem, the cross, grave, and new life,
if we are to grasp the Dark Wood gift of emptiness, we must be just as ready to claim our true power and potential as we are to concede our tendency to fall short of it. By embracing our humility – the kind we discover beyond the “singularity point” of the Cross – we live into our fullest humanity. We experience the paradox of encountering God’s fullness within our emptiness.[x]
This week, even though many of us won’t be out and about or gathering as we usually gather, this is an opportunity to sit with our emptiness, to give extra time to studying God’s word, to spending more time in prayer. We don’t know how long these precautions are going to last, but we have the good news that God is with us, God can fill us when we are empty, and that we have the assurance that no matter what is happening, God is with us and is big enough to take our worries, doubts, struggles, fears, and failures. And God is in each of us, as we check in with each other, and care for each other. This week, let us all encounter “God’s fullness within our emptiness.”[xi] Offered to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
[i] Coleman Books, trans., The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition (San Francisco, Harper One, 2004), 36; Qtd. In Eric Elnes, Gifts of the Dark Wood (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015), 41.
[ii] Eric Elnes, Gifts of the Dark Wood (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015), 42.
[iii] Eric Elnes, 45.
[iv] Ibid., 52.
[v] Ibid., 53
[vi] Ibid., 48-49
[vii] Ibid., 51-51
[viii] Ibid., 51
[ix] Ibid., 51-52
[x] Ibid., 54
[xi] Ibid.
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