As a child, I was intrigued with black and white films. Why, I asked my parents, were some films in black and white while others were in color? My uninformed, childlike assumption was that black and white films were simply color films that had grown old. They had once been in color, and then they just deteriorated in quality over time. In my mind’s eye, I imagined film rolls sitting around in a dark storage area, collecting dust, until one day, they lost their polychromatism and devolved into monochromatic grayscale productions.
While this naïve theory was incorrect, maybe there was a bit of truth in it after all. The black and white films I was analyzing were never filmed in color, but behind the limited chromatic fields of the final productions there were living worlds of vibrant hues. Jimmy Stewart’s eye color was not an unidentifiable shade of gray but light blue. Donna Reed’s hair color was not an unfathomable variation on black but deep brown.
When you read Scripture, what’s the color palette that you see? Is it polychromatic or monochromatic? If the current malaise of the Church and the confused comfort of many Christians is any indication, Scripture is only a black and white film. That’s not to say that everyone finds it uninteresting or irrelevant, but rather that over the centuries, something has been lost. It’s a bit like my childhood image of black and white films. I thought those films had simply lost their color over time.
So, where has the color gone in the stories of Jesus and of the early Church? In 2023, can we find any ounce of the fervor described in the Acts of the Apostles, when thousands were converted in a day? Today, where’s the palpable presence of the Holy Spirit, alighting on person after person and strengthening them to do wild and unexpected things in the name of Christ? Where are the miracles, the healings, the missionary journeys to exotic lands, and the inclusion of heretofore ostracized groups of people?
Over the years, Scripture has become a monochromatic palette. We hear the same stories repeatedly. Unspoken, key details are left to our imaginations, but if we fail to employ our imaginations to supply the color, the stories are simply visualized in grayscale. Chilling moments lose their electricity. Scripture is read as if it were the phone book.
Maybe Scripture has taken on something of the monochromatic reality around us, which seems like it will never blossom into color again: an unending conflict in Ukraine, one more mass shooting, racism coded into law, lawmakers establishing policy that excludes yet one more vulnerable group. Some things never seem to change. We’re left with a grayscale universe and no real ideas of how to add color to it, because we feel helpless. Do you wonder if the color has completely gone from our world?
And then, we hear Jesus say something remarkable, if we’re listening. On a first hearing, Jesus’s words channeled through John the Evangelist may have a monochromatic ring to them. We hear him repeat a common refrain many times in John’s Gospel: I am in the Father and the Father in me. John spins a circular logic that can lose its zest when rendered into English. Everything sounds colorless until Jesus drops a zinger of flashing light.
He who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Wow. Did you see the world just light up with color? Or when you heard it just a few minutes ago, did your attention gloss right over it? Can you believe what Jesus said to his disciples and what he’s saying to us? Listen again: He who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.
This is nothing short of astonishing. We’ve been given a charge that’s either so true we can’t believe it or just one more hyperbole in Scripture. But I’m here to tell you that what Jesus says is true. It’s simply that we’ve failed to believe it.
Why then have we become content with a monochromatic world? Why has the story that upended the world been reduced to silent film in grayscale? Why does the fervor of the early Church or even the vibrancy of the Church fifty years ago seem like mere idealism? There’s only one solution to this predicament, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s not my own. It’s the one Jesus gives us.
Did you catch those other words of Jesus, or did they fail to light up for you, too? Hear them again: Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. Never underestimate the power of prayer. I’m talking about real prayer, the kind of prayer infused with the love of God the Father, revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, whose living presence continues to be made known to us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is prayer that takes place no matter how we’re feeling. This is prayer that’s unceasing and permeates every moment of our day, whether in words or through movements of the heart. This is prayer expressed both in song and in silence. This is prayer that turns every aspect of our lives over to God so that God can do what’s best for us when we don’t know what we need. This is prayer that takes place at home, at work, in the public sphere, and unfailingly here at church.
This is prayer that envisages a God who is more than a mere dispenser of favors or worker of magic tricks. This is prayer that can only come about from aligning our lives with Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life. When our wills are so bound up with Christ’s, then we will know exactly what we need to ask for, and God will give it to us. If we believe what Jesus says, then we can do far more than we can imagine, and impossibilities become real possibilities, because the Holy Spirit has been given to us as our companion and guide.
It's a tragedy that thoughts and prayers have come to stand for inaction in the face of injustice. But perhaps that’s because we’ve put the cart before the horse. Action can only follow prayer. And right action can only stem from being hitched to the one who is the way into eternal life.
Right now, it’s probably difficult for many of us to imagine doing greater works than Jesus because our world has been so dulled by the monochromatism of sin and despair. But we are custodians of the great treasure of Jesus’s words. His words of hope have been entrusted to us so that we will believe them and then live from out of their power.
So, now is the time for the Church to light up the world with color. Politicians have failed. Government officials promise and don’t deliver. Lawmakers write injustice into law. Friends betray us. Institutions take our money and give us nothing in return. Every person and thing in which we’ve put our misguided trust will disappoint. But the Church is different. She should be different. She can upend the world once again. She will do things so astonishing that they can only be from the hand of God.
The most exciting and magnificent film you’ve ever seen and ever will see is before your eyes. You are in it. For some time now, it has lain dormant in a closet, shut up in the dark. It has collected dust. It has lost its color, little by little, decade by decade. Tired narratives tell us this: the Church can only manage her decline, the Church must be scaled back to manageable size, thoughts and prayers are useless, and the only hope in the world is what you alone can do, because God won’t help you.
But these are lies, because the risen Christ is alive in our midst, and he gives us a different message. The Holy Spirit is setting the world on fire. Grays can become blue, and shades of black will morph into brown. There’s no color too alluring for the palette of the film that God is producing among us. We are actors in it. The dull gray of your despair is now a luminous hope.
All you must do is believe. Believe that Jesus’s words are true. Believe that behind the grayscale film you see is a world of dazzling color, radiant with hope. Believe that through the Holy Spirit’s power, our wills can be united with God’s desires for us. And above all, believe Christ’s promise: if you ask for anything in his name, God will do it.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 7, 2023