21 24 1045 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c3831fb62ddceec8eadb2592873beb45.mp3 df24ef8042e65cc5f89ac94879b4866d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Midweek Lenten Service Series Stations on the Way to Freedom Scripture Text Hosea 11:8, Luke 23:34 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20010321 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-03-21 Title A name given to the resource Compassion Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 21, 2001 entitled "Compassion", as part of the series "Stations on the Way to Freedom", on the occasion of Midweek Lenten Service, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Hosea 11:8, Luke 23:34. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f95ee11e55ec3ffa2d96d092211d351a.mp3 e1d25acf08967a6f99316386a0bfb7d1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/533eb73fdac64b2d4dbf4df34b56c9a8.pdf 4c918a1a3cacc55e71cf229571fd3d0d PDF Text Text Do We Need God to be Good? From the series: A Fresh Look at an Ancient Story Text: Luke 6:36; Romans 12:2 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Lent, March 18, 2001 Transcription of the spoken sermon I have a question this morning that I invite you to consider with me. It is a genuine question, not some rhetorical question, not a question for which I have an answer. It is an honest question about which I invite you to think: Do we need God to be good? The question came to me a month or so ago. The Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance sponsored a diversity summit at Hope College involving hundreds of people from this area. It was a very significant event, a day spent looking in the face of racism primarily, but at all forms of exclusionary behavior that hurt and wound and divide. The keynote speaker that morning was Dr. Greg Williams, the author of a book, Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He was Black, which narrates his life, his experience. It is a most extraordinary story. There were many of you from Christ Community there, and others I am sure, became aware of the event through news stories. I won’t try to give you the whole story of Greg Williams except to say that he grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, in some affluence as a white son in a white family. But the family broke up. The father was an alcoholic, the mother fled because of abuse, and at ten years of age Greg found himself with his younger brother and father on a bus headed for Muncie, Indiana, which was the birth home of his father and his mother. In the midst of the journey, the father told the boys, “In Virginia you were white. In Muncie you will be black.” The shock could hardly be taken in. They came to Muncie where Greg’s father, who had passed for white in Virginia, was identified clearly with the black community. Since the father had lost everything, the three made their way to an aunt’s place, and here’s an address for you: 601 Railroad Street. Being white, Greg was not accepted by the black community, and being black in Muncie, was not accepted in the white community. © Grand Valley State University   �Do We Need God to be Good? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Greg told his story with great grace and passion, a most moving story, indeed. He told of the incredible pain of a little white boy discovering he was black and of having his whole world turned upside down. He was exceptionally bright, industrious, and hardworking. Eventually, he and his brother were taken in by a wonderful black lady who had no bloodlines to them at all, but simply provided home, safety and security, as well as encouragement. To make a long story short, and it is a long, tortuous story, Greg Williams graduated from high school, from college, earned a master’s, a Ph.D., and graduated from law school. Presently he is the dean of the Law School of Ohio State University. What a remarkable story! It is one thing to read it in the book, but quite another thing to hear the story from the person who lived it. As I drove from Holland to Spring Lake along the highway that day lost in thought, having been deeply moved, the question of this morning arose in my mind: Do I need God to be good? What went through my mind was the fact that I was so horrified once again with the pain that we inflict on one another. I felt so inwardly devastated by the reality of racism that confronted me with such power and potency that morning. I thought about the question from last Sunday’s sermon: What’s the matter with us? What’s wrong with us? Then I thought to myself, as a Christian leader, a preacher and a theologian, do I need God in order to call myself and you to be good, to be good in the sense of goodness that contrasts to the ugliness that is so much a part of the human landscape? Do I need to call in God as some external, supernatural being, a lawgiver who holds us accountable, a lawgiver who restrains our behavior, a lawgiver who models another way of being? Do I need God in order to be convinced of that or in order to persuade others? Because what I was thinking, what I was feeling was that I, myself, ought to know enough to be good, that is, to be a moral, decent, civil, human, and humane being. I know in my depths what goodness is and I know enough to be good without having some external support or some external law code or manual of behavior. I am a self-conscious, free and responsible person. Why do I need God to be good? Why can’t I simply be good, because I would be good for goodness’ sake? Is it not enough for me to see that, to experience that, to be moved at a deep level? Is that not enough to transform my consciousness and to shape my life? Do I need God to be good? To be sure, that is how God has been used. That is how the religions, the great religions have imaged God. God is the supernatural, external being communicating laws to the universe. This is the way it was in Israel, of course. Israel was a nation of people structured by laws which were claimed by scriptures to be God-given. With its moral code, the Ten Commandments, but also with all the civil legislation and ceremonial © Grand Valley State University �Do We Need God to be Good? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   law, Israel was a nation of law. They had a manual, a code of divine revelation, and we as a Christian Church took that over. In the gospel reading this morning Jesus set forth that impossible ethic. Did it strike you as I read it again—that impossible ethic to which Jesus calls us? To love our enemies and finally concluding the paragraph with, “Be compassionate as your father is compassionate.” Over and over again the Israelites heard the word, “Be holy, for I am holy.” Jesus said, “Be compassionate as your father is compassionate.” That is the way that the great religious traditions have communicated the imperative to goodness. The apostle Paul said in the twelfth chapter of Romans, the great chapter, almost as difficult as the Sermon on the Mount to follow, “Be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the perfect will of God.” And then in a very particular fashion he calls us to graciousness, to generosity, to humility, to integrity, to love—again an impossible ethic. That is the way God has been used in the great religious traditions. Negatively put, God is the law-giver and the law enforcer, and if you break the law, there is hell to pay. Positively stated, God is the moral example. God is the exemplar of that which is good. Therefore, follow God. The religious traditions have arranged a way by which ordinary humankind, obviously unable to live up to such high demands, can find a way of atonement and of reconciliation through priestly mediation, and it seems to me that in our great religious traditions, that is pretty much the way we have come to settle in. We co-exist with the evil, the pain, the anguish, the brokenness, the pain we inflict and the pain inflicted upon us. We co-exist with it almost easily because we recognize our own brokenness. We plead for mercy, and we go on our way in a kind of co-existence with a world replete with hurt and pain and violence, of which racism, or exclusivism of any sort, are simply the outward symptoms. But do we need that kind of external reinforcement or threat or promise? Might it not be possible for me as a human being, having come to self-consciousness and awareness, being a responsible and relatively free individual, to decide and to determine to be good? For example, what if God “out there” doesn’t exist? What if that traditional religious image of God, that biblical image of God as the supernatural creator/law-giver, doesn’t exist? Would it make any difference in the way we live? At the beginning of the twentieth century, Nietzsche, in the light of the whole modern development, the development of modern atheism, cried out those famous words: “God is dead, and we have killed him, and now everything is permitted.” Nietzsche saw the collapse of the whole western European moral structure, and went mad. Dostoevsky, in what arguably may be one of the © Grand Valley State University �Do We Need God to be Good? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   greatest novels ever written, The Brothers Karamazov, has a minor character say, “If God does not exist, there is no virtue. Virtue is useless.” Would you agree with that? Do you need God to guarantee value, virtue? What if that God “out there,” that superhuman being, that human being writ large, what if that God doesn’t exist? How would it affect your conduct? Are you good because of God? Do you need that kind of God to be good? In the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant, who was identified with that great movement of the human spirit, the Enlightenment, was convinced that the human species had come to a hinge point in history, a new level of consciousness: Auf Klärung, the German phrase “enlightenment.” Kant was convinced of the rationality of the human being. He thought that, being free and responsible, the human being would no longer need that external demand, but could selfconsciously and self-critically determine to act morally. Of course, then came the twentieth century, the most bloody and violent century on record. So we can say, “Well, Kant, it isn’t true after all that there is a kind of movement of the human race out of adolescence and into maturity, into adulthood.” That was his claim, that the adolescence of the human race was over and we were moving into another level. But what if the thing that Kant saw is a thing that doesn’t happen overnight, not even in a century or two? What if we are in the midst of a process, a process which has been underway for fifteen billion years? What if the whole process of nature that has brought us to the present moment, what if that whole cosmic process has issued a moment like this, where individuals like us can sit together, considering such a question? What if that process is reflective of that within the process itself which has moved us to this present point and, as Kant saw, we can come consciously to understand? We know so much about our world through scientific investigation, but have only scratched the surface. Nonetheless, I suppose, we have knowledge, and we come self-consciously to the appreciation of the wonder of life, the marvel of the world. This morning I looked out as the sun came up. It caught the ice floes on the lake, and they glistened like a thousand swans. Then, as I was driving across Little Pigeon Creek, that same sun caught two swimming swans in all of their white radiance. One catches one’s breath at the wonder of it all; even in the frigid March, the pussy willow begins again to bud. What if, after fifteen billion years, after the torturous process of the evolutionary, biological, historical development of which we are the product, what if we are the meaning of it all? What if we are beginning to see that invitation to be good without external application of law or threat or promise, but goodness for goodness’ sake? © Grand Valley State University �Do We Need God to be Good? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   “Ah,” you say, “you’re a dreamer.” Yes, I’m a dreamer. There have always been prophets and poets and philosophers and theologians and middling preachers such as myself who have dreamed of another possibility. Certainly Isaiah did in that marvelous sixty-fifth chapter where he talks about the lion and the lamb lying down together and no one hurting or destroying in all God’s holy mountain. And the classic Christian conception of heaven—what is it but the recognition that everything that we know and experience here is only a shadow of what should be, could be, ought to be? Finally, beyond the ambiguities of history in all of its pain and all of its anguish and all of its brokenness and all of its violence, that vision of heaven, that perfect state, that kingdom of God—those are biblical images that emanate from the depths of the human being that knows something other than has ever been. But what if we’ve come to a point where we no longer looked for that external God to intervene and to bring it to consummation? Certainly that was Isaiah’s hope. That was Jesus’ hope. What if we have come to see that God is not “out there,” ready to snap the finger and shape things up, but rather, God is coming to expression in the human? What if it’s our play? What if it’s our move? If God “out there” doesn’t exist, then might there be a spirit within us that is beckoning us to be good for goodness’ sake? Then might we see the function of our religious life as the creation, the recognition of meaning, of living with wonder? What if in this Lenten journey we might come to a fresh awareness, a new understanding, a deeper appreciation and an overwhelming sense of gratitude? In that case, we could fall to our knees and say, “O God!” For what is God but that which is trying to come to expression, to create paradise, heaven on earth, community? Then I wouldn’t need God to be good. God would be good through me. Then the world would be changed and we would live with reverence and awe in the milieu of love and the bonds of community. Then, just then, maybe God would be God. References: Gregory H. Williams. Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black. Plume/Penguin Books, 1996. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Lent V Series A Fresh Look At an Ancient Story Scripture Text Luke 6:36, Romans 12:2 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Gregory H. Williams. Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black. Penguin, 1996. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20010318 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-03-18 Title A name given to the resource Do We Need God To Be Good? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 18, 2001 entitled "Do We Need God To Be Good?", as part of the series "A Fresh Look At an Ancient Story", on the occasion of Lent V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 6:36, Romans 12:2. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Compassion Inclusive Lent https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/612243fc01c057a507b0a0c43fb164ae.mp3 cd262b702058db4246312cdb684f3afe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Lent IV Series A Fresh Look At an Ancient Story Scripture Text Genesis 3:7, Matthew 9:36 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20010311 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-03-11 Title A name given to the resource The Human Dilemma Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 11, 2001 entitled "The Human Dilemma", as part of the series "A Fresh Look At an Ancient Story", on the occasion of Lent IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 3:7, Matthew 9:36. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7958e7a6ca51346bb2fff2c42d3ea585.mp3 c0433d3e75fee5169f7adad372f0a31c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Lent II Series Spirituality in the Modern World Scripture Text Romans 5:18 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20010225 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-02-25 Title A name given to the resource Living Within a True Myth Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 25, 2001 entitled "Living Within a True Myth", as part of the series "Spirituality in the Modern World", on the occasion of Lent II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Romans 5:18. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dc250f0727efd04faecddc9f4c4dbe6f.mp3 2d279fd1234638f9256a6c15a2a04505 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/81d999c2d97541ccfd57671c0a08786d.pdf a682acdc1591b9b0cacd976c2e279609 PDF Text Text The Experience of God From the series: Spirituality in the Modern World Scripture: Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 139; Mark 1:9-15 Text: Genesis 1:2; Psalm 139:7; Mark 1:10 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan February 18, 2001 Transcription of the spoken sermon While I was on vacation, I had time to read the paper. I never bother with it the rest of the year, but there, a cup of coffee and the paper, and Nancy - it is a way to lull away some time. I was reading a couple of papers a day, and in the Sports section there was the talk about the difficultly the Los Angeles Lakers were having, possibly not able to repeat this year the championship because Phil Jackson, the Coach, has a problem. He doesn't have one star, he has two. Any time you have two stars, you have problems, right? You have this hulk of a man called Shaq, who is there because of hulk and some ability, and you have one with incredible athletic ability, Kobe Bryant, and of course, superstars would like to be the center of attention and, consequently, the Lakers' fortunes were not too good at that point. I think they have done a little better since, but I'm not going to hold my breath as to whether or not they repeat, I don't really care. After all, this is Piston territory, although we don't admit it always, but the interesting thing about that disturbance in the Laker lineup was that it reminded me that Phil Jackson, the coach, was a coach with some meditative dimension to him. He had been raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, his parents were both Pentecostal preachers, and one of the worst things that can happen to you when you grow up in a Pentecostal home is if you don't as an adolescent get the "gift," and he never got the "gift." His tongue just kind of laid there and it didn't "take" with Phil and he felt guilty about all of that, but he was a great athlete and he found great success, eventually playing in the NBA himself, and of course, his fame was with the Chicago Bulls. I hate to mention that name in this territory, too, but one has to do what one has to do. Coaching the great Michael Jordan and the Jordanaires, and winning three championships and all of that good stuff. He had a great success record there, and I thought to myself, what is he going to do in Los Angeles? A friend here gave me a book entitled Sacred Hoops, by Phil Jackson, with an Introduction written by then-Senator Bill Bradley. They were both in the NBA together. In Sacred Hoops, Phil Jackson tells his story, and it is a very good read, actually. He tells a bit about his very rigid Christian upbringing, which he has not © Grand Valley State University �The Experience of God Richard A. Rhem Page 2 turned his back on, but to which he has added a touch of Buddhism. He got into a little Zen Buddhism and meditation. He learned how to sit on a cushion and cross his legs and breathe deeply and get mindful. But he was telling that, when he had Michael Jordan on the court, the other players were so enamored with Jordan's moves, that they would just sort of stand there and forget they were part of the team, too. What he had to do was weave them into a team and of course, with an outstanding star like that, that is not so easy, because all of us want to be in the center stage, and how do you create what he said is really a spiritual matter? Teamwork is a spiritual matter. And so, his own spiritual experience, his experience with contemplation, helped him to enable his players to bond together and to become a team and, of course, the success was evident. The word that Phil Jackson used about his own experience as a Christian, nonetheless, weaves some Buddhist meditation into his life. The word that he used was mindfulness. It's a good word. Mindfulness. It so happens that the book I was going to use on Tuesday evenings, John Hick’s The Fifth Dimension, speaks about mindfulness with Hick discussing Buddhism particularly, Hinduism a bit, but particularly Buddhism. Mindfulness, as John Hick says, brings one to total awareness of the moment, when one pauses long enough and, if you want a technique, through the breathing in and breathing out. Seeking to empty the mind of all distractions, one becomes mindful, and this, with practice, can become a way of being; it can pervade more and more of life so that we live in the present moment, not crippled by fears and shame of the past, not paralyzed by anxiety about the future, but being very much alive and alert and aware of the present moment. With practice and the spiritual disciplines, this can become more and more the demeanor of one's life, so that one finds a deeper level of serenity and peacefulness. It's a good word - mindfulness. Being consciously aware, aware of one's self and of one's world in the present moment, being present, here and now, in this moment. As John Hick says, all of the great religions recognized, in our human experience, some form of distortion. We all know it; we can look into our own lives, we can follow the course of our historical circumstances; the newspaper, the television is full of all kinds of this distortion of human life. As Hick says, you in the Western tradition, of which we are a part, know the story. We tell about that, the story of Adam and Eve created in Paradise, perfect, and their rebellion, their disobedience, their fall into sin. Really, in the biblical story and in the traditional Christian explanation of things, everything that is wrong with the world is a consequence of that original sin, that initial misstep, that sin that brings guilt, that brings alienation, that offends God, that creates the gulf between God and the human person, and the need for redemption, the need for the whole redemptive scheme of things in order that that gulf may be bridged and reconciliation may happen. That is the Christian story; it is the Jewish story, more or less, the idea that the distortion of the human situation is the consequence of sin, bringing guilt, bringing alienation. © Grand Valley State University �The Experience of God Richard A. Rhem Page 3 But, as Hick points out, and I am sure we are aware, in the eastern religions, it is not a question of sin and guilt and alienation, but rather, the distortion of life is the consequence of false consciousness. We just don't "see" correctly. We just don't "get it." There is a false consciousness and that false consciousness causes me to live as an egocentric being, causes me to live as one who is threatened by the other, causes me to live greedily and graspingly, causes me to follow the instincts that are in me as an animal that has emerged out of the jungle with survival skills. Those skills that enabled the race to preserve itself are still with us very much, because we may be spiritual beings, but we have not divested ourselves of that animal nature, and so we know ourselves to be creatures who are beckoned upward and dragged downward, and we live in that tension. In the east, the insight, the understanding is that failure to live with awareness and with peace is the consequence of a false consciousness. We don't "see" truly; we don't "see" correctly, we don't get the real picture. We distort it because of our egocentricity and all of that which impinges upon us. So, whether it is the Western Christian-Jewish-lslamic traditions, or the Eastern traditions, one explains it one way and another explains it another way; the fact is that they agree on that dis-ease and that distortion. I really enjoy listening to Boyd Wilson as I am unwinding from my sermons, and it always impresses me, as he presents the other great traditions, how the forms are different, how we do it, how we image it, how we imagine it, and the concepts are different, but it is all the same, really. It is that human situation in a distorted reality. There is that yearning for God, that thirst for the sacred, for the holy, that love of peace and wholeness that seems always to elude us. And so, in one story or another, in one tradition or another, we are dealing very much with the same thing. It does seem to me frankly that, from what we have learned from science about reality, about the natural world, about the universe, our cosmology today which is totally different than the cosmology of the biblical writers, our cosmology really fits a lot better with an eastern insight, because we are emerging. We are a part of the process. Fifteen billion years from "Big Bang," here we are, creatures who have become conscious, and in the Buddhist understanding and in the eastern tradition, it is not that God is "out there," God the creator who is some kind of craftsman or engineer who put this thing together; but rather, God is in the process, the creator- Spirit, the creative spirit, and this process which has come to expression in us so that we are actually the consciousness of the cosmos. With us the cosmos gets a voice, with us the cosmos comes to awareness, and we are able to be aware of and to articulate and name the wonder and the mystery of the whole creation. Here we are and God is in us, because as God is in all reality, with all of the great traditions affirmed, so God is in us. And so, I think, frankly, the eastern traditions have an edge on our western tradition in the fact that they have always looked inside, not outside, for God. The experience of God is within. You don't go beyond, but rather, into the depths of one's own soul and recognize that we are the unique human expressions of God. © Grand Valley State University �The Experience of God Richard A. Rhem Page 4 Now, here, let me tip you off - this is a dangerous statement. This will keep you thinking for a while. Are you ready? Could it be that self-awareness is the experience of God? Could it be that if I really came to the awareness of the depths of my humanness, that I would be contemplating God? The images of God that we have are terribly important for the way we think and the way we behave and how we feel about ourselves. If God is offended by my sin and my guilt and alienated from me, if God is a lawgiver and judge, then I may well feel in the universe like Phil Jackson felt in his own family home when he didn't get the "gift," not measuring up. Falling short. Unworthy. But, if, on the other hand, I am the universe come to consciousness, or another way of saying, if I am that sacred coming to awareness, if I am the human expression of the eternal god, then I am a part of the whole. Then there is no separation or alienation. I may still get myself into all of the rotten mess into which humanity can get itself, but it will be a consequence of false consciousness, not that God is angry with me, but that I have failed to see who I am. The wonder, the mystery of being the self expression of God, and that perception of things can make a huge difference in how I feel about myself and about God and about the whole of reality. All of these things are in all of the great traditions and certainly what I am suggesting is a little bit radical. It isn't often said quite that blatantly and bluntly, that self-consciousness is really God-consciousness, that self-awareness is awareness of the divine within, but it is in our tradition - "The Spirit of God brooded over the deep," in the creation story, or of hovering over the deep, brooding, creating. Psalm 139 - is there anything more beautiful than that? Isn't it a powerful expression of the experience of God, the God who is closer than our breath? "Thou hast searched me, O God, and known me. Where can I flee from thy presence? Night and day are the same to you. You formed me in my mother's womb. I am wonderfully and mysteriously made." And then the anger at those on the other side, "Why don't you slay them," only to come back to that moment of awareness to say, "Search me, O God. Know my heart." Beautiful! Powerful! So, it's in there, even though the imagery both in Genesis and the Psalmist is still that image of God "out there," or a kind of supernatural theism; nonetheless, the sense of intimacy is there, the presence when God is there. But, what about Jesus? Jesus coming to his baptism, joining the John the Baptist movement? Of course, if Jesus is the divine intruder, the second person of the Trinity, dipping down here to do the job for us, to get us fixed up with God again, then you can see his baptism as something other, but we have come to think about Jesus in the genuine, authentic humanity in which I believe he is portrayed, Jesus in the social context of his day, Jesus living in a time when there was exploitation, when there was oppression, when the heel of Imperial Rome © Grand Valley State University �The Experience of God Richard A. Rhem Page 5 was wringing all of the life out of the peasant class, when the cities were expanding and commercialism was expanding, and people were suffering in hopelessness and helplessness. It was in that kind of a context that Jesus came on the scene and joined John the Baptist, who was a rabid apocalyptic who said, "This is so dark and this is so black, God must soon come to damn the wicked and vindicate the righteousness." Jesus identified with John, not in a vacuum but, in a real historical, social, economic situation, Jesus identified with that movement. Interestingly, as he is driven off into the wilderness, we're told in the gospel story, he struggles in the wilderness with the evil one; he wrestles. What did he wrestle with? "Who am I? Who is God? What am I about? What is my calling, what is my mission? Is John right? I don't feel right with John." And he leaves the wilderness temptation and the power of the Holy Spirit and what does he proclaim, doom and gloom about to happen? No, he proclaims the good news, the year of the Lord's favor, and he is able to communicate with those people who had not a prayer that they were people of dignity, they were human, they were people of worth, they were children of God, they were children of the covenant, and they flocked to him because he gave them some reason to live, some meaning. He was a prophet, but he had that word for that moment, and they knew it was true. He gave people again the sense of human dignity and worth. Filled with the spirit. What was he? He was God-aware, he was self-aware. He taught them to see God in the lilies of the field and the sparrows. He taught them that God is as close as their breath. With that, one would have thought that Jesus might have been a Buddhist. The experience of God is always so difficult to nail down. I got a call in the middle of last evening from my old friend, Bud Ridder, who has preached for us here. He said, "What are you preaching on tomorrow?" I said, "Oh, God." I told him it's not easy trying to preach out of a whole new paradigm. I could make it so much easier for myself. He said, "Oh, I know." I said, "You know, I got so desperate a moment ago that I actually sat with my eyes closed and checked out my breathing for at least two minutes." You see, I'm really the worst one in the world to be talking about this because it has never worked for me. I've never had a decent prayer life. I can't meditate. I want to talk ideas. I want to keep it on an intellectual level. So, I'm the worst one in the world to try to be telling you about this, and I stumble and stammer because there is something here. If Jesus were to come today, what would he say to us? I wonder if, once again, he'd be the one with the word that connected because the time was right. I wonder if he would suggest to us that rolling blackouts in California are a sign of things to come. I wonder if he might say, "You know those rolling blackouts in California? What you really need to do is just generate more energy. Just find oil wherever it is. It doesn't matter where it is, whether it's in a nice, natural environment or not, just get the energy going, keep the industry going to keep the © Grand Valley State University �The Experience of God Richard A. Rhem Page 6 consumption going, because haven't you learned from your television set that you really are consumers? The television stations that are owned by the producers who push the goods to make us think that we will be less than human if we don't have it all?" Jesus would probably say, "Just find more energy. Rape the earth." Now, it's true that only a small percentage of earth's children are profiting by that and most of earth's children are living in poverty and hunger, and it's also true that, if you keep going at that rate, you're going to devastate the natural environment, but what the hell? You'll be dead." That's probably what Jesus would say, eh? We'd certainly hear something different from him, wouldn't we? We'd have to kill him again. You bet we would. I don't imagine that Ralph Nader is of the stature of Jeremiah or Isaiah, but it was interesting to me how the political parties, Republican and Democrat both, aligned with the fact that he was the enemy. I mean, he disrupts things. Life is good when it's in the hands of the power brokers of the age. Then they can play us. Then they can make us puppets and we just kind of go along with the flow. Here's a guy who has the audacity to ruin an election. Well, what's all that got to do with anything? It has a lot to do with the experience of God. I think Jesus would have something to say to us and I think some day someone will come with a word. Look what happened in India with Gandhi, that little Indian man. He talked about non- violent resistance and catalyzed a whole people. Sometime, when the time is right, and the right words spoken, things change. Unfortunately, however, most of us good people are so invested in the present that even when we begin to see it, we fight it. Now, I'm a part of that problem because if Cisco, Oracle, Intel, Microsoft, Exxon, Mobil, Sony, Motorola, and Compaq do not do well, you're going to have an aging preacher and his wife on your hands. You're going to have to take care of us. We're invested, folks. You see, I'm not pointing any fingers. It's just something to think about. The experience of God comes in moments of self-awareness, when I realize that it is not my game, but I am a part of some wonderful, mysterious whole, that my life is bound into the bundle of life, and that God is present, the God of the beginning, the God of the end, and the God who is with us in the meantime, and if I can ever see, by God, I will see, and it will be God in me. References: John Hick. The Fifth Dimension:An Exploration of the Spiritual Realm. Oneworld Publications, 1999. Phil Jackson. Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior. Hyperion, 1995. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Lent I Series Spirituality in the Modern World Scripture Text Genesis 1:2, Psalm 139:7, Mark 1:10 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Phil Jackson. Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior. Hyperion, 1995. John Hick. The Fifth Dimension: An Exploration of the Spiritual Realm. Oneworld Pub., 1999. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20010218 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-02-18 Title A name given to the resource The Experience of God Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 18, 2001 entitled "The Experience of God", as part of the series "Spirituality in the Modern World", on the occasion of Lent I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 1:2, Psalm 139:7, Mark 1:10. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Awareness Consciousness Presence of God https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0d82df82783ef72dcde27a39425967bd.mp3 71f3f591546f4c44dd18133e904fdcb1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/011e839c2c66fe66d3525228da4b78ba.pdf c5a060c69fa9fb26fea4450cd7e2c710 PDF Text Text Where in the World is God? From the series: Spirituality in the Modern World Scripture: Isaiah 6:1-8; John 14:8-20 Text: Isaiah 6:1; John 14:8 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan February 11, 2001 Transcription of the spoken sermon Some of us were on retreat yesterday and listened to a futurist whose business it is to think about what is coming. He described for us the world of 2010, a world not so far off, and yet a world that, frankly, I can't even begin to comprehend as he speaks about the technological advances that are just over the horizon with artificial intelligence and so forth. I don't know enough to make an intelligent statement about it. It is the kind of a world that is inconceivable and yet, it will be here before we know it. How do you experience God in a world that is developing with emergence that boggles the mind? There is too much to take in. Oh, there are those old images and the old clichés and the platitudes, and I suppose most of us will go to our grave with them. They will be pointers to us, indicators of the reality and the presence of God. And those of us who are in the Church are those who have stayed, but there are multitudes on the outside who have left because their experience and their knowledge of the world made it impossible for them to find the genuine spirituality within the context of ancient symbols and metaphors, stories. And so, it is always a challenge to the Church to think again its faith and, where it can, to revision and re-imagine in order that folk in every emerging age can live with a genuineness of faith, an integrity of human experience, or, as the song says, to "find Jesus in our time." What shape does he take? How does one say God today? How can we experience that presence of the holy and the sacred in the knockabout world of our everyday experience? We live at the far end of the modern period. We live in a time that has been called the post-modern period. The fact that we call it post-modern means that we don't know how to label it, we don't know how to name it, because it is a world that is emerging. Modernity had a very definite character. We speak of the Enlightenment. During that period, the amazing, amazing breakthroughs of the natural sciences, and the success of the natural sciences which have been registered in the technological © Grand Valley State University �Where in the World is God? Richard A. Rhem Page 2 marvels of our day, which a person like me can't even begin to take in when told about them. That dominant scientific outlook has, for many, crowded out the possibility of God. We have lived in an age in which many, particularly in the intellectual establishment of our time, have said that there is nothing but material. The material universe which can be measured and tested and put into a formula. What you can touch is real, and there is reality denied to that which is invisible or spiritual. And so, we have one such as Huston Smith who, with his wonderful credentials, takes on the scientific establishment, and he makes room for God, calling to account those who have ruled out the possibility of Spirit, calling again to the celebration of that spiritual reality. There is room for God in the world, as we noted last week. Huston Smith reaches back to a philosopher born in Britain, but who spent much of his time in this country in the first half of the last century, Alfred North Whitehead, who said there are two great forces in the world, the force of Religion and the force of Science, and these two enterprises each have their respective dogmas and those are simply the crystallization of the best insights that they have formulated in rational propositions. Whitehead pointed out that you can be a dogmatist whether you are a scientist or a religious person. You can deal in obscurantism, denying any light or knowledge from the other side, from either perspective. Huston Smith is calling the scientific establishment in our day to a fresh awareness of the spiritual dimension of life, because, as Whitehead pointed out long ago, that religious experience is also a very real part of being human. We speak of the Sundays after Epiphany. Epiphany means manifestation. Suddenly one "sees" something. And Isaiah had an epiphany, or we might call it a theophany, a manifestation of God. It was in the year that King Uzziah died. Maybe that is a statement like, "It was that November day when John F. Kennedy was shot." Or, "The seventh of December when Pearl Harbor was bombed." I don't know - the year King Uzziah died, was there some political crisis? Was Isaiah a member of the court and was everything suddenly thrown into chaos in that time at the death of the king? It was such a time as that, anyway, that he went into the temple and he said, "I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and the temple was filled with smoke and the pillars shook. I felt myself unworthy and experienced the ministration of angels and heard the voice of God calling me into prophetic ministry." Don't literalize that vision. Being one who was nurtured on that story from childhood, I could see the temple, I could see the smoke and smell the incense. But, that, of course, is to miss the point of it. The point is that there was some kind of a breakthrough in the experience of the prophet in that moment. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with the presence of God. Alfred North Whitehead would say that is experience, that is human experience that has to be taken just as seriously as the substance of some soil that may be analyzed. © Grand Valley State University �Where in the World is God? Richard A. Rhem Page 3 Don't you love Philip's question? "Just show us the father and we'll be satisfied." Have you ever said that? Whether you said it or not, have you thought that? "God, just show me. Would it be so difficult to write in the sky, 'I Am. I exist'? Couldn't you give us some token, some hard evidence?" "Just show us the father and we'll be satisfied," Philip says to Jesus. Jesus says, "How long have you been with me? Still don't get it? If you've seen me, you've seen the father." I suppose that is because Jesus was special, right? I suppose that is because Jesus was the son of God, right? Wrong. What did Jesus mean? I'm not sure Jesus even said that. I'm sure that the author of the Gospel was saying that in the human face, there is God. And in Jesus, the encounter with Jesus, sixty years after, I still remember it, the encounter with Jesus - it was God. Because Jesus was special? I think he was special, special in degree, not other than you are. Special because the luminosity of God shined brighter there, but not because he was other than human. I think what the Gospel writer was trying to say was that we saw God in that human visage, and what the fourth Gospel seems to be saying in that classic statement, "The word became flesh and dwelt among us," is that God is found in the human. Isaiah, in a moment of personal epiphany, is overwhelmed with the presence of God in the solitude of the temple, but John's Gospel suggests that God is found in the human encounter, in the community, in that moment when soul meets soul and there is a melding of two making one, and there, in that relationship of love and grace, one says, "My God!" So, human experience of God is that which has been attested to by the generations. The whole human story is replete with that witness to the reality of the experience of God or the holy or the sacred. If you scratch the veneer of this world as it appears, there is that sense that there is something more, that presence. Here we are. We have emerged. We have emerged in this cosmic process and we didn't make ourselves, and there is something that buoys up this magnificent, awesome reality of which we are a part, and what do you call that? That which shines through now and again, that which becomes apparent here and there, that spiritual reality which suddenly is the vertical presence in a horizontal relationship, what do you call that? God. And so, people like us of the twenty-first century, with all of our toys and all of our gadgets, all of our technology and all of our knowledge of the cosmic reality, still attest to that experience of God. Alfred North Whitehead says you can create a chemical formula in a test tube and have empirically verifiable results, and you have to take that human experience of God seriously, as well. You can't put it in a test tube; you can't measure it. There's no way to verify it. God doesn't write in the sky. And so, it is a faith perception, but it is that spiritual dimension that is in and with and under, that encompasses the totality of our life and our experience. © Grand Valley State University �Where in the World is God? Richard A. Rhem Page 4 Having said that, and wanting to say that clearly, I want to say that from within the Church, it is necessary for us to do some re-imagining and some revisioning of those old faith stories and symbols and metaphors by which all of that has been communicated to us. That is, at least if we would communicate this experience of God beyond the walls of the church. Just think, for example, of the natural world as we know it. We call it cosmology, the cosmos, the totality of things. Think of what we know about it. Fifteen billion years old. At this point I should call forward our resident physicist-astronomer Dr. VanTill, who could tell us about the speed of light and the expanse of the universe and the expanding universe, and the amazing, amazing physical, natural reality of which we, too, are a part. It is awesome. It is mystifying. It causes one to be silent. It can well cause one to worship before the wonder of it all. And then, I think about the Genesis story, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," and all with a click of the finger, all those things happened. And there's Adam and Eve in a garden of perfection, Paradise, and they are tested and they fail the test and so they are alienated from God. We speak about the fall and it is that fall into sin from which they have to be redeemed, and so we have the whole biblical story. That's not the way it was. We really know that. All natural disaster and all the trouble in the world is not the result of the initial sin, the original sin. There were storms, there was chaos, there was terror long before the human person emerged, and we have emerged, creatures of self-consciousness, awareness. Fifteen billion years of this cosmic, whirling mass of energy. Then, there was a moment when a creature emerges who looks at his hand and then looks at another, becomes conscious, self-conscious, aware. That creature has come, emerged out of the chaotic soup, cosmic juice and stardust, and we have just arrived, relatively speaking. We're still trying to find our way. We really need a new story. We really should write a new Genesis today because the writer was giving expression to his understanding of that human situation and God in the light of the cosmic understanding he had, which was so totally other. We would say so primitive and naive. I know what he was trying to do. That Genesis story is profound. Speaking about the torn tension within the human being, that beckoning toward God, that draw from below, portraying the human dilemma, trying to give expression to all that is rotten to the core, and yet that grace that would transform and redeem. That old story is not at all in terms of what we know about cosmic reality and the emergence of the human and the dawning of consciousness and the coming awareness of Spirit. Someone needs to write a new myth, a new story, which would portray God as not over against us, with that terrible gulf between us because of our sin, but would invite us to a growing consciousness and awareness of that spirit that is within us, that embraces us. We are a part of this cosmic reality, we are the cosmos coming to consciousness, we are the cosmic reality now with voice to praise, with consciousness to realize and to become aware. We are the cosmos reflecting on itself, with God, that Spirit © Grand Valley State University �Where in the World is God? Richard A. Rhem Page 5 that is over and around us and within us, God not "out there," some supernatural being beyond the confines of the universe, as it were, clicking a finger and causing it to be, and then occasionally dipping in here and there. No, but God, that creative Spirit that permeates the whole, God who is closer than our breath. I don't know what the Gospel writer meant when he had Jesus say, "I am in you and you in me. I am in the father and the father is in me. I in you, you in me," but at least there is a hint there of something that we are becoming more and more aware of, and that is that God is as close as our breath. The Spirit of God, the Hebrew word Ruach means both breath and spirit and wind, and so, the enlivening within us and that wind that courses over us become the symbols, the signs of that ever-present God who is our life, not some lawgiver and offended judge ready to damn us. What a bad idea. Would the creator of the heavens and the earth, would the creator of this fantastic cosmic reality with all of its wonder, would this God create a creature, a human creature with consciousness and giftedness to damn? Hell, no. Hell, no. Just thinking about what we know, what has come to us through the human endeavor and greater understanding, broadening understanding, to think again - how can I be with God, knowing what I know? How is God with us, knowing what we know? Does that mean that all that stuff in the Bible about sin and corruption has no part? Of course not. Look in your own heart. Read the daily newspaper. We're animals; we're beasts; we're in a life and death struggle to, somehow or other, keep down the pride, throw out the fear, the hostility, the anger, and let the Spirit more and more control us, so we come more and more into an awareness of that wonder of grace and love that is God. It is just a matter of finding a new way to say it so that we could experience it without some of that old baggage. Just one more thought. We live out of our knowledge of the natural world, and our knowledge of our cultural context which today isn't Western Michigan and it isn't the United States of America. It is a global context, and in a global context where we rub shoulders with people from around the world, and we come to see and to appreciate the spiritual quest, the religious devotion, the multiplicity of practice, then obviously I can no longer speak about "our God." I can no longer think in terms of having some corner on the truth which is denied to all of the rest of humankind. Would God reveal God's self to one little people, leaving the rest in darkness? Don't we know in this world that has become as small as a grapefruit, where we rub shoulders with people of various religious practice, and we experience the seriousness of it and the authentic devotion of it, and the longing quest of it - don't we know that all the great religions of the world are hungering for that one taste, thirsting for that one God who is beyond all of our formulations and structures, for all of our religions are the human structures that we have created by means of which we can see through to that which cannot be seen, but which is as close as our breath? © Grand Valley State University �Where in the World is God? Richard A. Rhem Page 6 Ah, where in the world is God? Where in the world is God? God is in the moment of personal epiphany when the sun sets or, as it did this morning, rises so beautifully in the east. The sun is in the forsythia, forced a bit as it is, I suspect. God is in the human encounter when soul meets and there is a transparency. God is in the intuition of the human heart that there is more and that it is good and that we will be sustained, embraced, kept, and that we can rest in that. God is not some other place. God is with us. Thank God. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Epiphany VI Series Spirituality in the Modern World Scripture Text Isaiah 6:1, John 14:8 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20010211 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-02-11 Title A name given to the resource Where in the World Is God? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 11, 2001 entitled "Where in the World Is God?", as part of the series "Spirituality in the Modern World", on the occasion of Epiphany VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 6:1, John 14:8. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Immanence PostModern Spiritual Dimension of Reality https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/851e663c76667692538effd0b2699f38.mp3 ac8f7a4b1db88c51b53a28b250265708 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2148821d8c4710ba61a8fc25ab65acb9.pdf 40a26b10a5306a2c735932caa04d19c3 PDF Text Text World-View: Room For God? Spirituality in the Modern World Text: Psalm 16:5-11; Luke 17:20-21 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan February 4, 2001 Transcription of the spoken sermon Last week in sunny Naples, Florida, Nancy and I invited a couple of Christ Community members to go to breakfast with us. The breakfast had to be at a later time, because the gentleman had to attend his regular Tuesday morning Bible study group. I get a little nervous when my people get under other tutelage, but what can one do? So we gathered at this lovely restaurant, got settled down, and after giving our order, his wife looked at him and said, “Are you going to ask him the question?” He said, “Oh, yes. The earthquake in India; where was God?” Obviously, it had been a topic of conversation in the Bible study, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had crossed his mind before the class, just as it has crossed probably all minds who think seriously about such things. Who cannot be moved by the deep tragedy, the devastation that came so quickly into the lives of so many thousands and thousands of people? So there we were, just the four of us, with the question posed. I knew that either I would have to do what pastors usually do and fudge, or I’d have to be honest. So I said to him, “God doesn’t have anything to do with earthquakes.” This was not one of those intense, existential moments, of course. It was a moment in which it was not difficult for me to be candid, and what I said to him was honestly what I believe. If you want to know about earthquakes, you have to go to the geologists and you have to study the formations of the earth and all of that which makes up the cosmic reality, this material universe in which we dwell. You don’t go to the Bible to learn about the why or the wherefore of earthquakes. I smiled to myself, because I had just been reading John Hicks’ The Fifth Dimension, and in the early pages Hicks speaks about the spiritual dimension of our life and of our cosmic reality, and he refers to what has been a classic paradigm of this issue, the earthquake in Lisbon in 1755. I have read references to this earthquake in many, many books, because it is that classic case study of the © Grand Valley State University   �World-View: Room for God? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   relationship of God to human suffering and tragedy. There is a book actually entitled The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. The Lisbon earthquake shattered the optimism of the eighteenth century, for at this time people were operating with an image of God as the sovereign ruler and governor of the universe who controls all things. Suddenly it was necessary for the Church to explain the earthquake’s devastation. And so the Church fathers said that Lisbon was a very wicked city and the earthquake was the consequence of a very angry God. One of the more difficult dimensions of the explanation, however, was the fact that many of the great churches of Lisbon were decimated while a street with a whole row of brothels wasn’t touched. True story. The clergy was left to explain how the churches had become the object of God’s wrath by misusing sacred spaces while God had mercy on those miserable sinners that visited the brothels. Well, I had just read that earthquake story again, and it was so ironic to me that this classic case coming out of the eighteenth century should have confronted me at breakfast. It is an ancient question, but in the whole modern period that has ensued since that eighteenth-century earthquake, with our tremendous knowledge of the natural world and all of the amazing discoveries of the natural sciences, we have not brought our images and conceptions of God into line with our knowledge of the reality of which we are a part. We still use images from ancient cultures. We still tell ancient peoples’ stories and pass them on uncritically, even though they collide with our present knowledge of the world. To re-imagine God is a scary business, of course, and it is an arduous business. But once again, the fact that the earthquake question is still being raised tells me so many of us, so much of the time, operate with a world-view that has not ever been brought into relationship with the knowledge of the world as we have it and as we know it. And so this morning I want to begin a month’s sermons on the subject of Spirituality in the Modern World. By that I mean how one can live a vital, spiritual life here and now in this world, in full light of all that we know. And it will involve re-imagining and calling into question many of the uncritically held presuppositions with which we operate. All this is really a question of world-view. Our world-view, whether consciously or unconsciously held, is the big picture of things: how things are; how everything is—God, the world, and human existence. The world-view is the lens through which we encounter all of reality. Our world-view is the unquestioned, uncritically held assumptions with which we meet everyday experience to carry on our ordinary lives, making our judgments in this mundane, day- to-day world of which we are a part. We all have a world-view. It is not something we have arrived at critically. Most likely it is something that we have inherited or picked up along the way. It is just the way we see things. We take it for granted until someone calls it into question, © Grand Valley State University �World-View: Room for God? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   until perhaps someone wonders where God is with the earthquake, and someone else says, “God doesn’t have anything to do with earthquakes.” And then we say, “Umm, I have to think that over.” My point in dealing with this, let me assure you, is deeply pastoral. My hope is that we live with integrity and with honesty, with freedom and with joy in a vital faith posture that takes account of all of the knowledge available to us about this reality of which we are a part, and when that knowledge is accounted for, one is able to say, “And there’s something more.” Part of the consequence of the Church not keeping up to date with the knowledge available to us, reconciling it with its own faith understanding, is that a conflict between religion and science has developed in the modern world. As so often happens, the Church digs its heels in and becomes defensive out of the threat to its preconceived notions and ideas. On the other side there is a culture dominated by academics, by the scholarly elite that operate very largely with a naturalistic world-view in which there is no room for God. I could give you statement after statement, clear and concise, which indicate that the world-view or the whole of reality of some who are scientific naturalists or materialists is what can be measured or put into a test tube or a mathematical formula. That is all there is and there is nothing more. That has been the dominant world-view of much of the elite intellectual leadership of our twentiethcentury culture in the West. It is the consequence of a breakdown of communication and conversation and an adversarial relationship between those who would be people of faith and those who would follow the scientific method with empirical verification as the only measure of what is true or real. I can remember the day in Europe when it struck me with a special clarity that the real divide in the world was not between the respective religions, but between the religious and the atheist. Many of you know my story. In 1960 I came to this congregation out of seminary as the most orthodox, conservative and evangelical graduate of the class. I had gone through all of my education without learning. Instead, I learned the system. I came to buttress all of the presuppositions with which I began. I used whatever intellectual skill and power I had to reinforce that faith of my childhood Sunday school, catechetical training. Four years here and three years in New Jersey with pastoral situations that didn’t square, that made me uncomfortable, unable to deal honestly and forthrightly with people who were facing life, not in its joy and wonder, but its horror and terror and devastation. It put a crack in the foundation of the system I espoused. And so I left for four years of study in Europe, not so much for a degree as the need to struggle with my own faith understanding. I remember the day I read an essay by Wolfhart Pannenberg, whose theology I was studying. I read it in the heavy, theological, philosophical German, trying to © Grand Valley State University �World-View: Room for God? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   translate that miserable stuff. The essay laid forth the presuppositions and the consequence of atheistic naturalism. It was as if I looked into a deep abyss of darkness. I began to see that the position of naturalistic atheism was a position of faith just as much as an opposing position that posited the creator God whose heart is love. It was a watershed experience for me. I recognized there was a fundamental world-view that was not ascertained by the scientific method, but rather, was a presupposition, a predisposition, a fundamental posturing of the heart. The ultimate divide in the world, I could see, was between those who affirmed God and those who denied that there was anything beyond this material reality of the cosmos of which we are a part. As I said, for me this was a watershed experience. I have struggled ever since to understand my own Christian faith in terms of that fundamental insight, coming finally to see, as you have heard me say many times, that religion is a human construct—our response to the Ultimate, to the real, to the Infinite One. The respective religions may differ from one another, but they are alike in that fundamental predisposition to believe the deep intuition of the human heart, the intuition that there is something more. Our reality is not simply free-floating, a chance occurrence wandering willy-nilly without meaning or purpose. Rather, in the midst of this life that we share together, with all of its wonder and its glory and its miracle; its beauty, its terror, and its horror; its tragedy and its suffering; its joy and its freedom, there is something that cannot be touched, that cannot be put into a mathematical formula or examined in a test tube. For me that fundamental question of world-view is the ultimate divide, and to come to understand that is then to be ready, I believe, to deal honestly with the reality of life as it presents itself to us. It is time for us to heed the voice of our dear friend, Huston Smith. What a fine, remarkable gentleman Huston Smith is, and his just published book, Why Religion Matters, reads as though he were talking to us here (which he did). Huston Smith is a voice no longer in the wilderness, but a significant voice among others that is calling into question the dominant world-view, the view that says there is this cosmic, material reality and nothing more. As he bears witness to his own faith, and as other works call attention to the question of world- view, we realize that we are at a very exciting time in this whole journey of faith and faith understanding. It is a great time to be wrestling with these issues and to come to see that a world-view that has room for God is a world-view that can stand with integrity and honesty in the marketplace of ideas. There are some things I think we have to acknowledge in the Church, and one is that our images of God portray a God too small. J.B. Phillips wrote that book years and years ago. The title itself says it all: Your God Is Too Small. God is not a God of earthquakes. I had thought about the question before it was posed to me, as I am sure you had as you saw the tragedy written across the face of a mother who is praying for her child trapped inside a fallen structure. I would pray, too. It’s the emotional, instinctual response of the human heart. © Grand Valley State University �World-View: Room for God? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   But I know that the finger of God does not hold up the floor, the concrete slab of a story of a flat, to give breathing room to a child. The reality with which we live teaches us that there is a world out there which runs on its way according to its course, according to its forms and structures. We have to grow up and become mature and face the reality of the cosmos without a God who fixes things. That is not to say that prayer is not effective and does not affect things in the material world, the physical body, or whatever. I don’t want to get into that. But I want to say this morning that if we are going to be spiritually alive with a vital faith in the modern world, there are images of God that simply won’t work anymore, and it is high time that people in my position are honest with you about that. We know in this congregation all too recently that cancer grows in saintly persons, and infection rages in the best of us until it kills. And we know that we are all subject to all of the vicissitudes of the human condition. God is not picking one here and letting one off there. That’s not the way it is, and if we are honest with our human experience, we know that. It is time we think together about how we can re-image God in light of all the knowledge we have about the world of which we are a part. Thank God for someone with the credentials of a Huston Smith. He can look at the most erudite scientists in the world and call them to account. He says to them, “When you have said all you can say, when you have told us all you can tell us, you haven’t told us all there is, for there is more.” There is still room for God in a world-view purged of ancient fantasy and honest to today’s knowledge. Yes, we have to let science tell us about our world. But we can still find God here and now in the celebration of life, in its beauty and its terror, in its triumph and in its tragedy, where flowers grow on manure heaps and cancer grows on beautiful bodies, in a world where children are born and baptized, with all of the wonderful potential, and where earthquakes wipe out thousands. You see, that is life, and God doesn’t play favorites, fix things, pull strings, shift gears. God is and God is with us and God is experienced in those “thin places” of our human experience. That deep intuition within us that longs, yea, knows something more. It is the spiritual dimension that is a part of a world-view with room for God. To be able to live honestly before the face of God, in the light of everything we know, and to celebrate and to know joy and freedom—that is to be fully alive, by God. References: Huston Smith. Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief. HarperCollins, 2001. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Epiphany V Series Spirituality in the Modern World Scripture Text Psalm 15:5-ll, Luke 17:20-21 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Huston Smith. Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief. HarperCollins Publishers, 2001. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20010204 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-02-04 Title A name given to the resource World-view: Room for God? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 4, 2001 entitled "World-view: Room for God?", as part of the series "Spirituality in the Modern World", on the occasion of Epiphany V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 15:5-ll, Luke 17:20-21. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Cosmic Evolution Divine Mystery Supernaturalism https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3677632459837cde67b6aec68e4af13f.mp3 72cfe66f9e79d468659c45c320523d88 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/544fc4d429c74315a24e5147864d471b.pdf ab516aea6965835a714cee54383358b8 PDF Text Text Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Epiphany I Scripture: Acts 26:19-32; Matthew 2:1-12 Text: Acts 26:19; Matthew 2:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan January 7, 2001 Transcription of the spoken sermon It is the season of Epiphany and it has become a favorite time of mine. Epiphany is not really a season, although we have often spoken of it as a season here. Epiphany is a festival day, January 6, which of course, was yesterday. In the ancient Church tradition, we are now in that time which is not really a season in the church year. This is the first Sunday after Epiphany and next week will be the second Sunday after Epiphany, and if you want to be technically correct, on the Church calendar, we are in Ordinary days. But, for me, the Festival of Epiphany has become one of my favorite celebrations, I think because of the focus and the theme. The symbol, of course, is the star; the central idea is that of light, the light that has dawned upon us. The doctrinal or theological emphasis is on revelation. I like the word manifestation - God manifest in our midst, God present to us so that we become aware of that presence in the midst of our lives, in the midst of our world. Epiphany is from the Greek language and it means, literally, manifestation, and, of course, it reflects back on that season which is just concluded, the twelve days of Christmas and the celebration of Christmas itself, which is the celebration of the Incarnation, the embodiment of God in the midst of our human history, in the human flesh of Jesus. There is great wisdom in the celebration of the Christian Year. Over the years I have come to appreciate it more and more because it takes me back every year in that annual cycle beginning in the Advent waiting and then the celebration of the birth which is the embodiment of God in our midst. Then we move into those weeks between Epiphany and Lent in which the focus of the Church is on the life and the ministry of Jesus. If I followed the lectionary readings, which large portions of the Church use, every Sunday having assigned scripture passages, today's passage would be the baptism of Jesus, Jesus now on the threshold of his ministry. In these weeks between the celebration of Epiphany and the beginning of Lent, the focus is on Jesus and his life and his teaching and that which came to expression in him, what was experienced in his human journey in the midst of © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 2 our human history. So, it is a good season because it focuses our attention on that which is the center of our faith understanding, that which came to expression in Jesus, the manifestation of God in the life of Jesus Christ. In the older, traditional conception of things, the tradition of the Church, the orthodoxies of the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church, this idea of revelation is very much a past reference. Now, the Church, at its best, knew better, but for all practical purposes, if you have grown up in the Church, if you've listened to sermons world without end, then you know that the emphasis has been on that revelation of God that appeared in Israel and in Jesus, that is told in the words of scripture, so that revelation becomes in our minds, popularly, something that happened in the past of which we have a record, to which we continue to return. Now, the Church, at its best, for example, John Calvin at the time of the Reformation, understood that God continues to reveal God's self, and Karl Barth, in our own century, reached back to Calvin to speak of the three forms of the word: the word in flesh, Jesus, the center; the word in scripture, the word written which in Israel anticipated him and in the New Testament reflected back on him; and then, a third form of the word was the word preached. The Church at its best understood that there was an ongoing revealing of God, an ongoing manifestation of God's truth and light, even as the word was preached in the present, the very dynamic conception of preaching, the very high estimate of preaching. But, for all practical purposes once again, if you have just grown up in an ordinary way in an ordinary church, an ordinary Christian experience, you have probably tended to think about revelation as something that happened in the past. In fact, in the old conception of things, God sent God's son like the divine intruder from another world, another realm into our world, there to be experienced, only then to leave again and return to that place from which he came. That is an old cosmology. That is an old conception of the structure of reality. Let me give you another image. Try this out. I can remember as a kid my mother used to bake bread and I can remember taking the yeast and kneading it into that dough and putting it in a bowl, and putting a towel over it and then setting it on a chair in front of the register so, with the heat, the yeast could do its work and the dough would rise. Let me suggest to you what for me has become a fascinating and exciting new conception of God's manifestation, of God's revealing. Rather than seeing God as dipping into our history, coming in and leaving again, it seems to me what we know about the nature of reality, the nature of the whole cosmic process, the nature of the unfolding of history, that one might better see the manifestation of God as the working of the yeast in the dough, not a light from another realm, but that light that enlightens the totality of things, not from outside, but from within itself, so that manifestation is simply the coming to luminosity of that which is always present within, but here and there comes to © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 3 striking, startling manifestation, so that we look and we say, "Ah! I see! I See!" That is an epiphany experience. It is the sudden grasping or the calm, quiet coming to realization of that which is true, that which is true about the nature of reality, about the nature of God, about the nature of human existence. Epiphany is the celebration of the manifestation of God, and I want to suggest, not a God "out there" somewhere, but a God present with us. The incarnation, the experience of Christmas, the truth of Christmas,is the embodiment of God in the human. It is the presence of God with us, and, for Epiphany 2001, let me suggest to you that we open our eyes to the light that still shines. The word still in the title of the message has the message in one word - still, the light shines. Still, God is manifest, being manifest, present, progressive tense. That's my Epiphany message to you today, and that, for me, is a critical and crucial movement from where once I was and where most of the Church, frankly, still remains and, if there is one thing that I wish I could send you out of here with today, it is that new and fresh awareness of the still shining light and the ongoing manifestation of God in the midst of our human experience, in the midst of our world history, in the midst of the unfolding, cosmic drama of which we are a part of billions and billions of years, an amazing evolving and emerging. Still, the light shines. Still, God is being manifest to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Still, the Spirit illumines and gives us fresh insight and helps us to bring into perspective the explosion of knowledge all about us in the modern world, so that we live as people on the way, as people on a journey, with the confidence that as we move into the future, the light will shine as it shines now and has shined in our past. You see, that is the very nature of human existence. That is what it means to be people who are caught up in the stream of history. It is not that in the scripture we do not have ancient truth and insight. The scripture is a record of the witness of those who have said, "Aha! I see!" and they recorded that, and it continues to be instructive and informative to us. We still read the Hebrew prophets of the eighth century before the Common Era with great profit. We still go back to the Greek philosophers who address the ultimate questions of life with profundity. Someone has said that the whole of Western philosophy is nothing but a series of footnotes to Plato and Aristotle. We still go back to the Gospels and we study the life of Jesus and the teaching of Jesus, and we gain insight and understanding, wisdom. But, the eighth-century prophets of the Hebrews or even Jesus in the time of Caesar Augustus, or Augustine in the fifth century, or Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, or John Calvin in the 16th century, or the orthodox formulations of Reformed faith, for example, in the 17th century, simply could not give to us what we need today in order to live with understanding, with freedom and with joy because, within the movement of history, there are no absolutes. That is heresy in the Christian Church! Did you hear me? Within the stream of history, there are no absolutes. The Church has claimed all through the centuries that © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 4 this is absolute truth, that absolute truth dawned in Jesus, and I am saying to you, "No! The wonder of Epiphany is that, in the movement of history that defies absolutes and final answers, the light still shines!" It is not that we are without insight. It is not that we are without revelation. It is simply that, in the very nature of historical reality, it is absolutely essential that the light still shines so that our new circumstances are illumined by that same light that came to expression in special luminosity in Jesus, that same light that informed the Hebrew prophets and the Apostles. It is a present experience of the manifestation of God, or it is nothing. That is the nature of our human, historical existence. That is scary. Scary, because we so much want certitude. It is scary because life is frail and fragile, perilous and pocked with pitfalls, and it is so deeply human to want a final solution, an absolute truth, an unalterable prescription for life. And the Church has been happy to accommodate. The Church has exploited the fears of people. It has promised absolute truth and the final answer, but it is a false promise that cannot deliver. For all of the light that has shined through the ages and all of the light that has been concentrated in the face of Jesus Christ, history continues to evolve and new situations call for new application of that truth. You cannot go into the scripture and find the ending or the proposed ending of slavery, for example. It took centuries of the ferment of the Gospel to bring people finally to the conviction that a human being was an end in him or herself, not to be used, enslaved. Oh, the Church has struggled with the Bible, claiming it to be inerrant and infallible, and it is not. And how can it be, for example, when the Church struggles with the position of women in leadership? You can't solve that biblically because it is an ancient book out of an ancient culture with all kinds of different sensitivities and understanding. How can you settle the question of the ordination of women in the Church, for example, by reference to the Bible? Sexual orientation? Why, it's not even in the purview of the scripture. And yet, you hear time and again claims, biblical claims, about sexual orientation, about which the Bible knew nothing. All it knew about was actual sexual practice which could be destructive and abusive. How can you settle that issue by reference to the Bible? You can't. And, unfortunately, the Church has not faced up to that and been honest with the fact that light still shines, that knowledge still breaks forth, that history is movement, that new times demand new answers and new understandings and broader perspectives as the horizon spreads out before us. Scary. Because we'd like to have it clear, simple, and over with, not having to think about it anymore. It is scary. But, it is also liberating. Now, if I can once get that monkey off my back of one final, absolute revelation in the past, then I can engage in my historical journey with confidence and with joy. I can lean into the future knowing that, still, the light shines, that new knowledge brings new information and new perspective, and that the manifestation of God in the midst of this marvelous, fascinating, © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 5 mysterious cosmic journey of which we're a part continues to dawn upon us, and that is really my Epiphany message today. Still, the light shines. That is wonderful, good news. We just went through a beautiful Christmas season here. We have the remnants of it, so to speak, and someone was here on the 24th at all three services, in the morning that marvelous cantata and pageant, the thrilling music and the Christmas story, the quieter candlelight Eucharist service at 9:00 in the evening, and then the traditional Lessons and Carols, the late service. This person, one of the core volunteers of this place then came here on Wednesday (the church had been closed on Monday, Christmas Day and the day following), and this place which had been so regal in its splendor and had reverberated with marvelous music and the mystery of the celebration, now lay in shambles, candlewax all over the pews and the carpets, poinsettia leaves scattered throughout, shepherds’ costumes draped here and there, used candles lying every place, and she came into the office to say, "You know, I was at all three services on Sunday. What a place this is! Each one of the services so different; each one of them so moving, so beautifully executed, seemingly without effort and without a hitch. Then I come in and I see the shambles afterwards and I realize what it takes to do that. Nobody knows how many people put forth how much effort to make that possible," and I said, "Well, that's true. There are a few people that know, however." A few people also said to me, "What are you going to do next year," realizing that this is the last Christmas of John Gregory Bryson, who is so integral to all of that, and with stiff upper lip, I said, "Well, we're going to retire his number and then we're going to do just fine." We're going to do just fine, just as we are after I preach my last Epiphany service. This place is going to be just fine, because we live in the conviction that still the light shines and we don't come to an absolute place, a final word, a resting place that is frozen forever, but we are a people in movement and the thing about this place is that we have learned that, and we are free, and we believe that the best is yet to be, because still the light shines, giving new vision. I ran into my old compatriot, Gord VanHoeven, in Bill's Barber Shop this week, and the two of us got to reminiscing a bit. It's a sign of our age, I think, two old men talking about the past, getting almost sentimental if not senile, and we talked about Gord's 18 years here that he shared with me. We spoke about what a good place this is and has been. A year ago this month the Team gathered with a counselor to think about the transitions that are underway here. This congregation is in transition and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. One look at the hoary head and visage of your preacher is enough to indicate that there is going to be a change one of these days. As we gathered with the Team a year ago, we started to look at the whole pattern, and within the next three or four months everything unraveled © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 6 and changed. Ron Zoet couldn't get blood out of a turnip, so he thought he'd go after living blood with the American Red Cross. We all began to be pressed about what our timeline was. Peter discovered he was a year younger than he thought he was, found out the year he was really born. Colette decided it was better for her to concentrate on Worship Center and preaching and teaching, and Bob is, of course, in the midst of his internship for a Master's of Social Work, and how will that all work out? And Mr. Bryson, recognizing the many years of service, wanting to have a little more freedom, tells of his imminent departure. Well, in the midst of it all this summer, realizing how much continuity we had, what gifted and dedicated and loyal people we've had, recognizing that we are in this period of transition, one day I looked at Peter and Cynthia Moll with whom I have been working for The Center of Religion and Life, and I said, "Why don't you two come and run the church?" And in September they began and I realize in retrospect that was really the first step of transition, and the governance boards have stepped forward and have owned that process. On Friday of this week the Board of Trustees will go to the Center for Innovation. Don't you love that name? The Center for Innovation where there is a consultant for business and corporations who is going to sit with them and who has agreed as a gift to us to lead us through a discussion of the future. On the 10th of February, all the governance groups will meet with him in an all-day retreat as we look at the whole pattern and the whole picture. I tell you this because you ought to know what's going on in this congregation, the fact that we are in a period of transition. You want to ask me for a date, I'll say two years, five years, seven years, ten years. I don't know. I have no date set. I am determined I am going to make this bear dance one more time, whatever it takes. But, I share this with you because I can do it in an Epiphany celebration in the realization that, still, the light shines and that the future of this place is better than anything we have ever dreamed of, and it is because we have paid a price and struggled and wrestled and have emerged with a kind of freedom and joy that enables us, having faced up to so much that ties traditional Christianity in knots, freeing us to move into the future in creative ways of which we have not even conceived. You see, still the light shines, and we will shape the future rather than just lollygagging along, being shaped by what comes our way. Montgomery Wards is out of business. They tried to reorganize over the last couple of years, the CEO came on the television to say the soft retail market made it impossible. They have to close. I say, "Soft retail market! What you're telling me, sir, is that you were unable to negotiate a world of Wal-Marts and Lowe's and all the rest." The Church is no different. If we're all tied up with some absolute word that happened in the past, nailing us to the mores, insights, sensitivities and knowledge of an ancient culture, we are in trouble, indeed. But, if we have learned that still the light shines, giving vision, then we can believe that the future holds for us wonders, mysteries, and celebrations that we've not yet dreamed of. © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 7 This is no ordinary place. There are ordinary congregations all over the country. This is no ordinary place. You are here because you choose to be here. You are here because of what this place stands for, requires and affirms, and this remnant people, liberated and set free, has the conviction that the future is unfolding in marvelous ways. I can say with Paul, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his defense before a Roman governor and a Jewish king, he gave the account of his own story. Don't you realize that Paul saw a light that knocked him off his horse and turned him around 180 degrees? Don't you realize that Paul had to look at everything for which his life's passion was beating and say, "My God! I was wrong!" Don't you see that the quest of the Magi is the symbolic story of that yearning of the human heart for God, that yearning of the human heart for light and for truth, and in that beautiful Christmas story of those wise ones we have the symbol of that which lies deep within us, but we have come to realize that it is not a matter of getting some absolute word or light that dawned in the past, but it is the coming to ourselves of an inward conviction, a deep, deep human intuition so that I can say, "I believe!" That is what is different about this place, and that is why the future is good. Ah! What a place! What a future! What a possibility! God's final word has yet to be spoken. Still, the light shines. Plaster it on your refrigerator. Write it on your cupboards. Sing your children to sleep with it nights. Still, the light shines giving new vision! That's Epiphany and you can say, "Ah, I see! I See!” © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Epiphany I Scripture Text Acts 26:19, Matthew 2:9 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20010107 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-01-07 Title A name given to the resource Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 7, 2001 entitled "Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision", on the occasion of Epiphany I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 26:19, Matthew 2:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Immanence Revelation of the Divine https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/37c6ce31d56affa51b69cab49417ecdb.mp3 ffcd90a52b1f11f16ac5e0ba312714b0 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4aff2660c7225e86b5abed67a3edceec.pdf 96a7bca886a56236c52f83a45129f7ff PDF Text Text Of Angels, Songs in the Night and Deep Human Intuition New Year’s Eve Luke 2:9, 30; Galatians 4:6 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Christmastide I, December 31, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon Well, we've done it again - angels, songs in the night, a Jewish maiden visited by Gabriel, the annunciation of a child to be born, conceived by the Spirit, a woman overshadowed, giving forth a son who was to be called Holy, the Son of God. We have sung the songs again, the beautiful carols. We have experienced the lump in the throat and the catch in our voice, and we have looked at one another and loved one another and had that deep down intuition that after all is said and done, it is true that the final and ultimate reality is love and at the core, at the center of things, is a God who is the source and fountain of love, the ground and goal and guide of all that is. We have seen that all in the flesh of a child. We understand that intuitively. Somehow or other, we grasp it. As we celebrate this holy birth once again, we know the story is true. We know the fairy tale is true. We all love stories, don't we? I told you before that I have such a vivid memory of loving the fairy tales of my childhood. I remember when I must have been four or five years old, I contracted Scarlet Fever and, in the dark ages when I was a child, the house was put under quarantine. There was a sign on the door, warning anyone who would approach. My father and my three sisters had to move out into the garage. What could my mother do? She couldn't leave me a motherless child and so she had to put up with me over a week or ten days. She read me stories, The Gingerbread Man, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, all those stories, and she would get so weary, I know now. She would try, on occasion, to skip a page or two by turning two at a time and I would catch her, of course, because I knew the stories by heart. They were always the same, but they were always wonderful, and they always gave that same impact. Fairy tales are true, you know. They are true deep down about the nature of life. Take a fairy tale and look at some of the favorite childhood tales - they are not all sweetness and light at all. They have violence in them, they have darkness in them, they have dragons, princesses locked up in castle towers and all of that kind of thing. © Grand Valley State University   �O Angels…and Deep Human Intuition Richard A. Rhem Page 2   If you go to Marshall Field's in Chicago right now, you can see the magnificent windows downtown that they always decorate at this season of the year, and who makes the cut this year? Harry Potter. We hear so much discussion about what a wonderful phenomenon this is, that our children are reading again and it is not too unusual to see children going down the hallway in school reading a book. Someone should tell them that the Greek philosopher Demosthenes fell into a pit doing this, but the point is that these stories are wonderful and we all get caught up in stories. But, the stories, you see, are posited on the premise that there is some meaning and purpose, that things mean something, that things fit together, that things go somewhere, and so we love stories because we find ourselves in the stories. "Once upon a time ..." All I have to do is say those words and don't you feel all sorts of warm associations with "Once upon a time?" Or, "It came to pass," and, of course, the wonderful, final line, "They lived happily ever after." Well, you see, that may sound naive, but I am not being silly this morning. The fairy tale and the fact that we love it, the fact that it starts out in some time whenever, and the fact that it ends with people living happily ever after is posited on a whole world and life view. It is a whole sense of reality and that is that things make sense and that finally, ultimately, things will work out and that finally there is a positive purpose at work in the total mix of things. Fairy tales are loved, I believe, because they convey that to us and we love them because, I'm going to suggest, that that touches something deep within us, some deep human intuition, and the Christmas story is certainly an example. The Christmas story is not a fairy tale like the Gingerbread Boy. We're talking about a real, concrete, human birth and a real, concrete moment of history and a particular place among a particular people, but all the accoutrements with which the story is clothed are those marvelous accoutrements of the imagination, the poetic sense, this trying to bring to expression the deepest, deepest truth that came to expression in that child, in that life, in that ministry, and all of those wonderful garments in which the story is cast, of angels and songs in the night, of kneeling shepherds and adoring kings, all of those are retrojected back to that holy birth of that One who in his humanity caused people to kneel and to say, "My God!" There, they said, is the clue to the meaning of the universe. There is a window on the core of reality. There is an insight into the best of human life. And so, they told the story with angels and shepherds and kings, a night sky illumined by a star, and glorious, angelic anthems, and they told it all dressed marvelously in those garments in order to give expression to what was their deepest conviction and that was that what came to expression in the flesh of this one was a projection of that which was at the heart of things, that this one was the embodiment of God, that this one, in flesh, embodied that which was true deep down about the nature of reality. I got a call from my daughter about a television program this past week. It ended up, actually, to be an infomercial, but the reason the call came was that there © Grand Valley State University �O Angels…and Deep Human Intuition Richard A. Rhem Page 3   were a couple of familiar faces that showed up there - Amy Jill Levine, who has been here, you remember Amy Jill, the Jewish scholar, and Dom Crossan, and come to find out, this was a program sold to the network by the Coral Ridge Ministries. When I saw Amy Jill Levine and I saw Dom Crossan and then I saw D. James Kennedy, I knew that either the millennium had come, or there was something operative here, and as a matter of fact, this was a Coral Ridge Ministries effort to tell the story of Christmas, but there was that which I could identify with so completely from my past. There was this anxious effort to prove that it was all true. The scholars selected were some mainline scholars, such as Dom Crossan and Amy Jill Levine and Helmut Koster and others, and it was so interesting to watch how the whole thing was stacked, how their sentences were selected out and used to make a certain point, and then the truth was told. I thought to myself, I could see myself and my past when I so much worried that it really happened in Bethlehem. Or that annual trotting out of the astronomy stories about constellations and whether or not the taxation under Quirinius was really at that particular time, and all of those little details that were so important in order to make it true. I remember those days. It has been a painful journey, to be able to get beyond all of that and to celebrate it as a wonderful story which at its heart has the deepest trust, the deepest intuition, that at the center of reality is the pulsating abyss of love. Ah, you say, Christmas once a year, a naive little story. But, one has to remember that that intuition that spied in this child, grown into adulthood in the person of Jesus Christ, the intuition that saw in him what the story says, was an intuition that arose in the darkest of times. It was brutal, Herod's reign. It was the time of Caesar Augustus. It was a time of tramping Roman legions. It was not a good time. It was not all sweetness and light. For the people to whom he came, he was to be a savior and a deliverer from a life that was tough and rough and pervaded by darkness. So, we have just celebrated the story again with all of its wonder and all of its joy. We could say, well, we can put it away. It's nice story, it’s naive, however, because just this past week six or seven murders in Connecticut in one shot, and six or seven in Philadelphia a day or two ago, and one of the anti-Palestinian, orthodox rabbis shot last night in Jerusalem, and the peace process going nowhere, and the Palestinians being encouraged to step up the fight in order to find somehow or other some freedom, some independence in that seemingly implacable impasse of ancient feud and violence. You may say, "Ah, nice story." I say, Yes, yes, yes. I believe it. I believe it in the face of all the evidence to the contrary and all the evidence to the contrary only convinces me more deeply that the story is true, and I don't know when and I don't know how, but I do know that love is stronger than hate, and light prevails over darkness and I do believe the story is true. Angels, songs in the night, all of the garments of this wonderful, wonderful story, and it meets the deepest human intuition and by God, it is true. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event New Years Eve Scripture Text Luke 2:9, 30, Galatians 4:6 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001231 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-12-31 Title A name given to the resource Of Angels, Songs in the Night and Deep Human Intuition Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 31, 2000 entitled "Of Angels, Songs in the Night and Deep Human Intuition", on the occasion of New Years Eve, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 2:9, 30, Galatians 4:6. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Incarnation Love at the core of reality https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/617013094e622c71e5bb1b65034f2767.mp3 a32fc3b7bed85673de5ab7e835aab04f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d20290c159099837d9d8b05315b8fc38.pdf 2ed64db7c8aefab2bd983d64a36dde01 PDF Text Text This Is Our Story Christmas Eve Candlelight Eucharist Text: Micah 5:5; John 1:14, 18 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan December 24, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon I had a very easy morning; I didn't have to preach, so I was able to sit where you sit and to take in the wonder of the story in song, pageantry, drama, and as I sat there, I was very much aware of the fact that that is precisely the way the Christmas mystery ought to be experienced. That is the way it is best presented; that is the way it is best appropriated. It is a beautiful story and it can best be sung. Of course, eventually it catches up with me and here I am, trying to preach about it again. But, let me contrast for you the story as it was dramatically, musically, instrumentally set forth, and the account which we read a moment ago in John's Gospel. The drama, the pageant, of course, is from the birth stories of Matthew and of Luke, principally Luke's story, the shepherds and angels and the virgin with the baby boy, but, also from Matthew the kings, and in those birth stories we have the story form. Can't you feel the contrast with the reading of the first chapter of John, prologued in this Gospel, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. All things were made through him and apart from him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of humankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never comprehended it." Then the little historical paragraph about John the Baptist, but then again the statement, "This was the true light that enlightens everyone that was coming into the world." And then another historical reference, "He came to his own and his own received him not," and that marvelous, climactic statement - "The word became flesh and dwelt among us." You don't have to be a rocket scientist or a literary critic to feel the contrast between Luke's marvelous story and John's more philosophical or theological presentation of exactly the same event. In Luke, it is story, and on Christmas Eve we're here to celebrate this, our story. It is a particular kind of story. Some would call it a myth, but it is not really myth in a technical sense, because it refers to © Grand Valley State University   �This Is Our Story Richard A. Rhem Page 2   historical events. This was the time of Caesar Augustus and Herod and his brutal reign. It happened at a particular place and in a particular social context, so the story is rooted historically. But, it is not just documentary history, either. It is not the kind of historical account, for example, if one would visit France and the Normandy Beach area and take in that marvelous museum that was built for the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, where one becomes in a cinematic production, as it were, a very part of that climactic moment of the Second World War. That is not the kind of history it is, either. It is a story that is rooted in history about real history and real people, but it is told with legendary accoutrements that make it into a marvelous tale, as it were. John does not tell the story. John philosophically, theologically looks behind the story to its meaning. But, John and Matthew and Luke are trying to give expression to the same mystery, the mystery of Christmas that we celebrate tonight. This is our story. It is our story. It is not the only story. There are other peoples of other times and other places who have stories, too, and those stories also reflect their deepest intuitions about what is at the center of things, deep down. But, this is our story and it is a marvelous story. It is a beautiful story. It is a story with a profound meaning. This is our story and it tells us about the nature of God. John in his more philosophical, theological presentation reaches behind the story to say that what the story is about, what Luke wrote about the shepherds, the angels in the night, the virgin Mary giving birth to a child in a cattle stall, is the birth of one who is truly human, but in whose humanity there was an intensification of luminosity, of revelation so that he could say that that word that was in the beginning with God, which could also be translated the divine intention, in this moment in history, was enfleshed so that in the humanity of this one who was born, who came to maturity, those who saw him and were encountered by him could do no other than to say, "My God." The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and John says no one has ever seen God, but this one shows us who God is. This one, in human flesh, is the selfexpression of God. This one sounded like God. This one acted like God. What one experiences in this one is what one experiences in God and, maybe most profoundly, John would say that in the manner of this one's revelation, humble birth as a child, one has an insight into the nature of God, which is love revealed in all of the vulnerability of a child. The nature of God read in a human birth. The being of God revealed in a child. The love and the vulnerability of a child's birth, the ultimate revelation of that which is at the core of reality. That is our story. That is what the story says. It's a wonderful story. It's a beautiful story, and what it tells us is even more wonderful: that at the core of reality is the love unconditional, as wide as creation, that embraces us and will never let us go. Our story speaks of a God who is love, a love that is vulnerable, and a love that is with us and continues to be available to us in the enfleshment of the other. In the © Grand Valley State University �This Is Our Story Richard A. Rhem Page 3   letter of John we read God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in them, the love of God experienced in human flesh, the ultimate truth about reality, as concrete and real as the person on your right and on your left, God revealed in Jesus, the nature of God, love, present with us. The story tells us what is true everywhere, at all times, and the ultimate, final word is love. That is our story. It is love that would stop at nothing to live out the embodiment of the heart of God, even to the extent of being broken and poured out in order that finally we earthlings might get it, with the ultimate truth lying in the vulnerability of love, because it's a reflection of the very core of reality. My, my, my, what a story! © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Christmas Eve Scripture Text Micah 5:5, John 1:14, 18 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001224 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-12-24 Title A name given to the resource This Is Our Story Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 24, 2000 entitled "This Is Our Story", on the occasion of Christmas Eve, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Micah 5:5, John 1:14, 18. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Advent Incarnation Love at the core of reality https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/04fae8e78999c087f73acbf444bd5df3.mp3 5c900bd76f93dda4743073d5e871cbe1 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/92824c9b7765dd1454c511e648063236.pdf 7a097dda5e6479bb20737536e724ed17 PDF Text Text The Lost Cause of Christmas Advent III Text: I Samuel 2:8; Luke 1:52-53 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan December 17, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon Last week I spoke a bit about Christmas and its drivenness and the frenzy of the season that can be so distracting for us that we fail, ironically, to do the very thing the Advent season is for, which is to wait, to be quiet, to contemplate. I spoke of that because I think it is an important fact of which to become aware, to be conscious. I didn't really mean to-be "Rev. Grinch," throwing a wet blanket on your celebrations, and it was not one more preacher's harangue about keeping Christ in Christmas or scolding you for the commercialization of the day. That is not how I understand preaching. My task is not really to scold you or to drive you or impose guilt upon you. My task as a preacher is to hold up a slice of life and invite you to think about it, invite you to think with me about it in order that we might come to full consciousness of our lives, in order that we might come to an awareness so that we live our lives and are not simply lived, in order that we might live from the inside out, and so I try to hold up that slice of life and invite you to think with me. This is really a conversation in which you are invited to think about it with me. Receive it not as some authoritarian proclamation, some declaration from above, some dogmatic utterance which is absolute. It's more often tentative. Someone went out last week and, apparently agreeing that the days could be frenzied and we could be driven in our life, said, "Now, next week tell me how to unplug." Well, as a matter of fact, we can't unplug. We are so thoroughly woven into the fabric of our cultural experience that what we have to do is live, learn to live with attention, and the only way that we can overcome that drive that would snuff out the spirit and stifle the emergence of spirit in our lives is through awareness and consciousness. But we cannot disengage from our social, political, economic structures, the whole social context in which we live. We could try to escape life somehow, maybe, flee to a monastery or a convent, but that's not possible for most of us. We're going to have to deal with life and all of its variety and all of its diversity and all of its seductiveness and all of its pressures and, in the midst of that, do our best to live with awareness that we might be intentional, that we might realize our fullest humanity and our greatest potential. © Grand Valley State University   �The Lost Cause of Christmas Richard A. Rhem Page 2   I saw a cartoon in The New Yorker the other day and clipped it out. The scene in the background was probably the Himalayas and there was a cave in front of which was sitting one of these Eastern gurus and there was a young man sitting in front of him with his backpack on, and the caption under the cartoon was, "Don't you think if I knew the meaning of life, I wouldn't be sitting in this cave in my underpants?" That's the way I feel often when I prepare to come here to try to say something with enough significance to get you out on a Sunday morning in a blizzard when you might well read the paper with a cup of coffee. So, hear me again this morning as I address the idea of the lost cause of Christmas. By the lost cause of Christmas, I want to set before you the almost impossibility of us celebrating the Christmas miracle as it originated in this world. I want you to think with me this morning about the fact that for people like us, it is almost impossible to observe Christmas according to its original meaning and intention – almost impossible, because the Christmas story is a story about a revolutionary movement toward liberation. It has a particular historical, social, economic, political context, and in the last decades we are becoming more and more aware of the times of Jesus, the time of Jesus' birth, the nature of the life of the average person the majority of which were peasants at the time that Jesus came into this world. I hope this afternoon sometime you take a moment and read the page in your liturgy from a book, The Message of the Kingdom, by Richard Horsley and Neil Silberman. Horsley has another excellent book that I did not quote called The Liberation of Christmas, and these scholars have taken what we know now about the concrete historical context of Jesus' birth and life and, in setting that forth, have come to understand the birth stories, as I believe they were intended when they were written by Matthew and by Luke. The context of the world into which Jesus came was a world in which the people of Israel, God's, people, Jesus' people, were a people occupied by a foreign power, a backwater province in a vast Roman empire, and there was social disruption brought about by heavy taxation, loss-of land, movement to cities, and the ever-present Roman legions. The period is spoken of as the Pax Romana, the Roman peace. The Romans were not bad people. In fact they were wonderful administrators. They are still revered for the law, the administration of government of which they were geniuses. But, nonetheless, the bottom line was the Roman legion, and there was the exploitation and the oppression of the poor of the provinces, and the people to whom Jesus came were a marginalized people who were voiceless and powerless, and the Song of Mary, is a revolutionary ballad. The closest I could come to in thinking about a parallel in our own experience would be the song “We Shall Overcome." There is tremendous power in music, tremendous emotional power that unites and bonds human beings in a cause or a movement- and those songs, in Luke's © Grand Valley State University �The Lost Cause of Christmas Richard A. Rhem Page 3   gospel the Magnificat which I read a moment ago, the song of John, the Benedictus, the song of Simeon, the Nunc Dimittis, those songs which were based on the psalmody of the people of Israel’s past – Mary's particularly, as I mentioned, very much dependent on the song of Hannah. Those songs that celebrated the birth of Jesus were revolutionary ballads, which celebrated the mighty act of God moving for the liberation of God's people. "The mighty cast down from their thrones, the lowly lifted up,,.the hungry fed, the rich turned empty, away." The world is turned upside down in those songs. The way of the world as experienced by those poor and dispossessed people is turned upside down. There is a reversal of circumstance, and God is praised in a spirit of Doxology with great joy because now God has acted, God has moved, and those songs and the birth stories of Matthew and Luke are probably some of the earliest records we have of that early Jesus movement that was a revolutionary movement, looking for a change of historical circumstance, moving from being the underdog to the possibility of a humane existence. I don't think that, if we look at those songs carefully and if we put them into the context of which we are becoming more and more aware, the social, historical, economic, political context at the time of Jesus, there can be any question about that. Those songs continue that grand tradition of the Hebrew prophets who saw the possibility of an alternative world, of an alternative kind of community. And so, I say to you what must be obvious - it is extremely difficult for us to celebrate Christmas in its original meaning and significance, because we just have nothing in common with the poor, marginalized, voiceless and powerless people among whom Jesus was born. We naively identify with those people. We put ourselves in the skin of Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary and Simeon and Anna, the people of Israel to whom the Lord came, but, as a matter of fact, if we're honest, we're on the other side of the line. We are Rome. We are empire. We are affluent. We are powerful. We call the shots in our world, and for us to celebrate Christmas in its original meaning and significance is to undercut ourselves and the status quo, which has dealt very kindly with us. Now, that isn't so profound and I think it must be clear if we think about it for a moment. The reason that Jesus was crucified, my old Lenten theme put concisely, is that he died the way he died because he lived the way he lived. The autnorities, ecclesiastical and political, of the day of Jesus, rightly saw him as a threat to the world as it was organized at that time. Any time a world is organized in any time, those who are the power brokers are not going to want that world to be changed, and they are not going to be happy with the prophetic voice which suggests an alternative possibility. So, I simply make the point - for us to celebrate Christmas is pretty much of a lost cause. So, what have we done? Well, I talked about one possibility last week. We have made a holiday out of it, and it's a wonderful holiday. Friends gathering together, families coming home, beautiful trees and flowers, the sights and sounds and fragrances of the season, all the remembrances of Christmases past, all of that © Grand Valley State University �The Lost Cause of Christmas Richard A. Rhem Page 4   wonderful, beautiful, warm, human experience. Nothing wrong with that. We've made the Christmas mystery and miracle into a wonderful holiday. I emerged from my lofty perch last night only to find that Nancy was channel surfing. When Nancy surfs, she is bored. Now, on most Saturday nights she is bored because I am incommunicado from about Saturday noon until I get here Sunday morning, I grunt. That's all. But I emerged long enough to come down into the bedroom where she was surfing the TV only to see that Lawrence Welk had arisen from the dead and there he was! It was the conclusion of what must be a famous Christmas special that is probably trotted out every year about this time, and I entered just at the end of the program where Lawrence Welk said, "And here comes Santa Claus," and Santa Claus came out in all of his regalia and all of his splendor and the band struck up "Joy to the World, the Lord Has Come!" I said to Nancy, "God has just spoken to me. I'm going to write this down so I don't forget it." Precisely, precisely. On this wonderful holiday, Santa Claus comes and the band plays, "The Lord Has Come, Joy to the World!" In the Church we have done another thing with it In the Church we managed to celebrate Christmas by weaving it from its original intention as a social protest, as a social critique, and moved it to the personal experience of salvation. We sang it a moment ago as a supplication and one of my favorite carols, "0 Little Town of Bethlehem, Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today." It's wonderful. Nothing wrong with that, either. The personal experience of being in communion with God, being at peace with God, the experience of grace and forgiveness, my goodness, how could I be against that? It is very, very important. It is just that that is really not what Christmas was about. Christmas was about an alternative kind of community, a different kind of society, different power arrangements, different economic arrangements. Now, if Jesus had been about personal salvation, Jesus may have gone about to people and said, "Are you saved? This is how you can be saved, if you will repeat this formula, if you believe in me, your sins will be forgiven and you will have the hope of heaven, the promise of something in another time and another world." The Gospels were not good news about the fact that a person can be reconciled with God through Jesus Christ. Paul talks about that, but then Paul thought the end was right around the corner and so he was excited about the fact that this treasure of Israel was for all people and all people could come into this experience of grace in this God of Israel, and of course, he identified this with the death and resurrection of Jesus which you don't find in the Gospels. The birth stories in Luke serve as a preface to his Gospel, which is about the life and the ministry and the teaching of Jesus, and Luke tells us in those birth stories how he understood this Jesus. How he understood this Jesus, according to the Gospel that we read every Christmas, is that this one was the act of the eternal God coming into human experience in the flesh of Mary's child in order to change the world. But, we've been able to salvage some of the spirituality and the piety of © Grand Valley State University �The Lost Cause of Christmas Richard A. Rhem Page 5   the holiday by turning it into the possibility of personal salvation and making of our Christian religion, frankly, a salvation cult. That's what we are, and we invite people to faith in Jesus, to receive forgiveness and have then heaven's gates open wide. Go through your hymnal, read your Christmas carols and just see how we have domesticated and spiritualized the story of the birth of Jesus. I don't mean to ruin the carols for you but, if you read them perceptively over against what was quite obviously the intention in the original story, you will find that we have made of this revolutionary liberation document an event, a matter of personal piety and salvation. So, what are we to do? We can recognize, for one thing, that throughout the centuries the Christmas story has regained here and there its original intention, because there have been peoples who have read the story and found hope and been inspired and have initiated movements toward liberation and freedom. Most recently in our own experience we know of Liberation Theology that originated among the poor, particularly in Latin and South America, in what they call base communities where the poor folk, the peasant folk would come together in homes and study the Gospels and they actually read themselves into the story. As I said a moment ago, we tend to identify with Anna and Simeon and Mary and all of them, when really we have to identify ourselves with the Roman Empire. These base communities of people that are dispossessed and socially outcast, marginalized and powerless, read themselves into the story and are able to identify with it and it has become a tremendous source of ferment and a movement toward more justice and equity and it has had that revolutionary intent realized in many of those communities. Interestingly, the Vatican has silenced some of the leading voices of Liberation Theology because the Church, in order to maintain its establishment status, doesn't want to rock the boat and get a peasant rebellion going, and so the Church has officially said you may not talk about the original meaning of Christmas. Continue to speak about saving souls. You can have the most wonderful personal spiritual experience in the world and no one's going to care. You can be just as pious, just as devoted, just as full of faith, just as sure of your salvation as possible, and there is not a tyrant or a dictator or a politician anywhere who will bother you. It's only when you begin to speak and act like Jesus did that you get into trouble. But, the stories have been a stimulus for that through the centuries. Still, here we are. What are we going to do? How are we going to celebrate Christmas, being in the position we are? Here I am white, male, affluent, powerful. The nation went through an extended period of time without knowing which candidate for the Presidency actually won, and now we know. Some voices are being raised about the fact that there are minority groups that have been disenfranchised, and I don't suppose we're ever going to know the full story of everything that went on, or really who got what numbers of votes. But, I wonder © Grand Valley State University �The Lost Cause of Christmas Richard A. Rhem Page 6   if there is anything to that. Is it a fact that minority people were herded down to get registered and that they went to vote, and once they went there, they didn't really know what they were doing? That's a possibility, isn't it? And one shouldn't be too surprised about that. For whatever reason you might defend it or attack it today, the Electoral College originally was instituted in order to ensure that the elite would rule, and as a matter of fact, when the elite rules, things go better. For people like me, at least, they do. But, now, I wonder if there is anything to the claim that the poor and the marginalized were disenfranchised. Jesse Jackson says so. I don't like Jesse Jackson. I worry about the fact that I don't like him and I really ask myself, "Is it because he's black that you don't like him? Is it because he's black that your first response is negative?" I don't think it is; I think it's because of the curl of his lip and the shape of his moustache, but then, my mother didn't like my moustache, either. So, I have to say, when he comes on the screen, I don't want to hear him, and when he talks about a mass demonstration of minority folk on Martin Luther King's birthday in January, I say, "Jesse, we've just been through a rather strenuous period of time. Can't we get on with life? Can't you drop it? You're nothing but an opportunist, anyway. Why don't you just let it go?" And then, I realize that I'd jolly well like it to be let go. In fact, I wouldn't change anything if it were up to me, if nobody complained. If there wasn't somebody out there, a gadfly, an irritant, a revolutionary, with all of his flaws and all of his foibles, if there wasn't somebody agitating, I wouldn't do anything about the world. What can a white, male, heterosexual, powerful, affluent person do to capture something of Christmas? If I were a woman, I would use the revolutionary, ballads to get equal rights. If I were a person of homosexual orientation, I would use it in order to gain respect and dignity and be accepted just as a human being. But I'm on top of the heap. Any protest that changes anything is going to diminish my privileged position. How can I celebrate Christmas? Holiday cheer? Revel in my personal salvation? And then, these words from Rudy Wiebe. I don't know who he is, but I like what he wrote: Jesus says in his society there is a new way for people to live. You show wisdom by trusting people. You handle leadership by serving. You handle offenders by forgiving. You handle money by sharing. You handle enemies by loving. You handle violence by suffering. In fact, you have a new attitude toward everything, toward everybody, Toward nature, Toward the state in which you happen to live, Toward women, © Grand Valley State University �The Lost Cause of Christmas Richard A. Rhem Page 7   Toward slaves, Toward all and every single thing, Because this is a Jesus society and you repent, not by feeling bad, but by thinking different. Maybe the only way I can be honest with Christmas and honest to God is to work at thinking different. References: Richard Horsley and Neil Silberman. The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World. Grosset & Dunlap, 1997. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Advent III Scripture Text I Samuel 2:8, Luke 1:52-53 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Richard Horsley, Neil Silberman. The Message and the Kingdom: How Jesus and Paul Ignited a Revolution and Transformed the Ancient World, 1997. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001217 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-12-17 Title A name given to the resource The Lost Cause of Christmas Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 17, 2000 entitled "The Lost Cause of Christmas", on the occasion of Advent III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Samuel 2:8, Luke 1:52-53. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Advent Awareness Incarnation Intention https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c755c8b8e3a01866343377826a3b2546.mp3 cccd7ffc3167241cc5b328dc0fe79192 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cbdb3c4afb237eddbe97ba31bf064303.pdf efc575f242dcec728295f6bed51e1733 PDF Text Text Are We Having Any Fun Yet? Advent II Text: Amos 8:5; James 4:13-14 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan December 10, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon Well, are we having any fun yet? The season is well underway, the holidays are bearing down upon us, the calendar is crowded, the activity has become more intense, the deadlines face us, and I thought it might be well this morning to raise that question - Are we having any fun yet? That question, of course, arises in our contemporary culture at moments when we are in a flurry of activity, when we have gone through great exertion, when we have moved mountains, so to speak, on behalf of our pleasure and happiness, and in a moment of awareness, look at each other and have to laugh at ourselves and say, "Are we having any fun yet?" I speak this morning about what I sense is true, not only of myself, but of most of us and contemporary society, and that is that our lives are marked by an increasing frenzy and drivenness, and the irony is that the Advent season is a season that calls us to wait quietly in contemplation and reflection on the question, for example, in James, “What is your life before the face of God?” I touched on this Labor Day weekend in a sermon about keeping Sabbath, noting how Sabbath observance had become the weekend, and how so many of us expend great energy accumulating our toys, gathering our brood, heading somewhere to a point of pleasure, only to come home at the end of the weekend tired, wearyr and exhausted, a time when I think the question may arise, "Are we having any fun yet?" It is a question that has popped up in our contemporary society because of that very drivenness of which I speak, the fact that our lives are busier, the lights are brighter, the sounds are louder, and the whole pace of things continues to speed up, and in this Advent season, as I said, which ironically is a time in which we are invited to slow down and to wait, to reflect, and to prepare for the coming of the Lord, that very aspect of contemporary life is exacerbated with so many wonderful things which we do and to which we are all invited - the galas, the celebrations, the parties, the shopping, the baking and all of the rest. So, I thought it would be well this morning for just a few moments, gathered here in the beauty of the sanctuary on an Advent Sunday to think about our lives and about how we are living them and whether or not we are living them, or whether © Grand Valley State University   �Are We Having Any Fun Yet? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   we are being lived, whether we are using our time or whether we are being used, whether we are directing our resources or whether they are being directed, whether, in other words, we are living out of the inwardness of the Spirit, or whether we have become the captives of a culture that increasingly stifles the spirit. It's not easy to live in a culture in counter-cultural fashion. But, if one would cultivate the life of the spirit in the present day, one would certainly be swimming upstream and fighting a momentous force that would carry us in quite another direction. What is going on, anyway? Well, we live in a consumer society. We have been shaped into consumers, and that's not a new idea. We're all really aware of it if we think about it for a while. A consumer, of course, is one who consumes, and to consume demands the expenditure of time and energy and resource, and all that is consumed is taken away from that larger whole and there have been many voices that have been raised about the dangers or perils of a consumer society. Consumption for needs is one thing, even for desires is one thing, but the economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, back in the 80s wrote a very significant book entitled The Affluent Society, in which he pointed out the nature of our society today which is different from any other society, in terms of its economy and its practice of living, in all of history, and that is that we have become a society in which desires are created in order to be fulfilled. So, we have been created more and more as a consumer society by the forces of production that would address not simply the things that we need for our human existence, but rather, plant ideas in our heads, so to speak, create the desire which makes us a consumer of the product that is then gladly supplied. It becomes a syndrome which feeds on itself. The producer creates the means of developing the appetite for the product, and the producer producing the product, having the capacity, needs to produce more product, and so there is more bombarding of the human psyche seeking to instill a broader need or a desire base and a greater appetite to consume and it's all a very vicious circle. Galbraith pointed out that that is what is new about our society today, and I suspect that if we are sensing that we are being driven, if we are feeling more of the frenzied, frazzled edge of life, it has something to do with this very drive to consumerism of which we are a part. If you want examples of this, watch television a little bit. Just watch the "Today" show and see how many times Katie Couric bops back on the screen for a fivesecond appearance just to remind us that, after all, we are tuned into "Today", suggesting that they will be right back after these messages. The commercials are messages, of course. Messages are generally helpful. They are always suggestive, and you may be like me, just simply irritated about the fact that you can't even get the weather report in so that, at the end of the day I know what I ought to buy, but I don't know if it's going to rain or snow. And when you take the number of minutes in any hour that is given over to the commercials, you understand that something is going on. Who owns the networks? Corporate America owns the © Grand Valley State University �Are We Having Any Fun Yet? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   networks, and the great producers of the nation controlling the networks use them as a marvelous, sleepless machine, a 24-hour money machine to bombard us with messages that instill within us from the outside desires that create the need to consume, and it is a hallmark of our present human existence. We have become a consumer society in the extreme and, of course, there is a justice issue here. The figures about the consumption of the average American over against the average person any other place in the world you want to go is embarrassing, and the amount of resource and energy and time expended to provide that is amazing, and the cost of that in terms of environment, ecological concerns, natural resources is a matter about which serious and reflective people have spoken, but that's not really my point this morning. My point is rather to call us to awareness of this shaping of us from the outside by a cultural milieu that would make us its pawns and keep us from living out of our inwardness, out of our spirit, this peril of being lived rather than living, this stifling of the spirit through inordinate consumption by obsessive desires for accumulation, gathering of toys, and all of the other aspects of our contemporary, affluent society. The story is told of an old Texas Ranger who was brought to Dallas and the headquarters of the great Nieman-Marcus store and given a tour by the President, and he was asked afterwards what he thought about it. He said, "Well, I don't think I've ever seen so many things I didn't need." I think that sums up pretty well what I'm trying to say about the psychology that is being foisted on us by a consumer society that is marked by the creation of desire rather than the meeting of needs. Now, I may hear some voices out there saying, "But, look at how wonderfully we have profited in this country with this particular kind of economic structure and order," and I want to be very clear this morning that I have all the respect in the world for entrepreneurial endeavor, for confidence, for industry and hard work, and for the character that it takes to build that kind of empire, and I want to be very clear this morning also that I am not pointing to a problem of the affluent into which category most all of us would fall. What I'm talking about this morning is not a problem of the rich. It may be more a problem of the wanna-be rich, those of us whose appetites have been stimulated to reach just beyond our means and to gain that which is, if all things were rationally discerned, beyond our grasp. I'm talking about a social problem which is a spiritual problem and about the fact that we can so easily get swept away into the cultural stream that we fail to be conscious of what's happening to us, and that failure of awareness is deadly because before long we become automatons, we simply lose the soul and we fail to live out of the spirit and God knows we won't know what to do with waiting before the face of God, being still and contemplating the question, "What is your life?" What I am speaking about is not new, for that question, "What is your life?" was offered by James in the context in which he was saying, "Woe to you who sit in Christ Community Church at the 10 o'clock service, planning your business © Grand Valley State University �Are We Having Any Fun Yet? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   agenda for Monday. Woe to you who cannot rest on the Sabbath or keep a holy day, for that driving desire to get on with business as usual." Indeed, the marvelous Hebrew prophets who were such incisive critics of society recognized exactly the same thing. Those who couldn't rest for needing to get back to business. So, it's not a new problem. It's just that in our contemporary society, it has increased exponentially because never before has there been a society in which every aspect of life has been pervaded by the matter of wealth and acquisition and so forth. An American philosopher, Jacob Needleman, has written a book with the unlikely title, Money and the Meaning of Life, in which he suggests that to come to the understanding of the meaning of money has to do with coming to the understanding of life, and he suggests an analogy for where our American society finds itself today. The analogy is that of a prison. A prison is full of prisoners who have been there so long that they have forgotten about life on the outside. They have forgotten even that there is a life on the outside, so that they have been so conditioned, become so adapted that they begin to believe that life in prison is simply a given of being human, and so they live within the prison walls. They have their spats, their controversies, they envy one another for what one might get and another not. It's an enlightened prison, there's a library stocked with good books and they read and they can study and they can organize and they have clubs and all sorts of things, and they work at improving their life, their society, but all within prison walls because they have forgotten that there is any other possibility. Then occasionally, someone comes in from the outside, a messenger from the outside who tells them about life outside and the messenger is met with mockery or with hostility. They are isolated or they are killed because the whole self and social project is threatened by that suggestion that there is another way to live and to be. Jacob Needleman suggests that we are in great danger today of being a part of a society that has forgotten that there is another way to be, that there is a spiritual dimension out of which one is called to live before the face of God, and that the messenger who comes in and whispers about another way is that occasional glimpse that we get in those all too rare moments of self-consciousness and reflection, and he suggests that that occasional glimpse is a call, a wish, a deep realization that we are being lived rather than living, and that our spirit has been stifled by what is often referred to as the rat race of our lives. That is the deeper issue, you see. We are probably not more materialistic than people of other times and places, and we are certainly not less spiritually hungry, and we have enjoyed tremendous blessings in the manner and mode of our living, but what is different again is the pervasiveness of that culture of consumption that calls us to acquisition, that wraps the promise of happiness in all kinds of things and toys and stimulates us to get on the fast track to wealth, to prosperity, to the good life, pummeled as we are by images of the suave and the chic and those who are with it who drive luxury cars. © Grand Valley State University �Are We Having Any Fun Yet? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   What I am dealing with, what I am pointing to, what I am suggesting is that, on occasion, when those moments of awareness arise, we let them be there for a bit, that we think, that we determine that we live from the inside out rather than being forced, jammed into a cookie cutter prison from without. What I am suggesting this morning is that two selves live within us, as the German poet Goethe said, and that that spiritual self in all of its weakness and its vulnerability that gives us a "beep" now and then is precisely the source calling us to life that is life, indeed, that is spiritually rich, that is full, that is happy. A few weeks ago for a couple of weeks in Perspectives, we had the Hope Social Psychologist Dr. David Myers here, whose recent book, The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty, documents item after item making the case that we are two and a half times wealthier than forty years ago and significantly less happy in a society that has social ills, and dis-ease, that all of our prosperity and all of our goods and all of our affluence have not been able to deal with, and may well have something to do with cause. And so, this morning, just in case you've had a murmur from within, or just in case this very experience and moment might raise your consciousness, it would fulfill its purpose if it brought you to a new awareness. Our Presidential election process seems to be coming toward its end and it has unraveled in legal and judicial fashion and one of the great strengths of this nation is that it will be settled and we will move on, but it has been so obvious over the past weeks that there are those who live with such partisanship and such ideological commitments that one simply knows that they are living without awareness. How can one carry placards and hoot and holler and cheer and boo? And those kinds of obsessive compulsions to that which is not ultimately important? Once awareness dawns and I begin to live out of the spirit, I am able to observe, or the spirit in me observes that which is going on around me, and I become the silent observer, unwilling to be pushed with the maddening crowd, unwilling to be herded by a captivating culture that would rob me of my soul. Good friends, are we having any fun yet? References: Jacob Needleman. Money and the Meaning of Life. New York: Currency Doubleday, 1991. David G. Myers. The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty. Yale University Press, 2000. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Advent II Scripture Text Amos 8:5, James 4:13-14 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References David G. Myers. The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty, 2000. Jacob Needleman. Money and the Meaning of Life, 1991. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001210 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-12-10 Title A name given to the resource Are We Having Any Fun Yet? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 10, 2000 entitled "Are We Having Any Fun Yet?", on the occasion of Advent II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Amos 8:5, James 4:13-14. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Awareness Meaning Spiritual Dimension of Reality https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4f567a0a54f271e282c95f8a8532f692.mp3 f019ca13b2b4c3779c3ac34e0cc9be50 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Thanksgiving Day Scripture Text I Chronicles 29:9, 29:22, 9:7 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001123 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-11-23 Title A name given to the resource Beyond Duty to Delight Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 23, 2000 entitled "Beyond Duty to Delight", on the occasion of Thanksgiving Day, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Chronicles 29:9, 29:22, 9:7. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eb14e20af6a8cef7711e973074ba94bf.mp3 670b2213112097061098e1ba9c53560a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f08f31be8e7905ced97f8bf5e90e9509.pdf 5330b9961fc0aa05797382c44f9986a2 PDF Text Text The Root of Good Religion Text: Psalm 116:17 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 19, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon I suppose you can tell by the title of this message, “The Root of Good Religion,” that there must also be bad religion in the world, and when I determined to speak on the root of good religion and selected this wonderful Psalm 116, I wasn’t really thinking about the bad religion, but in my more specific preparations, The Grand Rapids Press came with the Religion Section in the Saturday Press, and the lead story was about a free thinkers group, a big colored picture accompanying it. This group, the Free Thinkers Association, has been meeting in Grand Rapids for about three years, and I found it a very interesting story. The Free Thought Association is affiliated with a group out of Madison, Wisconsin, from which all kinds of liberal diatribe arises. They say they are a community of agnostics, atheists, humanists, rationalists, and they discuss topics which interest them, intellectual questions, burning social issues, and so on. They meet a couple of times a month. That which binds them together in community, ironically, is their mutual flight from religion, and the thing that has marked them, has made them have something so important in common that they would become a community is the fact that they’ve all been wounded by religion in its institutional form, in its establishment forms. There are a number of people cited in this article, devout Catholic people in their background, a former Fundamentalist Baptist, a very devout Christian Reformed young man, a lapsed Episcopalian, and a Methodist, and so on. It’s a conglomeration and it pretty much covers the spectrum of established religion and they have come together because, in one way or another, all of them at some point in their life began to have questions for which their particular tradition had no answers. They began to receive some of the teaching of their respective traditions and it didn’t make sense to them and they determined that they didn’t believe it. Then, contrary to most of us, they had the audacity to verbalize their doubts and their questions and doing so, they found themselves really shunned, excluded, cut out, isolated because they had become a thorn in the flesh of their respective communities. They had become a threat, and they were not appreciated at all, and so there was alienation between them and their families and their faith communities. © Grand Valley State University   �The Root of Good Religion Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Well, that’s not so hard to figure out, and if you think about it for a moment, you can understand it because religion which is as universal as humankind arose very, very early in the dawning of human consciousness; for what is religion, after all, but that intuitive sense that there is something more, something that grounds our lives, that there is a source and a ground and a guide and goal of all that is. We live in the face of mystery and that mystery must have appeared very, very early in the human story. One becomes aware of one’s self, thereby one becomes human. One becomes aware of the other, of the human relationship. One experiences the miracle of birth and the mystery of death, and one simply, naturally begins to ask those ultimate questions - why is there something rather than nothing? From whence has it all come? Whither is it all tending? And what is the meaning and the purpose of it all? Those questions are as fundamental as human existence itself. And then someone has an epiphany experience. Someone sees something. Someone tells a story, a story of a revelation and around it grows the ritual and the cult and the sacred stories and the tradition. Very early in primitive stages there were tribal religions, that which was the tribe’s solution to the mystery, that which gave a sense of coherency to life, a statement of its purpose and its meaning, that to which one could cling for enlightenment, for security. And then, someone had another idea or someone’s experience didn’t connect with that explanation. That one becomes a threat to the tribal unity and sense of meaning, because that religious story and practice was rooted frequently, most often, in fear, not illegitimate fear, genuine fear, because life is perilous. We are vulnerable. We do live in the face of mystery and most of the major issues that impinge upon us are beyond our control and so one of the functions of religion has been to create that sense of security and community, giving meaning and purpose and cohesion to placate whatever gods may be, to put one in the right, to curry the favor of the mystery, whatever the mystery may be. And then, when one questions that solution, one becomes very threatening and the tribe or the tight knit community will bind together and will exclude, will condemn, will reject that one who has become a source of irritation, opening up those things that had long been settled. As I read the stories of some of these people, I could identify with that. But, when I read their definitions of reality - “only that which can be perceived with the natural senses or indirectly through the proper use of reason” - denying the possibility of revelation or faith, I knew that was too narrow - simple reductionism. I went to the computer and to their Website and read a recent lecture on quantum physics which was fascinating, but didn’t have a lot to say about the wonder of birth, of the mystery of death, or the existential reality of getting through every day. I didn’t look up an earlier lecture on the voucher question, but what I sensed about these people is they are serious and they have inquiring minds and they want to know and understand, but they have been © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �The Root of Good Religion Richard A. Rhem Page 3   wounded deeply by the whole enterprise of religion and so they have fled religion, becoming skeptics, rationalists. Of course, reading that in the wake of a Huston Smith visit where he was so eloquent about the necessity of getting beyond that adversarial relationship of those two great enterprises, science and religion, I thought to myself, “How sad that these people, having been so wounded, have now such a thinned gruel, a 2% milk kind of thing, almost water, a diet that cannot really satisfy the deepest instincts, nor do justice to those most profound intuitions of the human spirit.” I should invite them here, I think, because they could pursue their questions with no quarter asked, but we could share with them something more, for there is good religion. Good religion is rooted in the experience of grace and it issues in gratitude. I don’t know just what the Psalmist’s experience was, but he was in some kind of crisis and he says to the Lord, “You saved my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will take the cup of salvations.” In the Hebrew, the word is plural - the cup of salvations. I will take hold of the whole of life, as it were, the whole of life in which I have experienced the salving, the mending of my life in the midst of it all. I will take the cup of salvation and name the name of the Lord. I will embrace life, which certainly is not just one bowl of cherries, not one rainbow after another, life in all of its complexity. The Psalmist spoke of a deep crisis in his life and certainly, if we are honest with it, it is like the Apostle Paul in the eighth chapter of Romans who speaks of famine and nakedness and peril and sword, an ancient listing, but we could list our own, the vulnerabilities, the perils that jeopardize our existence every moment - all of that to which we are vulnerable. The diseases that stalk our steps and the sudden crisis that can wipe us out - all of that is part of life. If we were to deny any of that, then we would simply have our heads stuck in the sand. That’s an unrealistic kind of idea that will only be shattered on the rocks of human experience eventually because, finally, we all live fully life with all of its light and all of its shadow. But, somehow or other, the Psalmist had come in a concrete experience to feel that just intuitively now, I suppose, that that mystery that surrounds life is the mystery of grace, that it is a healing mystery. I love the illustration of Huston Smith of light and darkness. If you had two cubes divided by a wall, in one there was light, the other pitch dark, if you took the wall down, the light would invade the darkness. The darkness would not overcome the light. It is only an image, it is a symbol, it is a story, but it makes a beautiful point. The Psalmist somehow or other believed it; Paul believed it, and Paul said, “Since God is for us, who can be against us? Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Psalmist said, “I will take the cup of salvation and praise the name of the Lord. I will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving in the presence of all God’s people.” © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �The Root of Good Religion Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Good religion comes out of an experience of grace and it issues in gratitude. It goes way beyond that initial fear that might hold us prisoner for a while, it comes to a point of sensing, as Scott Peck said in The Road Less Traveled, that there is a grace beyond us that continues to come to us, and out of the experience of grace there is that within us deep down that will out, that will come to expression, that simply must be spoken or sung or the heart will burst. The Psalm begins so marvelously, “I love the Lord because ...” Let me suggest at the head of Thanksgiving week that you go home and in some moments of quiet, write those words, “I love the Lord because ...,” and then simply reflect on your life. The old hymn says “Count your many blessings, name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” If you would take a moment to do that, I think you would also begin to say, “This, yes, this is what is really central to my life. This is what is important to me. I love the Lord because ...” And out of that experience of grace, the issue is thanksgiving that simply must come to expression, because love needs a song, love needs an anthem, love needs to dance, or the soul would explode. The root of good religion is the taste of grace issuing in praise irrepressible. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XXIV Scripture Text Psalm 116:17 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001119 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-11-19 Title A name given to the resource The Root of Good Religion Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 19, 2000 entitled "The Root of Good Religion", on the occasion of Pentecost XXIV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 116:17. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Consciousness Epiphany Grace Nature of Religion https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7b7620556e1232522192a960710aee18.mp3 1f35ab8354264a48923ae7f1a7d2b45a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/deef5b30b46a24f2772556b0d257fe38.pdf 2cfaf9afa030f01f92e4dc61794e9c42 PDF Text Text Humility That Opens to Wonder Text: Exodus 4:13; I Corinthians 15:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 12, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon Well, I imagine that all week long you had conversations about the election which even six days later has failed to deliver for us in any certainty the President elect. It’s a very interesting period of time through which to live. The positive side of it, I suppose, is that we are talking about it together and one can also see some positive significance in the fact that maybe we are learning how important is the single vote, and perhaps we also are taking a look at the whole process, wondering about the Electoral College, for example. And certainly we can see a positive thing in the fact that, although we are at an impasse and stalemate and we don’t know just what is going to develop in the next few days, nonetheless, there isn’t any panic around. We have a confidence in that long tradition of Constitutional rule and the judicial process and, although however it comes out may not please everyone, nonetheless, I think basically we all believe that somehow or other decently and in order this matter will be resolved. But it also gives us added lengthened opportunity to reflect on the whole elective process, the political campaign that seems to get longer every time. It also gives us occasion to wonder about that point at which we find ourselves when the parties are bought and paid for, when the debate is reduced to sound bites, when the multitude of television ads becomes more shrill and frenzied, asserting an agenda bought and paid for and denigrating the other. Language fouled and conversation polluted. As a people we wonder, don’t we, if there isn’t a better way? You may think that Bruce and I consulted about his remarks this morning, but I assure you that we didn’t at all. I’m glad that he called us to revisit two weeks ago when Huston Smith was here. Last week being the beautiful All Saints Service, I didn’t really have occasion to do it, but I want to revisit that, along with what he said this morning, because I sensed such a sharp contrast in what we experienced in Huston Smith’s presence in our midst as over against the shrill frenzy of political rhetoric whose decibels go higher and higher. Here was a gentleman, a scholar, a man of great knowledge, great wisdom, and great grace who was with us in significant conversation, leading us in reflection on matters that are of deep importance to the well-being of society, the well-being of our lives and our future, and in his sermon, “Beholding the Glory,” suggesting to us the glimpses, the © Grand Valley State University   �Humility That Opens to Wonder Richard A. Rhem Page 2   intimation of transcendence that come to us in those thin places in our lives if we are able to see them. A friend knew that I was going to preach on humility this morning and called me with a quote from Huston Smith to the effect that humility is not low self-esteem, but it is, rather, the coming to recognize and distance oneself from one’s own separate ego, to be able to step back and recognize that one counts as one, but not more than one, and that in charity the other counts as one, as well. And in that humility that we saw embodied in him, we were able to think with him and see with him the glory, for I believe that humility opens to the possibility of wonder. Following the worship service, I had the wonderful privilege of sitting here between Huston Smith and his friend of many years and a relationship many years ago, Duncan Littlefair, and we experienced conversation between these two men, conversation that was lively, encountering, engaging, with different personalities, Duncan in his powerful determination to make distinctions that lead to clarity, Huston in marvelous candor, admitting that he always has a hard time choosing between dichotomies and his words “mealy-mouthed Huston.” I hope you didn’t miss the rarity of that encounter, a conversation between two prophetic figures with decades of experience, knowledge, and wisdom, differing personalities but engaging one another with civility and with candor and with grace and affection, to the end that truth might be glimpsed, not to make a point, not to win an argument, not to establish some absolute claim to the truth, but in the cause of truth in order that understanding might be furthered, conversation sacred, its holy, honest exchange where there is the loss of ego, the dissolving of self and the focus on truth to the end of understanding. My, that was a marvelous and all too rare experience, and we had just heard Huston pointing us to the way to behold the glory, pointing to those places where the layered reality becomes luminous in nature, in art, human relationship, and in the wisdom traditions. The advantage I had over you is that I had also just recently listened to a funeral meditation that Duncan had shared with me in which the transcendent one, the holy, the sacred could be glimpsed if only there are eyes to see it, in a blade of grass or a blossom or a bird or a leaf, or a sunset or a human relationship, and the wonder which is a consequence of the pointers of both of them being exactly the same. Huston said, “I use the word God.” Duncan said, “You don’t need to use God, but it’s okay if you do. It’s a philosophical concept.” It is a means of explaining, but the means of explaining is not the important thing. It is the reality, that reality to which it all points. Whatever we call it, whatever language we use, if there has been an emptying of the self, if there has been that vision of something beyond, then that awareness that brings wholeness and holiness to our being, however it is spoken of or expressed as we try to give expression to it, it seems to me that in both cases, the secret is humility. It is not an accident that the word human and humility and humor have a common root, the root of humus. You know what humus is - the little residue that worms leave after moving through the soil, it’s © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �Humility That Opens to Wonder Richard A. Rhem Page 3   vegetative decay; it’s that brown-blackish, rather unpleasant stuff. It is no accident that we are named human, for we are of the humus, we are of the soil, we are earthy and therefore, the most appropriate manifestation of the human is humility, and in order to come to an appreciation of the human, humor, because we are rooted in the soil, we are earthly, but we are more than that, as well. Because we know that we are earthly, we know that we are so rooted, so grounded, we know, as well, that we are more. We know that we are beckoned by the spirit to the experience of spirit, to the life of the spirit. Here we are, these ridiculous animals who know, who experience, who feel, who intuit, who have that sense of transcendence that calls them even while being rooted in the soil. They are anchored solidly. Humus. Human. Humility. And humor, one of the best antidotes to the egoism that shuts us off from wonder, being so filled with self, so self-assertive, so self-securing, so self-aggrandizing that we have no eyes to see nor ears to hear and our life is devoid of wonder and of joy, of grace and of peace. How do you come to it? Ah, that’s where preaching is stumped, for what does one say next? How does one come to it? Moses came to it, but was given a revelation an epiphany, a manifestation of the sacred and the holy that made his life holy, set apart to a great task because of a great vision that came after the brooding wilderness experience. Someone said in the scriptures it speaks of Moses 120 years old at his death, twenty years in Egypt as a prince learning to be somebody, forty years in the wilderness learning to be nobody, forty years learning what God could do with someone who had learned both lessons. No lack of self-esteem, but a brokenness, an honesty, an awareness, the simplicity of seeing truthfully and then acting in light of the wonder of the vision that comes when we’ve been emptied of the self. The Bible says that Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth, but he had a vision, a revelation. Paul, frenzied, passionate, defensive, threatened by this new movement with the name of Jesus, going about to destroy, to obstruct, to hold down, to stamp out, in a moment’s revelation, a vision, a light. How does it happen? I don’t know. It’s a grace; it’s a given. It’s not at our disposal, but it happens if we are serious, if we are engaged, if we can come to some honest estimate of ourselves, if we can let go. Moses had to let go of Egypt. Paul had to let go of all that which was sacred and holy to him that structured his whole life. Those security systems that we have built tightly around us - if only for a moment we could let go, if we could see through, there might be a bush that would burn or a light that would shine. It reminds me of the political campaign - noisy assertion, frenzied activity, absolutist claims, dogmatic assertions, control and manipulation. There is so little honest conversation that seeks not to make a point, but to open the truth more clearly. It is humility, it is that dying to myself, it is that recognition that I © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �Humility That Opens to Wonder Richard A. Rhem Page 4   am not God, that life has been given and is gift and if only for a moment I can step outside this frenzied drivenness of contemporary life, I can just pause long enough to look at the face of a child or a flower or a sunset and know that I am embraced in something marvelous and wonderful beyond my imagining - then my life will be bathed in wonder and there will be joy and peace. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XXIII Scripture Text Exodus 4:13, I Corinthians 15:9 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001112 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-11-12 Title A name given to the resource Humility That Opens to Wonder Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 12, 2000 entitled "Humility That Opens to Wonder", on the occasion of Pentecost XXIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Exodus 4:13, I Corinthians 15:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Humility Transcendence https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/73fe2a6264a97dcf66de48c7e3f5fdfb.mp3 1414e1c629c2ccf732c7188fb6c3732d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b2486fad9135d9c1253058a44c0bed6d.pdf 8662a11de972f6c99c0cec2468596576 PDF Text Text In Face of Mystery Text: Job 23:3; Romans 8:38-39 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 5, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon Life is a mystery and we live this curious existence before the face of a Mystery, before the face of God, for God is Mystery. Beyond all of the images and all of the intuitions that we have, God is beyond all of that, and so, our human existence and the God of our life are all bathed in mystery. Job, that epic poem that so powerfully presents the struggle of or the question of why the righteous suffer, in the passage read this morning, cries out, “Oh, that I knew where I might find God!” And how many of us haven’t cried the same at a time of crisis or a time of grief or a time of loss, a time of anxiety? “Oh, that I knew where I might find God!” Paul, of course, knew the struggle, too, if you take the paragraph I read from the eighth chapter and put it in context, you would find that Paul was talking about the struggle in the seventh chapter, that famous passage about the flesh and the spirit, what he wills to do and what he ends up doing and who will deliver him. And then the eighth chapter talks about the spirit and about creation as though creation is bound and straining, yearning for release and freedom. And then he comes to that marvelous conclusion to the eighth chapter with the affirmation that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Job, at the end of that passage I read, said, “When God has tried me, I will come forth.” There is the intense struggle with the mystery, the mystery of suffering or the mystery of loss or the questions of meaning, the intense struggle, and then the trust, the affirmation of trust in the teeth of the struggle, as it were, a resting finally in the love of God from which we will not be separated. It seems that the mystery of life comes to its sharpest expression in that relationship of our body to our mind or our spirit. At that point of human consciousness, I become conscious that I am. I become conscious that I have a body. I am not a body, period. I am and I have a body, and I am not apart from the body. I become conscious of that mind, matter, dualism that marks my existence, and that is such a mystery. © Grand Valley State University   �In Face of Mystery Richard A. Rhem Page 2   This message for this day was spawned on the day I left my sister who died in August, left her for the last time, knowing that it might be the last time, and indeed, it turned out to be the last time. All the way home I kept thinking about the fact that here we talked together, we sat on the edge of her bed together, she was fully cognizant, fully alive, fully conscious. We could laugh together about family stories and weep together about the inevitable end, but there we were together in all of the normalcy of a human relationship, a family tie and bond, and as I left there knowing that it may well be the last time, I thought, “What a mystery.” And sure enough, the next time I saw her was in the casket where the shell was there. I wouldn’t have mistaken her ever. It was Lois. But not. The matter was there, the spirit was gone. What happens when the spirit which doesn’t exist apart from the matter, which is the host, ceases when the host ceases? We know from all sorts of studies and human experience that the matter, the body can be so racked with pain that it can drown the spirit. We know that the testimonies of drug addicts say that the tissues of the body can scream so loudly that the spirit is lost, it’s captive, it’s submerged, it’s drowned. Those who deal in human torture tell us that every human being has a point at which torture will break the spirit. Torture applied to the matter can submerge the spirit. It’s a mystery, isn’t it? I’ve been with people on a number of occasions at the moment of their last breathing and it’s always different, of course, but where there is someone who is with you, conscious, cognizant, alive, and then in a moment gone - what a mystery. I think that you and I might have been given a sneak preview into where things are going in the future with that wonderful person in our midst last week, Huston Smith, who is probing the edges of that which lies beyond the possibilities and capability of science, suggesting from what has come to light in science itself that Spirit may not only be hosted by matter, but Spirit may generate matter. Thus matter is generated by Spirit, indwelt by Spirit, and, finally, Spirit departs the matter that was its host. In the best of scientific probing and religious wrestling there is the possibility in our day that we may be coming ‘round to where the dogmatisms of a rigid supernaturalism and the dogmatisms of a scientific reductionism may be transcended. In Huston’s words, there may be “light at the end of the tunnel,” where these two great human enterprises that have been in such adversarial relationship may be coming to a time when we will be able to at least give expression to that mystery that we are in the face of that Mystery that is God, and which will enable us to pursue the scientific endeavor with integrity, live with critical rationality, but also with a trust that is grounded in that reality, that we may come to see that spirit enlivens matter and then moves on in that cosmic journey, that evolutionary process to whatever lies beyond. We may be coming to a point where these great human enterprises will enable us to not block out the light from any direction, but with good heart, with © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �In Face of Mystery Richard A. Rhem Page 3   intellectual integrity and human passion, to rest in the wonder that is life now and hope in that which is yet to come, a journey into the Holy One, into eternal light which would enable us with good heart to use the words of the poet, those we’ve loved and lost a while, those who have gone on before us, but in whose train we shall follow, for we move from light and life through death to light and life beyond our fondest dreams. Thanks be to God. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event All Saints Sunday, Pentecost XXII Scripture Text Job 23:3, Romans 8:38-39 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001105 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-11-05 Title A name given to the resource In the Face of Mystery Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 5, 2000 entitled "In the Face of Mystery", on the occasion of All Saints Sunday, Pentecost XXII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Job 23:3, Romans 8:38-39. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Consciousness Mystery Search for God https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3269647c9043dc6a9a2cbd971fe28f95.mp3 55b970c16588bcdd4051f0c746c9083c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XIX Series The Heart of the Matter Scripture Text II Corinthians 8:8 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001015 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-10-15 Title A name given to the resource An Intentional Commitment: A Matter of Heart Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 15, 2000 entitled "An Intentional Commitment: A Matter of Heart", as part of the series "The Heart of the Matter", on the occasion of Pentecost XIX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: II Corinthians 8:8. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/27177fb47ead74bafb941554695dc9e2.mp3 0bf65b7a3ca6559914d784746027bbde https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b57c3e97ed9de0b3b642f515aa23d50e.pdf d5c8b454ea2abafd48497ab3a443263d PDF Text Text An Emerging Vision: What Matters? From the series: The Heart of the Matter Text: Psalm 78:6-7; Jeremiah 29:11; James 4:14 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XVIII, October 8, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon Psalm 78, from which I just read, continues as a recitation of the history of Israel because the Psalmist did as he instructed people to do, that is, to tell the stories, to tell the stories in order that the children might know them, even the generation yet unborn, and come into the same experience of the grace of God. I'm going to tell you a story this morning. It is a story that some of you have lived and others of you know, and for some of you, it may be new. But it is not so bad when you are trying to figure out the future to look at the way you have come. The story centers around that wonderful text in Jeremiah 29, the 11th verse. Israel is in exile. There are those voices that are saying, "Don't settle down. Get ready to get out of here. You can never be blessed here." And then the voice of Jeremiah is heard in a letter, and Jeremiah says, "Settle down. Seek the welfare of this place." And then this wonderful promise, "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans of good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." It is a wonderful image - to give you a future and a hope. There are times when we all need images to sustain us, to inspire us, and to keep us going, and the 11th verse of Jeremiah 29 was that for me in a very personal way at a time that was very dark in my own life and I had to cling to that promise, a future and a hope. How would you have written to your parents that your ministry was probably over if on the day of your ordination you got a letter from your father who said that while you were in the womb you were prayed over and dedicated to God? And having been thus warped from the womb and entering obediently into the paths of service, now to find myself in a situation where, through the breakup of my family, I figured that there would be no more ministry for me, because we are talking about the dark ages back in 1970, and I had to sit down in Europe and write a letter to Mom and Dad and tell them the bad news. But, I appended to that letter of doom Jeremiah 29:11, a future and a hope. And, by the grace of God, the congregation here assembled at that time extended to me an invitation to return here and to become their pastor once again. I never really thought about it so much as I have just reflecting on all of this for this message. I have been © Grand Valley State University   �An Emerging Vision: What Matters? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   accused of being a "Johnny-one-note" with the theology of grace, and I'm guilty. That remark resembles me. But, there was grace here before I came back. There was a people here full of grace who made a very bold move in extending to me the opportunity to be their pastor when the next item on my agenda was a divorce, having three little children to care for and one chapter of my dissertation written. Now, that's a risky business and this congregation was full of grace, and it was that grace and that experience of grace that made Jeremiah 29 come true in our lives together. The 70s were heady days. The experience that was mine became a paradigm for the experience of many people who were broken and bleeding and bruised and hurting, who had been excluded in one way or another from the Church. We became a model of gracious acceptance, and that theology of grace that was resident in the people before I came became the hallmark of this community, and the growth went off the charts, so that we had to go from one service to two and from two services to three, and then eventually we had to build this sanctuary, for when I came back, we were in the original little church that is now the Parlour. It was June of 1978 when we held a service starting there and we processed out of that sanctuary around the sidewalk and into this sanctuary. The longest running television program on the networks at that time was CBS' "Look Up and Live," which was on every Sunday morning. The CBS cameras were here to catch us leaving there and coming in here, and they broadcast our first service in this sanctuary. Well, those were pretty heady days. The growth was exciting and the grace was resplendent. About that time I began to worry about that growth. I don't know if I ever articulated this publicly or not, but I began to worry about becoming an entrepreneur of religion. We were becoming a mega-church before the era of the mega-church, and I could see how easy it would be to get caught up in that and to be determined and shaped and formed by that exploding growth rather than shaping that growth in a way that was consistent with my understanding of the word of God and the Christian tradition. I actually spoke that to some of the leaders and they were very, very understanding of what I was talking about. So, in 1980, we came out with our second Identity Statement. Perhaps you will remember that last week I held up this little brochure, "Dreaming the Future." There still are a few of them in the boxes around the church. In this brochure, there are Identity Statements from 1971, full of grace, 1980, and 1993, and the one from 1980 is very interesting, in light of what I have just been saying, because it was in 1980 that we began to ask the question, not how do we continue to grow and succeed, but after all, what is God calling us as a church to be? In that statement which is a rather long statement, these points occur, We would be a place for the intersection of the word of God and the world, of the Christian tradition and contemporary culture. We would be a place where the Christian tradition is translated into the idiom of contemporary culture, giving it a voice to speak meaningfully in the pluralistic society of © Grand Valley State University �An Emerging Vision: What Matters? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   our day. We would be a place where controversial issues, ethical, social, political, find a forum for discussion, enabling persons to understand the issues and to live out a faithful response as a people of God. You can begin to get a sense of what was going on at that time, a growing awareness of the world about us and a growing intention to address that world from the perspective of the Christian tradition. And then there is this significant statement – We determine to be true to that which we believe God is calling us to be, whether that means harmony with the religio-cultural flow or not. We will adjust our program and mission with the dynamic movement of history, not in order necessarily to be successful in institutional terms, but in order to be faithful to what God is calling us to be, and to be effective in mediating the grace of God to the world. We will be what we determine God is calling us to be, not in order to be successful, but in order to be true. It was a watershed moment for us as the decade of the 80s dawned and we had all of this exciting growth behind us. It was a watershed moment in which we said success is not an end in itself. We determine to have integrity. We determine to be true to what we feel God is calling us to be. It was during the decade of the 80s after this statement was published here that I was invited eventually to be Professor of Preaching at the Seminary. It was in 1985 that a Reformed journal was founded for the purpose of stimulating theological discussion in the Church, and I was invited to be on the Board of Editors of that journal, and I began to write articles and those articles reflected the things that we had been talking about here, the things I'd been preaching about, the things I'd been teaching on Wednesday nights. It was like a harvesting of all of that. It was a bringing together and coming to clarity of all of the ferment that had been a part of the scene here now for some 14-15 years, and those articles brought me to clarity and bringing me to clarity, that clarity began more and more to be expressed in the pulpit here. It was in 1988 that I wrote the now famous article on "The Habit of God's Heart" in which I suggested that maybe the extent of God's grace was as broad as the human family. Even though that article seriously called into question Hell, all Hell broke loose, and the Church decided that no Professor of Preaching with that kind of wobbly theology ought to be nurturing new preachers, and so I came back here. But, I came back here saying we must be not less radical, but more radical, because I had begun to sense that that is where the rub was. Martin Luther in a marvelous statement says you can confess Christ all over the board, but if you don't confess Christ at the point where the issue is burning, you betray Christ, and so we began to deal with the issues more forthrightly than ever before and in 1993, we published what is now on the back of your liturgy, printed on everything we do, and that was another movement forward for us. © Grand Valley State University �An Emerging Vision: What Matters? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   That text, Jeremiah 29:11, was my inaugural text March 14,1971, for it had been not only my own existential anchor, but it was that vision with which we began and now, in 1993, we wrote the statement that is still our statement, and we moved to be specific about the grace of God in terms of those who were embraced. We added one category, that of sexual orientation, because that is where the fire was raging, and we wanted to be clear and explicit that there was nothing in the sexual orientation of a person that had anything to do with exclusion from the grace of God. There was one other point in this last statement - we had come to see that if the grace of God is as broad as all of that, then there must be revelatory and salvific significance in the religious traditions of others, and so we said it explicitly that the light of God is found in other traditions. To say it another way, we denied the exclusivity of salvation through Jesus Christ alone. In so doing, we have found ourselves standing alone, an independent congregation. As I look back over that unfolding, that developing story, I see how an energizing vision becomes the emerging vision of a people on the way. To me, it is an exciting business. It fascinates me how important it is to ask "Who are we?" To have a sense of identity and a sense of purpose, to live with awareness and to live with intentionality, for a people who does so will continue on a journey and will get to a point where we are today where we have the opportunity to re-imagine what the Church is all about. I have been using that language for some time, but this is the time now to do it, to think entirely new thoughts about the very structure and the nature of the Church, for the Church is an ancient and venerable institution and its structures and its ways taken for granted, never even thought about anymore, and we are at a point at which, well, to use my old phrase, we can throw all the pieces up in the air and let them come down once again. For, maybe the congregation gathered in worship today and in the future is just one facet of this Center of Religion and Life. Maybe we will look back in ten years and we will say there was a watershed in the year 2000 when we chose an academic person to come in and run this church rather than another ordained clergy person. Maybe it will indicate that our move is to a Center where there is awareness and intentionality through reflection and serious, hard wrestling with the truth, which frees up worship which is celebrative, in which the passages of life can be celebrated, the passages of birth and confirmation and marriage and death - a Center wrestling with reality, reflecting on the truth which filters down into a marvelous Worship Center where our grandchildren are told of the love of Jesus in a way that will enable them to wonder and to grow and to come into their own experience of reality without all that painful dismantling that so many of us have to go through, a Center academically tilted, perhaps, because if you are not aware, if you don't understand, if you don't know, then how can you worship right? How can you nurture? And that correct thinking must ultimately lead to correct action and compassion. © Grand Valley State University �An Emerging Vision: What Matters? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   If you walk in these halls some day during the week, you may bump into some elderly person obviously needing help and, being helped with tenderness, being accorded respect and dignity, for our Adult Day Care ministry is underway. And so, whether it is a newborn upon whom we place the waters of baptism, or whether it is the last rites for one who is moving from life through death to life eternal, whether it is a child in the Worship Center hearing the stories so that they may ultimately put their hope in God, or whether we're caring for one another, the marginalized, the most vulnerable members of society, as a matter of fact, there will be a community aware, intentional, ever re-inventing itself, reimagining itself, becoming what it must become because of what it sees and understands. James says, "What of your life? What is your life?" This will be a place where you can come and, in all of its various facets, be faced with that question, "What is your life?" God knows when you get to this advanced point, you recognize that James is right. It is a brief moment; it is a vapor, but the thing that is important is the nurturing of the young so that the future generations will come with us, not to imitate our forms and structures, but having been grounded in the truth, set free to find their own way. I was in the airport in Rome a couple of weeks ago and going back and forth from pilgrims to gates to passport control and walking through that vast hall, and there was a moment in which it was like all the action froze, just for a moment, and I saw people everywhere dashing for a gate, furiously fumbling for their cell phones, lugging their luggage, and I looked on their faces and I wanted to say, when the action stopped for me just in that moment, "Do you all know who you are? Do you know where you are going? What is your life?" What really matters is awareness, intentionality, issuing in worship irrepressible and nurture that sets free and grounds and gives wings, and compassion that never quits © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XVIII Series The Heart of the Matter Scripture Text Psalm 78:6-7, Jeremiah 29:11, James 4:14 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001008 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-10-08 Title A name given to the resource An Emerging Vision: What Matters? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 8, 2000 entitled "An Emerging Vision: What Matters?", as part of the series "The Heart of the Matter", on the occasion of Pentecost XVIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 78:6-7, Jeremiah 29:11, James 4:14. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Inclusive Pluralism Theology of Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/55be25f5ecb9dc74be92bd300a58ca6d.mp3 812055e63903072f5ee639ac2f5127f4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XVII Series The Heart of the Matter Scripture Text Joshua 4:6, 24:15, I Corinthians 3: 21-23 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-10-01 Title A name given to the resource A Charter of Freedom: A Matter of Choice Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 1, 2000 entitled "A Charter of Freedom: A Matter of Choice", as part of the series "The Heart of the Matter", on the occasion of Pentecost XVII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Joshua 4:6, 24:15, I Corinthians 3: 21-23. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1bddd3c6ee72dbd06ad1582ecb85cf57.mp3 ded93e48a664dbd61512c41069f25e3c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/50566ee3819393a4c430613fa4a92044.pdf 40406536065c8775da35a456a5a9fa5f PDF Text Text The Gift of Sabbath Text: Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12, 15; Mark 2:27 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan September 3, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon I smile a bit as I think about bringing a sermon on the subject of the Sabbath. I suppose it has taken me several decades in order to preach with passion and conviction the fact that the Sabbath ought to be rigorously observed. That is because of the way I was raised in my family home as a child. The Sabbath was observed very, very carefully. The Sabbath day was absolutely predictable; it never varied. If we, in the summertime, rented a cottage at a neighboring lake, we would move out on Saturday. That’s when the rent began, of course, but we would go back home on Saturday night and do the Sunday ritual and go back on Sunday evening for the week’s vacation. There was no frivolity, there was no playing. When I think about the Sabbath as I experienced it as a child and as a youth, I don’t think it was exactly the intention of the Sabbath observance prescribed by the Ten Commandments. We got up early in the morning, off to 9:30 church. My mother stayed behind. Part of the meal was prepared on Saturday night, the rest she prepared on Sunday morning because when we got home after church and Sunday School, we had to sit down immediately to eat because my father had to get a brief nap before he gathered my mother and me up and we went off to pick up my grandparents, and then they went to the Dutch service in the afternoon. I was left with some aunts, “unclaimed jewels” they were. Then they came back from the Dutch service for coffee and cookies and the extended family all came around. It was quite nice, really. And then we had to hurry home for a light supper in order to get back for the evening worship. When I was a younger child, it was Junior Christian Endeavor on the Sunday afternoon, and when I got a little older, it was Intermediate Christian Endeavor before the evening service. And then, of course, because I was a mistake and came along rather lately, I got dragged along, my poor parents being burdened with me, and so I always had to go out for coffee and cake after the evening service. Now, that’s a Sunday! That’s a Sunday. When I think about it, I smile because obviously it was so contrary to the intention of Sabbath. That’s the way Sabbath was observed and I also am mindful of the fact that for my parents, for our household, it was the total social structure of our life. The whole social © Grand Valley State University   �The Gift of Sabbath Richard A. Rhem Page 2   structure of our life centered around the church and therefore, I guess it didn’t appear to be an oppressive thing to them or an abusive thing at all. For a child? It was a long day. When I was in college or seminary I heard the old Presbyterian minister who was a great preacher, Donald Grey Barnhouse, who experienced that in his Scottish Sabbatarian practice as a child, who said of the hymn, “Day of All the Week the Best, Emblem of Eternal Rest,” “If heaven is like a Sunday, I don’t know if I want to go there.” Well, that rigorous observance of Sabbath which had so much value is also very difficult to keep going without it slipping into legalism. That’s a tension that we simply have to live with. If we’re going to do something religiously, if we’re going to do something rigorously, then there is a kind of obligation about it which, if we miss the glow of it, can be perceived and experienced as an oppressive legalism. I think in my own Dutch Calvinist roots there was a lot of legalism which a child simply has to endure, failing to see the intention behind the practice. So, I have to smile a bit when I think about how important I believe Sabbath observance is at this point in my life, the observance of Sabbath as that principle of punctuating one’s life for rest and for refreshment and for worship, for the contemplation of God’s creation, and for the remembering of God’s grace. The point of my message this morning is that we have lost the Sabbath principle. It is almost non-existent in our society today and we are paying the price for it. We live in this marvelous, exciting age in which we have been able through the application of intelligent mind, reason, skill and competence, to create a culture that is so filled with possibility. We have mastered so much of the universe. We have performed technological miracles. We have possibilities undreamed of only a generation or two or three ago. We call these things labor-saving devices, or time-savers, and the irony is that the more we have developed the capacity to save time and to multiply our productivity, we have not found more leisure or rest, but we have become more driven. I do believe that we live at a frenetic pace and part of it is simply because we can. Look at all the gadgets and technology that are at our fingertips in order for us to do so much more than ever could have been done before, having created more time. I heard on the very early CNN Headline News this morning that we are working more hours than ever before, according to a study just out, and the minority populations among us are having to work even more just in order to keep up. We live in a society where I am sure there are those of you out there who would say it’s absolutely essential for us to maintain our standard of living to have two incomes in the home. And so, we become a people who are driven by our success. We become the victims of all of that which is possible for us, and there is precious little consciousness of Sabbath in terms of rest and cessation. We escape in exhaustion to the weekend, not the Sabbath. And then, because we’re rather affluent and we have so much possibility, what we do on the weekend of escape in © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �The Gift of Sabbath Richard A. Rhem Page 3   order to let our hair down is rush off some place! We pack our cars and we have to keep up two places and we complain about that, but yet, we wouldn’t give that up. We have all kinds of toys to enjoy and, of course, the weekend is just crammed with the wonderful good old American religion. It happens in the stadiums around the country, many of them brand new, with all kinds of creature comforts, wonderful professional sports. Football starts today, doesn’t it? There’s college football on the weekend. I mean, you can cram the whole weekend full with wonderful exhilarating experience until you are so exhausted you can’t wait to get back to work in order to get exhausted again and to rush into the next weekend. Are we not in a frenzied pace? Are we not the victims of all the possibility and the prosperity and all the capabilities that are ours? The Sabbath principle is almost non-existent, and I think that is a kind of syndrome that feeds on itself and we are in one of those spinning modes where we don’t seem to be able to get off the trolley. I heard on National Public Radio a few weeks ago some report about the German economy, the fact that they are being forced to open up more business hours through the week. Germany is probably the most highly structured European society, although The Netherlands is not far behind. In the 60s when I was in The Netherlands, there were just so many hours that a business could be open and so in the weekend on Sundays, most of the stores were closed. If you needed a pharmacy, it was printed in the paper as to what pharmacy in, for example, the city of Leiden, would be open. But, the government regulated how many hours it could be open. This was a humanitarian principle; it was for the well-being of the workers, for the well-being of society at large, and it was, I am sure, a residue of the old Dutch Calvinist Sabbatarian principle. But, I heard just recently that there is tremendous pressure being put on the German economy, the German government, to allow businesses to be open more hours because they are losing business in a world that is global, connected by the Internet where you can shop anywhere, 24 hours a day, and if you are closed, you have lost out. Well, it’s just an illustration of the fact that in our world we are going faster and faster and faster and the frenzied pace is dizzying and instead of finding ourselves able to relax and take time because of all of the possibilities, the array of technological devices, we are caught up in it, and it is for that reason that I preach this sermon, to being you to awareness of the human need for Sabbath. It may sound like a complaint, like a Jeremiah, and I don’t mean that at all, and as I said, if it slips into a legalism, it can become coercive and very negative in its effect, but I want to hold Sabbath before you today. Let me just say a couple of things about the Sabbath in its biblical rootage. Obviously, in the first place, it is a gift. It was intended as a gift for the humanization of the creature. It was not some prohibition, even though it involved a prohibition. But, its heart, its purpose, its thrust was not prohibition, but invitation, invitation to catch one’s breath, invitation to cease and desist. It © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �The Gift of Sabbath Richard A. Rhem Page 4   was a recognition in the wisdom of that early Hebrew culture of the need for life to be punctuated with pauses, the need for life to have those boundaries and limits to that unceasing, relentless cycle of work and labor and productivity. We have become managers, anxious, wanting to subdue and subject and to dominate, and the Sabbath principle was contrary to that human drive. If you take the whole Sabbath cycle, every seven years and every seventh seven years, every 50 years, that is, there was to be a cessation of that driving determination to produce and to accumulate and to acquire and to master. Every seventh day the human being was called simply to be, to be a human being rather than a human doing, simply to stop and to contemplate, to catch one’s breath, to get out of the rat race, to let go and to be. The intention was that it be a wonderful gift. There are great social implications in the Sabbath observance because it was not only for you, but for your servants and for your animals and for your land. The intention was that the whole created order needs time, time to be. The great Jewish Rabbi Heschel speaks of the Sabbath as the cathedral of time. The great European cathedrals are sacred space, but the Sabbath is sacred time. It was an oasis; it was a resting place; it was a very, very great gift. It was a gift that was marked by the cessation of work, of labor. And once again, that can become legalistic and that is not its intention. Although the Sabbath in the Hebrew Creation account is the seventh day, the Christian movement moved it to the first day in celebration of the resurrection, it could as well be the third day or the fifth day. The point is that life have a rhythm of work and rest. The point is that we need to have the cycle broken and when we have that cycle broken, the intention is that we not work, that we, indeed, rest. I don’t know where our drivenness comes from. Some might point to our Calvinism or our Puritan roots or whatever it may be, but while the biblical account recognizes the necessity of labor, that work was not an end in itself. In the creation account, the seventh day was the climax. It wasn’t a mere interlude. All one’s labor, all one’s energy, all one’s action was to culminate in rest, delight, contemplation of the wonder and the miracle of life, recognition that one is not one’s own creator, recognition that one is borne along in a process, recognition that finally this whole created order is the gift of God. One could say it’s the contemplation of creation according to the Exodus account, for if you read in the 20th chapter, the Sabbath commandment is in light of creation. But, if you go to the Deuteronomy account, the Sabbath commandment is based on the need to contemplate salvation or grace. You were slaves and God set you free. And so, it is a cessation of work but not as an end in itself, but as an opportunity to delight in the wonder of life and the miracle of life and the glory of life. The Sabbath is a time to be open to God. If we don’t have those seasons and days and rituals and actions, prayers, stories, sacred myths - if we don’t have them, God dies. God dies in our awareness. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �The Gift of Sabbath Richard A. Rhem Page 5   I was reading Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for God and I came across that paragraph which I put in your insert. Just since the modern periods of the Enlightenment everything has been tried to be reduced to rationality, where the myths are exploded and perhaps the rituals and the cult looked at divisively. But if we don’t have sacred space and sacred time and sacred language, God becomes a non-factor. We can become very numb, very dull to our rootedness in the Divine. Thomas Moore, in The Care of the Soul suggests that it is not a case of remembering and so observing, it is a case of observing and then remembering. It is important for you to come here week after week and to be reminded in a hymn, in some word of scripture, some statement from the pulpit - it’s important to come here in order to be made aware again, to be called to attention again, because we can dull to it, we can die to it. Dag Hammersjold says God does not die on the day we fail to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day that our life is no longer illumined by a radiance whose source we can never discover. I need to be reminded. I need to be reminded that creation is God’s gift, life is gift, and all is grace, and so I need this time, I need this time to come and to hear “When Morning Gilds the Sky, my heart, awakening, cries, ‘May Jesus Christ be praised.’” “This Is My Father’s World, I rest me in the thought,” or “Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound.” I need to be gathered in this community where there is birth and there is death, where there is health and illness, where there is joy and there is sadness - I need to reminded that I am a part of the bundle of life. I need to have time. If I don’t have time, if I don’t take time, if I don’t make time, I’ll lose part of my humanity and it’s not that God is going to be angry with me, it’s that I’m going to lose the sense of the presence full of grace. It’s not that I’m going to go into free-fall; it’s just that I’m going to forget that underneath are everlasting arms. The gift of Sabbath, dear God, how we need it. How I think all of us probably need a lesson or two from my father and mother. (I didn’t think I’d ever say that.) © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XIII Scripture Text Exodus 20:8, Deuteronomy 5:12, 15, Mark 2:27 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20000903 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-09-03 Title A name given to the resource The Gift of Sabbath Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 3, 2000 entitled "The Gift of Sabbath", on the occasion of Pentecost XIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Exodus 20:8, Deuteronomy 5:12, 15, Mark 2:27. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Awareness Community of Faith Worship https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c25aaec3a76ae5d4cfb261f258195927.mp3 93226fc1f744f341c7f77586fd16c631 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/87444afb3781bd14e130a761d1cf5095.pdf 174aa37de5f4bfffad01664f6fe97e1c PDF Text Text The Experience of God in a Pitiless Universe Text: Job 38:2; Job 42:3; Luke 13:2 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan August 27, 2000 Transcription of spoken sermon A week ago yesterday Nancy and I walked to the bluff sometime around noon because there was a helicopter going back and forth along the beach, skimming the surface of the water, and we knew that the search was continuing, the search that had ensued the day before. A mother had brought her nine-year-old son and his friend out to pick blueberries and then for a special treat, to come to Kirk Park just north of our home for a time of delight on the beach, in the sun, and in the surf. The lake on Friday was a raging lion. The breakers beautifully curling and then the fierce undertow in its wake, and Timmy and his little friend were just a little ways out. They were knocked down by a large wave; the friend managed to surface and come to the beach, but Timothy was not to be found. We stood on the bluff on Saturday morning and noted the helicopter coming out of the south once again. It paused to hover, to circle again, to hover, and we looked at each other and we knew there had been a sighting of that little body, and, to be sure, the Sheriff boats came down, the body bag was opened, the body placed in it and brought to the beach. The family was brought down in a little tractor-like vehicle to identify the body of their child, a scene too grievous to be witnessed, really. We live in a pitiless universe. We love that lake. It’s never the same. When I’m home on a day, I’ll wander out to the bluff several times just to take it in. Sometimes, as a week ago Friday, it is a lion and on Saturday morning a lamb. In all of its beauty and all of its terror, it is a wonder to behold, providing delight, recreation in a multitude of ways. But, it’s a killer, and as I experienced that last Saturday, knowing what I was hoping to preach and knowing what I would be struggling with through the course of this week past, that lake became for me a parable, a parable of the pitiless universe of which we are a part. That lake which we love so much, that lake which is so magnificent in its beauty and in its terror, that lake which is numb to the struggle of a drowning child, deaf to the desperate cries of a mother, that lake is a parable of the universe of which we are a part. It is a pitiless universe. It is neither good nor evil; it just is. It is a universe that has evolved and emerged, we’re told, over 15 billion years from an original explosion of something or other to the present state of things, but it’s a pitiless universe. We speak of the floods and the fires, the earthquakes that ravage the © Grand Valley State University   �God in a Pitiless Universe Richard A. Rhem Page 2   good earth and decimate the human family, and the earth, the world, the universe is unaware and unfeeling, simply, inexorably going on its natural course. Not only earthquake, flood and fire, the food chain itself - we know that all life is sustained by feeding on life. There is no other way. There are those who would attempt to somehow or other soften that reality. One may become a vegetarian, I suppose, but as a matter of fact, we know that in nature we speak of it as “red in tooth and claw,” whether it be the lion that crouches, pouncing on the gazelle, or whether it be the wasp that stings the caterpillar, paralyzing it, laying its eggs in the caterpillar in order that they may nourish themselves in the flesh of the caterpillar until the caterpillar is no more. Life is brutal and violent and pitiless; life is, and the processes of the universe of which we are a part are inexorable, unfeeling. There is no pity there; there is no guilt there; there is simply the reality, and we are a part of that reality. We carry with us all of the instinctual nature of the animal that we are. But, we have become something more than that animal. We have emerged into something we might call spirit; we have consciousness; we are aware; we are able to step out of our skin and observe ourselves and observe our surroundings. We are able to observe those pitiless processes of the universe and to stand in awe and in wonder at the miracle of it all. We have become something more than the animal that we also are and continue to be. We have created history, human culture. But, human culture, human history, if nature is red in tooth and claw, is bloodstained with the violence and the brutality that we have perpetrated on one another. The classic phrase, “Man’s inhumanity to man,” is the human story, the story of violence, brutality, of war and rape and pillage. I need only point to one event that many of us remember in our own lifetime, the Holocaust, in which demonic evil incarnate in humankind brought about the ashes of six million human beings and the tragedy that the Jews suffered in Europe, the crematoriums still there as a witness to what we are capable of, we who are human, who have another dimension, that spiritual dimension, who have risen above the base animal instinct, nonetheless. We, too, have acted without pity and although the Holocaust is behind us, the killing continues here and there around the globe far too frequently. So, fire and flood and earthquake, war and ravishing, rape and pillage continue, and we who are human have emerged to the point at which we become aware of it. We become aware of the pitiless universe with its inexorable processes and we become aware, also, of our responsibility, our responsibility to act other than with our animal nature and all of the darkness that is pent up within us. The Genesis story is trying to say that when it says that human pair, in succumbing to the temptation to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, fell. But, you have to put “Fall” in quotation marks because the “Fall” was upward, because they came into the cognizance of the distinction between good and evil, and coming into that cognizance, the writer of the story says that God © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �God in a Pitiless Universe Richard A. Rhem Page 3   says in the pantheon of heaven, “Now they have become like us.” That was the Hebrew insight into the human possibility, capability, competence, responsibility, and consequently guilt, for we carry with us that animal nature, but we know something else. We know that we cannot live by that base instinct. We know that we must transcend that nature that we have inherited and that we must act other than on that instinct. We must act on the basis of pity, compassion. We must act responsibly for justice and for equity. In this pitiless universe, in our bloodstained history, we are those creatures who have emerged to the point at which we are aware of what we are doing. We know and in knowing we have lost our innocence, and now it becomes incumbent upon us in the midst of a pitiless universe to create enclaves of compassion, to bring mercy to bear, indeed, to give opening for love to flourish. For, although our history is bloody with brutality, being cognizant as we are of who we are and what we are doing, it is to compassion that we are called and all of the great religious traditions of the world, all of them are alike in this - that they call the human family to compassion. Indeed, that is the function of religion, to create communities of compassion, to cultivate grace and mercy and love. And we do it in our families, for example, where we are bonded and knitted into love. This summer being a summer in which I have thought so much about religion and then experiencing as I did the death of a sister, experiencing it firsthand, but also stepping back a moment and experiencing myself experiencing it, well aware of the inexorable process of a killing melanoma, I was nevertheless able to take my sister’s hand and look her in the eye and say, “But, you are healed.” Or, with Nancy, to sit with her on the edge of her bed the last time when we were there, aware that it may be the last time that we will be together, to put our arms around her and have our picture taken with her in a moment of tenderness, knowing that she was surrounded by the caring competence of Hospice and the loving devotion of family, knowing that therefore all was well. Then, coming from her funeral on a Saturday to a Sunday dinner with our extended local family where we as a family experienced a first, that is, the oldest grandchild off to college, and joining hands in a circle before the meal to be able to speak words of love and tenderness, to be able to speak words of value, to be able to articulate and bring to expression the depths of emotion that we all felt as we had hand joined to hand around that circle with this beautiful boy that was on his way. Not only in the immediate family, but in the family of the church. Yesterday I had the privilege of performing the marriage of George Postmus and Mary Hettinga, Mary Jannenga, the Jannenga tribe here for many years, marrying them on the lawn in the center of a circle made up of the family. And as I looked at the circle of the family, I realized that I had married three of them, baptized several of the children, buried their dear parents. I remembered Joe Jannenga who was always sort of my weathervane through all the years since I returned in 1971, making course corrections twice weekly. Joe, always with loyalty and faithfulness and trust, moving along. And I thought to myself, “Dear God, I must be getting old. I must be getting to be an emotional old man,” because I almost couldn’t start the © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �God in a Pitiless Universe Richard A. Rhem Page 4   liturgy for thinking about that family connection in this family connection, and births and baptisms and funerals and weddings - all of those significant passages of life. Even in the nation, do we not hope and work and pray for a compassionate and just society? Do we not weigh the candidates’ political speeches? Do we not cast our vote for that one in whom we trust the best for the body politic will arise, and do we not, as responsible citizens, know that it is our calling to be committed to justice, to the well-being of all God’s children? Yes, that is really what it is all about, and I’ve been talking all this time and I haven’t yet mentioned God, but I’ve been talking about God from the beginning, for all of my talking is about that mystery that we call God. I have been speaking of a mystery and you say to me give some definition to that mystery, and I say I don’t say mystery simply because I haven’t yet discovered the delineations of the deity, but rather, because the deity is beyond the capacity of the human mind to define. That is a philosophical, theological enterprise in which I can get obsessed and with which I am fascinated, but that is not really terribly important, for the only place that God is known is in the tenderness and the compassion and the love of human connection in human community. It is in those moments where soul meets soul, where souls are seared in love, mutual affection, compassionate union that God is known. Maybe my detractors would say, “Tell me of God, not of human experience. All you have spoken of is human experience,” and I’d have to protest and say, “I cannot talk about God other than in human experience, for it is only in human experience where love dwells, where compassion prevails, where justice is done, where souls are melded into one.” That is God. For as John said, “The one who dwells in love, dwells in God, and God in that one, for God is love.” We are not the first people who have struggled to understand God. Job protested against the conventional wisdom of the day, what everyone believed in his day. Job, from his ash heap, protested against his miserable comforters who insisted what everyone insisted at the time that if you suffer, you have sinned. Job said, “No. No.” Of course, Job, likewise, claimed more than he should know so that finally in that confrontation with the whirlwind, with that overpowering presence, he said, “Finally I put my hand over my mouth and repent in dust and ashes.” Wasn’t Jesus saying something like that when, being told with some arrogance about some Galileans who died under the brutal rule of Pilate, some Jerusalemites who were crushed under a falling tower, he said, “What are you trying to tell me? Are you trying to tell me that somehow or other they were worse than others? Do you understand God? Do you know the ways of God?” Is it not as Job says, speaking words of darkness, speaking of that which one doesn’t really know? But, this one knows. Even as Job had to turn the whole thing on its head in order to be true to his human experience, so you and I know we live in a © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �God in a Pitiless Universe Richard A. Rhem Page 5   pitiless universe and the desperate cry of the human heart, the cry of desperation will not halt the sun in its course or the moon in its rising. But, God is where love is, where tenderness prevails and compassion and care are given. There God is. That is God. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XII Scripture Text Job 38:2, Job 42:3, Luke 13:2 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20000827 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-08-27 Title A name given to the resource The Experience of God in a Pitiless Universe Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 27, 2000 entitled "The Experience of God in a Pitiless Universe", on the occasion of Pentecost XII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Job 38:2, Job 42:3, Luke 13:2. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Compassion God Justice https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/799516baa3c3c1dc0c031b1146ef77ab.mp3 ed099916fc9e7ac75f3c1176e5c881e9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a3030a4290dea7563fc2bea6b7ec506d.pdf ab5f0bd6d14211eab6f5f99381277485 PDF Text Text When god Dies… From the series: Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression Text: Psalm 42:2; Romans 1:20 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan August 13, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon We have been considering the significant criticism of religion that came to expression in the nineteenth century in order to understand it and to find fresh expression for the reality of the experience of God. It seems to me it is really not possible to find a fresh expression that will be adequate for the twenty-first century unless we have some understanding of the philosophical and theological discussions of the modern period, particularly those of the nineteenth century. What came to expression at that time was the realization that religion is a human construct. Of course, the faith communities fought that idea. They claimed that religion was a divine revelation, a largely ready-made religion that came from heaven. But the insight of the nineteenth century certainly is true—religion is a human construct. From all we know today about the origin, function, and nature of religion, all we know about historical development, it is quite foolish to deny that religion is a human construct. On the basis of this insight, the nineteenth-century German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach said that God was nothing but an illusion, a projection of human fears and hopes and aspirations. God, so to speak, was created in our own image. That assumption or declaration became the foundation for nineteenth-century thought. Religion—a human construct, yes. And based on that, God became a human projection. Now there was no one home in the universe; nobody out there, so to speak, no counterpart to that human projection and aspiration. While it would be very foolish for us to try to deny that religion is a human construct, once one has assented to that, it does not follow that no one is home. For understanding that religions are human constructs is understanding that religions are human responses to the Mystery that encounters us, that upholds us, that permeates reality and encounters us in our human existence. So although we won’t deny that our religion is a human construct, if we will continue to be religious, we will do it on the basis of our conviction that for better or worse, religion is an agency, a medium by which we come into communion with that © Grand Valley State University   �When God Dies… Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Ultimate Mystery of things, that infinite and inexhaustible ground of all being, that source, guide and goal of all that is. This, of course, is the issue as we look for fresh expression: to hear the significant criticism and then to find a way to say “God,” nonetheless. The nineteenth century came to its climax in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose name conjures up nihilism—nothing means anything. Nihilism, or nothingness. There is no foundation, no meaning, no purpose. Just capricious, purposeless reality as it exists. Nietzsche died one hundred years ago this month, August 15, 1900. He is famously known for his claim, “God is dead,” to which he added, “We have killed him.” The last decade of Nietzsche’s life was one of misery and terror. He moved into insanity and died a pathetic and broken person. But Nietzsche had come out of the rich soil of Protestant Christian faith and experience. He was buried next to his Lutheran pastor father, and his mother’s father and grandfather likewise were Lutheran pastors. Yet in his work and study Nietzsche had come to the conclusion that the God of his tradition—the God of Western civilization—was dead, and this sensitive and brilliant thinker had the courage to draw the implications of the death of God. At this point it would be typical of pulpit rhetoric to say, “You see what happens when you deny God?” But that would be to miss the point altogether. For Nietzsche to conclude that God was dead was an anguishing understanding. Nietzsche wrote, “How much collapse [will follow], now that this faith has been undermined, because it was built upon this faith, propped up by it, grown into it, for example, the whole of European morality.” Nietzsche looked at it all, opened his mind to every bit of knowledge and understanding available. Then he drew the conclusion that God, as God had been conceived, was dead, and he was horrified by the thought. Thomas Altizer, one of the leading death of God theologians in the 1960s, wrote about the contemporary situation, calling it “a new chaos, a new meaninglessness brought on by the disappearance of an absolute or transcendent ground, the very nihilism foreseen by Nietzsche as the next stage of history.” Altizer also wrote, “No honest contemporary seeker can ever lose sight of the very real possibility that the willing of the death of God is the way to madness and dehumanization.” A Jewish thinker, Richard Rubenstein, in his book After Auschwitz, said no one could believe in the traditional God of Judaism and Christianity after Auschwitz. He wrote of “the ambiguity, the irony, the hopelessness, and the inevitable meaninglessness of the time of the death of God. ... If I am a death of God theologian, it is with a cry of agony.” (p. 263) So what we have in these particular thinkers and in this particular development is a conclusion reached in the light of the critical rationality of the modern period, the kind of knowledge that all of us take for granted in the world in which we live, © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �When God Dies… Richard A. Rhem Page 3   a world of scientific breakthrough, of technological advance, of historical understanding of human development, of the behavioral sciences, of sociology and anthropology—all of the knowledge available to us. These particular thinkers said God is dead. That is, the traditional God as conceived of in Western civilization and in Western Christendom does not exist. If you think about it for a moment, we have noted how, in the early dawn of humankind, religion was a part of that dawning human emergence. In paganism or in primitive forms, whatever you want to call it, humans became conscious of their vulnerability before the forces of the universe and created religious systems. In these systems they personified and deified the forces of nature, and then worshiped them, offering sacrifices and prayers in order to find security in this very insecure universe. So in large measure the origin of early religious expression had a great deal to do with securing human beings as they came to consciousness and realized the vulnerability of being human. With the development of the great monotheisms, one God as creator of all, governor of all, provident ruler of all—the omnipotent omniscient God—that particular God became the ground of morality. That God was Moses’ vision of God issuing the Ten Commandments. But all religion began in a founding experience with a certain understanding or teaching or dogma, developing ways of ritual and worship and a way of life or culture. If the God of any one of these religions dies, then on what authority does one base one’s morality? Nietzsche said, “God is dead, and now everything is permissible.” Not that he was advocating that, but he was saying the whole foundation is gone. Without that absolute transcendent ground, the whole European morality is gone. The human is free-floating, and that was a terrifying thought for Neitzsche. Indeed, it drove him mad. But he was one of those who, understanding what he saw, had the courage to draw the implication. There are not many in the human family who, seeing deeply and profoundly, have the courage to draw the implication when it leads to the abyss. Better that the people go blindfolded or in their naiveté than to tell the truth which could lead to chaos. The nineteenth century was a watershed, and those who would think deeply and clearly and ruthlessly must come to terms with the claims of modern knowledge. Perhaps one will not find God at the end of the scientific quest. But the religious experience must at least be conceived of in terms of our broadest understanding of reality. Otherwise, our head is in the sand, or we go through life blindfolded, or we go through life fearfully denying what is there on the horizon. Nietzsche said God is dead, and in the 1960s scholars said, “That’s where we are.” But nothing really came of it because there was such strong reaction; because it is such scary business. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �When God Dies… Richard A. Rhem Page 4   There have been responses on the part of the Christian community. For example, if you have experience with the Roman Catholic tradition, you know that it still tries to operate in an authoritarian manner, by fiat, by the teaching the Office of the Congregation for the Faith to convince the faithful of what is true and what is not true. But authoritarianism has been thrown off in the modern period and I cannot conceive of it finally ever gaining its foothold again. Then there is the global phenomenon of Pentecostalism that Harvey Cox has documented in his book Fire from Heaven. Everywhere on the globe there are people who are having the experience of God in an ecstatic experience. They are experiencing God apart from their rational faculties. They are experiencing God at the gut level, if you will, highly emotional and very satisfying temporarily. The thing about emotional fixes is that you have to have a fix again and again and again. This is not a criticism of those who find their mode of operation through that means. But certainly for us who want to engage our reasoning faculty as well, it is not enough. Pentecostalism is working, working its way in a world that became arid through the intellectualism and the skepticism of the nineteenth century. I suppose it arose in reaction to the claim that God is dead. But Pentecostalism will not work for some of us. Bless those for whom it works. There is also the reaction of Fundamentalism. Fundamentalism would like to claim to be the old, old faith, but actually it is a relatively new faith. It is a reaction to modernity. It is a reaction to Feuerbach and Marx and Freud and Nietzsche. It is a reaction to the liberal Christian Church that tried to accommodate the insights of the nineteenth century into an understanding of the Christian faith. But Fundamentalism cannot long persist because it lives by assertion of that faith; it lives by saying it over and over and more loudly. But simply to affirm does not make it true. The Evangelism 2000 Conference recently ended in Amsterdam with some 10,000 evangelists from around the world gathered by Billy Graham as his last great effort. What came out of that conference again establishes Fundamentalism: Jesus Christ alone is the only savior of the world and all that goes with that exclusive claim. I do not believe it is where Billy Graham is personally, but there were ten percent of those ten thousand people who signed a document even more rigid than the conference statement itself. Well, if you were an evangelist, wouldn’t you like to have the only key to the truth, the only key to the salvation of the world? If there were other “keys,” suddenly yours could lose its power. I suppose such a conference, such a rally, would be the last place in the world where the implications of the interfaith dialogue would be expressed. Then we have the whole area of “Christian Science.” Isn’t it amazing that in the twenty-first century there is still controversy about evolution and Creationism? Isn’t it amazing that there are very intelligent people in our country who are © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �When God Dies… Richard A. Rhem Page 5   giving all of their energy and all of their minds to the establishment and the buttressing of a literalistic view of an ancient book that was a marvelous mythological presentation of the creation of the world? It is very difficult for me to understand Creationism, and I do not believe that it can possibly prevail. But in our society today it is a living issue. I cannot comprehend that this whole effort can succeed in the long run, in the light of day before those who would be open to pursue the truth through the use of critical judgment. In the title I used a small “g” for God because it is not God who has died, but god who has died. The respective images of God that come to expression in the various religious understandings of the world no longer connect with our knowledge. Western Christian, Protestant faith in the God who is still the governor, creator, omnipotent, omniscient ruler of all—that God is the God about whom the death of God theologians speak. That is the God Nietzsche said was dead. But to say that a particular image or conception of God is dead is not to say that God is dead. It is to say nothing about that ultimate ground of being that emerges or surrounds or embraces us and comes to expression in the creativity of the Spirit in the midst of the cosmic flow of things. The God of traditional Protestant expression—that god is dead. I experienced the death of that god yesterday at the funeral of my sister. In my old home environment, the place from which I emerged, I was very much a stranger, very alien. The expression of piety in that funeral was far, far more emotional and sentimental than anything I had grown up with. Mine was a much sterner expression of Dutch mystical pietism. But there I was in my old home territory where my family still worships and I heard emotion in the musical expression, emotion in the “open mike” testimony and in the statements of the pastor, and I noted the frequent use of “we know, we know, we know.” I wanted to say, “You tell me so often how much we know because I suspect you are trying to convince yourself that it is true.” I had to admit that the god of my childhood is dead. That god will not serve for me. I do not begrudge anyone an expression of faith that is satisfying and comforting, but I know that the god they addressed is dead for me and that god will not bring fresh expression to the twenty-first century, to a world that is breaking open in the wonder and the mystery of it all. That god of my childhood died, but God has not died. I read Psalm 42 and I identify with that, don’t you? My soul longs for God, for the living God. When will I come and appear before God? O God, my soul is cast down. Why have You forgotten me? © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �When God Dies… Richard A. Rhem Page 6   I long, I yearn for the experience of God. Hope Thou in God. I shall yet praise him, my God and my Lord. That expression touches me as deeply as it did the Psalmist. But it is a God conceived quite other than the Psalmist’s image I’m sure, which is as one would expect. It should be because of the tremendous explosion of knowledge, of reality, of the world of the human being, of social reality. Of course, the image is different. And when I use the old phrases or sing the old hymns, I can do it understanding it as poetry, as the imagery of a generation of faith that preceded me, that handed faith to me. But if I want to give fresh expression, I have to find new language and that is not easy to do. If I am not honest about that, if I cannot say that god is dead in the emotionalism, in the grieving and all of that which came to expression in a service that was a marvelous testimony to my sister, my own spiritual life will wither. It was a language I can no longer use and I must say, then, that god is dead. But only a small “g” god is dead. God continues to be the mystery toward which my soul longs, longing still for living waters. When god dies, if it is the god of the small “g,” there is no need to panic. Trust. Wait. Nietzsche said, “I live between two ages, one that is dead and one powerless to be born.” We haven’t moved very far. We’re still between. Most of us are not ready to give up the old. For some of us who have had to do that, the new is not at all clear. Yet if I trust God, I can wait in hope, in the darkness, with the longing of my life reaching toward the mystery that is beyond us and beneath us and permeating the one reality into which our lives are woven. That is our quest. References: Rubenstein, Richard L. After Auschwitz. Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1966. See a discussion of Nietzsche in Richard Elliott Friedman’s The Hidden Face of God. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1995. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost X Series Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression Scripture Text Psalm 42:2, Romans 1:20 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Richard Elliott Friedman. The Hidden Face of God, 1995. (For a discussion of Nietzche). Richard L. Rubenstein. After Auschwitz, 1966. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20000813 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-08-13 Title A name given to the resource When god dies... Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 13, 2000 entitled "When god dies...", as part of the series "Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression", on the occasion of Pentecost X, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 42:2, Romans 1:20. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Divine Mystery Religion as a Human Construct https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/176abaa85fa310d8c484686d366c4c53.mp3 c23d473f7a2b91607b158e8371efb64a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e27fa7ae75d77643853299fecec7e4b4.pdf 3461431494c671dc8221549d3072c9dc PDF Text Text Religion as Illusion From the series: Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression Text: Isaiah 43:3; Ephesians 4:13; Matthew 6:3 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan August 6, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon I have within reach of my desk chair a volume of The New York Times Magazine of some three years ago which has a bright red cover and big letters in black about God. It is about the God question, and there is article after article about the quest for God in all of the respective forms of that quest and the various religious traditions, as well as within our own country and within our own Christian faith. There is an interesting piece by Jack Miles. Jack Miles wrote the book, God: A Biography, which some of you perhaps read within the last two or three years. Jack Miles writes about the resurgence of religion and he says that what is happening is the dealing with questions that have been postponed too long, questions that finally cannot be put off, questions about the ultimate meaning of life. He makes a couple of points that are fascinating to me because I suppose one always likes to have one's own biases confirmed, but we have been talking a lot here about religion as a human construct, as a response to the mystery that is God, and Jack Miles says very clearly that the resurgence of religion involves not fascination with the mystery of religion, but with the mystery in response to which the religions arise. In other words, the resurgence of religion is a serious quest for God, or for the holy, the sacred, the ultimate. The religions are response. They involve all of the dimensions of that quest that seriously hungers and thirsts after the knowledge and the experience of God. He says one other thing that pleases me very much and that is, in order for religion to have broad social viability, it needs to have established its intellectual viability, at least by a few. The social viability for the many depends upon the establishment of the intellectual viability of religion by the few. He recognizes that there are only a few that have the interest, the fascination, the patience and the preparation to investigate the intellectual foundations of religious expression, religious faith. But, he makes the point that those few are very critical for the larger practice of religion because ideas count, ideas make a difference, ideas trickle down and shape the large majority of the population eventually, and therefore, it is critical that someone somewhere, that some people somewhere engage in a serious investigation about the intellectual viability of religious faith, © Grand Valley State University   �Religion as Illusion Richard A. Rhem Page 2   and we do that here. We do it here seriously and it cannot be engaged in, it cannot be executed for us today without our going through the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century lie the roots of modern atheism and we have been looking at some of those brilliant thinkers who were atheistic in their posture and who were often anti-religious, believing that religion had to be jettisoned in order for humanity to grow up. It seems as though Ludwig Feuerbach had this idea whose time had come, the idea that God is a human projection, that our own selftranscendent capacity, our ability to step out of our skin and observe ourselves was simply absolutized and projected into heaven. What we really worship is a human projection. God is the ideal of our humanity to the extent that we are able to conceive it. Karl Marx took that idea and said religion is wishful thinking, it is consolation, it is a narcotic for the oppressed multitudes. "Religion," he said famously, "is the opium of the people." He was not severely critical of that, except that he said to the extent that religion dulls human awareness of suffering, of injustice, of what is wrong with this world. To that extent it keeps us from dealing with that wrong here and now. He saw the religious structuring as creating another world in which everything would be all right, all the wrongs would be righted and we'd finally have peace and satisfaction. So, Marx believed that to the extent that religion was a narcotic to dull us to the present, it allowed us to focus on another world, keeping us from dealing with that which had to be dealt with in order to transform the world and to bring about a just society. Sigmund Freud followed in the steps of Feuerbach, as did Marx, simply accepting the idea that God was a projection. There is no God "out there," so to speak, that there is no objective reality. Freud saw religion as illusion, as the consequence of our oldest, strongest, most urgent wishes, our human wish for security, for justice, for the prolongation of earthly life, for the future life. The oldest, strongest, most urgent wishes of humankind he saw as the seedbed of religion. He had it all mixed up with the Oedipal complex and the fact that the experience of the human race could be seen in the experience of a child, the helplessness of a child, the need for protection, looking to the father, the authority figure who is both loved and feared. The father, then, and the experience of the child, becomes the God figure that is projected outward, but, essentially, it is wish fulfillment, living by illusion. Illusion is not the same as error because the religious hopes and dreams cannot be demonstrated to be true, but they cannot be refuted, either. They are illusions; they are unfounded beliefs by which humankind lives in order to find comfort and to have hope and courage. Religion as illusion. Well, what will we say to that? In the first place, I suppose we have to recognize that much of what Freud said was true. Freud is the father of psychoanalysis, but probably also the one that made psychology in general a household word. Freud was a brilliant thinker, a careful analyzer of the human psyche. He is the one we © Grand Valley State University �Religion as Illusion Richard A. Rhem Page 3   look to as the one who uncovered that underground river of the unconscious which so powerfully influences what we think and what we do. There are so many insights that came through Freud that I'm not competent nor would I begin to try to give a synopsis of his thought, but he gave us brilliant insight into the human psyche and it was his conviction that our religious faith and practice is a childhood fantasy carried into our adulthood and that our religion is simply illusion. As I immersed myself again in these 19th century thinkers, I am impressed with the fact that they are brilliant. They are a century after the breakthrough in the natural sciences. The world was opening up; reality was opening up, and they brought to light scintillating insight. As I reflect on them in the light of my own education and training, my own nurture and upbringing, I realize what a tragedy it is that there was such an adversarial relationship between these 19th century thinkers and the Church. I suppose it was inevitable. It is probably a case of the chicken and the egg. I don't know if they were so nasty that the Church got its back up, or if they were so threatening that the Church became nasty. It may well have been the latter. But, as I see that history, I realize how much we have lost by being at enmity with some of the most brilliant thinkers of the past century. They were atheist and I think they believed that they had to be that and against religion to one degree or another, because only thus could they get the cobwebs out of our human minds and hearts so that we might grow up to come to maturity, that we might face the real world that was coming more and more to light. But, in that adversarial relationship between the Church and science, the Church and the human sciences, we lost a great deal. I saw a TV ad yesterday for Gore against Bush in which he had George Bush with a background of Houston, the smog capital of the world, and George Bush looks for all the world like he is hung over, and I said to myself, "How too bad." Of course, that's the real situation. They slug at one another and put each other down and do their best to make each other look ridiculous, but how unfortunate that that is the only way that we, the electorate, can be appealed to. There is no civil dialogue, no civil discourse, no setting forth of issues that are discussed intelligently, but rather, the other is made to look like some kind of a fool, and I thought about the way Dr. Freud was portrayed to me in my own education. He was really a bad man, a rotten man. He was really a reason why religion was in deep trouble because of his terrible threat, because of his thinking, because of his ideas. I so wish that someone at some point would have sat me down and said, "Look at the brilliant insights that are coming to light. If you could only hear them," because there is much religious expression that is illusion and there are an awful lot of people who cling to religion as a crutch in their weakness, their insecurity. There is an awful lot of lack of reality in religious expression in the Christian Church as well as other religions. Only when one comes to acknowledge that and understand that is one going to be able to put religion on a more sure foundation © Grand Valley State University �Religion as Illusion Richard A. Rhem Page 4   in light of the modern world. We have still in the traditional, classical paradigm of Christian faith, not come to terms with the knowledge that has come to light in the last two and a half centuries, and the critique of religion that has come forth in the nineteenth century is a significant critique that uncovered great weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the intellectual understanding of the faith, which in turn has its repercussions in practice and in life. What a shame that in the Church we have not had enough confidence to hear the critique that could open up to us new questions that could give us a new understanding and greater confidence in the expression of our faith and practice. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who took in, absorbed all of this trained development of thought of the 19th century and into the early 20th century and who, in his brilliant mind, able to assimilate all of that, got himself into a situation where, of course, he was arrested because of his conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, finds himself in jail, in prison thinking the faith. His Letters and Papers From Prison are a spiritual gem, a document that can keep one engaged for a long, long time. I have given you some citations in the back of your liturgy for your meditation this afternoon. But, what I love about Bonhoeffer is that, having taken in all of the critique of religion, he was able to admit to much of it. He spoke of man come of age; that was his classic phrase. He spoke of God being edged more and more out of this world in terms of the explanation for how things work. He acknowledged the present situation without arguing with it or trying to refute it. He said, "This is it. Now what will we do?" And he began to think about how Christ could be meaningful even to those who were without faith in God. He asked questions about religionless Christianity, what would it look like? And this I love, he said, "I want to confront people in their strength. I don't want to take rather healthy, well-adjusted, somewhat affluent people who are getting along just fine and try to convince them how miserable they are so that I can give them a Gospel pill to make them better." He said that is unworthy of the Gospel. Let us confront the human person at his or her very strength, with God. How does one encounter those who are doing just fine, thank you, those who are reasonably well-adjusted, reasonably happy, reasonably prosperous, doing a good job - how does one convince them that underneath there is a hunger and a restlessness which only the God quest can finally satisfy? How does one present God to people's strength, not to their weakness? How does one look them in the eye and not whine? This was Bonhoeffer's quest. This was the thing that occupied him and he was wrestling with the faith with a great intensity in those days of incarceration. I thought about Isaiah 43 because Bonhoeffer was certainly going through a dark valley. He must have known the very real possibility that any day his name would be called. But they say that in prison he was a shining light, a source of encouragement, the embodiment of hope, thinking as he was thinking about God and religion in the light of everything that he had understood and studied and become aware of, he was able, nonetheless, when his name was called to say to © Grand Valley State University �Religion as Illusion Richard A. Rhem Page 5   his friend, "This is the end, the beginning of life." He could kneel at the hangman's noose and commit his life to God. In other words, his quest, his engagement with the God question was not that which undercut his trust, but it was his trust that enabled him thus to query and to quest. He was able to ask those questions while experiencing what the prophet spoke of as that presence in the midst of the flame, through the rushing river. He was able to live as Jesus pointed us to in that Sermon on the Mount. He was in sync with reality as he understood it; the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, Jesus said, pointing to creation, to be able to be at one with that and to live with trust. I am not trying to say that Isaiah was not a theist or that Jesus was not a theist, for that matter. I am saying that in their understanding of God they were able to point us to a presence that would be with us, and one of the things that we struggle with in our own day as we try to interpret the faith and translate the faith is how to say God, how to image God, because it is that image of a theistic God, the governor of the universe pulling the gears and turning the wheels, that God "out there" who controls us and pulls the strings, that God that doesn't work for me anymore and for many of us. It is the re-imagining of that God that is the difficult task. But, it doesn't mean that one has to live without God, for one can believe that if God is God, after all, God will be sufficient for whatever comes. And to think thus and to wrestle thus is not in order finally to have an intellectual answer, but it is finally in order to have peace with God, to have that kind of confident non-anxious living to come, as Paul said, to maturity. Or, as Freud said, to grow up, to move beyond childhood illusions and superstitions and magic, to be able to think deeply and to entertain every idea and concept and every suggestion anywhere with a confident trust that somehow or other there will be a fresh expression. Paul said, "No longer being children tossed about by every wind of doctrine through the cunning and scheming of people like me." Think of Paul. Think of the transformation of Paul. Think of this passionate, deeply traditioned Jew who was able to turn around and to come to a new expression that enabled him to say in the face of Jesus, "My God!" You see, if we are not afraid, then we can ask the questions, clarify the questions and wait in the darkness if need be for the clearing and for the answer, but all of it is finally that we might rest in the Lord, having the presence through the flood and through the fire, and be able to take the name of the Lord upon our lips with our last breath, to be able to live and to die and to be all right. That is our quest. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost IX Series Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression Scripture Text Isaiah 43:3, Ephesians 4:13, Matthew 6:3 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20000806 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-08-06 Title A name given to the resource Religion As Illusion Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 6, 2000 entitled "Religion As Illusion", as part of the series "Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression", on the occasion of Pentecost IX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 43:3, Ephesians 4:13, Matthew 6:3. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Divine Presence Nature of Religion Spiritual Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6d3fd1aa30df4163f9d9ed08e23d0ec1.mp3 29b5c8141d5936fd0db39c089cac373d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4540e21db0926f15d96182c32e2b6973.pdf 44cdc67dd6a0e239b12e4b4a44e8e69f PDF Text Text Religion as Prozac From the series: Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression Scripture: Matthew 11:28 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost VIII, July 30, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon I began last week a series of message in which I want to acknowledge the significant critique of religion that arose in the last century, and doing it in order that we might find fresh expression, in order that we might respond to those meaningful criticisms that were made of religion. The critique of religion in the 19th century was really a natural follow-up to the whole transformation of the landscape through the development in the 18th century of the scientific method, empirical investigation, actually looking at the world and observing, experimenting, testing. The scientific method which has shaped our whole modern understanding of reality, getting its full speed in the 18th century eventuated in the 19th century with the development we call historical thinking when people began to think about where they were in light of the past, how things developed, the history of institutions, forms and structures, religion being one of them. We began to understand that one can only understand the present in light of that which gave it birth and through its development over years or centuries or millennia. So, people began to think about their religious experience, for example, their religious tradition in terms of the history of its development, and began to see, began to understand that, as we said last week, religion is a human construct, that really all of the respective religions are human constructs. They can't be anything else. A Moses has an experience of a burning bush and I would say a genuine and authentic experience of the mystery that we call God. But, how does it come to expression? The only possibility is through human language, and if that is an authentic experience of the living God, a community will gather around it, and if a community gathers around it, there will be a teaching. Somehow or other a Moses will have to explicate that experience. Before long, there is a creed, and as a community gathers, it will have forms of expression, liturgies, rituals, prayers, hymns; that whole cultic experience will be produced. And then, of course, someone will say in light of that experience, then how should we live? And so you have the whole ethical domain. © Grand Valley State University   �Religion as Prozac Richard A. Rhem Page 2   We began to see that that is the nature of religion - a founding experience, a teaching, a mode of devotion, a way of life. And the reason that religion has been a universal human experience is that it is that exercise, that observance in which we are consciously and intentionally engaged with that ultimate mystery of things, those ultimate questions that drive our existence. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What does it mean? What is the purpose of it all? Is there any meaning or purpose in this human existence of mine? Those are questions that are age-old; they dawn with the dawning consciousness of the human person, and they are with us still. They haven't run out of their legitimacy or their validity. They are the inevitable questions. An interesting thing happened in the 19th century. Along came those social revolutionaries and among those social revolutionaries, reflecting on the history of religion and seeing religion as dealing with those ultimate questions, was a thinker named Ludwig Feuerbach who recognized that the mark of the human being is that a human being can jump out of his or her skin and reflect on him or herself. We don't have a dog anymore, but I used to love to use our dog as an example. Hershey could look at me with those beautiful big brown eyes, but he never scratched his ear and said, "Here I am, looking at you looking at me." Now, I will do that. I might pause for a moment and say, "Here I am on this stool, speaking to you who are listening to me," and I might reflect on this moment. I might jump out of my skin and observe myself in this moment. That's a mark of being human. That's self-consciousness. That's the capacity for self-transcendence. Feuerbach recognizing that capacity for self-transcendence, said that is exactly what God is. God is the project, the product, the projection of our wishes and desires and fears and sense of dependence projected outward unto the screen of reality. God is simply the projection of man's own infinite nature. It must have been an idea whose day had come because it caught fire, it struck gold, it became the unquestioned assumption of much 19th century thinking. And then along came Karl Marx, who said religion is not just the projection of the individual's wishes and desires outward; rather, religion is the projection of society's hopes and dreams outward. Marx said Feuerbach dealt with the essence of the human, but that is an abstraction. Religion is really the result of people who are suffering, who are finding consolation in the promise of another world, a better world, a world where there are streets of gold and angels in attendance and the glory of God. Marx said religion is the opium of the people. Now, that from many pulpits has been pounded on and misconstrued, really. Marx was not criticizing religion at that point. Marx was saying the function of religion is to console people who are living in human anguish, and in that sense, it was a positive thing. It enabled people in dire human circumstances, which marked 19th century European mass population, to get comfort, consolation. In their human distress and oppression, they are consoled by the comforts of © Grand Valley State University �Religion as Prozac Richard A. Rhem Page 3   religion which is the construction of another world and another age, that gives them hope and it keeps them going. Now, Marx went further to say that because they are consoled and comforted, and because they are kept somewhat at peace, they don't see their world as a world that needs to be changed. They accept their oppressed situation, waiting for their vindication and eventual redemption in another world, in another time, and to that extent, Marx was critical of religion. To that extent, Marx believed that one had to tear the flowers off the chains that bound the human being, not simply so the human being would live with the bleak chains, but so that the human being finding that, in fact, we are bound and shackled, would throw off the shackles, and of course, Karl Marx was looking for that great social revolution. Marx was looking for the class warfare, for the workers of the world to arise and to overthrow the rulers of this world and to bring in the classless society, the Utopia, in which case he said, in Utopia religion will disappear because there won't be any need for religion. It will be superfluous, because in a classless society where all are living equitably and justly, there would be no need for the consolations of religion. And so, it will simply disappear. Lenin, following Marx, said not simply that religion is the opium of the people, but that it is opium for the people, and he charged the priesthood and the rich and powerful of the world, those who held the power, with intentionally keeping people in the shackles through the consolation of religion. He saw it as a scheme, as a conspiracy. Keep the people singing hymns so that they don't realize how bad their situation really is. That was the critique in the 19th century, a powerful critique of institutional religion and primarily Christian religion, Judeo-Christian religion, at least, and it is a criticism that had a great deal of legitimacy, for the Church did miss the boat with the working class, the masses of the European continent of the 19* century. There was a great alienation. I suspect that Europe in its post-Christian state today may be in part, at least, explained by the failure of the 19th century Church to deal with the actual social problems of the 19th century. There was a collusion of throne and altar and those who were in control and set the terms for society failed to recognize the alienation of the masses, and that was a legitimate criticism, the fruit of which we are reaping even today. There was another factor that Marx saw clearly and that was that religion was still claiming that it could explain the world rather than recognizing that religion doesn't explain the world, science explains the world. We were in that transition period when religion was still trying to say that in the Bible, for example, there is a knowledge of history and there is the explanation of scientific reality, the reality of our world, and it enabled Marx to show the backward looking, closemindedness of the Church. The Church has been dragged kicking and screaming into the kingdom at every point with the explosion of human knowledge. As I said last week, good religion will open the mind but traditional religion has © Grand Valley State University �Religion as Prozac Richard A. Rhem Page 4   characteristically sought to close the mind, and so there was that battle between exploding knowledge and the retro view of the Church and that enabled Marx' s criticism to be more poignant because it was obvious to those who sat up and looked. As a matter of fact, the world was exploding with knowledge while the Church lived in its benighted, dogmatic slumber. There was a significant criticism of religion and as always happens we don't believe strongly enough, we don't trust deeply enough in the Church and so we react very poorly to those criticisms. But, we can also look from the perspective of 100 or 150 years to see that, thank God, Marx was wrong. Marx was wrong in his analysis of social development and the way that history would go. Marx didn't foresee it all, that a dominant capitalism had the capacity to change and to become more socially sensitive. The great class warfare, thank God, never eventuated, and Marx's Utopia which was a figment of his imagination anyway, of course, never arrived. So, we can say that in his historical development and his view of the future, he was wrong. But I think the most fundamental way in which Marx was wrong is his failure to understand the nature of religion and this is really where I changed my mind about what I wanted to say this morning. Marx was saying, as a matter of fact somewhat positively, that religion is a sedative, it's a narcotic, that it dulls people to the pain of existence. Lenin, as I said, more negatively said that it is fed to people in order to bewitch them, in order to drug them and give them no sense of the reality of the life that they are living. And religion can have that manifestation. Religion can be an orgy. Once in a while I watch that late night television stuff and I see people totally entranced and at other times whooping it up in the pews and dancing in the aisles and blowing whistles and waving their hands and being slain in the Spirit, being absolutely like a cold mackerel at the altar, and I think to myself that is nothing but a narcotic. It reminds me of the person about the fourth row one week here years ago who started saying "Amen" and pretty soon waving the arms, and getting generally enthusiastic about the sermon, when an usher went up and tapped him on the shoulder and the man said, "I got religion," to which the usher replied, "Well, you didn't get it here." So, I look at some of that and I realize that religion can drug, it can be an emotional orgy. And then, this is where I changed my mind, I said to myself, "What's wrong with that?" Because Marx was right - it's tough to be human. Now, there aren't any that I know of here that would fit into that 19th century oppressed class for which Marx spoke prophetically, but what Marx thought was that religion was just a consolation for those who were oppressed. He failed to realize that religion is something far deeper in the human being, dealing with those ultimate questions which we, be we poverty-stricken, hungry and naked, or among the rich and the famous, have those questions that cannot be denied. Human existence is tough and we are all faced with those limit situations. We celebrate births, but children die and, as a matter of fact, we'll all die and what does it mean to be a part of this human scene? Those are questions that fill us © Grand Valley State University �Religion as Prozac Richard A. Rhem Page 5   with wonder and sometimes with deep confusion, and before it, we seek some meaning, some clue to what it is all about. Why are you here this morning? Why have you stuck with the Church when multitudes and multitudes and many of them clear-eyed and thinking people, have simply abandoned the Church? Why are we still doing this? I suspect because we still feel the need, the importance of community, of a supportive community in which we can engage in the human quest together, in which we can raise our questions, in which before the mystery of life and in its joys and in its sadness, we can be supportive of one another, a community in which we can experience care and express compassion. I suppose those of us who haven't left are simply giving evidence of an ongoing spiritual hunger and thirst. I said to someone not so long ago, most of the people to whom I could appeal have left the Church and most of the people still in the Church wish I had left. There are all kinds of spiritual hunger, all kinds of questions and all kinds of questings out in the world beyond the walls of the Church because religion is not just a matter of consoling people in their oppression as a kind of narcotic, a sedative against reality, but it is the quest, the human quest. Our religion is a human construct, but it becomes the agent and the vehicle by which we come into the presence of that ultimate mystery and are faced with those ultimate questions and find a community in which we can think together and reflect together and, in the meantime, find that supportive love and encouragement that enables us to go on in the midst of deep waters, through the fiery furnace, knowing that we are not alone. I found a piece in Cahill's Desire of the Everlasting Hills, which is a quote from Potok's Asher Lev, a story of Asher Lev, an observant Jew going into The Duomo in Florence, this great, grand structure, and, finding Michelangelo's final old Pieta, as an observant Jew, is transfixed by it and he stares at it. He said, I stared at the geometry of the stone and felt the stone luminous with strange suffering and power. I was an observant Jew, yet that block of stone moved through me like a cry... like the call of seagulls over morning surf, like the echoing blasts of the shofar sounded by the Rebbe. I do not mean to blaspheme. My frames of reference have been finally formed by the life I have lived. I do not know how a devout Christian reacts to that Pieta; I was only able to relate it to elements in my own lived past. I stared at it. I walked slowly around it. I do not remember how long I was there that first time. When I came back out into the brightness of the crowded square, I was astonished to discover my eyes were wet. (Thomas Cahill, Desire of the Everlasting Hills, p. 302F) Somehow or other, all of the human suffering, for Asher Lev, was gathered up in that sculpture and in a moment transfixed, the stone like a cry, pierced him. © Grand Valley State University �Religion as Prozac Richard A. Rhem Page 6   One never knows when or where that will happen. Authentic religion is the opening of the soul and the heart to that which will not be domesticated in our religious structures nor our creedal formulas nor our liturgies, but that which will address us as human, speaking to us of a mysterious dimension of reality that we can never grasp, but in the meantime, in the moment, it is speaking to us words such as, "All will be well. All will be well. All manner of things will be well." Religion is the poetry of the soul that lives in a world that can be explained by the natural sciences in terms of its structure of reality. Religion gives us the images that somehow or other inspire hope, that speak to that longing, that thirsting, that yearning for that we know not what, but we call God. Five or six years ago there were ten million people on Prozac and 80% responded favorably. That's wonderful. It's wonderful how our unbalanced chemistry can be brought into balance to enhance life and to make us alive, fully alive, fruitful and effective. So, all hail to Prozac. So, why not religion as Prozac? Why not in the midst of my sweaty existence, hearing a word like "Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I suspect you come here week after week for a phrase of a hymn, a paragraph of the scripture, a song, or the meanderings of a preacher and just maybe sometimes, now and again, there is the rifting of the sky and heaven shines through, and that's as good, maybe better, than Prozac, although it can be addicting. References: Thomas Cahill. Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus. Anchor, 2001. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost VIII Series Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression Scripture Text Matthew 11:28 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Thomas Cahill. Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus,, 2001. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20000730 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-07-30 Title A name given to the resource Religion As Prozac Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 30, 2000 entitled "Religion As Prozac", as part of the series "Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression", on the occasion of Pentecost VIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Matthew 11:28. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Community Nature of Religion Spiritual Quest