24 24 1045 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/efbe7c22dea14e702a994e50bb99fb83.mp3 823327da166234c0978b2522e5b6f9ca 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 II Series New Testament Series Scripture Text II Corinthians 4:6, John 14:6, 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-0-19950115 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1995-01-15 Title A name given to the resource Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life 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 January 15, 1995 entitled "Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life", as part of the series "New Testament Series", on the occasion of Epiphany II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: II Corinthians 4:6, John 14:6, 9. 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/8de484398ddb136691adb4df48646a9a.mp3 bdc9dda7e52313fd360dc3812d32503b 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 Luke 2:32-35 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-0-19950108 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1995-01-08 Title A name given to the resource Good News! The Light Has Come! 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 January 8, 1995 entitled "Good News! The Light Has Come!", on the occasion of Epiphany I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 2:32-35. 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/285ffa64475e4b871e28d333de0388e9.mp3 ad691fcbd7348b6e1979e6e9bab1c23c 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 Isaiah 43:1, 14, 18-19 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-0-19941231 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-12-31 Title A name given to the resource Remember... Remember Not 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 December 31, 1994 entitled "Remember... Remember Not", on the occasion of New Years Eve, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 43:1, 14, 18-19. 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/fc7aab70eab7737a64cb1ff24e2b0143.pdf 9f13becf1aa9ced24403c50169eaef2c PDF Text Text Birth: The Way Home From the Advent series: Home Text: John 1:12-13; John 3:3 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Christmas Day, December 25, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon In his poem, “For The Time Being,” W. H. Auden writes, “Nothing can save us that is possible. We who must die demand a miracle,” and so we do. The Advent theme of “Home” culminates today as we note that birth is the way home. And birth is a miracle. Birth is not a human possibility; it is the gift of God. Not this morning that we celebrate the literal birth of the Christ Child, but the birth that the Christ Child pointed to and made available to us: that birth from above, or being born again as it is popularly referred to. It is that birth and only that birth which is the way home. We’ve noted the yearning for home in the human heart. Last week we established the impossibility of home, the impossibility as a human possibility. But let me celebrate with you this morning the reality of spiritual birth—that new birth which is the gift of God. It is that miracle that we who must die demand, for nothing humanly possible can save us. New birth – that’s the way that John describes it in the Christmas story that he tells, which is not with all the familiar accouterments of stars and angels and bright shining song, but rather in a cosmic eternal drama. In the prologue to his story of Jesus, he begins in the beginning, in fact before the beginning. He says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Then he tells how that Word was in human history, in the history of that special people that God had called. But that Word, coming to his own, was not received. “He came to his own, but they received him not.” But there were a few, John tells us. Some received him and some believed, and to them he gave power to become the children of God. John is very clear that that is not a human possibility, for he stresses that those who believed in his name were born not of the blood or of the flesh, or of human will, but of God. For birth, the way home, is not a human possibility. It is God’s gift and it is all of grace. In order to explicate the themes of his prologue, John tells us in the third chapter the story of Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a respected leader in Israel, a rabbi, a great teacher. Nicodemus was curious about this one Jesus who had caused such a stir and to whom the common people listened gladly. He came to him by night to learn the secret of that spiritual reality, that world that seemed so foreign to © Grand Valley State University   �Birth: The Way Home Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Nicodemus. Jesus said to him, “You must be born from above.” And Nicodemus, as the foil for this mysterious teaching, says “How can one enter a second time into his mother’s womb?” Jesus replies, “I’m not talking about literal physical birth. I am talking about that miracle that happens to one. That miracle that no one can manipulate and no one can force that is not at our disposal. I’m talking about that birth from above, where the breath or the wind of the Spirit of God blows where it wills. You see the effects of it, but you don’t know whence it comes of whither it goes; the mystery of the movement of God who has invaded our space and our time in the miracle of the Word become flesh, whose Spirit continues to riffle our hearts and create newness within us.” Nicodemus probably stands for the classical, institutional religion, that institutional religion which is so very valuable because it keeps the story alive and it continues in a community like this where the story is cared for and nurtured, and where the rituals are enacted, and where we baptize children, and take bread and cup. The institutional religion is so very important because the Spirit always needs form. But Jesus in his conversation with Nicodemus made it very clear that institutional religion and ritual and form such as we are all participating in is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end. And, the end in itself is new birth. It is a spiritual life. It is newness that is created that comes upon us silently, mysteriously; that new spiritual reality that opens up whole new worlds before us and brings us home wherever we are in whatever circumstance. When one has been born from above, one is birthed into a whole new reality and that is the end of Christmas. That is the end of incarnation. And that is the glad Good News that has come to the world in the birth of one who said, “You must be born again.” To be born again. That phrase has entered into popular terminology in our day, hasn’t it? Wasn’t it Jimmy Carter who in his presidential campaign brought the term to common usage? I think perhaps it was, and since that time don’t I remember a cover on Time Magazine some years ago that talked about the “Born Again” phenomena. Since it has become so popular, everybody gets ‘born’d again’ now and again—athletes, celebrities; any kind of a peak experience is now referred to in common parlance as being ‘born again.’ Of course, when that happens it tends to drain such an ideal, or such a reality, of its deep spiritual meaning. Yet, maybe the very usage of the term is the way people at large get the idea that it dawns upon them that there is something more than just getting up in the morning and going to work and coming home and going to bed to get up in the morning . . . and all of the routine of our ordinary days where we can live such one-dimensional lives, unaware of rumors of angels and intimations of transcendence. Maybe the fact that being ‘born again’ has entered into common parlance is a sign that people are becoming aware, that there is another whole world and the possibility of newness into which one might be created. Nicodemus, thank God, I think had the experience because if you read further on in John’s Gospel (after the crucifixion as a matter of fact), you’ll find that it was Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, that took down the body of Jesus © Grand Valley State University �Birth: The Way Home Richard A. Rhem Page 3   and embalmed it an put spices upon it and laid Jesus to rest—at some great risk, of course. We are told also by John that there were many of the leaders who believed in Jesus but secretly, daring not to say anything because they loved the honor of men rather than the glory of God. I think Nicodemus had the experience, and it wasn’t something that was contrary to the ways of a great religious teacher in Israel, a great rabbi, but it was something more . . . more than just the institutional forms, more than just the thing in itself and the practice of religion. I think Nicodemus as an old man experienced new birth, and that’s the wonderful possibility, and it’s the promise of Christmas. And it’s the promise for all of us as well in our day. We live in a most exciting time. We live in an age of transition. When did it begin? I don’t know exactly. When will something jell? I am not at all sure, but we’re living in a hinge period. We are living in a fascinating time, and for some a very anxious time, because some of the old forms and structures have been shaken a bit. Some of the foundations are crumbling a bit. You see, a culture goes along on its way rather thoughtlessly and almost automatically for a long time, maybe centuries. Then the myths and the ideas and the common assumptions that are held by everyone lose their grip on the human imagination. People begin to think that perhaps there’s something other, and perhaps it is that there are angels that hover about and send messages, perhaps in the intuition and the depths of the human being. Then old ways are questioned and institutions begin to falter, and the guardians of the law, and the guardians of the old tradition hang on with desperate clutching fear, trying to buoy up structures that no longer will carry the freight. We live in such a time as that. There are a lot of people that are afraid and are anxious. You always at times like that hear the cry that we ought to go back to a former day. Nostalgia fills the air as though there really were “good old days.” If we really describe the “good old days” we would find that we’ve moved a long way beyond those “good old days,” those common assumptions that everyone took for granted. We live in a day when there are many people and whole nations, and whole groups of people that are coming to consciousness and to self-awareness and are saying, “We too are human. Look at us. Give us our day, our ‘place in the sun.’ ” We live in a day that is full of the rising of expectation and of dreams and desires. We live in a time when the old ways simply won’t do it any more. It’s a time of transition. It’s a fascinating time. The cover story in Newsweek Magazine, November 28, 1994,“The Search For The Sacred,” gives accounts of all kinds of people who are searching for something that, perhaps without their knowing it, has been born from above. A spirit has taken hold of them and they are simply not satisfied any more to live in that old way, some of them very successful in the old way of the world, the commonly accepted way. Some of them are getting ‘off the trolley’ as it were and simply saying, “There must be more.” They must have had a sense of angels and intimations of eternity coming to birth in their heart. Some of them are seeking © Grand Valley State University �Birth: The Way Home Richard A. Rhem Page 4   that spiritual reality in the most bizarre fashion. But we live in a day in which there is a widespread and general spiritual awakening. I want to say that very clearly because we hear so much of the opposite. We hear so much that denigrates our present day, that there is so much wrong with our world, and that society is so filled with ills and all of that negative talk. God knows there are enough problems to deal with in the social structure of our society and our world, but I believe that Christ has come and light has come, and the yeast of the Spirit is continuing to permeate the history of humankind. And I believe that we live in one of the most fascinating times that it has ever been possible for anyone to live. We live in a time where spiritual openness and curiosity and sensitivity have emerged, such as have never been known before. I do believe that. When you have a news magazine covering this spiritual quest of a multitude of people in great diversity, then you know that there is something afoot in the world. There is so much in the dreams of humankind spoken by the poets in great beauty with all kinds of images that the world has never yet realized. Will we always simply live with dreams and never come to reality? Or will those dreams, will the poets finally get through to the marrow of our bones? Will this world be transformed one day? Oh, not in a superficial optimism, but look about you. Recognize that you have brothers and sisters around this world who are not satisfied any longer to live in a closed world, one story with no angels, no transcendence, no love at the core of things, no beating of the heart to the needs of the other, those who would simply dominate rather than build community. We live in a fascinating day. There are great possibilities in our day as we stand at the edge of the future, the third millennium, a time that seems to bring out the fear and anxiety of people, but rather ought to be for us an invitation to invite the newness that is created by the eternal Spirit of God. Home is through birth. It is not a human possibility. But, by God, it happens here and there, and it is happening, and I believe it will happen in widespread fashion as the millennium comes around. It’s a wonderful time in which to be alive. For example, I think there are people all over in different religious traditions who are beginning to wake up to one another. We live in a decade that is on the edge of the third millennium. I do believe that the next millennium will be not a millennium of religious absolutism, but of a pluralism that is open to the other, where we share the spiritual riches and the endowments that we have all received, where together we grow into a greater understanding of the reality of life and the depths of love. This is a world in which a statesman such as Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia calls on world leaders to wake up to the spiritual reality and to build a global world community, which is obviously necessary. This is a day in which to come alive to the riches of our own tradition, to be ready to share them, and to be ready as well to receive the riches of others – rather than closing ourselves off, opening ourselves up to the reality of spirituality that is being © Grand Valley State University �Birth: The Way Home Richard A. Rhem Page 5   created by the one true God who has come to us, sharp focused in the face of Jesus Christ. Or, if you want to go into another area, the area of the sciences. If you would trace as you’ve heard me say many times, the history of the science of physics, you would find that, in the wake of new physical theory, there has always been a breakthrough in theological understanding. It was in the rise of the Age of Reason, the Modern Age, the Enlightenment, with Newtonian physics that we’ve got this closed cause and effect universe. And rationalism dominated the scene. The human mind was the measure of truth and reality. Then along comes an Einstein with his Theory of Relativity that I don’t understand, but which I know really threw a wrench into the Newtonian machine that had so neatly described reality. Then, of course, building on Einstein was Niels Bohr, the Scandinavian, the Danish physicist, who comes up with Quantum Theory. He and Einstein were friends but toward the end of their life they couldn’t communicate any more because Einstein couldn’t quite go along with the indeterminacy, the unpredictability, the randomness, the mystery of this physical universe. Einstein said of God, “The Old Man doesn’t play dice.” Bohr said, “Oh yes, the Old Man does. This world is filled with more potential, more infinite possibility than any predictability on the part of anyone who has yet thought about these things.” Then if you read the implications of Quantum physics you know about the possibility of parallel universes. We hear of black holes and no one knows what black holes are, but what if you could go through a black hole and find yourself in another whole universe through a time warp, in another whole age, in another whole reality? You think that’s poppy cock? It’s the stuff of science fiction and the stuff of science fiction usually is the prelude to what everybody knows in another century or two. There will be a day when our enlightenment thought, our heavy rationalism, our bowing down to the God of human reason will look so shoddy and so shabby, we’ll laugh at our silly smallness in the light of the infinity of the universe that has been created by the Eternal God who can never be defined and will never be brought into a corner. This God who creates and continues to create in an expanding universe whose deepest minds, probing it, stand in wonder of it all. There is more wonder and awe in the natural sciences today than in those of us who are people of the Book, who know it all, have it all wrapped, all sealed up, and have the definitions down pat. No, home is a way of birth. Home comes by opening oneself up to a miracle. It comes silently. It comes unpredictably. It comes without being able to demand it. It comes . . . and when it comes . . . and when it has happened . . . one says, “Oh, my God! I never would have thought . . .” and then all of our hopes and dreams and all of our creeds and scientific propositions are like child’s play in the face of the reality that breaks through and comes within our grasp. Ah! It’s a fascinating time in which to be the people of God. It’s a fascinating time to acknowledge the © Grand Valley State University �Birth: The Way Home Richard A. Rhem Page 6   possibility of new birth, of being born from beyond ourselves, of being born into newness such as we’ve never yet dreamed of. I want to interrupt this sermon with a commercial. I want to tell you that you have a Team whose quartet of voices are ready to lead you into the newness and the excitement that lies beyond the horizon. You have in Colette one whose faith formation will tell the children the “Old, Old Stories” with question and wonder and awe, so that the children we baptize will know the stories that have shaped us. Then you have, in our young friend Bob, one who will care for you and also challenge you and lead you into social engagement in order that the world of which the prophets dreamed where lion and lamb will lie down together, where they would beat swords into plow shares and spears into pruning hooks, where they would learn war no more, where they would not hurt nor destroy in all God’s holy mountain not because of an enforced Roman peace, but because of justice and equity and compassion and community – you have in young Bob Kleinheksel one who will lead you to the edge and push you over. And if you are hungry, if you are looking for something more, if you would see a rift in the heavens, if you would be born again, come to Peter who will lead you with prayer and meditation, and a cultivation of a spirituality which is the wave of the future where we are all going. And I . . . I hope, simply, to skid into the next millennium on their coattails. This is a wonderful day in which to be alive. Nothing can save us that is possible. We who must die demand a miracle. And the miracle has happened. It happens and one breathes deeply and everything so familiar and known and ordinary is transformed with a radiance that shines out of the depths of eternity. The light has come for those who have eyes to see it. The Word has been enfleshed in those who would touch it . . . for just a moment. For just a moment let’s have the lights dimmed. The evangelical church has missed the point so often because it has said that if you would believe, or if you would assent to this, or if you would have faith you would be born again. It’s backwards. Being born again is not a human possibility. It is not the end of some human effort. It is not the will of the flesh or human will. It is of God. But in just a moment or two, be open to the miracle. Just breathe deeply, for who knows, there could be in this moment the intersection of eternity with time, and the likes of us might be born from above. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5602ab8006105ca2be395c30f23cc4f1.mp3 e5d450ab7aafd6dbe73cd9732743cd25 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 Day Scripture Text John 1:12-13, John 3:3 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-0-19941225 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-12-25 Title A name given to the resource Birth the Way Home 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 25, 1994 entitled "Birth the Way Home", on the occasion of Christmas Day, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 1:12-13, John 3:3. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Christmas Incarnation Mystery Spiritual Quest Transforming Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2e31a4b702d0cb9f5551cf93fd77a735.pdf 2e4e68e4d92dc1970b084ad89b322a27 PDF Text Text The Dream of Peace Christmas Eve Service Text: Micah 5:5; Luke 2:15 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan December 24, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "... and he shall be the one of peace." Micah 5:5 "... and on earth peace..." Luke 2:15 The Christmas Gospel seems to be such a warm and cozy message. But as a matter of fact I think, if we really see it in its context, it was a strong political statement. Luke pitted the Gospel of peace that came through Jesus over against the peace of the Roman Empire—the Pax Romano, that two hundred year period of relative peace in the ancient world that was made possible through the government of imperial Rome. Peace has been an ancient dream. I wonder how old it is? I suppose it goes back to the very first folk who experienced violence and terror, and began to live with insecurity. There must have always been something in the depths of the human soul that yearned for peace. It is a very deep primal longing of the human heart— the longing for peace. Personal peace surely, but wellbeing and peace in the community of people, the nations. Israel's dreamers dreamed of peace in a world that was very much like our world, the rise of one empire and the fall of another, the smaller people squeezed between the paws of the great powers. There were those poets and dreamers in Israel who had a vision of a different kind of world. Micah was one such. In the fourth chapter of his prophecy we read, "In the days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains." And then he goes on to envision Mt. Zion as that highest point of the world toward which all of the nations would flow and learn the law and the truth of God. He goes on to say,"they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; and nations shall not lift up swords against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." One of Israel's poets, one of the ancient world's dreamers who looked about him and said, "You know, there's a different kind of a world that is possible. There's a different kind of a world that ought to be." © Grand Valley State University   �The Dream of Peace Richard A. Rhem Page 2   It's interesting that it wasn't only Israel's dreamers and poets, but the great Roman poet Virgil, in the year 41-42 BC in his fourth epilogue, announces the birth of a World Savior. He announces in this poem the coming era of peace. It comes through the birth of a child he says, and probably the child that he had in mind was Octavian. Octavian was the great nephew of Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar adopted Octavian as his own son, and when Virgil wrote this poem and gave expression to this vision of a child being born into the world to save the world and bring it peace, he very likely had Octavian in mind. But as he wrote, Julius Caesar was assassinated. There ensued fifteen years of terrible civil war. It was only in 29 BC when Octavian came back to Rome, the victor, having defeated Anthony and Cleopatra, that he becomes ruler and Caesar. Whether or not Octavian took the poem of Virgil as his destiny, I don't know. But his very first official act in 29 BC was to close the temple of Janus, the double-faced God of war. And he continued to strive to create peace. In the year 9 BC Octavian Augustus, called Augustus Caesar now, dedicated the great Augustine Altar of Peace and what ensued was what the historians call the Pax Romano, the Roman peace. In 1890, in Asia Minor, there was discovered an inscription, an inscription to Augustus the Son of God. Julius Caesar had been elevated to the status of a state god after his assassination and his adopted son Augustus, thus was Son of God. This inscription that was discovered in 1890, and subsequently in other places as well, proclaimed to the eastern world, peace through this Savior who would fulfill the dreams of humankind. Ancestral hopes would be realized, and the broken world would be mended and healed. If this proclamation came out of Asia Minor, and if Caesar Augustus dedicated the Great Altar of Peace about 9 BC, we can be fairly certain that Luke, who writes the story of Jesus was aware of it because, when he tells us about the story of Jesus, he tells us that Caesar Augustus was in power and Quirinius was the Roman Governor, and all the world was called to be taxed. Luke sets the birth of Jesus in the context of a Roman world, in the context of a Roman peace, in the context of an ancient world in which had been proclaimed the Saviorhood and the peace-bringing of one, Caesar Augustus. It was a legitimate dream of peace. It was an expression of a universal, human yearning, longing for a different kind of a world. But the peace of Caesar Augustus was a different peace than the peace of Jesus. So I have to believe that Luke was making a political statement. I think he was juxtaposing the peace of Jesus over against the peace of Caesar Augustus, because the peace of Caesar Augustus was not the peace of Micah, the prophet. The peace of Caesar Augustus was an enforced peace; it was a peace that was a consequence of the heavy hand of Rome that could enforce its edicts with its legions. It kept the world at bay. There was some great benefit of that, to be sure, but it was not the peace that comes from human community built on justice of the heart, of which the prophets dreamed. It was not the peace in which swords are changed to plowshares and spears to pruning hooks. It was not the world in which the nations learned war no more. © Grand Valley State University �The Dream of Peace Richard A. Rhem Page 3   No, Luke was writing of the birth of One, from the other end of the story, because remember, Luke wrote about the birth after the death. Luke wrote of the birth after the resurrection. Luke knew the hell that Jesus had gone through, but Luke's gospel of Jesus, which speaks of peace in the beginning, is a peace that was a peace to be secured only in the Way of Jesus. It was the Way of Jesus, as opposed to the way of Rome. It was a peace based on the end of all human domination. That, Luke was telling us in his gospel, was the peace that came through Jesus Christ. It was not the peace enforced by the power of Rome, but the peace that comes from God, to those who follow the Way of Jesus. Two thousand years later the peace of which Luke spoke, peace that would come through this Jesus, has not been realized. There may be relative peace in Bosnia Hertsogovenia tonight, but it’s a very fragile thing. We all have been disturbed by the anguish of those people suffering because of an ongoing war. Strife, violence, killing. The earth is soaked with blood. A couple of months ago I visited the shores of Normandy, the fiftieth anniversary of the scarred earth where that horrendous battle was fought. A week ago, perhaps some of you saw as well the special by David Brinkley on the Battle of the Bulge of fifty years ago. Did you hear in that special a recording of the voice of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who said fifty years ago at Christmas, "It is not easy to wish the nation a Merry Christmas this year, nor to those who are standing for us around the world." It was a world at war, and a terrible price was exacted. There are those that suggest that maybe the past fifty years were better. But what was it? Just five years ago? We were so euphoric at this time of year because the Berlin wall had fallen and we thought that maybe the world was taking a significant step toward peace? The collapsing of an impasse of terror that held the world at bay for fifty years evaporated, allowing these ancient feuds to surge forth again. So in 1994 at Christmas we speak of the peace of Jesus. But there is no peace. You see, we think of peace in terms of the balance of power and of political possibilities, but there is only one way to peace—it is the way of human community. It is by the ending of all human domination. Will that peace ever come? I really don't know. I am not so sure that we are moving inevitably toward that universal Shalom. It doesn't seem that we are a lot farther along than the ancient Roman world, the Pax Romano, peace by dent of force. Will the prophet’s dream ever be realized? There is a song we sing sometimes, "Let there be peace on earth," and then it says "and let it begin with me." Maybe it has to begin in the chambers of the human heart of each one of us, where we give ourselves unreservedly to the building of community and to standing against all forces of human domination, standing against all of that that robs any person of their humanity. For Luke, the telling of the Christmas story from the perspective of Easter, from the perspective of Good Friday and Easter, was telling of the Gospel, that peace is © Grand Valley State University �The Dream of Peace Richard A. Rhem Page 4   possible for those who were willing to die—to self, to all selfish pursuit, to all domination of another, who will live in community. That is the only way to peace. Isn't it interesting that as far back as we go, whether in biblical lore or in the poetry of the rest of the world, there has been a dream, a longing dream of peace. Why can't we make it happen? Maybe we will never be able to do more than to make it happen within our own lives and let it ripple out from there. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/99dedec21546006c5014a7c124655484.mp3 0f9de7633fea45038484decf9947bd01 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, Luke 2:14 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-0-19941224 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-12-24 Title A name given to the resource The Dream of Peace 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, 1994 entitled "The Dream of Peace", on the occasion of Christmas Eve, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Micah 5:5, Luke 2:14. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Christmas Eve Community Justice Peae Prophetic Voice Way of Jesus https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bc96d45be517659fcfd1f16df1009521.mp3 40eaa7cbb4964a83e293640765ed2a93 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 IV Scripture Text Isaiah 54:1, Luke 1:35, 37 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-0-19941218 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-12-18 Title A name given to the resource Home Is Not a Human Possibility 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 December 18, 1994 entitled "Home Is Not a Human Possibility", on the occasion of Advent IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 54:1, Luke 1:35, 37. 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/9884fed57d10a2d2cdd3d81bb4c64745.pdf 0a13e1061f5df9798816819d2b65c765 PDF Text Text Going Home From the Advent Series on “Home” Text: Isaiah 40:1, 11; I Thessalonians 4:17 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Advent III, December 11, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon I have chosen the texts and the themes for this season in the light of the course that we have followed through the fall in surveying the Biblical story of Israel. We left Israel in exile in Babylon, and I did that purposely because I knew Advent was coming. It’s a marvelous time to pick up the prophetic promises and themes that were addressed to that people in exile. Israel, Judah, in exile was in despair and in the midst of their despair where they were weeping on the banks of the rivers of Babylon, where they could not sing the Lord’s song, in the midst of that despair they received a surprising word of hope. The prophet Jeremiah sent them a letter in which he said to them, in effect, get on with your life and know that the Presence of God is not a matter of geography, but the location of God’s Presence is the heart. “And if with all your heart you truly seek me, you will surely find me,” find the Presence of God even in that situation of exile. Now, after some decades in which indeed they had settled in, there was another word from another prophet. We don’t know who he was, but his work is in Isaiah 40 to 55. This prophet’s word broke the silence and pierced the despair of this people who had given up on the covenant of grace and the promises of God, this people who had finally considered Babylon to be their home, this people who had really forgotten Jerusalem even though they had vowed never to do so. This prophet arose and spoke these words, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. You are going home.” This prophet who was a part of that exilic community observed the shifting of the balance of power on the international scene. This was characteristic of Hebrew prophets, for you will remember that it was Habakkuk who saw in the rise of Babylon the instrument through which judgment on Judah, God’s own people, would be brought. Now this prophet sees in the rise of another world power an instrument, not of judgment, but of grace, an instrument of liberation. Indeed, if we would go over just a few more chapters, to the 45th chapter, this is how God addresses the king of Persia, whose name is Cyrus. “Thus says the Lord to his anointed,” to Cyrus. Anointed. God’s anointed. God’s messiah. This king. © Grand Valley State University   �Going Home Richard A. Rhem Page 2   “Thus says the Lord to his anointed,” to Cyrus, “whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him.” Why will God anoint a Cyrus in Persia in order to subdue nations? Well, the fourth verse says, “For the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name. I name you though you do not know me.” You see, it was the conviction of the prophets in Israel’s tradition that God was a major player on the scene of history. It was the conviction of these prophets that the decisions were not made in smoke-filled cloakrooms, but rather that God was the invisible player, a major player of the dreams of history. So now we have a prophet bringing comfort, announcing liberation, saying to Judah, “You’re going to go home.” He didn’t immediately respond to the message. As a matter of fact, he resisted the message. He heard a voice that said, “Cry,” or as Martin Luther has translated it perhaps more effectively, he heard a voice that said, “Preach.” And he said, “Preach, why should I preach? The grass withers. The flower fades. Why should I preach?” The word comes back, “Preach. For it is true the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” So this prophet in the dialogue heard the call and was confirmed in his conviction that the word of God after all was a liberating, saving word, and he announced that word in the midst of his people in exile. He said to them in effect, “Be comforted. You are forgiven. You are going home. Announce to the cities of Judah, behold your God.” They went home. They went home and the prophet’s word was confirmed. But it never lived up to the glorious image that he had set. They went home, a remnant. Oh, there was another temple, but it lacked the glory of the former temple. They rebuilt the walls, but that community was nothing more than a worshiping, waiting community in poverty and often in sorry straits. Yet, they went home. The prophet believed that God would bring God’s people home. His vision, his dream was a dream of a fulfillment and the consummation of the whole historical drama that would issue in that messianic kingdom, that kingdom of shalom where lion and lamb would lie down together, and where they would not hurt in all God’s holy mountain. It was a prophetic conviction that God is a major player in history. Do you believe that? For some nineteen hundred years the Jews in dispersion after 70 AD celebrated their Passover wherever they were and in the liturgy there were the words, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Rabbi David Hartman of Jerusalem says that, after nineteen hundred years, today they celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. Do you think that that has anything to do with God’s involvement in the drama of history? Did Habakkuk see behind Babylon’s rise the judgment of God? Did the prophet of this morning’s lessons see, behind the rise of Cyrus, God’s engagement? I suppose we © Grand Valley State University �Going Home Richard A. Rhem Page 3   could talk about that all day and not solve it, but that really is not the question of this Advent Sunday. The question that I would rather focus you on is this. Is it possible within history to be at home? Is it possible in the midst of our human experience, in the stream of history, is it possible to be home? Maybe Israel’s best gift to the world is the possibility of being home in history. If you read the Hebrew Scriptures there’s not much about anything beyond. There’s not anything about heaven. There’s not any discussion of life after death. Maybe Israel’s best gift to the world was the call to celebrate here and now. Israel delights in life—celebrates life. I think that it has a real gift to give us in calling us not to miss this life, to enjoy God in the land of the living. The Christian emphasis, in contrast, that has put the focus on heaven, that has been somewhat other worldly, has often removed from us the valuing of this life, and not enabled us to celebrate this life, I think, as perhaps God the creator of all would have us celebrate it. Israel celebrates God in this present life. History within history. Yet, I wonder if it’s enough? Bertrand Russell the English philosopher and avowed atheist writes this, “Brief and powerless is man’s life. On him and all his race the slow, sure doom sinks pitiless and dark, blind to good and evil. Omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way, for man condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gates of darkness. It remains only to cherish ere yet the blow falls the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day.” Sounds almost like the pessimism of the prophet who said, “All flesh is grass. The grass withers, the flower fades.” Bertrand Russell says, I may lose the love of my life unless for me the bell tolls first. That being the reality of our human situation, is it enough? Can one be home within history? It wasn’t enough for the people in Thessalonica. Paul had gone there preaching the Gospel. He preached a crucified, risen, ascended, reigning, coming Lord. And he preached it with such urgency and he pointed to the imminence of that return with such power that the people in Thessalonica began to expect that any moment the heavens would open and the clouds would be illumined and the Lord of Glory would appear. Then someone lost the love of her life. Then someone received the death sentence and they began to wonder, if I should die before the clouds sparkle with the appearing Lord, will I miss out on it all? Paul wrote to them to say, “No. We who are alive at the coming of the Lord won’t have an advantage over those who have died. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so those who fall asleep in Jesus, God will bring with him. So I write these things to you that you sorrow not as those who have no hope. I write these things to you; comfort one another with these words.” Paul’s pastoral concern for this people was to assure them that the entrance of death before the advent of the end did not mean that one would miss the party. He went on to describe the scenario of the end. Archangels, trumpets, clouds. And it didn’t happen. © Grand Valley State University �Going Home Richard A. Rhem Page 4   The messianic kingdom hasn’t come either. As I observe our history in our day it doesn’t seem that we are any closer to seeing the lion and the lamb lying down together than when the prophet dreamed the dream. And when I read Paul’s dramatic presentation of the end event and realize that it’s two thousand years later, frankly, I’m not going to hold my breath. Interesting, isn’t it, that both the prophet and the apostle had this intuitive sense of some kind of completion? But the images in which they set it forth, the symbols with which they presented it, the pictures that they painted in both cases—they haven’t come to be. They may still, and yet I wonder if perhaps the prophet’s dream and the apostle’s vision are not rather pictures of an intuitive conviction and truth that within history no one can finally be home. Oh, to be sure, the prophet’s dream had the culmination within history. The apostle, who was nurtured on that dream, had a vision of a culmination beyond history’s end. But, never mind. Both of them had to believe. In the case of the Hebrew prophet, the end could not be the chaos of history, but rather its resolution. And in the case of the apostle, the end could not be a gaping grave, but a meeting with God the Lord, the presence of God’s people with God everlastingly. Both the prophet and the apostle were simply wrong in the portrait that they drew or painted. So what? How would you have drawn it? They were stumbling, stammering humans trying to give some expression to something that was deep within them, that the end could not be history’s chaos nor the cold and open grave, but rather that there was yet something, something more. You see it seems to me that both the prophet and the apostle had that deep sense that yes. . . yes, the grass withers and the flower fades, yes . . . human life ends with history still in chaos and those who have loved experiencing loss, but there must be something more. I think both the prophet and the apostle, and I think probably you and I as well, know that God has made us such that we will always, always break down those end points. We will not be satisfied. There is something insatiable within the human mind and within the human heart. Within the human being there’s something that will not be satisfied until finally there is an expansiveness that we have not yet dreamed of. There is something in us that says there are places I have not yet gone, there are words I have not spoken, there are loves I have not yet expressed. There is not the possibility in the brief span of this historical existence to satisfy all of that that is within me. I’ll never, never, never rest with the contingency of history’s whirlpool. I will believe, I will hope that beyond somewhere, someway, sometime all of this that is in me that yearns for expression, for expansiveness, for eternity will be satisfied. Probably not with lions and lambs lying down together. Probably not as the issue of some flaming deity from heaven. But there must be something more. For down deep within us, when surrounded with the blackness of the darkest night, Oh how lonely death can be. At the end of this long tunnel there shines a light where death is swallowed up in victory. Can you imagine stepping on shore and finding it heaven? Of touching a hand and finding it God’s? Of breathing new air and finding it celestial? Of waking up in glory and finding you’re home . . . finally home? © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f5dd3e967c8f36104f7ce83aa4a2cc68.mp3 4be04070436fd41993994f6c0dc26761 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 Isaiah 40:1, 11, I Thessalonians 4:17 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-0-19941211 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-12-11 Title A name given to the resource Going Home 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 11, 1994 entitled "Going Home", on the occasion of Advent III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 40:1, 11, I Thessalonians 4:17. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Advent Grace Hope Liberation Prophetic Voice Shalom https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/02a4a6830bef855c8eb4be7f1d046bc1.pdf d35ab9fc9abc951cbb59199d1a88e154 PDF Text Text Longing for Home “Our Hearts Are Restless Till They Find Their Rest in Thee” Text: Jeremiah 29:11-13; Matthew 1:23 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Advent II, December 4, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon The Christmas carols are playing. The anticipation of the children is rising. The season of preparation is well under way, and we await the celebration of the King of Glory. It’s such a lovely time of the year. It’s a time of the year that is so filled with memories, filled with all of the great traditions that have surrounded us throughout all of our days. Yet, if you are a pastor or a therapist, you would find that this lovely season is also a season of an increased caseload because, for all of its loveliness and all its joy, it seems also to be a season in which there is an acuteness of sadness and melancholy. So many experience in these holiday days the aching loneliness that overcomes them, perhaps suddenly without warning, and one is deluged in deep feeling. It may be because the season triggers in us memories of home, of childhood. It may be that we recognize that our dreams have been shattered, or that our hopes have been crushed, or maybe in a moment of reflection we simply know that we’ve traveled a long way from home. That’s the experience of exile. The word itself beginning with “ex” from the Latin means “out of,” and it means out of home. If you’ve ever made application for a passport, you’ll know that they want to know your domicile. Domicile is a permanent address, a home address. But in exile, one has no domicile because one has no permanent address. The experience of exile is familiar to us who are traditioned in the biblical story. Just a couple of weeks ago, concluding our trip through Israel’s tradition, we found Judah, the southern kingdom, in exile in Babylon. The southern kingdom had ended in 586 as the Babylonians had come in and torn down the walls, burned down the temple and removed the finest of Jerusalem’s residents. Eight hundred miles to the north and east, there they were in exile. You may remember that the Psalm lesson of the morning was sung for us by Greg Martin, Psalm 137, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept. We hung our harps on the willows. For they said to us, “Sing us a song of Zion. © Grand Valley State University   �Longing for Home Richard A. Rhem Page 2   But how could we sing a song of Zion in a foreign land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem. May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.” The deep grief, the awful ache that comes through so poignantly in that Psalm was an expression of a literal exile, which many in our day know as well. Refugees in Rwanda, the terrible tragedy that continues to go on in the former Yugoslavia, the nation seeming paralyzed to do something about that awful situation. So, there are many in our day who do know literal exile, as did Judah. Exile, the experience of it out of the scriptures has become a central metaphor or image for the human condition, because we are all vulnerable. It happens to us all at one time or another. It overtakes us unawares and we seem drowning in melancholy and sadness for which we can really find no immediate cause. It is a longing for home. We are all vulnerable to it, even though we may give our domicile as a very fine address. Because, finally, home is not a matter of geography. Finally, home is a matter of places of the heart. I suppose that it is because home is that place that we come from and that place that we go to that we know in the meantime we are homeless. For we come from God and we go to God. God is our whence and our whither, and in the meantime we are simply not home. St. Augustine’s words are so often quoted because they say it better than any way I can think of saying them: Thou hast created us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee. None of us is home yet because, finally, home is not a matter of geography. Home has to do with the places of the heart, and we will therefore sense that none of us are home yet and will, now and again, have a strange longing for home. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/36d818ebaeddd9ecc97989d88b809414.mp3 ddcf04da82be7967cb45e5dedc1347a5 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 Jeremiah 29:11-13, Matthew 1:23 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-0-19941204 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-12-04 Title A name given to the resource Longing for Home and Home Away From Home 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 4, 1994 entitled "Longing for Home and Home Away From Home", on the occasion of Advent II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Jeremiah 29:11-13, Matthew 1:23. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Advent Exile God Shalom https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/178ce7bb325fa13f78a5e71f3beea7c9.pdf edb3f70e3677f8e092479cb6b431de4f PDF Text Text Come, Lord Jesus Advent I Scripture: Revelation 22:8-13; 16-21 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 27, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon If you had a Bible like mine, you would find that the words of Jesus are in red. If you looked at that last chapter of Revelation that was just read, you’d find three red passages. In the vision John hears the voice of Jesus, and three times over Jesus says, “I am coming soon.” He did not come soon, of course. It’s been now nearly two thousand years. Is it possible really for one to sit on the edge of one’s seat, to be, as it were, on tip toe waiting for a rift in the sky and the appearance of the Lord from glory? It is not possible for me to do that. Certainly, in all honesty, we have to say these words – that John at least sensed he was hearing from the Risen One – these words were wrong. For to speak of an imminent return, after two thousand years, is to make nonsense of language. What then is our Advent hope as we continue our earthly pilgrimage and move toward whatever end may be? What can one yet believe, and what can one put one’s heart upon in terms of this Advent hope—this conviction of those immediate followers of Jesus that they must be on the edge of the end, and that very soon their Lord would return? What is it in Advent 1994 that the Church can still hold to? Well, it seems to me that if we can acknowledge that the expectation of an imminent return was wrong, then what we must do is to jettison the form of that hope and expectation, and try to discover the inward essence of what that form pointed to. What we need to do is to try to discover the source, not only of Christian hope, but of the fact that it seems that hope continues to bloom within the human heart against all evidence to the contrary. Why do we hope? Why do we continue to hope? We cannot believe as they did, as John did, that at any moment our Lord would return. Oh, I know there are those who do. I am amazed over and over and over again at some movement or other announcing the day of the end or still calling Christian people to prepare for the coming of the Lord. I suppose as we come to the end of another millennium there will be even more of that. But in all honesty I cannot say that to you. I believe that that timeline, that calendar of events, simply was the form, which now obviously has been proven wrong in terms of a literal form. But the hope that lives within that form, what is that hope? Is it not simply this: is it not our continual © Grand Valley State University   �Come, Lord Jesus Richard A. Rhem Page 2   experience of the disparity between the dream and reality? Is it not that in our experience we constantly come up against that which is so contrary to the dream? Don’t we know that the prophet’s dream was true? Don’t we know that it could be, and should be that they would not hurt or destroy in all God’s holy mountain? Don’t we long for and believe in the possibility and even in the ultimate reality of the Peaceable Kingdom? Don’t we believe what that early church believed that is recorded so vividly in the images of the Book of Revelation: the righting of all wrongs, and the city whose center is coursed through by a river of crystal with trees whose leaves are for the healing of the nation? Don’t we know that that is the reality which must be, which ought to be, which should be, which could be? Are we not people of hope because in the disparity between the reality we live and the dream we dream, we refuse to give up the dream? It seems to me that that is the source of that indomitable hope with which we live. So that, even though it seems to me that the calendar, the dating, and all of that has fallen by the wayside through just hard-nosed historical experience, I refuse to give up the dream. I tried to think, in preparation for this morning, what can one really experience, what can one really believe and hold on this first Sunday in another Advent? A recent experience of mine came to mind as perhaps a parable of what this might be. I wrote of it in the Courier recently. Three weeks ago I was in the Netherlands in order to join in the celebration of my old professor and dear friend, Hendrikus Berkhof, in his eightieth year. The celebration was to be on Monday but I was able to go the Saturday before to him in the nursing home and to spend an hour and three-quarters with him—just the two of us. And in intimate connection and intense conversation we spoke of the past and our memories floated through the room . . . his father, his professor, his university days, the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, his having to hide because of his own preaching, his coming in the wake of the Second World War into prominence in the Netherlands with a shaping of that theological posture of the country at that time, calling the Church to faith and renewal, our time together, those four years when we studied together and struggled together and wrestled with questions. We spoke of it all and I, as it were, probed into the treasure of this dear friend of mine, trying to wrest every last bit I could of his wisdom and his understanding, and after an hour and three-quarters I had totally exhausted him. When he moaned a bit, I said, “Henk, put your head down and rest awhile now.” He said, “Ja, we must quit.” And I took his hands and I offered a prayer, a Eucharistic prayer. The Greek word Eucharist means thanksgiving. It was a Eucharist prayer, thanking God for the time we shared, thanking God for the memories of which we had just spoken – but not only memories – thanking God in those moments that this was not all, this was not an end, that there was something more, something better, that the best was yet to be, and in that moment there was grace, and there was the presence of the One of whom we spoke together. At the end of my prayer which was a bit interspersed with his “Ja . . . Ja . . .Ja,” there was his “Amen. Amen.” © Grand Valley State University �Come, Lord Jesus Richard A. Rhem Page 3   I left him and I walked the old streets of Leiden, the old haunts, the old University Center, the Roppenberg, the canal that courses through the center, stood on a little hump bridge and listened to the bells in that ancient building of the twelfth century where I had gone to lectures and had my doctoral exam, stood there in the misty, deepening darkness of that Saturday evening and let it wash over me. And as the bells tolled from that old bell tower, I said, “Yes, the bell tolls for him, for me, but that’s not all there is.” It has nothing to do with calendars and dates. It has nothing to do with images and models. It has everything to do with the deep intuition, which I believe lives and thrives in the depths of the human being, a deep intuition that it is not the reality, so disparate from the dream, but it is the dream that is true, the dream that will not let us go, the dream that continues to be dreamed again and again. And I thought to myself, having been so poignantly aware that maybe this was my last moment with him, that it wouldn’t be the last moment at all, but that someday, somewhere, somewhere beyond where we’ll have a thousand and a million years in some starred galaxy, that we’ll laugh together about our shabby dreams, and our little hopes, and our groundless fears, and the conversation will continue as we probe the inevitable mystery of the good and gracious God. When I cry from my heart, “Even so, Lord Jesus, come,” that’s what I mean. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/66c671fdf0fd67eb1013fdf16a40a00d.mp3 ad9fab12d493d31e77e30659dbb903f1 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 I Scripture Text Revelation 22:8-13, 16-21 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-0-19941127 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-11-27 Title A name given to the resource Come Lord Jesus 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 27, 1994 entitled "Come Lord Jesus", on the occasion of Advent I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Revelation 22:8-13, 16-21. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Advent Grace Hope Shalom https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4aa2f0cf88ce50e34f0cb0f58d62338b.mp3 1041f19210dbf8d81c5a1e083efa4b51 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 Deuteronomy 6:5, 20, 7:8 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-0-19941124 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-11-24 Title A name given to the resource Traditioning: Memory, Humility, Gratitude and Generosity 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 24, 1994 entitled "Traditioning: Memory, Humility, Gratitude and Generosity", on the occasion of Thanksgiving Day, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Deuteronomy 6:5, 20, 7:8. 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/ad3714b2e8f6d3762f130322913347d6.pdf 4fd033f50ae55d8c70be0fdd814b33a4 PDF Text Text Trust That Survives Tragedy From the sermon series on the biblical story of Israel Text: Habakkuk 3:17-19; Psalm 137:1 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XXVI, November 20, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines;…yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:17-19 By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. Psalm 137:1 Israel's story—we have been following in broad strokes the story of that people. We have been following the story of the people of Israel because it is our story. The Christian movement that follows in the wake of Jesus is a movement that comes out of the womb of Israel, for Jesus never intended to be more than an observant Jew. The God of Israel was his God. The scriptures of Israel were his scriptures. The hope of Israel was his hope. So for us to understand ourselves, we need to understand that story. For it is that story that has shaped our identity as well. We have followed in broad strokes that story, seeing the beginning of Israel created in the exodus event, when under the leadership of Moses, Israel was set free from the oppression of Egypt's bondage. We followed them through the wilderness and into the promised land, into Canaan or Palestine, as we would call it. We saw them move from a loosely connected tribal confederacy to a monarchy in order that they might be a nation as other nations. But there was a difference because, with the rise of the monarch, there was also the rise of the prophetic word, the prophetic voice that was spoken into the social, economic and political arena of the life of Israel. The king of Israel was reminded ever and again that he was not really absolute, not really sovereign, for he served by the grace of God and under the sovereignty of God, who alone is the sovereign of heaven and earth and the course of human affairs. We find them now after that kingdom had gone on for a couple of centuries with a moment of glory, a golden age, and then downhill all the way. We find them in 722 B.C., the northern kingdom dispersed by the great Assyrian empire, the © Grand Valley State University   �Trust That Survives Tragedy Richard A. Rhem Page 2   southern kingdom, Judah, remaining yet for a time. But in 587 Judah too, is ripped from her roots, the temple burned, the walls of Jerusalem thrown down, and the cream of the crop of Judah brought in exile to Babylon. That's where we find them today. And, it's not the end of the story. But with Advent Sunday coming next Sunday, the season of Advent, I'll have opportunity to tell you more of the story. For the Advent hope is really a reflection of the hope of Israel. The amazing thing is that, although Judah is in exile in a foreign land, what might have been the end was not the end, for Judah survives and indeed Israel survives. And that is the amazing truth that I would have you focus on today. The fact that out of the tragedy and disaster, the natural catastrophe that overcame this people whose sorrow and sadness was expressed so plaintively in Psalm 137, there is yet a continuing people because, paradoxically and surprisingly, it happened as it happens so often that, in the midst of tragedy, trust is kindled, and out of trust hope is born, and hope lays hold of newness. That's an amazing truth. It is one of the wonderful learnings from the whole Biblical story that tragedy rather than being the end so often becomes prelude to a new beginning. That in tragedy trust is born, and from trust hope springs, and out of the hope, newness arrives. It is really an amazing paradox. It is one of the great values of learning the Biblical story, of being steeped in that Biblical tradition. There's nothing there that denies the darkness. There's nothing there that denies the tragedy. The plaintive tone of Psalm 137 expresses the despair of a people who are being mocked by their conquerors, who say, "Sing us a song." And they say, "We can't sing a song in a foreign land." Then they begin to remember Jerusalem. And isn't it often the case in our experience that we begin to remember and to value what we have lost? It was in the tragedy of the exile that they began to remember, and caused them to dig deeper into the spiritual depths of that tradition that had shaped them as a people. Psalm 137. The last verses were not sung for you, for how can you sing expressions of raw anger. The last couple of verses of Psalm 137 are verses that those of us of delicate taste would wish were not even in the Scripture. They are expressions of anger and hatred so violent that they could hardly be duplicated, the hatred and the anger focused at the conquering Babylonians. The awful expression that chills us. "I would that your little ones were dashed against a stone." But, it's there and it is true to human experience. No, don't hear me saying this morning that the darkness isn't really so dark, or the coldness not so cold, or the tragedy not so bad. That's not being faithful to the Biblical story. Habakkuk, for example. Habakkuk looked about him also. He was living right at this hinge-point also. He looked about and he saw the chaos and the corruption and the violence. He cried out to God, as we have done as well, have we not? "Oh God, how long... how long?" The mystery of the world is the absence of God when all goes wrong. Where is God? How long, O Lord, will you cause me to see this violence? How long will you withhold your hand? Where are you? in other words. Then there comes to the prophet this consciousness: I am doing a work in your © Grand Valley State University �Trust That Survives Tragedy Richard A. Rhem Page 3   day that you wouldn't believe if you knew it. I am doing a work in your day, invisible, unknown to peasant and king alike. But be sure that history is not simply unraveling apart from my presence. So the prophet says, "I'll go into the watch tower of faith and I will wait to see the vision. The Word of the Lord comes to him saying, "Write this vision large so that one running will be able to read it. Wait for the vision for it will surely come. Know this that the unjust will fail, but the righteous one will live by faith." Then the vision comes and in panoramic view he sees, as though the film is flashing through his mind, the history of his people. In response to that vision we have that marvelous expression of devotion and praise: "Although I am stripped bare of everything, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will exalt in the God of my salvation." How do you figure it? How do you figure it? Will you note this morning that I am not trying to explain it, but I am pointing to it. I am pointing to a phenomenon concrete in history, Israel's history. As I said a moment ago, Israel survived. And then I added, "and survives." Israel survives. When there was no human reason for it to survive except that it remembered and began again to believe and to hope and to grasp a new beginning. Ah, a conviction that somehow or other there is some presence or some power engaged with this whole historical process which we cannot discern or explain, and yet in which we trust. Was that it? Wasn't that it for Habakkuk? Wasn't that it when he was able to say, "Take everything away - the crops from the field and the herd from the stall - take it all away and I will yet rejoice in God, my strength. I will exalt in the God of my salvation." How do you explain it? That indomitable trust that issues in hope, that waits for newness. It is not naive. A faith that has as its center a cross on which one was crucified cannot be naive. Israel that survives cannot be naive when it looks back in its own recent history to the cremation of six million of its number in the Holocaust, standing there as a hard knock in human history. Who can believe after the Holocaust? Who could believe after the son of God was crucified? Who could believe? That's the mystery of faith. I can't explain it. But it's not head-in-the-sand stuff. It's not pie-in-the-sky stuff. It's the stuff of human experience out of which amazingly the human spirit yet trusts and hopes and grasps the dawning of a new day. That's the miracle, which I cannot explain, but to which I point you and why it's so important that we know that story. That's why some weeks ago I began this whole tale, because I remember my old professor Berkhof who told me that he couldn't speak to the younger generation in secularized society because he said, "They are not prodigals." The prodigals still knew there was a home and a parent. They are not prodigals; they are the children of the prodigals. The children of the prodigals don't even know there's a home or a father. They have no center — homeless. The sign of the end of the end of the twentieth century, masses of people homeless, adrift, estranged and © Grand Valley State University �Trust That Survives Tragedy Richard A. Rhem Page 4   alienated, exiled. One of the Biblical images that best bespeaks our own day is homelessness. No rootage. No place to stand. The story, which continues to be told, doesn't explain, but it points us to a reality and that is there is no night so dark but what the dawn will follow. Trust is that which enables one or a people to survive tragedy, to experience loss, to come to total despair only to find indomitable faith rising, hope springing, newness dawning. That's the wonder of the tradition, which has shaped us and given us birth and which we keep alive by telling the story to those brought to the baptismal font today, in order that with us they may place their trust in the God, the God of Israel, the God of Jesus. Next Sunday, Advent I, we'll sing, "O come, O come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here." And it will be our cry. We'll speak the Advent word, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people says your God." And we'll find our faith renewed and our hope restored that that same God will surely bring us home. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2480aff3003169db610f067eecaeae80.mp3 ee5c3bae483e74953e3a9919e94304d1 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 XXVI Series The First Testament Scripture Text Habakkuk 3:17-19, Psalm 137:1 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-0-19941120 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-11-20 Title A name given to the resource Trust That Survives Tragedy 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 20, 1994 entitled "Trust That Survives Tragedy", as part of the series "The First Testament", on the occasion of Pentecost XXVI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Habakkuk 3:17-19, Psalm 137:1. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Faith History of Israel Mystery Tradition Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4e9f60a375d2f729ab7d8dc79453a6b1.pdf f513cd5db928d66dccd187ffcbc1cd6c PDF Text Text Speaking Truth to Power Pentecost XXV Text: Amos 7:15-16 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 13, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "… and the Lord took me . . . and the Lord said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel. Now therefore hear the word of the Lord." Amos 7:15-16 In our survey of the story of Israel, the Hebrew Scriptures, we came two weeks ago to Israel having moved into its Promised Land, into Canaan. It was after a century of more of existence in that land as the tribal confederacy where the tribes lived pretty much independently, but came together annually to renew the covenant, at a time of crisis, and where God would then raise up a leader for the occasion. After that period of time of settling in, there were voices being raised that they wanted a king – they would be like other nations. The great spiritual leader, Samuel, prophet, priest and judge, gave them a stern warning. He reminded them that they were a people who had been born in the exodus, set free by God from the oppression of tyranny, and he warned them that to put a king on a throne would be to put themselves in peril of returning to that same kind of tyrannical rule. The king would tax them, take their sons and daughters, conscript an army. They would come under the heavy hand of a ruling power. But nonetheless, the people said, "Give us a king." So the tribal confederacy moved into a monarchy and Israel began to reflect the same kind of life as the nations around it, but with this exception. With the rise of the monarchy there arose in Israel a voice of the prophet. The thing that made Israel's history unique was the fact that there was a prophet to speak the Word of God into the social context, into the political arena. The prophet was not a predictor of the future. The prophet was a preacher who addressed the contemporary situation in the name of God. So Israel was spared that which was true of nations around where the king considered himself sovereign, accountable to no one. The prophet never failed to remind the king that he was king according to the grace of God, and that he was accountable to God. So the prophet arose in Israel to keep alive the Word of God in this new situation. The prophet was one who was not interested in power, who had no political agenda, but rather was consumed by the Spirit of God. © Grand Valley State University   �Speaking Truth to Power Richard A. Rhem Page 2   We speak of the inspiration of the prophets. The word itself, inspiration, means to be inspirited, to breathe in. We often speak of the Spirit of God, knowing that it is the same word in Hebrew as the "breath of God" or the "wind of God." The wind of God rippled the sails of the prophet. And often times the prophet would rather not have opened his mouth, but as Jeremiah said, "The word of God was like a fire in my bones." The prophet was consumed with the word that had to come to expression. It was a risky business and a costly business. Think of one who followed in the steps of those Old Testament prophets, Jesus himself, who died the way he died because he lived the way he lived. In our own century, think of a Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who dared to stand up against national socialism in that Nazi regime, and paid for his prophetic ministry with his life. The role of the prophets and martyrs goes on and on. The prophet that arose in Israel with the rise of monarchy was Israel's greatest gift to the world, shaping Israel's tradition more than any other institution and, I believe, shaping western culture, western civilization probably more than any other institution I can think of. The prophetic word that reminded all arrangements of power that they were provisional, that they were transitory, and that they were not ultimate, that ultimately every arrangement of power on the right or on the left was accountable to Almighty God, who alone is sovereign Lord in the arena of history. The prophet believed that God observed. The prophet believed that God cared. The prophet believed that God was concerned. The prophet believed that God had structured reality such that wrong action would bring dire consequences, and therefore, the prophet stood in the arena, the marketplace of his day and proclaimed a Word of God to whomever was in power. The example that I use this morning to show the rise of this office in the history of Israel was Amos. We could go almost anywhere in those prophetic books, but Amos was particularly classic in the clash between the prophet and the king. Amos began his ministry in the north, probably around 760 B.C.E.. Jeroboam II was on the throne of Israel. The great world empires were engaged with their own affairs and it gave breathing room to Israel. Israel, the northern tribes now, prospered, expanded, grew affluent, and the social structure began to rot. The words of Amos were directed at a social condition in Israel that did not reflect God's requirement of justice and righteousness and mercy in the land. Amos was a preacher. And, he had rather good technique. If you would read the book of Amos, you would find that Amos begins his prophetic preaching, "Thus says the Lord: 'For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four I will not revoke the punishment.' " And the crowd began to gather. Then he went on, "For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment." The people began to feel the energy flow. He moves to Tyre and to Edom, and to the Ammonites, and finally he moves to Moab. The people at this point were already to break out in a standing ovation. "Give it to 'em Amos. Give them the Word of the Lord." But then he gets close to home. He said, "For three © Grand Valley State University �Speaking Truth to Power Richard A. Rhem Page 3   transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment." Those of the north nodded their heads, "That's right. That southern kingdom. Give it to 'em, Amos." Then, he paused a dramatic pause and said, "For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment." It is at that point that the congregation says to the preacher, "You just stopped preaching, and you started meddling." Now he was beginning to touch a raw nerve. But it was really always Israel that was the object of Amos's ministry. The Word of God that came to Amos was for Israel. All the rest was simply periphery. Now he was dealing with his target audience, and as he preached he said, "I hate, I despise your festivals. And I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. The offerings of wellbeing, of your fatted animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs. I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an overflowing stream." He documented the sins of the society of his day. Finally word got to the royal court itself, for Amos didn't stop at the villages of the northern kingdom, he went right to Bethel, right there to the royal court with the temple as the accoutrement of its power and glory. Now every king has his own people on the dole, even religious flunkies. The king, Jeroboam II, had his core of priests who offered sacrifices for the prosperity of the policies of the northern kingdom. Amaziah was among them. He heard Amos preach and hurried back to the court and told the king, "This preaching has got to stop. He is saying that you will die by the sword, and that we will be exiled from our land returning no doubt with a mandate." He said to Amos, "Oh seer, go flee away to the land of Judah and earn your bread there. Prophesy there. But never again prophesy in Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary. It is the temple of the kingdom." Well, Amos answered, "I am no prophet, nor prophet’s son. I am a herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees, but the Lord came to me and said, 'Go prophesy to my people Israel. Therefore, hear the Word of the Lord.' " Risky business that, daring to speak truth to power. But that was the function of the prophet, of the prophetic voice that arose along with the monarchy in order that the king of Israel and all of Israel's people would never fail to remember that God was still king, and that God still cared, and what happened to society was of great concern to God, because God cares about people, because God had set this people free, because God demands in the human community justice and righteousness and mercy. Wherever those are violated, there are dire consequences to follow. The prophet was a preacher. He often spoke of judgment because he was convinced that the world was so structured by the Creator of heaven and earth that wrong would be visited with wrath, not as an end in itself, but in order finally to effect the purposes of God. Amos was a prophet, and the prophets dared to speak truth to power. © Grand Valley State University �Speaking Truth to Power Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Last Sunday I was in Amsterdam on an absolutely beautiful Lord's Day, where I worshipped in the great Westerkerk. If there is a national church of The Netherlands, perhaps that's it, where the queen is crowned and so forth. The pastor is Nico TerLinde, who two years ago visited Christ Community on a Wednesday night and spoke to us. The church was filled for this powerful preacher, who has a great work going in that secular city of Amsterdam. When he was with us he told us the story of his early pastorate in north Holland, where they invited him to come into the public school to tell Bible stories to the children. Now, if you can believe, in Holland with all of its Christian heritage, there is now a generation that doesn't even know the Bible stories. So in the public school they were inviting a pastor in, not to evangelize, not to present the Gospel so to speak, but simply to tell the stories so that the stories stay alive, as works of literature. He decided to begin with the story of Abraham. He said, "And God said to Abraham," and a little nine year old raised his hand and he said, "Does God still say something?" TerLinde said, "That's a profound question." Well, what do you think? Does God still say something? Was prophecy an institution of ancient Israel, or is the office of the prophet still alive and well in our present experience? From the New York Times of October 29, I have the picture of one who looks every bit the part of a prophet — long beard, hand over forehead, eyes closed. Of course, it’s Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the report is of his address to the Russian Parliament in October. Having visited so much of the Russian people, he stood before the Parliament to tell them the people are discouraged, they have lost hope, they have no faith in the government, and they don't believe the reforms are serious. The people are in despair. He pleaded with the leaders of Parliament to be genuine about the reforms. He said, "This is not a democracy, it’s an oligarchy, the rule of a few." There was a little applause, but mostly there was silence. There was some muttering, and visible exits by politicians going out for a smoke. He went on to make his plea and, although he is Russia's finest historian who has put his own life on the line and has dared speak truth to power at the jeopardy of his own life, nonetheless, when he closed with a call for speedier advance toward real democracy there was a smattering of applause, but no more. I would say that Solzhenitsyn is a prophet in our time. I would say that most often you'll look outside the institutional church for the prophetic voice. It is so often the case that the Word of God sounds from other arenas because the institutional church itself gets co-opted into the whole cultural process. No, prophecy was not simply a phenomenon of ancient Israel. It is a desperately needed office to be exercised in our day. I can understand the rise of prophecy in Israel. After all, they had been a theocracy. They had understood that God was their king. So the rise of the prophet in that tradition can be somewhat understandable. But what about our own nation? What about today? We have to remember that as a nation we were founded in a reaction. We were founded in a reaction to the European scene, the old medieval structures, the feudal structures, the often © Grand Valley State University �Speaking Truth to Power Richard A. Rhem Page 5   collusion of throne and altar. This nation's founding documents intentionally and deliberately separate church and state. That was a reaction. It was an experiment. And it has borne fruit. In the intention of our founding documents there is the preservation of the guarantee of the free exercise of religion. There is to be no domination of religion in the political arena where there are many interested parties who are all vying for their rights and their privileges, where the political situation demands accommodation and compromise and rational discussion. That has all been a positive experience in our national experience. But in the last few decades that whole separation of church and state has come under criticism. We don't really understand how to handle it today. There have been judicial decisions that have been detrimental, I believe, to the moral fabric of the country. And there have been decisions that have not only separated church and state, but have trivialized religious devotion. Stephen Carter, the brilliant black law professor at Yale University, a couple of years ago published a book The Culture of Disbelief, in which he pointed out case after case of judicial decisions that not only honored the separation of church and state, but were actually prejudicial to religious commitment. Well, you say, "Maybe that's why we have the anger in the body politic today." And, I suppose it is. Maybe you are thinking now that the Christian Coalition, the organization of the religious right has taken upon itself the mantle of a prophet. I suspect that that's what would be claimed. But I deny that that's the case. I do not deny the right of the religious right or any group to organize and to make its claims. I do not question the sincerity of these people, nor fail to understand the reason for their frustration. But I want to say to you that the technique that is being pursued by the religious right is wrong, and it is contrary to the Biblical, prophetic tradition. The prophet was disinterested. The prophet did not have a political agenda. The prophet was not seeking power. The prophet spoke truth to power. The prophet stood over against the power, whatever the organization may be. It doesn't matter whether it is right or left, whether it is socialist or free enterprise. It doesn't matter what the governmental structure may be. It doesn't matter what the economic system may be. The prophet stood for justice and righteousness and mercy and compassion in the midst of the market place, speaking to king or priest or prophet, never co-opted by the king, or the people in general. The prophet was a lonely voice, disinterested, seeking no power. My argument with the Christian Coalition, with the religious right, is that, in order to address the wrongs that it sees, it is seeking power, and if it should gain power it will lose the possibility of being prophetic. A society that does not have a prophetic voice that is disinterested and stands over against all arrangements of power is a society in peril. History is replete with examples of religion in power, and there is no more perilous place for power than in the religious establishment. A secular ruler may be careless, may be godless. But a religious ruler with a sense of a mandate from God is absolutist like no secular ruler would ever dare be. A society will be in © Grand Valley State University �Speaking Truth to Power Richard A. Rhem Page 6   trouble when there is a collusion of throne and altar. It will be in serious trouble when the altar becomes the throne. If you ever elect a prophet, you'll take away his power and he will lose his soul. The prophet stands over against every human arrangement — right or left and says, "Hear the Word of the Lord." No amount of religious observance will substitute for justice and righteousness and compassion. The prophet called people and king to love mercy and to do justly, and to walk humbly with God. Don't empower the prophet. But let the prophet continue to speak truth to power. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a1461b8863d2067aaf3ea50f75e9ea01.mp3 8a3fb9831572eb7e5fb127c230a7fec7 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 XXV Series The First Testament Scripture Text Amos 7: 15-16 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-0-19941113 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-11-13 Title A name given to the resource Speaking Truth to Power 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 13, 1994 entitled "Speaking Truth to Power", as part of the series "The First Testament", on the occasion of Pentecost XXV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Amos 7: 15-16. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Hebrew Scriptures History of Israel Justice Prophetic Voice https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c573637a79a6433566032f68c0ce01a3.pdf c511f53812a08221db1efdc04560d232 PDF Text Text Culture Wars: Battling For the Soul of the Nation Reformation Day Sunday Text: I Samuel 8:7; I Samuel 9:16 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XXIII, October 30, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon ". . . The Lord said to Samuel, 'Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but have rejected me from being king over them.' " ". . . you shall anoint him to be ruler over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines; for I have seen the suffering of my people, because their outcry has come to me." In the lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures you will notice a reference to the book of Judges. I am not going to read that, but that simply is a reference that says that after Joshua, Moses' successor, died, there arose a generation that knew not the Lord – a very serious portent of bad things to come. The book of Judges talks about that period of time between the settlement in Canaan of the children of Israel, and the first king, Saul. It was a period of a hundred or two hundred years. It was a time when leadership was charismatic. A leader would arise, would be filled with the Spirit of God, execute a task and then retire to his farm, or her farm. Deborah, Gideon and Samson, those great Bible stories are recorded in the book of Judges. The last and greatest judge was Samuel. Samuel was a priest, prophet, judge, and ruler. He led Israel for many years and then as he grew older the people were concerned because his sons were not following in his steps, and they wanted a king like all the other nations, so they asked Samuel for a king. Israel had been a loose confederacy of tribes, and they had gotten together to do certain things on specific occasions, but they were rather loosely connected as semi-independent tribes. But now, recognizing the threat from without, they request a king. The scripture lesson lists in the first book of Samuel a Saul source and a Samuel source. I do that so that you can see that there were two points of view that come together in this lesson. There are two traditions, and the author purposely let both traditions stand. The one tradition said that the people of Israel were vulnerable and in danger, and God said to Samuel, "Anoint Saul. Through this © Grand Valley State University   �Battling for the Soul of a Nation Richard A. Rhem Page 2   first king I will deliver my people." The Samuel source, the conservative point of view, rejects that idea and resists the movement toward monarchy. I list these two sources so that you could feel the two of them that are interlaced together in these chapters. First, the ninth chapter of I Samuel, the fifteenth verse: "Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: 'Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines; for I have seen the affliction of my people, because their cry has come to me.'” Doesn't that remind you of Israel in Egypt in bondage to Pharaoh? The cry comes to God, God raises up Moses, and the people are led to freedom. Now here they are in Canaan, but they are in a situation again of danger, and so God says to his leader, Samuel, "I hear their cry. Anoint this man. I will, through this man, deliver them." Samuel saw Saul. The Lord told him, "Here is the man of whom I spoke to you. He it is who shall rule over my people." Now that happens. Then in the tenth chapter and the first verse, Samuel took a vial of oil, poured it on Saul's head and kissed him and said, "Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord and you shall save them from the hand of their enemies round about. And this shall be the sign to you that the Lord had anointed you to be prince of his heritage." If you go on to read the eleventh chapter, Saul gains a great victory and everyone says, "Wow, what a man. He's our man." They are all ready to go. They are excited. The other point of view is expressed in the Samuel source, the eighth chapter and the fourth verse: "Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, 'Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint for us a king to govern us like all the nations.' But it displeases Samuel when they say, 'Give us a king to govern us.' And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, 'Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds, which they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, hearken to their voice; only, you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.' " Then follows a serious indictment of monarchy — In a word God says, "Tell them that once they get a king, the king will be on the take. Take their money. Take their sons and daughters. Take their animals. Take their property. They are in for trouble because governments tend eventually to become oppressive and coercive. Just let them know what they are in for." Then in the nineteenth verse of that chapter, the people refuse to listen to the voice of Samuel and they said, "No, but we'll have a king over us." © Grand Valley State University �Battling for the Soul of a Nation Richard A. Rhem Page 3   I set for you this Biblical story because you have two traditions next to each other, and it was a hinge-point in Israel's experience. We know about the confederacy, the tribal union. It was very much like the early colonies in this country. Those thirteen colonies did not have a strong central government. They were a confederacy. They each yielded of their sovereignty some of their power and some of their rights in order that there might be a central government to do certain things for them that they couldn't do for themselves: national security, for example – trade, commerce, that kind of thing. To this day in this country that tension continues to exist in our nation. Do you remember Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Papers, and how he argued for a strong central government. There was a conflict at that time. In the nineteenth century this country went through the terrible tragedy of the Civil War and, though it was really over the question of slavery, what was being tested was this form of government, a federal government where they could instruct the states to give rights to people or could instruct all states to release their slaves. The governors of some southern states back in the 60s, in the Civil Rights days, argued for states rights over against the interpretation of the constitution from the federal government which said that it is wrong to segregate in schools and all of those so called Jim Crowe Laws that demeaned and dehumanized the black race. So we know about confederacy. It is a kind of government that has power on the periphery and less so in the center, as opposed to the federal form of government where there is power at the center that can dictate to the respective units of government. That was what was going on in Israel. They were a confederacy. A charismatic leader would arise on occasion to meet a specific crisis and then go back to the farm. And they had a central shrine where they worshiped together, and where they renewed their covenant. But God was their king, that was their understanding, and they had no strong central government or strong national leader, no dynasty, no imperial house. But as a kind of loose tribal confederacy they were vulnerable to the attacks of people on their borders, and once they got established people began to get some possessions. They built barns, and had fields and oxen and one thing and another. They said, "We don't want to be vulnerable to these attacks. Every six months or so somebody comes in and burns our fields. We need a strong leader. We need a strong government. We need security. We need secure boundaries." Sound familiar? So they came to Samuel who had been the greatest spiritual leader in Israel since Moses and they said to him, "Your sons aren't following in your steps. You are growing older. We need to move on to another form of government. We need a king." Well, if you read the one source, it sounds as though that was a movement that was not only approved by God, but initiated by God in response to the cry of the people and who said, "Through this man whom you are to anoint, I will deliver this people." © Grand Valley State University �Battling for the Soul of a Nation Richard A. Rhem Page 4   But if you read the Samuel source you see that God not only does not initiate it, God doesn't even approve of it, but sort of reconciles God's self to the inevitable, and says "Go ahead and do it, but warn them because they are in for trouble. Just wait until the king really establishes a royal house." That's the situation. That's the focus of the morning as we think about the culture wars, the battling for the soul of a nation. There were conservatives who said, "Foolish people, you want a king? Don't you remember that it was Moses who led us out of the oppression of Pharaoh out of the bondage of Egypt? Don't you realize that in establishing a royal house you will be bringing yourselves right back into a situation where there is oppression from on top? The conservatives had a point. They did remember. That was the best thing about the conservative mind. It remembers the values of the past. It has a memory of those things that were valuable and important and significant and that had a shaping determination of a people. But there were progressives as well, and they said, "To be sure. But on the other hand, look, we simply can't survive this way." The conservatives said, "Trust God," and the progressives said, "We do trust God, but look what's happening. We are being assaulted, invaded. The marauders come in. We are at a loss, we are victims. And, it's not going to change." So they went at it, these conservatives and progressives, and the Biblical story allows both of those voices to be heard. Now it is interesting that on Reformation Sunday we should have a scripture lesson that has two traditions that are at variance with each other because one of the models of the Reformation was sola scriptura— Scripture alone is our authority. But I would raise the question: If scripture alone is our authority, which of the traditions are you going to buy into? Where would you have been in this discussion? Are you a conservative or are you a progressive? Do you remember the values of the past and try to preserve them and perpetuate them, or are you one who believes in the movement of history, that new times demand new forms and new structures? Do you set things in concrete or do you remain fluid and flexible with the ongoing movement of history? The Reformation was a time that gave us this insight, which ought never to be forgotten–the Latin model I can't repeat but its translation is– the Church re-formed according to the Word of God and always being re-formed. In the sixteenth century there was a situation where the Church, not the nation Israel in the thirteenth century B.C.E., but now in the sixteenth century C.E. you have a church that had become a mammoth world power. There was a union of throne, and altar, and thus times during those centuries of Christendom, a medieval age when the Church was the most powerful human institution. It was not simply a religious institution. It was cultural, it transcended national boundaries, it was powerful, and it became decadent, just as decadent as any imperial house that has no checks on it. And the reformers said, "Something has © Grand Valley State University �Battling for the Soul of a Nation Richard A. Rhem Page 5   to change. The Church needs to be renewed. We need a reformation of the Church." Institutions don't change until something blows sky high. Martin Luther, of course, was the one who blew it. Martin Luther, brilliant, powerful, vulgar, a bull in a China shop, was excommunicated. He returned the favor and excommunicated the pope. And we were off and running. At that time, just as in the experience of Israel, it was a hinge-point in human history. It was Luther who said, "We must re-form and we must become the body of Christ in a total new structure. The other is the Babylon, the harlot that is in bondage, and God has turned away from it." A humanist scholar, a Dutchman named Erasmus was a faithful son of the Church. He and Luther communicated. Erasmus was a renaissance scholar. He was a part of the fifteenth-century revival of learning in Europe where they rediscovered the classical culture of Greece and of Rome and the old language of the Semitic peoples. And in that renewal and revival there was a whole blossoming of the human spirit in the fifteenth century, and it was a preparation for that breakthrough in the sixteenth century, the religious Reformation. Luther wrote to Erasmus, "Join me." Erasmus said, "No, I am going to stay." Luther said, "You can't stay. That Church is decadent and it is dead." Erasmus said, "You want to break it, rend the Body of Christ. For your renewal the price is too high. I will stay within the Church of the Body of Christ. We must not rend this institution that is, after all, in all of its corruption and decadence (which Erasmus readily admitted), nonetheless still the Church of the Living God." Luther left. Protestantism is the consequence. Erasmus stayed and in the following century the Roman Church reformed itself, as always happens in human culture. It's action and reaction. As the Reformation identified or created its identity over against Rome, the reforming Roman Church reformed itself over against the Reformation. Yet we have had this tragic split for all these years. Who was right, Luther or Erasmus? The conservatives who came to Samuel and said, "Don't do this." or the progressives who said to Samuel, "Give us a king." Who was right? Who was wrong? In human history, there's not right and wrong. There are wise choices, foolish choices. There are marvelous breakthroughs and dead ends. It's not a simple question of something being right or wrong. In the ambiguity of the human situation, in the ambiguity of the text of history at any particular time there are a lot of factors that have to be factored in. Erasmus was right. The price was too high. It was tragic. Luther was right. Nothing would happen without the break. Of course, some four or five hundred years later for us to continue to reiterate the sixteenth-century insights is to fall into the pattern of fundamentalism. For us to continue to talk about Reformed distinctions is to forget that we, with history, continue to move. We inaugurated a new President at Western Seminary, and you can hear him preach tonight. As Peter said, "He's a great guy, a good scholar, a good preacher." The Reformed and Christian Reformed Churches are getting together for that © Grand Valley State University �Battling for the Soul of a Nation Richard A. Rhem Page 6   service, and I think that's nice. But if you really want to celebrate Reformation Day today, then why don't we get together with the Roman Catholic Church and all the other churches in the community to recognize that the split back then was tragic, as well as necessary. Then, of course, if we really want to be prophetic, next year let's gather all the churches across all the barriers and also some people from Islam and our Jewish friends and let's have an inter-faith service of worship that recognizes that the future does not lie in the perpetuation of the divisions of the past but the overcoming of those decisions and the healing of relationships. What we need in this world is reconciliation. We live at a hinge-point in culture, which is as critical as that faced in Israel when they were trying to decide whether to have a king or stick with the old forms. We are at a hinge-point in history, which is as critical as the sixteenth century. We are in this nation today in the midst of a culture war. If you had the misfortune of listening in one evening to the Republican Convention a couple of years ago when Pat Buchanan said, "we are in a warfare." If you listen to the rhetoric of Randall Terry, the anti-abortion person, if you receive the propaganda of the religious right, you will find that what they want is the restoration of yesterday, failing to recognize that history is a stream that moves on. Now the conservatives back in Israel had remembered some important things that ought never to be forgotten — and that is the value of the conservative. But the progressives knew that new times demanded new forms — and that is the value of the progressive who recognizes that history is movement, and that yesterday's answers reiterated become fundamentalism today. Today's crises and dilemmas demand deliberation and decision today, in the light of the Biblical story, in the light of the Church tradition, with the exercise of human intellect, and in the evaluation of human experience. It not sola Scriptura. If we really want to be true to the Reformation and continue being Re-formed then we've got to stop throwing those models around, as though once that model is set, everything is set. That is not sola Scriptura. It is one witness. It is a valuable witness. This is our Book. This is our story, but the story has been lived out over centuries of time. We take that tradition seriously. Rome was right about that. Rome has always been right about that. This Book ought always to be a prophetic critique of tradition. But we weren't born in a vacuum. We take seriously the roots from which we come, and we use our heads. For God's sake, we use our heads, we think. To have an external authority that we simply clamp onto ourselves without being able to think, to liberate ourselves, is to deny we are made in the image of God, to think, for God's sake. Then, of course, human experience. You can't just speculate in the abstract. You make decisions in the concrete context of human experience. For example, the people who are pro-choice are not necessarily pro-abortion. They have other values they are looking at. What does it mean to be human? There are other human values that they weigh over against the value of the fetus. It's not easy folks. It's not simple, you see. To get up with all kinds of violent rhetoric and to © Grand Valley State University �Battling for the Soul of a Nation Richard A. Rhem Page 7   make out as though there is a simple easy course, and every God-fearing person would go that way is to deny the reality of the whole course of history in which we see it even in this Biblical example today, where there were Godly people who were trying to find out what it meant to be the people of God in the twelfth and thirteenth century B.C.E. Some said, "Don't you dare anoint a king." And others said, "You'd better anoint a king." And both of them had a text. And we have a text for both of them. Some of us will tend to be conservative. Some of us will tend to be progressive. But in the culture war of this nation today, what is so absolutely imperative is that we begin to talk to each other and to listen, that we be done with this sloganeering and just thinking that once you've said the cliché the argument is over. Look at the data, listen to each other, be in dialog, respect each other, esteem each other. Modernity was born in the French Revolution actually. The Renaissance detoured by the Reformation of the sixteenth century and came to full flower in the eighteenth century with the Enlightenment. The French Revolution, which overthrew the authoritarian divine rights, etc. had as its slogan, "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." If we remove the sexist language, "Liberty, Equality, and Community." That was the birth of the modern. Unfortunately, the modern came to birth in reaction. It had to come in reaction. These things always move in history by reaction. You bust something open, and consequently modernity has been colored with secularism and it has given birth to atheism, which is a recent phenomenon of modernity. But we are moved beyond that. We are in a postmodern age. We know that modernity lost mystery, transcendence. But now, before the face of God, in serious reverence and deep engagement, it is time for us to spearhead a new movement of reconciliation. Some of us recently, had an opportunity to stop in Coventry at the Cathedral. Perhaps you've read the story of how Churchill had gotten possession of the machine by which the Nazis coded their messages and he learned that Coventry was to be bombed a couple of days hence. It was a great industrial center with this great cathedral. Churchill had to wrestle – Do I simply give away the fact that I can break the code or do I simply let it happen and preserve the code and the ability to break the code? He did the latter. Coventry was terribly bombed. The Cathedral was in ruins. And they have allowed the ruins to stand. In the midst of the ruins they have built a magnificent new Cathedral. The morning after the bombing someone went in to take two of the old timbers from the roof that were smoldering and tied them together in the form of a cross. And with the char wrote on the stone ruin, "Father, forgive." If you would go there today, you would find there is still a charred cross. Behind it, etched in stone of the ruins, in gold now, "Father, forgive." There is a magnificent chapel off to the side. It is the Chapel of Reconciliation. Someone, the morning after the bombing, took the old square nails out of the beams and wired them together into a cross. The nailed cross, which perhaps you've seen, has become a symbol of reconciliation. © Grand Valley State University �Battling for the Soul of a Nation Richard A. Rhem Page 8   It is time for Christ Community to lead in a ministry of reconciliation. It will not try to reinvent yesterday, but believe in tomorrow when all God's children will kneel and embrace each other. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1f8ace430c49ad2039781db4b7e16e45.mp3 31f476273ee8681425944f84ce35a08d 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 Series The First Testament Scripture Text I Samuel 8:7, 9:16 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-0-19941030 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-10-30 Title A name given to the resource Culture Wars: Battling For the Soul of the Nation 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 30, 1994 entitled "Culture Wars: Battling For the Soul of the Nation", as part of the series "The First Testament", on the occasion of Pentecost XXIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Samuel 8:7, 9:16. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Covenant of Grace Hebrew Scriptures History of Israel Justice Liberation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c21b0345bd23e3125c7da3c36b7e0f12.pdf f8965007327f9d9a80e4c18e87641c3d PDF Text Text The Test of Trust Text: Exodus 16:18 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XXI, October 23, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "Those who gathered much had nothing over; and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed." Last week we saw Israel set free, a slave people delivered by the mighty hand of God, by the mighty hand of Moses and we noted that that founding story was the story that Israel looked back to when it understood its origins, recognizing that it was created by the grace of God. God with mighty hand moved into that situation of oppression and set his people free. Although that story reflected the ancient traditions, it was written down about six hundred years later when Israel was once again in a situation of exile, when they had lost their hope, when they were about to give up on God and all the promises of the covenant. So someone rehearsed the stories. Someone reminded them about how they were born out of slavery, out of oppression, out of an impossible situation. How God created them a people and set them free. But there are probably no people in all of history that told their own story with more candor than has Israel. A major image comes to mind when I think about Israel in the wilderness, the image of complainers, and the words of God over and again, "You are a stiff-necked people." There is one thing in Israel telling its story: it admitted that it was a stubborn and stiff-necked people. The Jewish Rabbi, David Hartman, said in April that God elected the most obstreperous, obstinate, stubborn and stiffnecked people in all the world, and God said "Now if I can make them human, then I'm really God." As you read the stories in the book of Exodus and the book of Numbers, you will find again and again and again that this people is unhappy, they complain, and they never learn to trust God. They are simply an impossible lot. Well, the situation in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus is a situation where they have no food. At least what they have they are not happy with. They had just seen God provide water out of the rock, but that didn't seem to get through to them, so they complained and God said, "I'll give them bread from heaven." © Grand Valley State University   �The Test of Trust Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Now, it is really not proper to try to explain the miracles of the Bible in natural terms, but as a matter of fact, in the case of this manna or bread from heaven, we know that there was a phenomenon—some kind of plant lice that excretes a certain kind of gum or resin and it is edible and has sustained people in that area even to the present. As far as the quail are concerned, the migratory birds would often go across Sinai and sometimes, having come a long way, they would rest there. So that the miracle of the feeding does have a kind of natural explanation to it. But the point of the story is that God provided for this people in the wilderness. They were set free and set on a journey. The journey in the wilderness was forty years. But forty years in the Scriptures means an extended period of time. There was this extended period of time when they were between Egypt and the Promised Land. It's one of the great models or paradigms of the Scripture – being set free, journeying through the wilderness, journeying toward the Promised Land. In that wilderness experience, as Israel understood its own past, it saw that experience as a time in which it was tested and the thing that God was trying to create in the Israelite was trust. "Trust me. I will be with you. I will take care of you. Give up your anxiety. Simply trust me." So in the story the Lord says, "I will give them bread from heaven." And here are the instructions: They are to go out every morning and they are to gather enough for the day. We are told that they went out and some gathered a lot, as I probably would be inclined to do, knowing my appetite. Others gathered a little. But the text tells us that those that gathered a lot had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no lack. You see, that's the finger of God in the story. There might have always been that kind of stuff in the desert, but the lesson that Israel was to learn as it told this story, and the lesson that the people were to learn who were hearing the story hundreds of years later was that God is always on time with enough for the day. Then we are told that some of them didn't believe it. They gathered some extra and they put it in the freezer and in the morning, Behold, it was wormy. It didn't work. The Lord also said, "On the Sabbath Day there will be no manna. Don't go out to gather on the Sabbath. So gather a double amount the day before." Lo and behold, they did, and the next morning it was just fine. It didn't get wormy. Now there were a few who didn't believe that and they went out on the Sabbath anyway. But there was nothing there. That's the story, the story of bread from heaven, a story of how God provides for God's people, how God in the provision [of food] seeks to teach people to trust. It is a whole manner of life. Trusting is a way of life. Really, so much of the Biblical story is simply an invitation to people to live with trust, because God is good, and God cares, and God provides for those that trust in God. As you think about the story, obviously the first question that the story raises for us is — What is enough? The Financial Seminar which is being held in Track II in Perspectives raises a question. What is © Grand Valley State University �The Test of Trust Richard A. Rhem Page 3   enough? Our worldly possessions, our savings accounts, our investments – all of that which seems to be "worldly" is really at root a matter of deep spiritual concern. A question comes to us. What is enough? What is enough? What is enough in an age of affluence such as we live in? What is enough as we contemplate the engagement of our energies and our time? What is enough as we think about our future? We are reminded of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, who also with beautiful simplicity invited those who heard him to trust God. He pointed to the sparrow in the tree and the lily of the field. He used creation as a parable to say, "Look, there is someone who is looking after this old world, and after you and me. Live with trust. Be done with anxiety, all of that inquisitiveness, that compulsion to possess." In another place he told about the farmer who kept building bigger and bigger barns only to find that his soul was required of him when he had laid up all of his treasures. The question that comes out of this old tale of Israel's past, “What is enough?” John Wesley, who was a great English preacher and one who led the 18th century revival in England, raised the question as he observed the people that he was marshaling together into the whole renewal movement in England. He made this observation. He said, "Whenever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion.” “ Therefore,” said Wesley, "I do not see how it is possible in the nature of things for any revival of religion to continue long." Then he said this interesting thing, "For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase so will pride, anger and the love of this world and all of its branches. Is there no way to prevent this continuous decay of pure religion?" I was thinking about Wesley's statement: thinking about the area in which we live, thinking about Western Michigan, thinking about our own roots. "Good religion produces industry and frugality. And industry and frugality produce riches, and riches lead to the decay of religious commitment." Not necessarily, but all too often. Think about Western Michigan. I think about the industry and the frugality of our fathers and our mothers and our grandparents back two and three generations. I think about the considerable wealth of Western Michigan, which is the consequence of industry and frugality, which is a wonderful blessing of God. But the question that comes to us then is: What is enough? Another statement of John Wesley: (I like this statement.) he said, "Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can." That, it seems to me, would be an answer to his earlier observation that when we are blessed we see it as the blessing of God, that it is the consequence of God's good grace, and that then as good stewards we become the instruments of doing good, of being full of mercy and compassion, of binding up the wounds of the world. So, out of the story, let me leave you with a question this morning. “What is enough?” © Grand Valley State University �The Test of Trust Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Then, obviously, this is there too. The Israelites were to gather enough for the day. Those of you who are familiar with the Twelve Steps know that the secret of long successful sobriety is to live one day at a time. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Take no thought for the morrow." Now that can become ridiculous, of course, if you think that it undercuts any kind of planning or projection of the future. But the point is — Where is our focus? And have we learned to live by trust in God, one day at a time? There were those who didn't believe it. They said, "You know, you'd better gather this manna while it's here. It might not be here tomorrow." And it turned moldy on them. How many of us have not been guilty of overreaching, grasping the prize only to have it turn to dust in our hands? The lesson of the story and what Israel was being taught by God was —today, that's enough. Take care of today. Worry about today, and tomorrow will take care of itself. Then, this too, which was all part of the same kind of lesson and was a Sabbath lesson. No gathering on the Sabbath. Sabbath was to be a break, a break in that continual day by day struggle for survival. The Sabbath principle was woven throughout the whole of Israel's history. It was a principle that was rooted in creation itself. The creed of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, which was written in the 5th or 6th century B.C.E., was the principle of God's creative activity and then rest. God rested from all God's work, surveyed it all and said, "It's good." And that was woven into the very fabric of the lives of God's people. In the time of Jesus, in the time of Paul, that Sabbath principle had become rather legalistic. They had all kinds of rules to hedge it in, such as the permissible Sabbath day’s journey when you could carry only so much. Well, Jesus had to protest against it. He said, “You know the Sabbath was made for humankind. Humankind was not made for the Sabbath.” I don’t know about you, but I grew up in that kind of Sabbath legalism. I always tell the story about the visiting preacher who was raised Scottish Presbyterian, which was about as formidable as being Dutch Reformed in terms of the legalism of the Sabbath. He told about singing the hymn “Day of All the Week the Best, Emblem of Eternal Rest,” and he thought to himself, “If heaven is like Sunday, I don’t think I want to go there.” We can make it miserable and the sense in which I grew up was “ugly Sundays.” But to react against that is to lose something that is so profoundly necessary for human well being, and that is to have some point in the week when we stop! When we stop and we rest! We give up that compulsive need to generate, to produce, to acquire. Just to stop! To stop, even when it’s stupid to stop, because we can conquer another milestone. The Sabbath principle cuts right into the core of that human compulsion, that obsession of producing. People who are workaholics like I am need to hear it over and over again. Stop! The Sabbath was not first of all for worship. The Sabbath was first of all simply to rest and to delight. I think that in my past the Sabbath principle was violated by the Church itself, where it required Sabbath worship morning and evening and all parts in between. What God wants people to do is to © Grand Valley State University �The Test of Trust Richard A. Rhem Page 5   take time to smell the roses, take time to be human. Take time to let the earth refresh itself and to rest the animals and, above all, to find a quiet place for our souls. The test is trust. Do I believe in God? Do I believe in the goodness of creation? Do I trust that the good God and the good creation will be supportive of my human existence? And will I take time to recognize that every good and perfect gift comes from God, and learn simply to live with trust? I think that that is the spiritual dimension of our Christian giving. That’s the real point of the issue when we determine what of that which God has given us we will give in turn to enhance and enable the work of God in the world. Trust. To trust God is to be relieved of a terrible anxiety, to be freed from an awful drivenness, to be able to delight and to enjoy and to rest in the Lord. Those that gathered much didn’t have any over, and those that gathered little had no lack: a vision for a world where everyone has enough, a goal to work at for the people of God, who trust God, day by day. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/50771c556f2dddcce300baceff2fdfea.mp3 d5c4de6aa96ec1e2e2eb91d53b0ffd0b 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 Reformation Sunday, Pentecost XXII Series The First Testament Scripture Text Exodus 16:18 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-0-19941023 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-10-23 Title A name given to the resource The Test of Trust 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 23, 1994 entitled "The Test of Trust", as part of the series "The First Testament", on the occasion of Reformation Sunday, Pentecost XXII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Exodus 16:18. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Hebrew Scriptures History of Israel Pluralism Reconciliation Reformation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5bddc8d9f6c933b22bf44dde4a1c43c8.pdf c98b5555fd3196daf11d7aa500f8d1cb PDF Text Text A Founding Story: A Visionary Leader and a People Set Free History of Israel: Its Liberation and Birth as a People Text: Exodus 1:8; Exodus 3: 2, 6-7, 14 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XXI, October 16, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph." Exodus 1:8 "There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed." Exodus 3:2 "l am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob... I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry."  Exodus 3:6-­‐7   "God said to Moses, ‘I will be there’.. ( ‘I Am who I am.' or 'I will be what I will be.')  "  Exodus 3:14 Now imagine, if you will—six hundred years later or so—this same people, this community of faith now down some generations, are once again in a situation of captivity. The people of Judah are in exile in Babylon, and their faith is wavering. They are ready to give up. All of these great promises: the covenant of grace, God's special choice of this people, God who was supposedly God alone, Creator of the heavens and the earth. Where was God? Babylon seemed to hold sway. As their hope was fading and their faith was flickering someone said, "Let me tell you a story." He told them a story that we've just read, a story of where this people, even six hundred years before, had been in a situation more oppressive and more hopeless than anything that the present exiles in Babylon had known. Someone said, "That's a great story." And someone else said, "You ought to write that story down." And a third person said, "Xerox it off and spread it around. That's a good story." They started to believe again. Maybe what they were experiencing in their present circumstance was not a dead end. Maybe that was not all there was. Maybe this God really was God after all, a God who could create newness, who could do the unexpected. Maybe this was God who would surprise by grace, as God had to their fathers and their mothers centuries ago. The prophet picked it up and he began to speak in the name of God. Second Isaiah, Isaiah 43:14—listen to the images. © Grand Valley State University   �A Founding Story…A People Set Free Richard A. Rhem Page 2   "Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: 'For I will send to Babylon and break down all the bars, and the shouting of the Chaldeans will be turned to lamentations. I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.' Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: 'Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert...'" Six hundred years later and the old founding story of liberation and the birth of the Israeli people becomes a catalyst for this same people to begin to believe again, to begin to hope again, to begin to wait on the Lord again, and to expect the salvation that comes from God. The story is familiar. Israel is terribly oppressed. Moses, who had been raised in all of the pomp and circumstance of Egypt, with all of that culture and civilization, blew it badly through a temper that flared up when he killed an Egyptian. Now he's out there tending flocks. In Wanderings, the Jewish novelist Chaim Potok tries to get inside the skin of Moses to figure out what must have been going on in this man as he tended sheep and sensed something within, how he was confronted with a bush that burned and was not consumed, and who heard a voice, within perhaps, but as thunderous as any thunder, saying to him, "Things are not right in Egypt. Go. Set my people free.” He goes, and it is a contest of wills. But the judgments of God, we call them the plagues, counter all of the "no's" of Pharaoh, until finally he says, "Take them out." And Moses leads them to freedom, through the Red Sea, into the desert, gathering at Sinai to be formed as a people specially created by the Eternal God, the Creator of the heavens and earth, the God of their fathers and mothers: Abraham & Sarah, Jacob & Rachel, Isaac & Rebekka and Joseph. Now they are on their way to a new beginning and a promised land. They celebrate this story as their founding story, the story of a God who sets people free, who uses the likes of a Moses to lead a people into God's intention for their humanization, for the full realization of all for which God had created them. Wonderful, wonderful story, and in that story we can see Israel's faith. Israel's tradition is the tradition out of which the Christian Church has come, so the founding story is our story too. This God of deliverance, this God of liberation— this is our God. The things that Israel believed are the things that have shaped the whole western tradition as well, the Jewish Christian tradition. There are so many things one could say, but let me mention just a few. The first thing I would say is that God in this story comes through as a God who is on the side of human liberation. God is a God who wants human freedom. God is a God, on the other side of the coin, who is against all slavery or oppression, or © Grand Valley State University �A Founding Story…A People Set Free Richard A. Rhem Page 3   totalitarianism. God is against the tyrants and the dictators and those who will use people and abuse people for their own ends. God is against every movement that used people as a means to an end, and not an end in themselves. God is for people. God is for the humanness of people. God is for the freedom and the liberty and the full blossoming of the human person and human community. That's in the story, I believe. Israel believed that. Its long tradition, even to the present, holds that to be true. And, therefore, the God of Israel, the biblical God, the God whom we worship, is a God who is engaged in the human story, a God who is involved in human history. Do you believed that? Do you believe that? You say, "Oh, sure, doesn't everybody?" Yes, everybody does until they think about it. When you think about it, where is the puzzle put together, that is, the fiats that come out of the power centers of the world, the governments of the world, the Bill Clintons, the Helmut Kohls, the Saddam Husseins, the machinations of people? Is that all there is? Is it just maybe economic ties? Is it just political scheming and structuring? Is God involved in it? Well, sometimes it would hardly seem so. Who could see this invisible hand? Yet, what is the alternative? Is no one transcending all these human machinations? Then are we just pawns on the sea of fate, of political decision and economic trends? Biblical faith says God is engaged. God hears the cry of the suffering people. God says, "I remember my covenant." God moves, through human agency to be sure, but God is engaged. God is involved. There is a spiritual power or force that is at work in the political decisions and the human scheming on the historical plane. So says biblical faith. A huge affirmation of faith is needed, because you can't get your finger on it, and just the moment you say, "There," something will reverse it. But it is true that the Jews went home from exile in Babylon believing as they believed, triggered by this Exodus story, that all was not over, that the present circumstance was not a dead end, that God could create some newness, some window for them. Some years ago, this story was a powerful story being preached in South Africa. The white South African government did not fall, apartheid was not dismantled because they did not have enough police power and enough guns. Apartheid was immoral. It was contrary to the God, the Creator, who was for human liberty and dignity, and when something is essentially immoral it will ultimately be politically disastrous. The Berlin Wall fell without a shot. The most powerful forces to move it were the candles and the prayers in Leipzig. We are people who don't claim to know how or where or when, and yet we believe that God is for justice and for righteousness, and for good, and for compassion and for mercy— that there is something operative beyond what is apparent to the human eye and the human perception, something more. There is a surplus of meaning that is on the side of human liberation. That's in this story that is effected through guys like Moses, who has a short fuse and kills a man and flees justice, a flawed man, and © Grand Valley State University �A Founding Story…A People Set Free Richard A. Rhem Page 4   yet a great leader. Really it's because that's all God has to work with—folks like you and me with our clay feet hanging out. A man from the Nobel committee in Norway resigned on Friday when Arafat was given the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Peres and Rabin. He said that to give the peace prize to Arafat, so tainted with blood, terrorism and violence, is to prostitute that prize. At first I thought, "Good for you. You're right." Members of the right-wing conservative party in Israel said Peres and Rabin should not accept the prize because it would desecrate all the lives of those who had died in the violence. Where were they in 1978 when Menachem Begin got the prize – one of the greatest terrorists of them all? Then I got to thinking, "No, Mr. Christiansen, I don't think you should resign because they are not evaluating the moral character of those people; they are saying those people somehow in the ebb and flow of history have been at a vortex of action that has gotten some breakthrough and moved onward toward peace and justice." Arafat is no lily. Neither was Moses. It's all God has got to work with. So God uses what's there. The biblical God gets hands dirty and messed up with the ambiguity of the human situation. And that's the fourth thing I would say: the movement towards liberation is ambiguous and it is messy. There are not white hats and black hats. There are not good guys and bad guys. There are not lily-whites and black evil. When David Hartman was in Muskegon he told this founding story, and he said, "You can tell it two ways. You can say 'Wow, what a story! Israel set free, isn't it wonderful?'" Then he told about some of the Rabbis way back in history who said, "God in heaven said, 'Why are you singing and rejoicing when the work of my hands, the Egyptians, are drowning in the sea?'" The Hebrew tradition does it better than we have done it. They have a sense of the ambiguity of the historical, human situation. Recently I was at Normandy. It was very moving to be there and to review the countless crosses at Omaha Beach. I thought about the sacrifice of human life and of the hearts of parents that were crushed. But there were German cemeteries there too. Nothing is black and white in history. The movement forward is a messy movement. It is full of ambiguity. And every victory has the downside of tragedy. That's really the way it is, and maybe it is at that point that I read the story different than some of my colleagues and other advocates of the “U.S.A. No. 1” position. I name some people just so you know what I am talking about in the political arena: the Oliver North types, the flag waving, the identification of patriotism with righteousness and a strong America-and all that, or the television ministries of Pat Robertson, even James Kennedy, with their strong American defense. It is a reading of the story as though the United States of America can be identified with the children of Israel, with the cause of righteousness and justice in the world, and the movement of God toward peace and justice. You see, if you © Grand Valley State University �A Founding Story…A People Set Free Richard A. Rhem Page 5   read this honestly, we at this point are the greatest power in the world and uncontested. We are not Israel looking for freedom. We are the House of Pharaoh. If we would read this Word of God and let it address us, it must address us as those who are in power, not those who are seeking freedom. There's nothing wrong with being in power. The only question is what will we do with our power? And if we would hear the word of God, if we would hear this founding story, then the Church of Jesus Christ must say to those in power who lead us that what God is concerned about in the world is not U.S. national security or U.S. GNP, or U.S. self-interest, or the oil or whatever. What God is concerned about is humanity, humanness, liberty, the dignity of the individual, the building of community, a compassionate world. We cannot so easily identify with the white hats of scripture. Our Puritan forbearers came over here and saw this as the new Canaan. They came over here and saw this as a theocracy, the kingdom of God. And I think with all honesty they believed that. There was a time when we had to take our guns and our rifles and stand up for liberty in these states. There was a time when this nation was in that position. We could identify perhaps then with the story on that side. But if I would be true to the Word of God, I would have to say to you that the founding story of Israel confronts us with a question: Now that you have the power, what will you do in the world? And that ought to make us very nervous. Three weeks away from an election, that would be a great question to raise to those running for office. How do you get elected by serving the self-interest of the people? What is popular? Patriotic rallies and flag waving, that's O.K. I love the nation. I am proud of the nation. As I said, I stood on Normandy Beach and I experienced vicariously, I think, the best of this nation. But never let the Church of Jesus Christ be co-opted by a political agenda as was the German Church under Hitler, as is Islam under Saddam Hussein. Whenever the Church baptizes the government's policy, the government will in time be in trouble, because what is morally indefensible is ultimately politically disastrous, because God is God, by God. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e17b098df018886dab618152c782ad39.mp3 85f9262641f1b22ad8ecbc45876cb7fe 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 XXI Series The First Testament Scripture Text Exodus 1:8, 3:2, 6-7, 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-0-19941016 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-10-16 Title A name given to the resource A Founding Story - A Visionary Leader and a People Set Free 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 16, 1994 entitled "A Founding Story - A Visionary Leader and a People Set Free", as part of the series "The First Testament", on the occasion of Pentecost XXI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Exodus 1:8, 3:2, 6-7, 14. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Freedom Hebrew Scriptures Spiritual Journey History of Israel Sabbath Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/030a1b6532bba23365075be9845d437f.pdf ec7104c170faf6db544f355a7d0109e3 PDF Text Text Israel: God Wrestler A Tale of Providence and Grace Text: Genesis 27:38; Genesis 32:9-10, 28 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan October 9, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon Esau said to his father, 'Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also father!' And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. Genesis 27:38 And Jacob said, 'O God of my father Abraham…I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown your servant…’ Genesis 32:9-10 Then the man said, 'You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.' Genesis 32:28 We have had a series of messages in which we are trying to see the broad sweep of the Biblical story. The message this morning is about the one of whom we read, Jacob. You can tell that there's material there for a dozen sermons, and I've done series on Jacob in the past. This morning, I will simply hit the mountain peak of that story. I am not treating the story of Jacob this morning in order to find the preaching values that are there or the applications that are there for our life so much as, rather, to see the story of Jacob in the larger puzzle of the whole biblical story. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are Israel's understanding of where it fit into the broad scheme of things. Those first eleven chapters were stories told, by which Israel gave expression to its understanding of where it stood in relationship to the whole cosmos and the whole sweep of human history. In those eleven chapters it witnessed to its understanding of the human situation, why life is like it is. Those stories, so profound, gave expression to the best insights that Israel had about the world, about God and the human condition. Then last week we moved from that universal scope to the more particular focus, because that was Israel's story. In the 10th chapter of Genesis you have the table of the nations, and it is out of those nations that God calls one family, and the call was to Abraham and Sarah. We looked at that story, that really beautiful and tragic story, of Abraham and Sarah who had to trust God in the extremity, yet © Grand Valley State University   �Israel: God Wrestler Richard A. Rhem Page 2   who in the meantime took things into their own hands so that Sarah's slave girl, Hagar, bore Abraham a son, whom he loved. And Sarah, being so human, forced the slave girl and her son out of the tent. The tragic story of Ishmael, the firstborn, Abraham's beloved, but who was turned away. The question is this matter of God's choice in selection. Does it always have to be a case of one who is elected and one who is rejected? Isaac, the child of promise, comes—Ishmael is rejected. Ishmael, as it were, Abraham's son by normal, natural means. But Israel understood that, ultimately, the fulfillment was not the product of human ingenuity or human potential; it was a miracle, it was the creation of God. So out of Sarah's barren womb must arise the child of promise, Isaac. Then Isaac's story is told, although Isaac is not a very colorful figure and he doesn't get a lot of press. He takes a wife, Rebecca. Abraham sends his servant back to the home territory in order to secure a wife for Isaac, and Isaac and Rebecca are married. But, do you remember? Here again, Rebecca is "barren." It is not the case that once God gets this whole thing going by grace that it can kind of generate itself. No, not at all. Once again, a barren womb seems the way for this people, from whom will come, the promise says, children as numerous as the stars of the heaven. This time conception occurs. It’s a tough pregnancy. Rebecca wonders if she shouldn't die, and then she is told, "two nations are in your womb," foreshadowing the conflict that will come down through the ages, beginning with the brothers Esau and Jacob. Esau, the first out of the womb, his heel grasped by his brother Jacob, giving his brother his name, "heel" or "supplanter" or "grasper," setting us up for the conflict between these two brothers. Again the ordinary way of things will be upset because it will not be the firstborn, it will be the second son, Jacob, who will be the bearer of the promise. "Why?" you say. "Why?" I say. The inscrutable mystery of God. I don't know. The story runs smack into it again. Not Ishmael but Isaac. Not Esau but Jacob. And all our sympathies are with Esau. He's the kind of kid that everyone would love. But Jacob, soft skinned Jacob, was his mother's favorite. One day Esau comes in famished and Jacob is stirring up a pot of stew, scheming and planning, always thinking. Shrewd Jacob says, "I'll give you the stew for the rights of first birth." Esau said, "What's the future? It's now that I am hungry. Give me the soup." But then the really tough part of the story. Isaac is old now. He is blind. He is ready to die. He is ready to bestow that final blessing on his firstborn, so he calls Esau and says, "Go to the field and hunt and bring me venison, fix me a stew, and I will bless you." You know the story. Rebecca hears and tells Jacob to go get a kid. They cook it up and she puts hairy skins on his soft arms and sends him in to the blind old man to pose as Esau in order that he might get the blessing. Isaac gives Jacob the blessing, even though suspicious about the identity of this one. Esau comes back and weeps bitterly. Once again, the same cry as Ishmael. "Is there only one blessing? Can you not bless me, oh my father?" But the deed is done, the word has been spoken, the word cannot be recalled. That's the way it was in that culture, in their understanding. And if that's the understanding that everyone shares, that's the way it is. That has power. © Grand Valley State University �Israel: God Wrestler Richard A. Rhem Page 3   So Jacob has to flee because Esau says, "Now twice he's done it to me, I'll kill him." So Jacob flees a days' journey and finally, exhausted, lies down to rest and, of course, one would suspect that he would be wide-eyed all night, trembling with guilt and fear. Not so. He lies down and sleeps like a baby and has a dream so magnificent that it brings tears to our eyes. There's a heaven. There's a ladder stretching up to heaven with angels coming up and down, and at the top is God. A revelation, an epiphany, call it what you will, an experience of an encounter with the living God who says, "I am the God of Abraham and of Isaac, your father. I will be your God and you will be the covenant child, and I will bless all nations and I will be with you wherever you go. I will keep you and I will bring you home." Amazing, isn't it? He goes off to his uncle to find himself a wife. Leah, and then Rachel. Leah is given to him by subterfuge, but he works longer and he earns Rachel. He loves Rachel. But Rachel is what? "Barren." Here we are again. Finally through all the prosperity he gains his flocks and his herds and Rachel has a child, Joseph. The wife, the love of his life, gives him the apple of his eye. In late years he prepares to go home, to meet Esau. Always equal to the task, probably with a yellow pad or two, making notations, he plans and he schemes, ready once again to manipulate this weaker brother. Then, the night before the encounter, he sends his family over the brook and remains on the other side in the darkness alone. The story tells us a man assaulted him. A man? A demon? No, we read between the lines. This is none other than God. Jacob wrestles with God. He wrestles all night and seems almost to prevail, but the dawn is about to break and the match must be over before sunrise. At the moment it seems that Jacob will prevail, his thigh is "touched," and he is crippled. Now he clings to the other, but not in order to overcome, but rather he clings to the other out of need, crying out, "Bless me. I will not let go until you bless me." As a result, he is given a new name. No longer Jacob the deceiver, the supplanter, the grasper, but "Israel"—God wrestler. The name in that culture also signified the person, and the new name signified a new person. Jacob is born anew at Jabbok that night as he wrestles with God, striving with every ounce of energy to prevail, finally crippled, fearfully wondering who this was, only to discover that he has struggled with the God of all mercy who blesses him there. The sun begins to light the conflagration in the eastern sky, and we see Jacob limping off. He seems even to be dancing on that crippled leg. He has been crippled by a very great grace. Fascinating story. The Hebrews telling about their roots. Israel is trying to understand who it is. It is trying to understand itself in the light of the whence of its birth. Abraham, Isaac . . . but Jacob? I don't suppose it is true any more in school classrooms. But it seems as though when I was attending there was always a picture of George Washington, father of the nation. Wasn't George Washington the one who never told any lies? I mean, founding fathers and mothers should be heroes and heroines. They should be © Grand Valley State University �Israel: God Wrestler Richard A. Rhem Page 4   exemplars. They should be models. They are those who are held up to us as great figures, and we are called to emulate them. But Israel claims Jacob as its father, this schemer, this planner, this usurper, this manipulator, this exploiter. This one they say is our father. Israel telling its story in terms of this man, and believing that God worked through one like that. That all is so much of grace that it actually scandalizes us. No morality play, this. No whitewashing of the forefathers and foremothers in order to claim a squeaky clean past. This is a people who knew that God worked with the raw material of human history and of humankind, and that a Jacob was in the line of covenant blessing. How could God use a Jacob? How could God further God's purposes, God's eternal purposes of love and grace through one like that? Yet you see that's exactly the heart and center of biblical faith. Finally, Israel knew that it was given life by God, that life was gift, that all was grace, that there was nothing in itself, no righteousness or goodness or mercy or merit. There was no claim at all on this one who moves inscrutably, and blesses, who wrestles with us and struggles with us, but finally will overcome us. I loved Ruth's phrase "knocked to her knees by grace." It is only grace that finally knocks us to our knees. You see, it is in stories like this that you see what the Bible is all about. I will tell you that my whole understanding of grace arises out of these stories. My understanding of grace comes not out of the New Testament, even though it’s there. It was in this sense of God choosing this people from progenitors like this one that it had to be all of grace, that choice, that selection, that election which brought with it in the very choice and selection, tragedy and disappointment and rejection. That very choice, that selection, that was not in order that the rest might be abandoned, but it was a choice of these in order that all might be embraced. If God would choose these, if God would use these, then God will use anything, anyone. Then it is all of grace, radical grace. Radical grace! And if it is radical grace in its foundation, it must be radical grace to the end of time and to the whole expanse of the human family. It is grace because God is grace. Will you question God? Will you put God on the stand? Will you say, "Why God?” Sure you will and the only answer is "I am God, and I am full of grace." That's the story of this scoundrel who was finally conquered by grace at Bethel. In the midst of his guilty night, there heaven opens up and God says, "I will be with you, and I will keep you wherever you go. I will bring you home, “through many dangers, toils and snares. I have already come. ‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will bring me home." Amazing Grace. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/37fa1de8324494fa1e03f9636199252d.mp3 5b5cd36e313437c2e8219438bf4010b8 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 XX Series The First Testament Scripture Text Genesis 27: 38, 32:9-10, 28 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-0-19941009 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-10-09 Title A name given to the resource Israel: God Wrestler - A Tale of Providence and Grace 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 9, 1994 entitled "Israel: God Wrestler - A Tale of Providence and Grace", as part of the series "The First Testament", on the occasion of Pentecost XX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 27: 38, 32:9-10, 28. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Grace of God Mystery Transforming Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a93567604cf8180e0b68fe3c2695ed1e.mp3 ac037abc0ad3a83ad6db7409d9e354c2 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 First Testament Scripture Text Genesis 17:18 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-0-19941002 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-10-02 Title A name given to the resource Why No Ishmael? - Election: Exclusive or Inclusive? 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 2, 1994 entitled "Why No Ishmael? - Election: Exclusive or Inclusive?", as part of the series "The First Testament", on the occasion of Pentecost XIX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 17:18. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Covenant History of Israel Inclusive Pluralism https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/16105fcfb52711c7b1298a2fa6e50841.pdf 48a46a1b7fe4ed1bf576a89d7fac57c6 PDF Text Text Creation: God’s Risky Decision – Dream or Nightmare? The Genesis Story of the People of Israel Text: Genesis 9:8-11 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XVIII, September 25, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "Then God said to Noah... I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you... and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." Genesis 9:8-11 The Bible is a forbidding book. In order to get some handle on it, let's try for a few Sunday mornings to look at large chunks, with broad strokes, in order to see how those large chunks fit into a whole to tell "The One Story of the Bible." Our beginning is with the first eleven chapters of Genesis. But those first eleven chapters, while they speak of the beginning of all things, are not really the beginning of the biblical story. To go to the beginning of the biblical story, we would have to go to the book of Exodus, to the birth of the people Israel. Here we find Moses leading the Israelites out of the slavery and bondage of Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land. The Exodus, the movement from Egypt and slavery to the land flowing with milk and honey, that was the founding story of this people Israel. The Creation story is the story of this people. This people Israel, like every people, told stories. They told stories in order to understand themselves, who they were, and to communicate that understanding to the rising generations. They told stories of beginnings, like every people. They told stories of the ancient past. They told stories in order to understand themselves in the broad scheme of things. They told these stories in order to understand how they related to the whole cosmic reality and the whole human history, how they as a people related to all other peoples. They told stories in order to explain why life was like it was, and how to respond to it, and from what perspective to interpret it. They told stories. The first eleven chapters of Genesis are the stories that this people Israel told in order to explain what they believed—what they believed to be true about the world, about history, and about themselves, and about God. This people Israel told their stories in order to give expression to their faith, for they were first of all a people of faith. © Grand Valley State University   �Creation: God’s Risky Decision – Dream or Nightmare? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Perhaps you will then say to me, "Well, then these stories in the first eleven chapters of Genesis are human creations? Are they simply stories that people told?" And I would say, "Yes .. . and No ..." Yes they are human creations, they are stories that this community told, that expressed their faith. But whence did those stories arise? They arose out of the experience this people had with the One who was transcendent, the One who was beyond them, the One whom they understood to be the source of all life—Creator of all. Their stories arose out of their encounter with the Living God. So there's a sense in which you could say yes, these biblical stories are human creations, but they are more than that; they speak of human experience of being encountered by God. Out of that encounter they gave witness to the things that they believed about the God who encountered them. As the centuries went by and the nation of Israel developed, the stories they told in an oral tradition eventually became written down and gathered together. So, we have today the Hebrew Scriptures or the First Testament. (Rather than the Old Testament. To say the Old Testament it sounds as though the New Testament superseded the Old, as though Israel has been surpassed. I think that that is insensitive and I don't really believe that to be the case. I think more and more we come to see that we, with Israel, worship this one God who creates all and is full of grace.) So, the Hebrew Scriptures or the First Testament will be our primary focus for a few weeks. And that Hebrew scripture begins not with the beginning of the Hebrew people—that's told us in the book of Exodus – but what they believed about the Source of all things. They said there is, because God said, "Let there be." That is the creation story told poetically by James Weldon Johnson, expressed marvelously by Franz Josef Heyden, recorded here by the First Testament writer in the first chapter as a creed of creation. This story is recorded in the midst of Israel's exile and despair, as an affirmation of faith, that a Creator created all things. Why is there anything, rather than nothing? They said, there is something rather than nothing, because God said, "Let there be." The unraveling of that creation story is simply the explication of the fundamental decision of faith that what is—is, not by accident or chance or an eternal cycle of things, but is the consequence of the Living God who is the creative source of all, who decided in a risky decision to bring into being all that is. That's what they believed. Then they went on to say, "But how—now that we have located ourselves in this cosmic scheme of things, the consequence of God's creative word—how should be feel about the world and the created order?" They went on in their storytelling to reiterate that statement of God, "It is good," a positive affirmation, a positive affirmation of human life. They said, "Who are we and how are we related?" The storyteller said, "We are related to God, for we are created in the divine image, and with profound insight." This story also helped them to see that the human person, created in the divine image, self reflective, created with freedom and responsibility, was also shaped © Grand Valley State University �Creation: God’s Risky Decision – Dream or Nightmare? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   out of the mud of the earth—dust, humus. After the rain the worms buckle up the soil—that's humus, the excretion of the worm. The humus is the stuff that God shaped to make the human person. Humus. Its root is in the word humility; the root of humility is the root of humor. In God's good humor, God making a joke, created a being out of humus that had a spirit that could soar with God's own so the human person beckoned upward, pulled downward, lives in this constant tension. The Israelite tradition said, see, that's why we are like we are. But someone else said, "But why? This God is good, and if this God created humankind in God's own image, why all the disease and all the dis-ease? Why all the trouble, the anguish and the pain? Why does it sometimes seem that this creation is not a dream, but a nightmare?" The answer was: Not God's fault. The Creator called the creature to live in freedom within limits, in harmony with creation, and the Creator. But the risky part of it was that the creature had the potential to say, "No," and with arrogant pride to usurp the place of the creator, to seek human autonomy. All of that is in those primitive stories. The writer was trying to give expression to the conviction of Israel that creation is good because God is good, and God called it forth. The human person is good because it is shaped after the image of God, yet rooted in the earth, full of conflict, set always before choice, called always to choose life, to choose the way of wisdom. But again and again and again, say the storytellers, these persons choose wrongly, bringing on alienation, disharmony, grief, death. The third chapter of Genesis, following on the story in the Garden of Eden, tells us about Adam and Eve and the trees and the temptation to eat from the tree. And the choice to do what God had said they should not do, to eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But that's not a story that happened at 6:00 a.m. on the first day of creation, because these are not historical narratives as though day one is in chapter one, and day two is in chapter three, then day four, or month six, or whatever. No, these are a series of little stories, a series of portraits, of snapshots. So, in chapters two and three we have a human couple, created for a garden of paradise, an Eden of delight, who usurped their limits of the freedom and brought grief upon them. Then, it is not as though from that point on there is no more human possibility to choose rightly. In the fourth chapter there are two brothers, Cain and Abel. Cain gets an angry eye over against his brother and he becomes jealous of his brother. He has hatred growing in his heart, and he rises up and he kills his brother. But the word of the Lord comes to him and says you did that because your mother and father sinned, therefore, you are a sinner and are totally depraved; you can't help yourself. Sin crouches at your door, but you can master it, but you didn't. If you want to call that the "fall" in Genesis 3, then you have a second "fall" in Genesis 4. There the writer tells us that human civilization and culture developed, and with the developing culture of the civilization there was an increase in wickedness on the earth until God shook his head and he said, "I wish I wouldn't © Grand Valley State University �Creation: God’s Risky Decision – Dream or Nightmare? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   have done it. I took a risk. I wish I wouldn't have taken a risk." The storyteller uses anthropomorphic words– so child like, so profound—revealing the anguish of a God who is engaged and involved, who says, "I will wipe it out." Ah, but we're told, there's Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He was a righteous man. God snatched Noah and his family out of the abyss of the flood, and when the floodwaters passed away God said, "You know, I'm never going to do that again. I am going to make a covenant pledge with the created order and every living being and humankind. I'll never destroy it again and I am going to put a rainbow in the sky to be reminded every time I see it that I am pledged to stick with this risky experiment all the way to the end. I'll never let it go." Such grace! Then you have Noah's sons and their trouble, and the final story in these eleven chapters is the story of the Tower of Babel where they begin to build this tower toward heaven. Again with such profound wisdom and insight the storyteller is telling us that it is the human project to usurp the place of God, to build the secular city, to organize all of life without regard to the Creator, to break the limits. So we have the dispersion of the people due to the confusing of their tongues. Because, when communication breaks down, community is impossible and the world becomes hell. That's how this people Israel related themselves to the total cosmic scheme of things, to the whole flow of human history, to God whom they affirmed to be the source of all life, and how they understood the reason there was so much pain and trouble in the world. Not blaming God, and never letting themselves off the hook as though, "We're just human, and we are fallen; therefore, marred forever and it can't ever be any different." Always calling themselves back to choose life, to live obediently – that was their understanding and their goal in the telling of these stories. Those eleven chapters are foundational for the rest of the story because, you see, what the writer did was say "We, as this peculiar people of Israel, are who we are, chosen by God because in the beginning—Adam and Even, Cain and Abel, the people of Noah's generation, the Tower of Babel—again and again and again human failure, human cussedness, human obstreperousness was the choice." But God says, "I can't let it go. I'll never abandon my people, so I am going to have to do something." What follows is the story of Abraham. Does the writer just happens to tell us that Abraham's wife, Sarah, was a woman with a barren womb? I don't think that the writer slipped that in order that there might be a wonderful trivia question some generations later. The writer was using a metaphor to tell us that Israel would be born as a new creation of God, out of a barren womb which only God could do in order to be a people to bring light and truth to the nations on behalf of the God who was the Creator of all. Out of the womb of Sarah that was barren, and at her age as wrinkled as a dried prune, God would bring a people as numerous as the stars of the heaven and the sands of the sea. But I am anticipating next week—so for now let me say just two things. These marvelous stories answer the fundamental question: All that is, is because God said, "Let there be." © Grand Valley State University �Creation: God’s Risky Decision – Dream or Nightmare? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   I received a magazine at my Wednesday night class, brought by one of my friends. The Scientific American, a special issue, October 1994 celebrating 150 years of continuous publication. The theme, "Life in the Universe," has marvelous articles about the latest bits of knowledge we have about the earth, the evolutionary process, the human person, the extra-terrestrial investigations, the environment, all of that. Marvelous! Now I want to say there is nothing in this [magazine] that is in conflict with this [Bible]. The tragic history of the conflict between religion and science has done irreparable damage to the cause of Christ and the mission of God for the world. This [magazine] talks about how, when, by what means— maybe this, maybe that. It speaks of baffling questions yet unsolved, yet a continual probing, searching, reflecting. This [Bible] says nothing about what this [magazine] says, except that there would not be this [Bible] if there were not One who said, "In the beginning, let there be." It states that in the beginning, God created. It is the affirmation of faith, the absolute affirmation of faith, and it is the primary goal of this book to say only that. This is a book of faith by a people who believed that all that is is because God said, "Let there be. That's all! And that is everything! With such a faith we can relax, say, go to it ,all you scientists. Unravel the mysteries, tell us the exciting news that brings ever more awe to the human mind as secrets are revealed." Tuesday and Wednesday this week at Hope College there is a Critical Issues Seminar on Human Genetic Engineering. The chief of the whole project from Washington, DC will be there Tuesday night. Medical questions, ethical decisions, all of those things need to be figured out. All this book [Bible] says is that the reason that you seek the answers is because you seek the God who is the ultimate source. Now, use your minds, your best judgment. Find the path of wisdom. Choose life." And there is free rein to uncover the secrets of this marvelous universe, whose complexity is but a witness to the wonder of the Creator. One further word, those opening chapters are eloquent in their statement about human wrong headedness, wrong heartedness, wrong choices, pride, arrogance. Are you a cussed people? Oh my, are you ... and I with you. The Hebrew Scriptures point to the hopelessness of the human person, but never in a hopeless kind of way. There is no "fall" that marks generations from thereon. That's an imposition on the stories. That's a doctrinal system that has done terrible disservice to the human person, robbed the human person of dignity, stripped the human person of self esteem, put the human person under a load of shame and guilt. And it doesn't come from these scriptures. It is imposed upon it. Do we make wrong choices? Yes, we do. Have we in the past? Yes. Will we in the future? Yes, we will. But God says, "I won't give up, and when you fall down I will pick you up and put you back on the road." These chapters, we understand them in the Hebrew tradition, are terribly honest about the human condition. We are hopeless, but not without hope because God is full of grace. Well, a risky decision like that might seem a nightmare. But God will never abandon the dream. Thank God. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eb8d54aedb5ea401aac429378a88796c.mp3 d1ea75fb892dee4c74c4518c1d8a7e10 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 First Testament Scripture Text Genesis 9:8-11 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-0-19940925 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-09-25 Title A name given to the resource Creation: God's Risky Decision - Dream or Nightmare? 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 25, 1994 entitled "Creation: God's Risky Decision - Dream or Nightmare?", as part of the series "The First Testament", on the occasion of Pentecost XVIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 9:8-11. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Covenant Creator Faith Forgiveness History of Israel https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/25839433faf6be0ccc3c2f5575cf69e4.pdf 063439e09df2cf0b3ccd13d73ddabfd0 PDF Text Text The Hope That Heals the Human Hurt From a series on the Wisdom Literature Scripture Text: See below Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan September 4, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon " But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God's mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:21-23 ". . . suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit." Romans 5:4-5 "For in hope we were saved . . . if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Romans 8:24-25 As we conclude this summer series of messages on the Wisdom Literature, let me just remind you of the way we have come. The Wisdom Literature is not an area that I have spent much time in in my ministry, as I have told you, but I have found it this summer a rich mine of teaching and instruction. I hope that it has been helpful to you as well. The struggle of Job, the mystery of suffering, that call to maturity in the Way of Wisdom in the book of Proverbs, and that candid observance of human experience in Ecclesiastes: I have found the Wisdom Literature to be enriching, indeed. I like it because, although it may not have all of the comfort, all of the rich promises of some other parts of the scripture, it is a very honest, a very candid review of human experience. It is a careful observation of human experience, and it holds up to us a mirror of the way life really is. I like that because, as you probably have picked up from me on occasion, what I don't like about religion, what I don't like about preachers, what I don't like about too much devotional literature is the fact that I don't always think it is honest. I think there is much religion, and much purveying of religion, that is too confident, that knows too much and gives too many promises that crash on the rocks of human reality. And for that reason I value the Wisdom Literature. It doesn't have everything, but there are so many times in our human experience when there is some word there to which we cannot but say, "Yes, that's really the way it is." © Grand Valley State University   �Hope that Heals Human Hurt Richard A. Rhem Page 2   And yet, within the limits of what we can observe in human experience, and within the limits of what our human mind can think through, there remains a veil that is impenetrable. There is a mystery that lies beyond and we cannot get hold of it by deep thinking or profound reflection. It simply remains hidden to us. I think the writer of Ecclesiastes understood that. He said God has put eternity in their hearts, but not such that they are able to determine the past or the future, as to what God is up to. I think the writer of Ecclesiastes, who gave us that portrait of life as tragic, was aware there was something more, but he couldn't get hold of it, and, as far as he could observe, it was beyond the grip of human possibility. That's where I left you last week as we had been looking at the drama of Ecclesiastes with that choice, that decision before which one stands. I believe in hard thinking, serious thinking, careful thought, the application of mind to experience. But finally when we hit the limit, we'll have to make a choice. The biologist that I cited last week, Jacque Monaad, said we are aliens on the edge of a universe, which is indifferent to our music, to our hopes, to our suffering, to our crime. No one out there—nothing more. Hans Küng agreed that our human existence is ambivalent and impenetrable. Yet Hans Küng, the Christian believer, says, "I believe the day is coming when I will understand, when I will be free to be all that I am, and all will become clear." That finally is the choice, isn't it? How will you live? In trust or in mis-trust? That is not something that your mind will be able, finally, to determine. It will be the set of the soul. It will be the posture of the heart. So we face the ambiguity, the impenetrable nature of our experience. Which way will we go? What will we do? The great English scholar H. A. L. Fischer, in his History of Europe, said that there is one intellectual excitement that has passed him by. It is to find any pattern or any rhythm in the movement of history. He says, as a historian, he has only one safe rule—that he should recognize in the development of human destinies, the play of the contingent and the unforeseen. I say, "That is the way it is, isn't it?" The contingent and the unforeseen. Who knows what today or tomorrow will bring? How does one find pattern and rhythm? It seems that the word of this historian is all one can say. . . but then how do you explain the continuing presence of hope in the human heart? How does one explain the presence of hope in one's own heart, in the light of the contingent and the unforeseen in a world full of tragedy, in a violent world, in the ups and downs of the human situation? How is it that hope continues to survive? In 586-587 CE, Jerusalem was absolutely decimated. The great Babylonian power came in, removed the cream of Jewish society to Babylon, threw down the walls and burned the temple and desecrated every holy symbol, and shattered every dream, every promise that this people held onto as being a special people of God. I read some selected verses from Lamentations—five poems of bitterness. I don't know if there is any more bitter outpouring in any literature than that that flows from the pen of the poet as he reviews the destruction of all his hopes and dreams. Then in the middle of the middle chapter, right after the wormwood and © Grand Valley State University �Hope that Heals Human Hurt Richard A. Rhem Page 3   the gall, his teeth grinding on gravel, he remembers God. And he says, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. God's mercies are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness." How do you explain that? Where did it come from? In the midst of the darkness, the darkest day in his life, surveying nothing but the ashes of all of his dreams, and then in the middle of it, hope is reborn. God's love is not exhausted, and that marvelous image . . . God's mercies are new every morning. I love that image. I live by that image. I wouldn't want to imply this morning that I am a morning person. (Laughter) I much prefer to see the sun set than to see the sun rise. But I have at least one crisis each week, and it's Sunday morning. So I get up very early when I see the eastern sky begin to illumine. And then sometimes, like this morning, when I see that golden glow rising spontaneously, permeating every cell of my being, is that wonderful image of the poet—God's mercy, new every morning. "Great is Thy faithfulness." Where does it come from? How does it continue to arise? Hope seems ever to be reborn in the human heart, in the human experience, so faithfully reflected by the writer of Ecclesiastes. Hope, mercy, conviction of the steadfast love of the Lord. You don't get it by thinking. You don't find it at the end of a logical argument. It is finally, a gift. There is a bumper sticker that could summarize the book of Ecclesiastes and the poet's view of human existence better than anything I know. Unfortunately I can't say it (laughter), but it starts with a four letter word and the second word is "Happens." (Laughter) Dear God, that's honest! It does happen. Doesn't it happen? It happens everywhere all the time. But let me suggest an even finer bumper sticker. We should publish it perhaps. It's another four letter word— because Hope Happens. Hope Happens. It is not something I achieve. It is not something I merit. It is not something I finally struggle through to. Hope Happens. Thank God, Hope Happens! It is a miracle of grace. It is a gift of God. It is the dawning of light in the midst of darkness. Hope Happens! I am not into alliteration, generally, but I have a bunch of H's for you: Hope happens and, paradoxically, hurt is hope’s home. We go kind of drifting through life not thinking too seriously, not having to struggle too much, not wrestling with ultimate questions. Thank God for that! We need a lot of time and a lot of space when we can just sort of go through the motions of life. But then, hurt happens, and paradoxically hurt becomes hope's home. It is precisely in those limit situations of life, when a darkness envelops us and it seems that all is lost. It is in hurt's home that hope is born again, isn't it? Isn't it amazing? Isn't it surprising? Isn't it baffling? It is in the depths of the hurt that the hope suddenly arises. Well, if you can stand a couple more H's—Hope Heals. Hope Heals. We know it. It is documented all over the place. Hope Heals. There is something about hope that releases all of the healing power, all of the recuperative powers of the human body. We can fool one another with our emotional and spiritual state some of the time, most of the time. But we can't fool our bodies. Our bodies will register, our © Grand Valley State University �Hope that Heals Human Hurt Richard A. Rhem Page 4   bodies are the Richter scale of our psychological and emotional and spiritual health. It's all registered in the body, and hope heals the body. In his early best selling book that continues to be on the list forever, Scott Peck, marvels about the fact that healing happens, that there is a kind of orderliness and ongoing rhythm to the cosmos, and that there is healing at all. He speaks of the grace from beyond, an intimation that there is a positive force of life or one invested in life. Hope Heals. Hope rolls back the Z’s. Hope is the best therapy in all the world. The possibility of healing lies with the grasping onto the promise, not to the exclusion of fear, not to the ridding of anxiety, yet still, it is able to break through. It heals. Paul says, "Justified by faith," that is, ceasing from all human performance. Ceasing from every human effort and achievement. Stopping every process to make myself somebody. That is, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, an access into this grace wherein we stand. We rejoice for a hope that lies before us, hope of the glory of God, hope of that final consummation. And he says, even in the meantime, we are able in our suffering to boast, for suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. Hope leaves us not disappointed because God's Holy Spirit is poured into us; the love of God begins to roll over us. In the middle of the darkness of decimated Jerusalem, the writer of Lamentations said, "The steadfast love of the Lord is not exhausted." And hope sprang to life anew. Paul says that hope is at the end of the process of suffering and endurance, and character and endurance in the end is the presence of God. Steeped in the love of God. So he says, we are saved by hope. Saved now, healed now. But there's more. For he says the whole created order and our old bodies with it are, as it were, in labor pains waiting to be reborn, renewed. There's something afoot, says Paul. There is a whole cosmic process afoot, and it's going to come to full flower and fruition one day, and we don't see it yet. Obviously what we hope for we don't see, but if we hope for it, we patiently wait for it. "Hope Heals Human Hurt." My friend, Arie Brower, died a little over a year ago and in some typewritten copies of his journal I shared with you some of this, but now it is published: "Overcoming the Threat of Death: A Journal of One Christian's Encounter with Cancer." He tells about how he was about to edit his favorite sermon on his favorite text – a favorite of mine as well – a sermon called "Faith in Spite of Everything," based on those wonderful words from Habakkuk, "Though there be no grapes on the vine and no cattle in the stall, and all will be lost, nonetheless I will exalt in God my Saviour." Arie says that up and down the land he preached that sermon on that text "Faith In Spite of Everything," and then, in his encounter with cancer, he began to see that there was something even beyond faith for him. Growth in grace was represented by an experience of hope. He says, "These days I hold out little hope for my cancer to be cured. I haven't given up, but the statistics steadily weigh ever more heavily against it. In spite of that I find © Grand Valley State University �Hope that Heals Human Hurt Richard A. Rhem Page 5   my feelings of hope undiminished. How do I explain this even within the household of faith, to say nothing of a skeptical world? How do I keep people from feeling as they read this that I am clutching at a straw, deceiving myself, using hope as a form of escapism from the harsh reality of terminal illness and death? How do I communicate that in truth we do not sorrow as those who do not have hope? What is this hope that abides in spite of everything? What form does it take? To me this experience of "Hope In Spite of Everything" is even more important than the experience of faith, in spite of everything." I don't know how to explain that. Arie Brower was a thoughtful enough Christian to know that there was no way in the world he could prove to anyone that his hope was not simply illusion. But he witnessed to an indomitable hope so that, as he says in another place, "I hope you understand that I've been healed of cancer," even though cancer took his life. Would that I could throw a switch and fill your hearts with hope. Would that I could give you a formula, a prayer to recite. I can't do that. But I point you to the poet of Lamentations. I point you to St. Paul. I point you to the confirmation of their claim and the experience of a friend. And I remind you that, as the poet of Lamentations sat in the midst of the smoldering ashes of Jerusalem, John on the Isle of Patmos, and the Spirit on the Lord's Day had the vision of the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God as a bride adorned for her bridegroom. And he heard a voice from the throne saying, "Behold the dwelling of God is with humankind. God will dwell with them and they shall be God's people. And God will wipe every tear away from their eyes and there shall be an end of death and pain and crying. For the former things have passed away. Behold, I make all things new." I believe that. It fills me with hope, enabling me to live now such that, if this is all there is, it is enough, but promising that there is even more—even more. Thanks be to God. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/005ddb059b723829026d362be39932ea.mp3 e60b05b09ce94413ac3015f52a9a8929 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 XV Series Wisdom Literature Scripture Text Lamentations 3: 21-23, Romans 5: 4-5, 8:24-25 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-0-19940904 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-09-04 Title A name given to the resource The Hope That Heals The Human Hurt 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 4, 1994 entitled "The Hope That Heals The Human Hurt", as part of the series "Wisdom Literature", on the occasion of Pentecost XV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Lamentations 3: 21-23, Romans 5: 4-5, 8:24-25. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Grace of God Wisdom Literature Hope Love of God Mystery https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d2491c7f69239073c1f6954b07a1a526.pdf d0409eac4849bbf1c53b7157511f8e6e PDF Text Text A Healthy Perspective – But Is This All There Is? Ecclesiastes 3:12-13, 20; I Corinthians 15:54, 57 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XIV, August 28, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "God  has  made  everything  suitable  for  its  time;  moreover  God  has  put  a  sense  of  past   and  future  into  their  minds,  yet  they  cannot  find  out  what  God  has  done  from  the   beginning  to  the  end...  There  is  nothing  better…than  to  be  happy  and  enjoy  themselves   as  long  as  they  live..."    Ecclesiastes  3:12-­‐13   "All  go  to  one  place;  all  are  from  the  dust  and  all  turn  to  dust  again." Ecclesiastes  3:20   "Death  has  been  swallowed  up  in  victory...  Thanks  be  to  God,  who  gives  us  the  victory   through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." I  Corinthians  15:54,57   The Wisdom literature of the Old Testament is an attempt to gain knowledge of human existence in order that one may know how to live—how to live wisely, how to live well. It’s a special genre of literature. It has a different nuance, a different tone, than so much of the rest of Scripture. It raises those questions about the nature of our experience of being human, seeking to find the meaning and purpose of it all. And it reads that meaning and purpose off from experience itself; it doesn't go to a priest, it doesn't go to a sacred text, it doesn't go to an institution, but rather the sages of the tradition of Israel were careful observers of life, trying to discern meaning and purpose from what was observable and what could be comprehended within the parameters of human knowledge and human understanding. With Ecclesiastes, we come to the farthest extreme of wisdom in the Hebrew Scriptures. The author purports to have lived widely, broadly, deeply. He tried everything—pleasure, riches, work, everything that his heart desired he granted to himself. And, in the end of it all, his conclusion was that human life is empty. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, says the Lord." Chasing wind. He is a person, who having entered broadly into human experience, concludes that its meaning and its purpose is not discernible by the human mind. Just reading from human experience, he can find no ultimate purpose. He doesn't deny that God is, he doesn't deny that God will hold us accountable, but God is largely absent and God is inscrutable. The meaning of our human existence is inscrutable. So this is a very pessimistic account of what it means to be human. He simply says over and © Grand Valley State University   �A Healthy Perspective–But Is This All There Is? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   over and over again... there is nothing new under the sun...whatever has been will be again. It’s an endless cycle... a dead end street or, as in the title of the French existentialist Camus’ novel, No Exit. That is his analysis of the human situation from what he sees in human experience. He recognizes that the human person isn't satisfied with that. He himself isn't satisfied with it. He says God has "put eternity into the human heart." It’s a wonderful phrase isn't it? "Put eternity into the human heart." Or the other translation is that God has put it into the human mind to know that there is past and future, but without being able to discern what God is up to. If there is anything that distinguishes the human person, it is that, while knowledge is limited, nonetheless there is a consciousness of those limits. And the consciousness of those limits makes the human person restless— always trying to transcend those limits, always trying to reach out beyond, always trying to break through. But to no avail, he says. I have often spoken of the writer of Ecclesiastes as cynical, but I think that's the wrong word. The more I reflect on it and the more I come to understand the Wisdom literature, he was not cynical, he was sad. He was lonely. He was disappointed. He wanted to find something. He wanted to break through. He wanted to penetrate the barrier, but he couldn't and he felt a sense of alienation. He wasn't sure that there was anyone home. From what he could observe about human experience, there certainly wasn't anybody with any kind of logical purpose that could be discerned, no management in control. He was sad, so he said the conclusion of the matter is this: Human experience is empty. I sort of like this writer because he is honest person, so honest he almost didn't get into the Old Testament Canon. (There is only so much reality we can stand, and you can't have too much truth in church.) You say, "How did the book ever get in there," and I would have to say, "With great difficulty." But in the Synod of Jamnia," in about 100 AD the rabbis put the book of Ecclesiastes into the thirtynine books that we have in the canon and called it part of Hebrew Scriptures. You might still seriously ask, "What is it doing in the Bible?" I want to respond by suggesting that there ought to be a place in our religious devotion for expressions like Ecclesiastes. I want to suggest that we've got far too much piety and firm assurances of faith, and arrogant triumphalism. What we need is a healthy dose of Ecclesiastes, particularly in church. In the harvest festival of the Jewish people, the Festival of Booths celebrated in the fall, they read on the fourth day of this celebration the book of Ecclesiastes, just in order to lace into the celebration this very somber note. I want to suggest that it is a healthy corrective to what generally comes spewing forth from preachers’ mouths. Isn't there a place for a document within our religious book that says, "I can't make sense of it at all”? I mean, be honest with me. Haven't you ever had days like that, or seasons? Have you had periods of your life when you had to say as you left church, "I really don't believe it." Would I scandalize you if I said that sometimes when I climb off this pulpit I have to say, "I can't figure it out. I don't understand it." You know, it is not as simple and as neat as we © Grand Valley State University �A Healthy Perspective–But Is This All There Is? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   preachers try to portray it. I want to make a plea for listening to the writer of Ecclesiastes, not as a cynic, but certainly a skeptic, a thorough-going agnostic, who simply confesses that the data of human experience doesn't add up to anything meaningful as far as he can determine. Don't you need, sometimes, not to feel that you are somehow or other excluded from the community of faith just because you can't figure it out? Isn't it good to know that even in the Bible itself there was someone who at least in one period of his life threw up his hands and said, "You know, it doesn't make sense. God is inscrutable. Human experience is inscrutable. I can't figure it out. I don't know what to make of it." The questions that are raised by one like the writer of Ecclesiastes are the questions that are raised in a culture like ours, in which we have the luxury of being able to take a step back and think and reflect on life. You won't find this kind of philosophical questioning coming out of Rwanda today. Those poor folk are simply trying to keep body and soul together. They are trying to survive. You don't find dissertations on the meaning of human existence or the purposes of God in primitive cultures where it is simply a matter of day-by-day existence. No, you find these questions in an advanced culture, in an advanced stage of civilization where people do have the time, the luxury, to think reflectively about their life and their experience. What happens when people begin to think this way, and reflect on their life is that they are not necessarily content just to take the given answers—to take the whole package wholesale, when their human experience runs onto the rocks of reality and where the old answers don't make sense, where human experience collides with the traditional given and accepted line. In such a situation one comes to the kinds of questions that the writer here raises. That's the kind of culture we live in. There was a day, there were centuries, when the old answers simply weren't questioned, when no one stopped to say, "But is that really true? Do I really believe that?" In the modern period, beginning with the eighteenth century, when human experience and human knowledge exploded all over the place, people did begin to try to relate that explosion of knowledge to the structure of their faith. What happened is that the church as an institution, and authority figures such as myself, got very nervous because of that explosion of knowledge. Faith and human experience brought together in some kind of reconciliation is not so simple. So, if you would read the history of the modern period you would find that there was a growing bifurcation of the academic world and the Church, thoughtful people, the best and the brightest who raised their questions but got the cold shoulder in the Church and, therefore, the body language pushed them out, until you have a whole society today in the West which is largely alienated from the Christian Church. We don't get a true sense of that in Western Michigan. This is a kind of ghetto; we are a minority of people and we are not keeping up. But in Western Civilization, Europe, the Continent, the institutional church is in trouble, not addressing civilization, not addressing culture with the dilemmas that face culture today. So, the whole explosion of knowledge, the development of the natural sciences, the technological revolution, which created © Grand Valley State University �A Healthy Perspective–But Is This All There Is? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   the modern world in which we live six days out of seven, all of that sort of drifted off on its own because we got very defensive. We really didn't want to hear the questions. There was trouble on both sides, of course, but eventually there was a shrinking body of people who were a people of faith, and a large body out there that were alienated at least from the institutional forms of religion. What happened? The writer of Ecclesiastes is absolutely right. If you try to live in this world in a human way, strictly within the parameters of what's possible in human knowledge, you're going to come up empty. That's where modern society has come. It has come up empty. We recently celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of Woodstock, which was a symbolic expression of the 60s. The 60s has become that symbol for the rebellion against institutional forms and the foundations of Western culture. In the Church we widely decried that whole movement and were scandalized by hippies and long hair and beads and earrings. The alienation and the gulf grew even greater, but all that was symbolic of the fact that the writer of Ecclesiastes has it right, that human existence pursued in strictly human fashion, a one-level fashion within what is possible by human knowledge and understanding, comes up empty. Like I said, the writer to Ecclesiastes was not cynical; he was sad... he was lonely... he was disappointed. What has happened in the modern culture with the emptiness, because certainly you could write the model of Ecclesiastes over our culture today, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Emptiness. Therefore, the rush to drugs, alcohol, sexual license—describe what you want about the ills of our present culture, and you probably could not over react against it. But, what is it? It is not just bad people. It is the hungry human heart questing for meaning, looking for purpose and meaning that is denied an analysis strictly based on human experience. If all you know is what you can observe in human experience, you cannot come to that transcendent dimension which is planted in the human heart, but which cannot be grasped. So, where there is a vacuum it will be filled, and it has been filled with a lot of the wrong stuff, to the disaster of so much of our culture today. What does the Church do? It grows fearful. It grows conservative. It becomes fundamentalist in its outlook. In the political realm—conservatism, law and order, crime bills. In the theological realm—fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is the reiteration of yesterday's answers to today's questions. It is irrelevant. The body language of the Church that wants to go back to a former day where righteousness reigned says to the world out there, "You are condemned—the judgment, the condemnation, the self-righteousness, super holiness of the people of God stinks! Super holiness of the people of God stinks in the nostrils of the world. The world may be hungry, and it may be longing for something, and it may be at loose ends, but it will not take the arrogance and the triumphalism of the Church that thinks that all the world has to do is come on back into the © Grand Valley State University �A Healthy Perspective–But Is This All There Is? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   seventeenth century. That, it seems to me, is a mistake of large segments of the Church today. The Jewish community, I noted, reads the book of Ecclesiastes on the fourth day in order to interject a somber note into the celebration. I would like to go to some of the praise gatherings of the Christian Church across the country and read the book of Ecclesiastes in the midst of all the singing and foot stomping. I would like to say, "What are you all worked up about? What are you all excited about? You haven't begun to see the depth of the question, the seriousness of the social situation. All you are doing is attacking the symptoms of the culture and never getting down to the root of a human heart that is empty and longing for God." A human heart that is empty and longing for God and that has lived in this modern world is not going to go back and knuckle under authority figures like priests or institutions like the Church, or a sacred text. Oh, I have to admit there are more that do that than I would believe possible. I can't believe how easily the masses can be led like sheep. But I have got to say to you that I believe that the writer of Ecclesiastes gave an accurate and honest analysis of the human situation seen strictly within the parameters of human observation and human knowledge. The end of that is emptiness and sadness and loneliness, but what will not work is to trot out a paradigm out of the seventeenth century, to try to go back to the Reformation of the sixteenth century. What we need to do is to appropriate all of the explosion of knowledge and the understanding of the human situation and the cosmos and the environment, and all of that and then begin to sit down and to reason together, to learn what the real questions are and to begin to communicate in a level of reasonable discourse, to be sensitive to the hunger of the human heart and the anguish of the human soul that acts out in all kinds of self-destructive ways, rather than simply to condemn the masses as though somehow or other they have become animals and that culture is going to finally explode and go to hell. You see, we're not so smart. We don't have the answers. The writer of Ecclesiastes was right. You just look at the human situation and what he says is right. Things don't add up. So you are faced with an alternative. Either throw up your hands like he did and say, "Eat and drink and work, and grasp what little bit of pleasure there is at the moment." Or you hear the witness of, for example, Paul who was encountered from beyond himself and came face to face with Jesus Christ. The alternatives are not matters of intelligence or accurate analysis. The alternatives are matters of the posture of the heart. It is a matter of looking at the data, and then trusting or not trusting. Jacque Monod is a world-class biologist, a Nobel Prize winner who wrote the book Chance and Necessity. What he describes in these little lines that I will read could very well be the modem description of the human situation to which the writer of Ecclesiastes referred. Monod writes this, © Grand Valley State University �A Healthy Perspective–But Is This All There Is? Richard A. Rhem Page 6   "If he [that is, the human person] accepts this negative message, [that is, what he can read from the human situation, the cosmological situation], in its full significance, then one must at least awake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation. He must realize that like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world, a world that is deaf to his music, and as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his sufferings or his crimes." That is honest and hard hitting, and clear eyed. If there is no one home in the universe, then we are alone and the world is deaf to our music. The world is indifferent to our hopes, to our sufferings, to our crimes. So says Monod, so says the writer to Ecclesiastes. That's as much as you can decipher. That's as much as you can discern just from the observation of human experience. On the other side of the coin, an equally intelligent twentieth-century person, Hans Küng, in his book Does God Exist? wrote this: "To trust in an eternal life means, in reasonable trust, in enlightened faith, in tried and tested hope, to rely on the fact that I shall be one day fully understood, freed from guilt, and definitively accepted and can be myself without fear, that my impenetrable and ambivalent existence like the profoundly discordant history of humanity as a whole will finally one day become profoundly transparent, and the question of the meaning of history one day finally be answered." He agrees with Monod, he agrees with the writer to the Ecclesiastes—"my impenetrable and ambivalent existence,” but this is written by one who trusts. St. Paul addressed Greek culture, Greek classical culture. Greek culture is called classical culture, classical because it has never been surpassed, a gigantic achievement of the human spirit. Paul came there and proclaimed Jesus Christ crucified and risen. Some laughed, and some believed. Some said, "I don't believe it," and some said, "God, I believe it." Paul in writing to these people said that the parameters of humans experience, this flesh, this perishable, this is not all there is. This has to be overcome, this perishable has to put on imperishable, this mortal has to put on immortality. Then will be brought to light that which has said death is swallowed up in victory. Paul said that because he was encountered by one whom he believed to be Jesus, whom he knew to be crucified, whom he experienced to be living, whom he therefore deducted was God's "Yes" to this world, to this ambivalent, impenetrable human experience. God had acted in the case of Jesus, had brought him to life, had said "Yes" to the Way of Jesus, and that simply, absolutely changed everything so that Paul could write to the Church of Corinth, "Be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, in as much as you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." Empty. Chasing the wind. The writer in that old Hebrew book said, "Vanity. Empty." Paul said, "Not in vain," because this is not all there is, because the story cannot be written simply from the data available to the human mind observing human © Grand Valley State University �A Healthy Perspective–But Is This All There Is? Richard A. Rhem Page 7   experience. There is, in other words, the possibility of the gift of sight, of trust that breaks through and that washes all with a radiance from the eternity which the Creator has planted in the human heart. Most of the time the Church reads Ecclesiastes and makes a beeline for Jesus, not even hearing the question, not admitting the depth of the dilemma. I hope I haven't done that. But if I couldn't conclude where I just concluded I'd have to get out of the business. I believe that the best is yet to be, and I never believed it more strongly than when I am preaching a funeral message. And as long as I can still preach before a gaping grave with hope, I'll keep preaching. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1e27923360bda53d76dc814b4299d0c0.mp3 adca69114e6551055a3cb97a2ac3a209 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 XIV Series Wisdom Literature Scripture Text Ecclesiastes 3: 12-13, 20, I Corinthians 15:54, 57 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-0-19940828 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-08-28 Title A name given to the resource A Healthy Perspective - But Is This All There Is? 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 28, 1994 entitled "A Healthy Perspective - But Is This All There Is?", as part of the series "Wisdom Literature", on the occasion of Pentecost XIV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Ecclesiastes 3: 12-13, 20, I Corinthians 15:54, 57. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Hebrew Scriptures Meaning Pentecost Spiritual Quest Wisdom Literature https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b2e290447311b841e062fbbe4d6377d1.pdf a61f2b71c11469030337cd1c3a40e095 PDF Text Text Wisdom for Life From a series on the Wisdom Literature Text: Proverbs 8:35-36 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XIII, August 21, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. But those who miss me injure themselves; all who hate me love death." I hope it is as much a relief to you as it is to me to be out of the Book of Job (laughter) and into something light—the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs is one of the Wisdom Books. I have seldom preached from the book. I have made various sorties into Proverbs. I would read a few verses here and there, but it seemed it was simply the gathering together of aphorisms and maxims and proverbs from ancient cultures that made a lot of sense, but over which I didn't really care to linger too long. There was no story there . . . I've just never been attracted to it. However, on more serious study, I find that, in neglecting the Wisdom Books in general and Proverbs in specific, I have missed a very rich mine of spiritual direction and guidance. There is a lot of wisdom in this Wisdom book. I have learned that the Wisdom Books offer a strong affirmation of life. In the Wisdom Books we have not simply inconsequential truisms; we have the distillation of generations and centuries of observation of life as it really is. What we have specifically in the Book of Proverbs is the invitation to follow the Way of Wisdom, thus finding true life, and admonition to avoid the path of foolishness, which leads to destruction and to death. Lady Wisdom as it were, (Sophia, the Hebrew word – somewhat akin to logos, the Greek word – that personification of wisdom and order and principle in the whole cosmic order). Lady Wisdom invites us to choose wisely, to live well, in order to find life. As we can only scratch the surface of this book this morning, let me simply give you some of the fundamental assumptions of wisdom. It will not be exhaustive, but I think it will at least be enough to perhaps whet your appetite and give you a modest introduction to the contents of this literature, and specifically this particular book. The first thing that I would reiterate again is that in wisdom literature there is an affirmation of life. The toast with a glass of wine in the Jewish society, "L' Chaim," “To life”, is a hallmark of Jewish culture, of a Jewish perspective on © Grand Valley State University   �Wisdom for Life Richard A. Rhem Page 2   human existence. There is something wonderful in Jewish society—they celebrate life in a marvelous manner. Rabbi Harold Kushner, who has earlier written some books, last year published a book entitled "To Life," which is a marvelous survey of Jewish faith and life and community, in which he points out that that is the hallmark of Jewish existence . . . "to life" . . .the affirmation of life, a strong positive regard for life, a valuing of life. It is definitely a central theme in the wisdom literature. Walter Brueggemann has written a book about the wisdom literature, which he has entitled "In Man We Trust," that is a reflection of this basic premise, that life and the human person are created good. The Book of Proverbs and all of wisdom literature was an attempt to gain knowledge in order to have mastery of life. To have mastery of life here and now means we should enter fully into it. We should wring the best out of it. We should live with joy and with delight, and we should exploit all the possibilities that are ours in a creation that God called into being and said, "It is very good." The Jew says enter all of it fully, enjoy it fully, delight in it before the face of God. Laced through the Book of Proverbs you will read that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom – fear in the sense of reverence and awe, living before the face of God, conscious that one lives before the face of God, but lived with zest, for life is God's gift. We need to hear that, particularly those of us who come as a part of the Christian tradition, both Catholic and Protestant, and particularly the western Latin tradition out of which we have flowed, that is, the Protestant Reformation tradition. In the Latin tradition, the central emphasis was not, as in Eastern Orthodoxy, on resurrection and celebration, but rather on the cross, crucifixion, sin and guilt. We have been nurtured in a rather dim view of the human experiment. We have been given, I believe, a negative perspective on the human person and on human experience. We are the inheritors of a few statements by Paul that have been systematized and absolutized by Augustine and by Luther and Calvin. We are the children of a doctrine of Original Sin. We believe in Total Depravity, and as the psychologist Maslow says, "The human person will generally live up to, or down to, the expectations that are held out for him or her." Our view of human life and the human person has been a rather negative view. We are suspicious of motives, of intentions, and rather negative on the human scene as a whole. And, that's too bad. We've lost something that was intrinsic to the tradition of Israel, and that was a strong affirmation of life, of human life, of human existence. We could well go back and embody some of that positive feeling about life here and now that was their basic assumption, their affirmation of life. I suppose somewhat of a corollary of that is, in the wisdom literature and in Israel's tradition, the human person was viewed as capable and responsible – capable and responsible of making decisions that would lead to life. It was part of the tradition, not only of the priests and the prophets with whom we are familiar, but also of the sages who reflected on life, who observed life carefully and patiently, and who rendered wise counsel as to the path that led to life, a tradition © Grand Valley State University �Wisdom for Life Richard A. Rhem Page 3   that believed the human person was capable of deciding and responsible for those decisions. That doesn't mean that they were naive about human nature, as though the human person was entirely good, but neither would they agree with Augustine and Luther and Calvin that human nature was basically evil. They would rather say that the human person is made up of a little bit of both. In fact I suspect that most of you would agree that we are . . . a little bit of both. We are a mixed bag. There are times when you feel pretty good about something that you did, and aren't there times when you despise yourself? Don't we know about acts every day that are heroic, and don't we know of instances every day in which the human person has been a scoundrel? Isn't there a constant interweaving of both in the experience of all of us? So, in the wisdom literature it was not naiveté that the human person was prone always to choose the right, but the invitation was there and the person was understood as being capable of making choices, and responsible for those choices, and reaping the consequences of those choices be they the right choices or the wrong choices. The invitation was there because the human person was viewed as capable and responsible for deciding. Therefore, there was a responsibility placed on the person. No cheap cop-out, "Well, I'm only human." You are human. Precisely the point. Therefore, stand up and decide, for you have a choice to make, so choose life . . .avoid the path of destruction . . . in the multitude of human decisions that you make every day. Now listen carefully to me, because this is where the rub comes. According to the sages, the writers of the Wisdom literature, the choices are to be made on the basis of the authority of human experience. That means that you can't open up the book and find a text and find the answer to your dilemma. That means that morality or ethical choice cannot be laid on us from beyond ourselves, from another time. That means that there was a consistency between Proverbs and the Book of Job when God in the whirlwind said, "Don't bother me with that stuff. You can figure that out for yourselves. You've got minds. You've got experience. Decide and choose wisely. Order your lives." All the proverbs and maxims and aphorisms are the distillation of the wisdom that comes after years and years of reflection, centuries and generations of reflection, pursuing that ultimate. But there is no authoritarian rule to be laid on us from outside of us. We are called upon to the careful observation, the living of life as it is and the making of decisions accordingly in the midst of the concrete context of our everyday life. "Well," you say, "What about the Ten Commandments, aren't those moral absolutes which can be laid on us eternally?" No! (Pause . . .) Nobody walked out yet? (Laughter) What are the Ten Commandments then? They are universal principles coming out of Israel that have been proven in the test of time. They are reflective of, for example, the Code of Hammurabi, that predated them. They are reflective of Mid-eastern culture and the peoples that surrounded them. They are the best wisdom possible for a fulfilled, successful human life, and the possibility of human community and society in that day, and maybe in ours. But those moral absolutes didn't drop out of heaven. There were no tablets that were penetrated by a divine finger. They were the best wisdom that could be distilled © Grand Valley State University �Wisdom for Life Richard A. Rhem Page 4   out of the ongoing human drama by some of the best possible people who realized they were living with fear and trembling before the face of God. So it is with every decision that we have to make in the living of our lives. You can't go to a book. That's a cop-out. You can't ask a priest. That's a cop-out. You can't ask the Church. That's a cop-out. That's authoritarianism. People like authoritarianism, really, even though in the eighteenth century we threw off all authoritarianisms. The human bud started to flower in the fifteenth century, in the Renaissance. Then the Reformation came along as an aspect of that, but that shut down the blossoming of the human spirit with one more authoritarian mode. Finally in the eighteenth century, the Age of Reason, Enlightenment, the human person said, "No" to the church, "No" to the Bible, "No" to the divine right of kings, "No" to every authority—the emancipation of the human person. Well, pendulums swing too far. The enlightenment for all that it has given us has been found wanting in that to make human rationality the limit of reality is to truncate the Mystery of Life. So now we are in the Post-Modern Age as some would say. But what in a Post-Modern Age we must never do is to go back and put our necks under the yolk of some new authoritarian control. Now, what does this mean for the decisions that face us as a society and as human persons? Well, it means that fundamentalism is a dead end street, whether it be Christian or Jewish or Islamic. In a hinge time in history, when the old ways have been shown to come up short and the new ways are not yet clear, people get very fearful, they get very insecure. In fact it's a good time for the Church, because people who are fearful come to church seeking answers, wanting a priest, wanting someone, some prophet to say it clearly. Make it simple. Make it burn. Answer these quandaries for me. Give me some ground to stand on. The Church is all too happy to beckon those who would come to find in it a crutch in order to avoid having to stand up and be an adult and make mature decisions in this world where it is so ambiguous and hard to decide. But fundamentalism is not the answer. It is simply the reiteration of yesterday's answers to today's questions. You cannot go home. You cannot go back. When it seems that the tide of society is moving back, you can be assured that it is a reactionary movement that will explode in ever greater force one of these days. The Church ought not to be pandering to people's weaknesses. What we need to do is to call people, as the wisdom literature did, as the sages did, to be adult, to be mature, to look at the evidence, to live with observation and discernment, and to make decisions that lead to life. Let me be concrete for just a moment. The Pope says, for example, regarding women in ministry, that he has no right to make a decision, that women cannot be ordained to priesthood because Jesus chose men. That, if the Holy Father will forgive me, is ridiculous. Jesus did not choose any women to be his disciples in that age, in that culture, for it would not have been tolerated. But it would not have been tolerated in that patriarchal age because women were devalued. Women were understood to be second class citizens, less capable, less gifted. Now © Grand Valley State University �Wisdom for Life Richard A. Rhem Page 5   in the movement of culture, if we really believe that women are equal human beings, equally gifted, equally capable, then to perpetuate a decision out of the past that was based on an understanding of women that we no longer hold, to perpetuate that decision to the present when we understand something quite differently, that is fundamentalism. That is blindness. That is oppression. And, that cannot stand the light of day. You see, you can't have it both ways. To say, "I refuse to ordain women to ministry," but equally value them is a contradiction. They weren't ordained back then because they were not equally valued. Had they been equally valued they could have been a part of it. If they are equally able to serve, then they have every right to enter fully into Christian ministry. Well, where else would you like to go? In the last two months in this congregation I have dealt with families in the critical care unit, about Living Wills. If you haven't gotten yours made out, I would suggest you do. We may think the cranky, kinky Kevorkian is out in left field somewhere, but I'll tell you he is dealing with a real life issue. To say that he is wrong, that human life is not at our disposal and that it is something for God to decide is simply to cop out. The moment you inoculate, the moment you are put on a respirator, the moment you give an antibiotic you are playing God, you have taken responsibility. You have entered into the life determining process. You have interrupted a natural course of nature, and you can't stop. You can't stop simply because it is a situation of fear and trembling. You are responsible, and God says, "For God's sake, stand up and be an adult and make a decision." We must be responsible. We must choose the ways that lead to life. We must discern. We must struggle. We must talk together. We must dialogue. It's not clear. It's not simple. It's not black and white. These are decisions that wrench us, but we are humans created in the image of God, called to think . . . and to decide. We could move to the question of human sexuality. Two or three years ago the Presbyterians came out with a report finding that the Church ought to deal with this fundamental issue in our human existence, given what we know today about the human person. The report was defeated by the General Assembly by about 400 to 30, and I said in a sermon at that time that I would have been on the minority side. I think we lost a family that day. But I'll say it again. The Lutherans didn't do any better. They had a report this past year and it never even made it to the Synod there was such an uproar. People don't want to talk about human sexuality because it may tamper with the moral absolutes. That's ridiculous. The moral absolutes arose in a concrete context where people struggled together to find the way of life. To take yesterday's answers and absolutize them for today apart from the concrete situation in which we live is to abdicate our responsibility to be human beings to whom God gave minds and called us to think God's thoughts after God. The Episcopalian head bishop, Browning, said to the House of Bishops that, when they meet in September and present their paper on human sexuality, they should just pass it without debate, because there are just so many things that we don't know about and we are just going to disagree on, so let's not get into a debate. Let's just pass it!" (Laughter) © Grand Valley State University �Wisdom for Life Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Abortion. People willing to kill in order to abort abortion. Convinced that they know God's mind and God's will on that very difficult issue. The wisdom literature would say that God is pro life, because God is pro choice. God would expect us as responsible human beings to find our way in this maze in which there is no simple answer to any one of these issues that I've raised. For if I read the wisdom literature correctly, the one thing I may not do is try to find an answer in a book, or in an institution, or in an authority figure. You and I live before the face of God. We live in fear and trembling before the face of God, believing that there is an order, that there is that which is true and good and beautiful. But we'll never capture it absolutely . . . only tentatively, provisionally, partially. And on the basis of that, we are called to decide and to act. I can't coddle you, friends. This is not a place where you can run for refuge from the tough decisions of the human story. If the Church could only be a place where people, rather than being coddled in their infancy, would be called to maturity . . . to seek wisdom . . . act wisely . . . find life. God will not abandon us in the struggle, but neither will God write simple answers in the sky. It's tough. It takes courage. But in the end that's what it is to live as a human being before the face of God. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8a46365121141dd69beca9bf99d255f3.mp3 c32f8ffe4484f68d2b67ccc28b23e2a6 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 Series Wisdom Literature Scripture Text Proverbs 8: 35-36 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-0-19940821 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-08-21 Title A name given to the resource Wisdom For Life 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 21, 1994 entitled "Wisdom For Life", as part of the series "Wisdom Literature", on the occasion of Pentecost XIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Proverbs 8: 35-36. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Authority of Huma Experience Consciousness Maturity PostModern Wisdom https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cc5a17acfe8b56b1f64ca99387388081.pdf c0d80f13083483ae20aeb840c0e197c7 PDF Text Text The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness From the sermon series on the Book of Job Text: Job 13:15, in four translations Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XII, August 14, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "He may kill me, but I won't stop; I will speak the truth to his face, Translation by Stephen Mitchell "He may slay me, I'll not quaver. I will defend my conduct to his face." Translation by Marvin Pope "If he would slay me, I should not hesitate; I should still argue my cause to his face." New English Bible "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him: But I will maintain my own ways before him." King James   I find it is not so easy to bring Job to a conclusion. I struggled in the last service and am very thankful I don't have such a long struggle this time. I have four manuscripts in various stages of completion, and had to finally quit and say, "So, what's the bottom line?" The last word of Job must be this, I believe, "There is a Mystery of Suffering, in the midst of which we must dare to trust God, even in suffering’s darkest days." In his poem, the author of Job makes it eloquently clear that the innocent suffer, that the kind of world that we live in is a world where cancer strikes "willy-nilly," blood clots form, loved ones are ripped from our lives, and sometimes the wicked prosper and the innocent suffer. The word last week, the voice from the whirlwind, was God's defense against Job's accusation, which comes to expression in the text of the morning, "He may kill me, but I'll not quaver." Job was absolutely convinced that the conventional wisdom was wrong. He was so convinced that the religious establishment didn't have it right, that he was willing to stand with his fist raised to heaven. There were moments of deep pathos when we felt Job reaching out. "Oh that I knew where I might find him," says Job, because he was convinced that he had a case to make. Ironically, Job in some ways still shared the erroneous conventional wisdom of his friends. Job still felt that somehow or other God sent that suffering. And if God sent that suffering, God was unjust, for in his case, God was in the wrong. Job cried out to heaven © Grand Valley State University   �The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness Richard A. Rhem Page 2   and said, "If it takes my life, I'm going to state my case." Well, God showed up, as we noted last week, and out of the whirlwind Job was given a panoramic view of cosmic reality and it literally blew him away. He said, "Well, I knew God is big. I never denied that. I knew if I ever did get my opportunity to state my case I'd probably have no chance against God so now I will be silent." But he was still thinking the same way. Once again the voice sounds and God says, "Job, come on and take my place. What would you do if you were God for a day? Because you see, Job, the issue is not whether or not I have absolute power. The issue is: What does one with absolute power do in a world where there are other values as well, values that I have woven into the fabric of creation—freedom of choice, moral choice, spontaneously offered worship, virtue done for its own sake? How does one guard those values in a cosmos like this as one seeks to manage the world, even if one be God?" God is saying, it seems to me, "The world is not perfect, it is a world where cancer strikes, a world where people die, it is a world where darkness can be oh, so dark, but I, God, given the values to which I am committed and the created order I am weaving together – I, God, am doing the best I can do." Well, where does that leave us? Is that a God in which you can find comfort and security? It certainly isn't the traditional view of God that we have been nurtured on, is it? The traditional view of God that we've been nurtured on is a God of the omni's: omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, knowing all, present everywhere, all powerful, able to do all. Some of us, at least, who have come out of the Reformed tradition have had that large word "predestination" hovering over us throughout all of our days; that is, that all things ultimately are predetermined, that there is a predestinating will of God that determines all that happens. I heard a delightful story the other evening. It was a family story about a young man courting a young lady whose father was a sturdy Christian, of strong persuasion that predestination is indeed the rule, and that God indeed determines all that happens. As they were walking the back 40 acres, a donkey happened to bray and the young man, the interlocutor, said, "You mean at 3:00 in the afternoon on this given date, God determined that that donkey should bray?" The old man said, "Absolutely. My God is a God that makes it so that whatever is going to happen is going to happen, whether it happens or not." (Laughter) Now, Yogi Berra would have been proud to have said that, wouldn't he? If you think about it, "whatever is going to happen is going to happen whether it happens or not," now that's a muscular God, that's a macho God, that's a no nonsense God, that's a God in control. If we want anything, we want God in control, and understandably so. We don't want to be orphans in a pathless wilderness leading nowhere. We don't want to feel abandoned and alone on this spinning mud-heap. But if I hear the voice from the whirlwind correctly, then that old classic idea of God of the omni's is flawed. In the light of what we know about cosmic reality, if we know anything about our world, the cosmos, we know there is a kind of randomness about it. There is an unpredictability, there is the Huizenberg second law of thermo dynamics (which of course, you all © Grand Valley State University �The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness Richard A. Rhem Page 3   understand), a law that on the one hand was able to open a cause and effect universe that had no room for miracle or eruption of the new, but on the other hand shows us that this cosmos is so much more mysterious than we ever dreamed of. Perhaps the people today, who stand in the greatest awe, are the physicists who study the mystery of the universe and are continually mystified at ever deepening reality. So, the God of the whirlwind is a God who suggests that, while this is not a perfect world, God is nonetheless engaged in moving it in that direction, and invites us who are created in the image of God to grow up and to become mature and to join our shoulders to the task as well. It is not so much that I look at God in my pain and say, "Why are you doing this to me?" But rather, I sense the presence of God with me in the midst of the darkness, moving toward the Light. What I really need to know, I think, is what Job needed to know. He longed not to receive a logical and rational answer to the mystery of suffering, but to know that there was someone who would show up, that there was a Voice, that there was Someone engaged and involved. When Job saw that, Job said, "I didn't know. I didn't understand. I didn't realize." If we're honest, I think we would all have to own the fact that we would love to have God simply a littler larger than our parents, a divine parent, someone who could make it all right, someone who could fix it all, soothe it all, salve the wounds. Friends, it isn't so. You know it isn't so. If in that old classic idea of God where God is throwing all the switches and pulling all the strings, there is an awful lot of darkness and pain and horror in this world that then has to be attributed to God. It won't do simply to say that all the darkness and the pain and the horror of the world is the consequence of human sin and rebellion. There is a grand residue of darkness for which there is no explanation, and for which there seems to be no meaning and no purpose. There is a contemporary school of theology that has been very helpful to me. It's called "Process Theology," which does not deny God's ultimate power and purpose, rather sees God neither aloof nor pulling the strings, but rather a God who is in there with us, a fellow traveler, a fellow struggler, a fellow sufferer, One who has invited us to join in the creative purposes that would move reality toward the realization of love and mercy and justice. The vision of Shalom, that beautiful word, which we translate as "peace," is more than peace. It is a vision of the total harmony of things. If I understand the God who speaks through the whirlwind, if I understand the message of the poet-Job, there is a picture there of a God, who, in the midst of this cosmic reality, is far beyond our ability even to conceive. It is a vision of a God who is engaged in the movement toward wholeness and toward Shalom, and invites us to become one with God and the establishment of justice, and the doing of mercy, and the building of community for the purpose of Shalom. A God like that I can trust in the darkness, a God who is for us. © Grand Valley State University �The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness Richard A. Rhem Page 4   This was Paul's conviction. "What can separate us from the love of Christ, famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Know in all things that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that there is no angel or principality or power or thing in the heights or the depths, nothing in all creation that can ever separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord." That God I can trust in the darkness, believing that God is for us, that God's purposes of love are for wholeness and health and Shalom, and that God is doing all God can do. Given not only God's absolute power, but also God's absolute commitment to our human freedom and our moral choice, and the universe in which there is elbowroom for the reality and authenticity of a human creature living in the image of God. A God like that I can trust. Ironically, the religious always try to protect God and to blunt human responsibility. So that as you read the citation of William Safire in the bulletin states, the translation of Job 13:15, is not as we read it this morning as it is accurately translated, "Though he killed me, yet I will not quaver," but rather the mistranslation of, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." This translation plays down the darkness and blunts the edge of Job's charge. But ironically the mistranslation may actually better articulate the bottom line in the book of Job. It is said, perhaps even better, in Psalm 23, by the Psalmist who had also struggled with the prosperity of the wicked and yet says, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee, there is none on earth that I desire beside thee." I like it better in the words of Habakkuk who struggled with the place of God in human events, who finally said, "Though there be no olive crop, though there be no cattle in the stall, though all be lost, yet I will rejoice in God, my Savior." There is that witness in our tradition. There is that Biblical witness that is able to say, "Nevertheless... Let it all be stripped away, nevertheless ... I will trust." That's where Job came to rest. And that's finally where Job would invite us to rest. As I said last week, the evidence is divided, the circumstances full of ambiguity. There is no simple and easy unraveling of the knot of the Mystery of human suffering. But, finally, the alternatives are embittered cynicism and cursing the darkness, or trust in God that will sustain one through hell itself— "Though he slay me, yet will I trust Him." © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8fd6010e9c25529043ffde293385aeb4.mp3 7317fab644e3402970396d5eb576e560 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 Series The Job Series Scripture Text Job 13:15, Romans 8:39 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-0-19940814 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-08-14 Title A name given to the resource The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness 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 14, 1994 entitled "The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness", as part of the series "The Job Series", on the occasion of Pentecost XII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Job 13:15, Romans 8:39. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Hebrew Scriptures Meaning Nature of God Pentecost Presence Shalom Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/111cbbd03f6e672f2450ed8a7218b907.pdf 04d57b91e753dad90f266078b8f16378 PDF Text Text God Beyond All Human Conceiving From the sermon series on the Book of Job Job 38:1,4; Job 40:3-4, 6-14; Job 42:8, translated by Stephen Mitchell Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XI, August 7, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "Then  the  Lord  answered  Job  out  of  the  whirlwind:...  Where  were  you  when  I  laid  the   foundation  of  the  earth? Job  38:1,4   "Then  Job  answered  the  Lord:  See,  I  am  of  small  account;  what  shall  I  answer  you?  I  lay   my  hand  on  my  mouth." Job  40:3-­‐4   "Then  the  Unnameable  again  spoke  to  Job  from  within  the  whirlwind:  Do  you  dare  deny   my  judgment?  Am  I  wrong  because  you  are  right?   ...  Dress  yourself  like  an  emperor.  Climb  up  onto  your  throne.  Unleash  your  savage   Justice.  Cut  down  the  rich  and  the  mighty.  Make  the  proud  man  grovel.  Pluck  the  wicked   from  their  perch.  Push  them  into  the  grave,  Throw  them,  screaming,  to  hell.  Then  I  will   admit  that  your  own  strength  can  save  you." Job  40:6-­‐14   "Then  Job  said  to  the  Unnameable,..  I  have  spoken  of  the  unspeakable  and  tried  to   grasp  the  infinite.  Job  42:3     Well, we've got two more shots at Job—if you can bear it. Today in a voice out of the whirlwind—God shows up. Next week we come back full cycle to the mystery of suffering, trusting in the darkness. I wish I could preach both sermons back to back because they really belong together. I'd be willing to do it, if you'd be willing to sit through it, and be willing to let me take two offerings. (Laughter) I suppose we had just better stick with two weeks, and you'll have to remember this week that I don't say everything that needs to be said about this whole issue. I make these comments to begin with because the voice out of the whirlwind is not a soothing voice, and the God, revealed in the dramatic images of this whirlwind experience of Job, is not a kind of comfy, cozy, divine parent. As we talk about the God out of the whirlwind, don't hear me deny the comforts of religious faith. But hear me suggest that maybe some of the ideas and conceptions that we have about God, if we may be like Job, will need to be de-constructed in order that we may be transformed with a deeper insight and a larger understanding of God. How then should you listen to this sermon? Well, listen to this sermon as you ought to listen to every sermon. Don't take it too seriously, but hear it as a probing of mysteries that lie beyond our comprehension; hear it not as a dogmatic claim of what is, but rather my best insight— knowing that in my © Grand Valley State University   �God Beyond All Human Conceiving Richard A. Rhem Page 2   insight cannot be your answer, because your answer must be your answer. If you were to borrow my answer as your answer, it would crumble in the crunch. Finally, I must place my feet, and finally you must place your feet too. So, let's begin. Note, in the first place, that Job shared the flawed theology of his friends. That may surprise you, but think about it for a moment. He and his friends really go at each other, but as a matter of fact they both shared the conventional wisdom, the orthodox view we've been talking about. Job and his friends knew that God is into the business of rewarding virtue and punishing sin. And they all agreed that if one is suffering, then one has sinned, because that's the business of God— rewarding virtue and punishing, causing suffering for the sinful. But then Job had a problem because he began to suffer—terribly. And he knew he was innocent. So, not asking himself whether he had the major premise right, but rather knowing that he was suffering, and suffering is supposed to be the consequence of sinning, and knowing that he is innocent he has no alternative but to accuse God of being unjust. So he rails against heaven. Now, that brought his friends to the attack, to defend God. But Job wouldn't hear of it. He knew that he was suffering, and he knew that he was innocent, and therefore he was railing against heaven. There are moments in that dialogue and discussion when it is clear that Job still hung on to God, and somehow believed if only he could get his case heard there was an ultimate justice and truth somewhere. Remember those moving words: "Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might state my case before him. I go to the right and God is not there. I go to the left and God is not there. I go forward, I go backward, God is absent. Oh, that I knew where I might find God." Well, God showed up. In the written piece in the bulletin from William Safire, The First Dissident, I love his description of God showing up. It is as if in answer to Job's pathetic cry "Why?" God arrives in a tie-dyed t-shirt on which is emblazoned, "Because I am God, that's why." Then God begins to speak and there is this panoply of cosmic wonder in beautiful poetry of all the things that God is about, and the natural world. Essentially God raises three questions to Job in that first speech: Who are you? Where were you? Are you able? And Job says, "I am nothing. No, I wasn't there." And "No, I am not able." But the interesting thing is that the issue that Job has raised was a question of the suffering of the innocent, and the charge against God was a charge of injustice. In that whole first speech there is not one single reference to the real issue. God simply sweeps the issue aside and overwhelms Job with cosmic management responsibilities. Thereby, I suppose, the poet is saying what we have said earlier: that retribution is not God's idea, that retribution is not what God is about, that © Grand Valley State University �God Beyond All Human Conceiving Richard A. Rhem Page 3   rewarding the virtuous and punishing the wicked is not God's business. In this whirlwind voice, God with a mighty cosmic sweep, doesn't even make a reference to the real issue of Job's life because it is as though God is saying, "Look, take care of those things yourself. I am not into reward and punishment." I remember when my kids were little we had a little Volkswagen "bug" in Europe. There were three kids; two in the back seat and one in that little rumble seat. The older two in the back seat were constantly arguing about who had the biggest half. I got so irritated with those kids I finally took a ballpoint pen and on that nice white seat I drew a line down the middle. And I said, "Now don't bother me with that. Take care of that yourselves." Haven't you had your kids come sometimes and they are fighting among themselves and don't you have to say to them, "Go settle that yourself, I've got bigger fish to fry." So, I think God doesn't even make reference to this thing that is so pressing for Job that he says as a matter of fact, "Look, look what I am into!" Job says, "Well, that's what I figured. I knew if I ever got a chance to take my case to you that I would simply be overwhelmed. I know you are bigger than I am. I never said you weren't, never denied you are really omnipotent, really something. OK, I'll say no more, but I'll still think the same. You're unfair." At which point God begins to blow with mighty bombast, this time saying to Job, "In order to claim your own innocence, you don't have to make me wrong. Go ahead. Make your case for being innocent. As a matter of fact, I know you are innocent. Go ahead. Make your claim for being innocent, but don't base that claim on the fact that I am wrong. Don't accuse me of injustice just because you as an innocent person are suffering. Do you understand anything at all? Let me tell you what I am about as creator of heaven and earth, as manager of the cosmos. Do you know anything about the behemoth, that land monster full of brutality? Have you ever heard of leviathan, the sea monster whose thrashing, lashing tail makes the sea like a boiling cauldron? You see, in the ancient Middle East, all peoples in those cultures shared a common idea that creation was not something "boom" out of nothing, but rather that the creator was one who took an existing chaos and was ordering it and fashioning it into something harmonious and beautiful. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." And the earth was void and empty and was chaotic and the Wind, the breath of God, blew all over the stew, forming out of the chaos cosmos.” You remember in Isaiah 2 that marvelous vision of the wolf and the lamb lying down together. The wolf and the lamb lying down together, and no one hurting in all God's holy mountain—that vision of the messianic kingdom of Shalom, that wonderful energizing vision of what would be when God got it all together. And the revelation to John on the Isle of Patmos, chapter 21. You all know it. You have all heard it at every funeral you’ve ever attended "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the former heaven and earth faded away and there was no more." What? Shame on you—for lack of courage because I know you know it. There was no more sea. I love to live on the edge of the sea © Grand Valley State University �God Beyond All Human Conceiving Richard A. Rhem Page 4   with the gentle waves lapping, or the mighty billows breaking. I can't even imagine the vision of paradise without the sea, but if you had lived in that ancient culture you would have known that the sea was the source of chaos. That's where leviathan lived. So that vision of things to come where the wolf and the lamb would lie down together and they would not hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain was a place of a new heaven and a new earth, and there was no more sea. There was no more threat of chaos. There was no more possibility of the eruption of evil into God's good order. But not yet. That's what God is saying in this second speech. "Not yet, Job. I am doing the best I can. Oh! Why don't you come and play 'God for a Day.' Come on, Job, get on the throne. Go ahead. If you would act the way you want me to act, O.K., then do it—crush evil, throw the wicked into hell, get everything lined up there. That's the way you want me to do it. Is that the way you would want me to do it? Come on, sit in my place for a day and have absolute power and then see how you would manage this cosmic reality. Because with heavy totalitarian hand you would want me to crush the wicked and destroy all evil, then what you would have me do is to deny the very nature of the reality that I have created ... the values that I value. You would rule out the possibility then of moral choice and freedom of spontaneous worship and adoration, of virtue for its own sake. You would take away that which is intrinsic and central to the fabric of reality as I have called it forth. You come; you play God. How would you do it? Oh, yes, Job, I know it’s very much in process. It’s far from perfect. There are the wicked who prosper and there are the innocent who suffer. Cancer grows on beautiful young bodies and blood clots form, and loved ones are lost and it hurts . . . and it’s dark .. . and it’s painful. Human existence is vulnerable and it’s perilous, and it’s open to terror. Yes, Job, I know. Don't you think I know? But what would you do, Job, if you could play 'God for a Day?'" Job said, "I didn't know. .. I didn't know. I am all focused in my own little internal concerns and issues. I changed my mind. That is, I repent. I take my words back accusing you of injustice. I don't know. I have spoken things I didn't understand. I've tried to bring into manageable terms infinite reality. I... I dissolve." And that was the point of Job's transformation. His issues never got dealt with. Suddenly he began to think in larger terms with a grander vision, and realized that he had two alternatives: To remain in an embittered cynicism or to 'Trust God in the Darkness." Shades of next week. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/33f66452e1d3ab172dfed1e79851147d.mp3 0969e5de72dc2546bb48b0553c82a50a 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 XI Series The Job Series Scripture Text Job 38: 1,4, 40:3-4, 6-14, 42:3 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-0-19940807 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-08-07 Title A name given to the resource God Beyond All Human Conceiving 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 7, 1994 entitled "God Beyond All Human Conceiving", as part of the series "The Job Series", on the occasion of Pentecost XI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Job 38: 1,4, 40:3-4, 6-14, 42:3. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Creation Nature of God Pentecost Transformation Hebrew Scriptures https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a4db4a103f5955f2c30eb61be64fa0ee.pdf 439c3cb330e081076051e58a931f5186 PDF Text Text Retribution is Not God’s Idea From a sermon series on the Book of Job Text: Job 20:4-5; Job 21:7; Job 42:7, translated by Stephen Mitchell Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost IX, July 24, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon Zophar: "Haven't you realized yet (How can you be so blind!) that the sinner's joy is brief and costs no more than a moment? Job 20:4-5 Job: "Why do the wicked prosper and live to a ripe old age?" Job 21:7 God: "I am very angry at you [Eliphaz] and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has." Job 42:7   I was thinking about the serenity and beauty of Psalm 23 as it was sung a moment ago. I was thinking of the melodious song, beautiful words, comforting and reassuring as they were floating over you. You seemed to be at peace and it reminded me of a conversation I had last evening with a good friend of mine who is a pastor. He has just gone through radiation for the cancer that has invaded his body. I asked him how he was and he said, "Doing pretty good." He added, "I'm speaking to God again." He said, "In the midst of it we kind of got separated for a while." Well, you know, all the wonderful religious comfort in the world in which we really believe, by which we live, by which we are undergirded and overshadowed, enabled and empowered, all of that which is so terribly important and so wonderful, sometimes comes into collision with our real life situation. All of a sudden it can evaporate, it can raise doubts and questions, and we wonder, "Where is God in this moment and in this darkness?" I think that that's what happened to Job. The poet who wrote this dramatic poem may have come into a crisis in his faith, or maybe, as poets generally are, he was a spokesperson for a lot of people who had come into a crisis of faith. What they had learned in Sunday School just wasn't working any more. They couldn't connect what they were experiencing with what they had always held to be true about God. So the poet raised a serious protest against the generally perceived wisdom of the day about the relationship of God to our lives. What the poet protested was in the question of last week—the one-to-one relationship between sin and punishment, virtue and reward. What he said was, you can't tell whether a person is virtuous or wicked by looking at their life—their happiness, their prosperity or their lack thereof. It just doesn't work that way in my human © Grand Valley State University   �Retribution is Not God’s Idea Richard A. Rhem Page 2   experience and what I see about me, even though that's what I once believed and that's what you friends are trying to convince me of anew, I don't believe it. I am not going to make a lot of progress today because when I get into a series like this I get to thinking about it eight days a week, and I find often that I move too rapidly. So I am stalling this morning. If you were here last week, you can leave now. (Laughter) No, what I want to say this morning is just a little different spin on what I said last week. This morning I simply want to say, "Retribution is not God's Idea." Tribute is payment; retribution is re-payment It reflects an idea of human experience and of the way the world is that gives tit-for-tat. You do "a", you get "b." You do "c", you get "d". The one who is turning the dials and pushing the keys is God, the moral cop striding in heaven observing creatures on earth, giving just "desserts," whether for weal or woe, depending on whether one is good or bad. That was a very early conception of things and, as I said last week, in saying that is not the case, we have got to make some qualifications. We have got to recognize that there is a whale of a lot of the Bible that says that's the case, at least as superficially understood. It would seem to say in many places in the Scripture that it is a matter of being good and being blessed—being evil and being punished. The implication of that was that if you are punished, therefore, you have been evil. No one suffers if one is innocent. There is a lot of Bible that would seem to indicate a very close relationship between being good and being blessed—being evil and being punished. We all know that there are certain patterns of behavior that engaged in will result in happiness and prosperity and wellbeing. And there are certain patterns of behavior if engaged in will result in disaster and self-destruction. So there is a certain truth in the fact that our human action and human behavior has its consequences. Don't hear me denying that. That is obvious. Maybe I should add another qualification and that is that to live in human community or human society we do need a system of justice. We live in a nation, under a constitution. That constitution is interpreted and reinterpreted, and its laws are applied. Apart from that, it wouldn't be possible to live in community or to have human society. I wouldn't want to live in a society where good and evil were just indiscriminately affirmed or where it didn't matter. It does matter. You can't live together unless there is some law, some structure, some order. Human beings being as they are, it is necessary that there be some enforcement of order. The great theologian of the last generation, Reinhold Niebuhr, wrote a book about society. I can remember being struck by his book many, many years ago where he said, "The ideal for human community is not love, but justice." I said, "Oh, come on. Love is higher than justice." But his point was that in society you cannot legislate nor can you enforce love. Love is not for legislating and love is not for enforcing, but justice you can legislate and justice you can enforce. I think that was at the time of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s, and at that time © Grand Valley State University �Retribution is Not God’s Idea Richard A. Rhem Page 3   there were those who were saying you can't legislate this decency in community, and all of that. Reinhold Nieboer said, "Oh, yes you can. There is a standard of justice that can be legislated and it should be enforced because, even though we cannot effect through any human means a loving community, we can effect a just community." So, that is important. But having said that it still doesn't get at the nub of Job's protest. Job's protest was, "I am suffering. I am innocent." Therefore, there is not a one-to-one relationship between human behavior and consequence. Job was so convinced of his own experience that he was willing even to accuse heaven. But, really, he was buying in with his friends the idea that God was doing these things—pulling the strings and pushing the buttons, busying God's self with all of the stuff that makes up our life. He bought into that. But what he couldn't go along with out of his own experience was the fact that, therefore, if one is suffering, one is being punished for sin either known or unknown. So, he accused God of being unjust. That really got the ire of his friends and they went on the attack. Job had a lot to learn too, and we will get to that eventually (Out of the whirlwind Job had to say, "Whew, I didn't know what I was talking about. Sorry."). But the important point that Job made in the protest that was brought to expression in this dramatic poem was that there is suffering in human experience, there is tragedy in human experience, there are things that happen to us that are disastrous, and we ought not first of all to blame the victim. Or, if we are the victim, we should not blame ourselves. Job's point was that God never intended a retributive system to be put in place, enforced by God's all-seeing eye and authority. Job said, "I don't know what I am suffering. I don't understand suffering. But in the human situation, I am suffering. And I am innocent." His friends said, "Can't be." Zophar says, "The sinner's joy is brief and lasts no more than a moment." For if Job would point to someone, they would say, "Ah, yes, but that ephemeral, that's going to pass away. Just wait." The Psalmist in Psalm 73 had a problem with the prosperity of the wicked as Job did, but then he said, "Then I contemplated their end. Oh, you have set them on a slippery slope." Zophar was saying the happiness and prosperity of the wicked is an illusion and finally God will get them. Job said, "Oh really. Oh really! Is His candle so quickly snuffed out? Not what I observe. I see reckless, careless, people with grandchildren frolicking on the lawn and jumping on their lap. I see the wicked prosper." Now Job has got a lot to learn yet. Job is going to go through the whirlwind. Job at this point doesn't have it all right. But Job's friends have it all wrong, and that's the point. In the resolution of the book, which I read also, God says to the friends, "I am angry with you. You didn't speak truly about me as my servant Job did." "Retribution Is Not God's Idea." No tit-for-tat. No God striding around heaven observing your behavior to prosper you if you tithe and bomb you if you don't come to church. We preachers wish that were the case. (Laughter) We have a long © Grand Valley State University �Retribution is Not God’s Idea Richard A. Rhem Page 4   history of implying that that might be the case. On second thought, you can't be too safe! (Laugher) But that is an abuse of religion. That is a manipulation of people. That is speaking to people's vulnerabilities. I am always surprised at how seriously you take sermons. Don't believe me. Let me raise some questions we ought to think about, but don't expect me to give you a simple answer because I might be just as miserable as Job's friends, or I might be as off the track as Job before the whirlwind." The Wisdom Books out of which we are preaching really say to people, "Don't listen to preachers, begin to think for yourself." The Wisdom Books are books that call God's people to maturity, to stop using God as a security blanket, as a safety shield, using prayer to pass the buck to God when it is our responsibility to work at human community and concerns of justice and righteousness and compassion and to stop doing what Jesus forbids us to do anyway, and that is to judge other people or ourselves. William Safire in his book The First Dissident, in the quote I had in the bulletin last week says, "Don't blame the victim." Then he uses the example of the person with AIDS. Haven't you heard it? If you haven't, you don't watch preachers on television or listen to the radio. But if you do, if you have that addiction, I'll bet sometime or other you have heard one suggest that there is a plague on America, and the HIV virus has come because of homosexuality, and those non-persons coming out of the closet and making a big uproar in society. Job would say, "No. You can't do that. For one thing you don't just take a class of people and write them off. For another thing, you being people who are being called to maturity and to growth and reasonableness and decency, know from new information and data available to us today, that the matter of sexual orientation may really be a matter of orientation, not necessarily a matter of choice. The Bible has a lot to say about promiscuity in hetero or homosexual relationships, but it doesn't talk about orientation per se. So for people to then say, "There is a plague. God is judging." That is nonsense! It is cruel. And, it is not true. Safire says, "A woman is raped. Easy to say 'She got what she deserved.' Or people's houses are flooded because they live on the river bottom and say, 'Stupid people. God is judging them for their stupidity.'" No. Job says, "That's not what God is into. God is not into tit-for-tat. God is not walking a beat in heaven in order to get a bead on you and all of that." God says, "Here is light. Here is creation. Live it. Be responsible. Be mature. Stand up and be a human person." The God that Job is going to meet in the whirlwind that lies yet before us is a God that is going to blow Job away. Job isn't going to get all his questions answered. He is not going to get a nice neat scheme of things. I want to say at this point that if you have a good satisfying relationship with God and your faith system is working for you, far be it from me to try to move you from that. But as your pastor I know that some of you one day will come into an experience where, if you haven't thought these things through, your faith is going to crash on the rocks of © Grand Valley State University �Retribution is Not God’s Idea Richard A. Rhem Page 5   reality. Then I would like to be able to say to you, "There is something bigger and better." The reason to think these things through is that, if we should come into a Joban experience, I would hope it would lead us to the whirlwind of revelation in order that our God would not crumble before the assault of tragedy and human suffering, but rather that God might become grander and greater. For what Job finally had to learn—I think the outcome of the book would be this—is that God ought to be served because God is worthy to be served, that one should be in awe before God because God is awesome, that God is such that one can trust and cling even in the darkness, and that virtue carries its own reward. In other words, one ought simply to be "good for nothing." If one is "good for nothing," then one is good for the only good reason there is to be good. If one catches a glimpse of the grandeur and the glory of God, then one will have another way and a better way to stand in any storm of life. Job didn't have it all right yet. But in the end God said, "That other stuff, it's wrong. Job has said it right." © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/070ebbe6cd7d42eee4b0c200f8bcf57d.mp3 4bc0591b4eacde2270f5dfa22d5f0778 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 The Job Series Scripture Text Job 20: 4-5, Job 21:7, Job 42:7 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-0-19940724 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-07-24 Title A name given to the resource Retribution is Not God's Idea 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 24, 1994 entitled "Retribution is Not God's Idea", as part of the series "The Job Series", on the occasion of Pentecost IX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Job 20: 4-5, Job 21:7, Job 42:7. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Community Justice Nature of God Wisdom Literature