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The Lure of Love:
The Christmas Revelation
I John 4: 7-9, 12, 16, 19; Luke 2: 1-14
Richard A. Rhem
St. John’s Episcopal Church
Grand Haven, Michigan
Advent, December 19, 2010
I hardly know how to begin. I’ve pondered long over how to engage you with what
I want to say. I think my struggle derives from the fact that what I want to say
seems so obvious, so expected, so ordinary at Christmas – that God is love, that
love came down at Christmas, that heaven touched earth with love at Christmas,
that the Christmas story is love talk.
What a story it is! A heavily pregnant teenager, unmarried, who had been visited
by an angel, on an arduous journey with the faithful man to whom she was
engaged. The story is so familiar – the crowded inn in which there was no room,
the onset of labor pain, the cattle shed, the birth, the baby wrapped in swaddling
cloths and laid in the manger – the star, the angel chorus, the shepherds, the
adoration.
A beautiful story; a lovely story that never fails to touch us deeply. And as many
years as we have celebrated it in pageant and song and worship, it never loses its
power to move us. For a brief season the world becomes a softer place.
God is love. The writer of the letter of First John said it just that way. In John’s
Gospel the familiar John 3: 16 tells us God so loved the world…, but I John 4:8
states it straight out – God is love. I wonder if that isn’t so familiar that we don’t
hear it. Or, perhaps, we think of God loving us, the world, whatever, but how
often do we really take in the straightforward statement that God is love. And, I
suspect, even more rarely do we contemplate what that means for the world, for
creation and history, its process and destiny.
Let me state my theme clearly: The Christmas revelation is precisely that God is
love. And that I would claim is a radical affirmation. If God is love then the
source, ground and goal of reality, of all being, is love and it is the lure of love that
moves creation from planets and stars to people and particles in the cosmic
dance. Love is the originating fount, the dynamic of the emerging process and the
final destiny of being.
It would have been quite another revelation if God’s presence had been marked
by blinding power, scattering Rome’s legions and establishing a Divine Potentate
© Grand Valley State University
�The Lure of Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
to rule with a rod of iron. As a matter of fact John the Baptist hoped for such a
display of God’s power – the power of the righteous Ruler of the universe. In the
Gospels as well there are apocalyptic moments which claim to be from Jesus but
which scholars now question, seeing them as reflecting the continuing
apocalyptic movement in the early Jesus movement. So we must recognize that
the New Testament itself is not consistent. Still we have that central core – The
Word became flesh and the flesh was the flesh of a child born in deep humility
and obscurity, in poverty and peril.
Is that the sign of the presence of God?
Is this one Immanuel – God with us?
Then what is revealed of God? God is love in all the vulnerability and
precariousness of love.
Is that the way you think of God? Is that the God you worship, to whom you pray?
I raise those questions because I have become quite overwhelmed with the
disconnect between the Christmas revelation of God whose only mode of
operation is the lure of love and our more traditional description of God using the
Latin Prefix omni meaning “all”– omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent – oh,
that is one of our favorites isn’t it? Almighty God! Don’t we really want the God
on our side to be almighty!
In his Gifford Lectures of 1927-28, Alfred North Whitehead, one of the profound
thinkers of the 20th century pointed out how the Christian movement, adopted by
the Roman Empire, lost “the brief Galilean vision of humility” and, he claims,
“the Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively to Caesar.”
(Process and Reality, p. 519). I can’t imagine a more concise statement of how
the revelation of God in the birth of a child was turned into its opposite – a God
of imperial power ruling with might.
And yet we can never feel comfortable with the God of power and might; we have
a deep intuition that the Christmas revelation is true and, annually as we make
our journey to Bethlehem, we know it is so. We are moved anew; we are touched
in the depths of our being. Love is the creative center of Being, of reality, and love
is the most potent force in the world – the lure of love beckons us to love and
offer our lives to build a world where love prevails.
As we survey the human historical record, the brief Galilean vision of the
Christmas child become an agent of grace, of healing and compassion, flickers
pathetically in light of the brutal power moves of the caesars of this world. And
yet that light has never been extinguished and over the long haul the world is
moving toward more peaceful existence. If we look simply at the present, there is
reason enough to despair and it seems positive movement is so painfully slow. It
is tempting to yield to depression and grow bitter with cynicism. But, if we take
© Grand Valley State University
�The Lure of Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
the long-range view over aeons of time, surely there is a movement toward the
light, toward a more humane world, a world at peace.
Oh, perhaps you are thinking, “He has had too much Christmas eggnog.” Perhaps
you think I’ve ceased reading the news or watching the evening news. Not so; I
am sorely tempted to despair when I see the continuing tragic chess game of the
world powers, jockeying for dominance, jockeying for natural resources,
jockeying for theaters of control. I’m quite aware that we are at war in situations
where our military leadership itself tells us the solution cannot be found
militarily. I know we are as a nation in the grip of a military-industrial dominance
that is secured in place by special interest; that we are becoming a plutocracy –
with government by wealth for wealth; that we are polluting our earth and fouling
the air – in a word, I am not unaware of the peril in which we find ourselves
presently and I am not naïve to think suddenly one will arise with a magic wand.
But this too I know: two thousand years ago much of what we speak of as “the
West” was ruled by imperial power and actually a rather advanced governing
power – the Roman Empire. We can’t be certain of the details of the Christmas
story – perhaps the edict of Caesar Augustus, the journey to Bethlehem were just
that – story, to convey the connection of an ancient promise about the birth of
one from the tree of Jesse, to be born in Bethlehem, with the birth of Jesus.
Nonetheless, a child was born in poverty and obscurity and that child has
changed the face of the earth and transformed the human story.
The mighty Empire whose edicts moved the masses under its domination
eventually crucified that child that was born in Bethlehem. He had grown to
maturity at a restless time in that ancient world. Apocalypticism – hopes and
fears of the end of the world – was widespread. He came under the influence of a
preacher named John who baptized him and he too sensed a call to call his
people to repentance and faith in the God of that covenant faith. And then
something happened. He sensed God calling him to bring another message – a
message of grace and healing. He moved north to Galilee and created in
Whitehead’s words that “brief Galilean vision”, a vision of grace and healing and
compassion. Returning to Jerusalem for the observance of Passover his
popularity preceded him. Empire and Temple conspired together; he was
crucified and there was darkness at noon.
Ironically we call that Friday “Good”; the darkest day on the human calendar we
call “Good”. Perhaps because that darkness was soon dispersed by the light of
Easter – the most joyful, triumphal celebration on the Christian calendar follows
hard on the heels of the darkest moment on our Christian world calendar. That’s
why the Fourth Gospel relates the coming of that one into the world as the
dawning of Light – light the world has never nor will ever extinguish. The eternal
Word or Intention of God became enfleshed in our world history and there was
grace and truth. Oh, a light too bright, a truth too telling and so the powers that
© Grand Valley State University
�The Lure of Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
be thought to extinguish the Light by crucifying the one who embodied grace and
truth that exposed their schemes of domination and brutal control.
But it didn’t work, you see, for we continue to tell the story. Once every year we
return to Bethlehem and the world becomes a softer place. Once every year we go
to Calvary and feel the darkness and then wait for the dawning of Easter light.
You see that Light will never be extinguished; that movement from the death of
crucifixion to the triumph of resurrection is the last word.
And do you know why that is the case? Is it not what we are celebrating yet again?
Is it not because of what we have learned at the Manger – that the presence of
God in our history is, as it were, the presence of a child – vulnerable, precarious,
defenseless – telling us in the revelation of Christmas that God is love.
God is love. Do you sense the radical claim we make thus? How can we get
beyond all the sentimental accretions to the word Love? As I began I said, “If God
is love then the source, ground and goal of reality, of all being, is love and it is the
lure of love that moves creation from planets and stars to people and particles.”
What does that mean? Let me suggest a possibility.
Might it not mean that the creative source and center of being, of the whole of
reality is love and that love keeps on giving, sustaining in existence the whole
cosmic drama and will do so until love has overcome all resistance and the
Kingdom of God,of love, prevails.
When will that be? We don’t know for there is no predestined plan – contrary to
my Calvinist forbears. Love does not control; it simply gives and gives again on
behalf of the other while it is in the hands of the other to receive and secure the
triumph of love or reject and seal love’s tragedy. W. H. Vanstone, an Anglican
priest, writes profoundly on this matter in his work, Love’s Endeavor, Love’s
Expense (1977):
The power which love gives to the other is power to determine the issue of
love – its completion or frustration, its triumph or tragedy. This is the
vulnerability of authentic love – that it surrenders to the other power over
its own issue, power to determine the triumph or the tragedy of love.
The vulnerability of God means that the issue of His love as triumph or
tragedy depends upon His creation. There is given to the creation the
power to determine the love of God as either triumphant or tragic love.
This power may be called ‘power of response’: upon the response of the
creation the love of God depends for its triumph or its tragedy. ( p. 67)
But, in the straightforward words of St. Paul, “Love never ends.” In face of every
tragic rejection, love seeks out another way to overcome resistance and
alienation. Love never ends.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Lure of Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
Do you suspect I am sniffing some happy drug? No, I’m serious. Love will prevail.
Think about it; two thousand years ago would anyone have believed a child born
in obscurity and poverty would transform the world? One of the great
accomplishments by which the Roman Empire kept the empire in hand was the
Roman road system. But by land or sea, how long did it take to move from Rome
to Jerusalem? And yet the Christmas child of Bethlehem rocked that empire and
has forever changed life on earth. What might Jesus have accomplished with a
smart phone or a Blackberry!
I’m not sure what you think of Julian Assange – well, I bet I do know!
Nonetheless, whether he is a serious idealist or a dangerous anarchist, he has the
empires of the world as worried as was Rome about Jesus. We are told we need
the cover of secrecy to make the world work – no transparency allowed because
we really don’t want our scheming and conniving and manipulating exposed to
the light of day. The world doesn’t work that way!
But it will one day.
Because from the creative core of reality love will find a way and it will never quit
until there is peace on earth, human wellbeing, global community – until the
nations beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;
until nation shall not lift up sword against nation, and neither shall they learn
war any more. Love will not quit until the wolf and the lamb feed together and
they shall not hurt or destroy in all God’s holy mountain.
Why am I so certain?
Is it not because every year as we journey again to Bethlehem we really know it is
true? Do we not know deep down that it is true? Love is the ultimate truth, the
one cosmic absolute – our hearts tell us so.
We have the concrete instance of Jesus. Who would have believed it? Who would
have wagered that that one solitary life would have greater impact than all the
armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the kings that ever
ruled or parliaments that ever sat?
It happened because the love of God found a willing envoy.
Jeremy Rifkin has written a thick volume entitled The Empathic Civilization in
which he traces the course of human development to the present in which he
challenges the long-held assumption that human beings are by nature aggressive,
materialistic, utilitarian, and self-interested. He opens this large study with the
scene on Flander’s Field on Christmas Eve, 1914. Hellish conditions prevailed.
German and English troops were dug in in trenches only 30-50 yards from each
other.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Lure of Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
The trenches were waterlogged. Soldiers shared their quarters with rats
and vermin. Lacking adequate latrines, the stench of human excrement
was everywhere. The men slept upright to avoid the mud and sludge of
their makeshift arrangements. Dead soldiers littered the no-man’s-land
between opposing forces, the bodies left to rot and decompose within
yards of their still-living comrades who were unable to collect them for
burial.
As dusk fell over the battlefields, something extraordinary happened. The
Germans began lighting candles on the thousands of small Christmas trees
that had been sent to the front to lend some comfort to the men. The
German soldiers then began to sing Christmas carols – first “Silent Night,”
then a stream of other songs followed. The English soldiers were stunned.
One soldier, gazing in disbelief at the enemy lines, said the blazed trenches
looked “like the footlights of a theater.” The English solders responded
with applause, at first tentatively, then with exuberance. They began to
sing Christmas carols back to their German foes to equally robust
applause.
A few men from both sides crawled out of their trenches and began to walk
across the no-man’s-land toward each other. Soon hundreds followed. As
word spread across the front, thousands of men poured out of their
trenches. They shook hands, exchanged cigarettes and cakes and showed
photos of their families. They talked about where they hailed from
reminisced about Christmases past, and joked about the absurdity of war.
The next morning, as the Christmas sun rose over the battlefield of
Europe, tens of thousands of men – some estimates put the number as
high as 100,000 soldiers – talked quietly with one another. Enemies just
twenty-four hours earlier, they found themselves helping each other bury
their dead comrades. More than a few pickup soccer matches were
reported. Even officers at the front participated, although when the news
filtered back to the high command in the rear, the generals took a less
enthusiastic view of the affair. Worried that the truce might undermine
military morale, the generals quickly took measures to rein in their troops.
(pp. 5-6)
Fascinating true story. That’s what Christmas does to us because it is true and
deep down in our being we know it is true. Fortunately for the old world order of
empires there were level-headed generals there who put an end to it before the
Christmas truce might undermine military morale. Thus the war went on until
November 1918, accounting for 8.5 million military deaths.
But it was a sign.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Lure of Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
God is love – that is the Christmas revelation and the day is coming when that
love signed in the child will prevail – Next year? Next century? Next millennium?
No one knows but surely it will come for at the creative core of Being we are being
lured by love and love will prevail; God will prevail and
All will be well,
All will be well,
All manner of things will be well.
Reference:
Jeremy Rifkin. The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousnes in a
World in Crisis. New York: The Penguin Group, 2009.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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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
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
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Event
Advent Evensong
Scripture Text
I John 4:7-9, 12, 16, 19, Luke 2:1-14
Location
The location of the interview
St. John's Episcopal Church, Grand Haven
References
Jeremy Rifkin. The Empathic Civilization, 2009.
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
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KII-01_RA-0-20101219
Date
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2010-12-19
Title
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The Lure of Love: The Christmas Revelation
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 19, 2010 entitled "The Lure of Love: The Christmas Revelation", on the occasion of Advent Evensong, at St. John's Episcopal Church, Grand Haven. Scripture references: I John 4:7-9, 12, 16, 19, Luke 2:1-14.
Format
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application/pdf
A Humane World
God Revealed as Love