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God, Humanity and Cosmos
From the sermon series on the Cosmos
Text: Psalm 8: 4-5
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
November 15, 1981
Transcription of the spoken sermon
What is man that thou art mindful of him, …dost care for him? Yet thou hast
made him a little less than God. Psalm 8: 4-5
Through a happy coincidence, this was an exciting week in the old U.S. of A. as
we once again accomplished a great triumph of science and technology, sending
into space again our Spaceship Columbia, watching it blast off with all of the
drama of those moments, and then, in order that we might report its safe return
this morning, the mission was shortened, and they came back yesterday. Exciting,
really, isn't it? And doesn't it boggle the mind to think about the human potential,
to think about what human intelligence is able to effect? Isn't it amazing, really,
when you contemplate the nature of such events? Truly it is thrilling. Yet we
become so easily accustomed to the dramatic and the sensational. If we were to
tell our forefathers that these things were happening, they wouldn't believe it.
They would say it was impossible. At best they might say, "Well, it's a miracle."
Well, it is a miracle, in a sense. But in another sense, it is simply that the human
mind has been able to probe the secrets of reality in order to accomplish a
mission like that and continue the exploration of the cosmos.
I kidded about them bringing the spacecraft home early so that we would know
this morning that they were successful, but, as a matter of fact, that decision was
made, though not for that reason. As I was thinking about Psalm 2 and the
psalmist's reflection upon the cosmos and then upon himself, who he was in
relationship to God, I thought that decision was a rather nice illustration of the
second Psalm, for a choice was made in favor of human life over the probing of
the cosmos. If the psalmist was impressed with the cosmos, then how much more
you and me? If he was impressed with what he could see, which was but an
infinitesimal fragment of what there is, if he was impressed with his smallness
over against the vastness of space and the eons of time, which are becoming more
and more clear to us, then how much more must we be impressed with our
smallness and our insignificance? And yet, when one of the three fuel cells of that
spacecraft failed, a decision had to be made as to whether to let the mission run
its course, or to bring it home early. Two fuel cells were enough to allow the
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Humanity and Cosmos
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
mission to take its full run. But then, down to two, if one should fail, the mission
and human life would be in jeopardy. And so, at headquarters, discussion was
held and the decision was made. They came home early, even though involved
were scores and scores of people, and millions and millions of dollars and all of
that which is at stake. They brought that mission home early because in this
nation, standing in the biblical tradition, we know the value and the sanctity of
human life. And when it comes to taking a risk and succeeding with a few more
scientific experiments, but placing at the same time, human life in jeopardy, there
is really no question, because we know in the face of space's immensity and time's
ever-rolling stream, that there is still one thing that counts supremely, and that is
a human being.
Now that is really the same kind of conclusion that the psalmist came to. On the
one hand, he said,
Lord, when I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars which you
have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of
man, that you care for him?
He felt his smallness and his insignificance. He was overwhelmed by the
immensity of the heavens overhead, and he recognized that his days were but a
brief span of time. His littleness in the vastness of it all gave him such a sense of
insignificance and smallness.
As I said, if he felt small, how about us? We have to say that in our own day there
have been a lot of people who have been unable to move with the modern
conception of the universe and maintain a faith in God the Creator. The psalmist
had a correct intuition. I mean, who are we, really, when you think of it? Fifteen
to twenty billion years in the process, and now we are here, threescore years and
ten, perhaps. Why, our lifespan is a blink of the eye. And when you realize, as Carl
Sagan says in his book, Cosmos, that the earth is a speck of dust, circling a
humdrum star, our sun - just an average old humdrum star - you begin to realize
the vastness of the cosmos. We are on a speck of dust circling a humdrum star in
a corner of an insignificant galaxy; and if we are on but a speck of dust in the
vastness of space, so are our days but an instant in the eons of time. When you
really stop to think about it, I mean when you really stop to contemplate it, can
you still believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?
You see, there have been many of our contemporaries who have not been able to
make that move and that adjustment. We have opened up the mysteries of the
cosmos, and it is a most exciting day in which to be alive. But what has to happen
is not only that the cosmos expands before our eyes, but our conception of God
must grow commensurately. As J.B. Phillips wrote so many years ago, Your God
Is Too Small.
We have to admit, too, that in the Church we have not been very good at helping
people to make this adjustment.
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Humanity and Cosmos
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
In the most recent issue of Science '81, an excellent magazine which was placed in
my hands, there is a centerfold on Creationism – Creationism as opposed to
Evolutionism, and all of the controversy that is being stirred up by the
fundamentalist wing of the Christian Church today. It recounts how several states
have gone to court to get equal time for the doctrine of Creation in their schools.
It is a very interesting development. This is a science magazine. And in this report
it was stated what we have been saying here over and over again, that all of the
scientific investigation of the cosmos, whether in biology or physics or geology or
in whatever field - all of these investigations really do not impinge upon whether
or not God created the heavens and the earth, and whether or not I can still
believe that this is my Father's world. That really isn't at issue. But the problem
with the fundamentalist wing of the Church that is stirring up all this controversy
is that it is creating, once again, that overagainstness with science, and that
mindset in much of the Christian Church that there is something destructive to
faith in all of this explosion of knowledge in the natural sciences. That is tragic.
We do ourselves a great disservice.
If you feel good when you see some television evangelist pounding the pulpit and
talking in terms of creation over against a godless, atheistic evolutionism, don't
clap, because he is not on your side, if you are on the side of God and Truth. That
is a false distinction, that is a false antithesis, and it is deadly. It is deadly because
it offends the best minds and the best spirits, and it creates the illusion that to be
a Christian you have to take off your head, shut down your mind and refuse to
survey the vast amount of data that is there for anyone with any common sense.
We can't play that game any longer. We have to admit that what the psalmist saw,
the immensity of the universe and the eons of time and all of this which has
become even more clear to us will necessitate an adjustment of our
understanding of God.
We simply cannot have this neat, secure little world, little planet Earth and our
few thousands of years and our literal, biblical account of things, because, you
see, the biblical writers were not writing physics, were not writing biology, were
not talking about geology. The writers of the Bible thought that this was a threestory universe, with heaven above and the waters under the earth. God didn't
whisper in their ears and give them some revelation of the mysteries of physics.
This is not a science textbook, and you cannot find out about the process of the
created order, you cannot find out about the stages which have brought us to this
present point by going to the scriptures. The only thing the scriptures will tell
you, and of course the only thing that really matters, is that in the beginning was
God, and that He will be in the end, and that He is with us in the meantime.
When the psalmist looked up and thought, "Oh my goodness, I'm not much,"
then how much more we, and we simply have to recognize that we need to do
some readjusting because, as a matter of fact, this old, cosmological, evolutionary
process has been going on for a long, long time. There is no doubt about that. And
it has been following a course of natural development which now is more and
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Humanity and Cosmos
Richard A. Rhem
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more understood, with many mysteries still to be unraveled, but which will be
unraveled. We live in a day which is right at the crest of a breakthrough that will
continue to explode and explode and explode all around us. The more we learn,
the more access we have to deeper mysteries, and when you saw Columbia come
in and land right on the second and right on the line, that is simply a sign and a
finger pointing beyond itself to the most fantastic dreams that are even now
welling up in human hearts and minds. Never say never! Because before you die,
it will have happened.
But the psalmist had another insight, and that is the critical insight, for he not
only experienced his smallness and his insignificance, but he went on to say,
"Thou hast created him a little less than God. Thou hast crowned him with glory
and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the whole created order." That is
the biblical insight. That is the significant fact. That is the uniqueness of being
human. That is the religious issue, for it doesn't really matter how long it's been
going on, and it doesn't really matter how vast the immensity of space. The fact is
that we are here now at this point in the process, and we are human. The psalmist
recognized that there is something about being human which is nearly divine.
And if I were to put it in a sentence, I would say to you this morning that the
message is simply this - You are really something. That's the biblical message.
We may be impressed with distance, and we may be impressed with age, but what
we really ought to stand in awe before is the mystery of being human, the wonder
of what it is to be man and woman, created in the image of God, for what the
psalmist was saying here when he said, "Thou hast made him a little less than
God," was what the writer of the Genesis account was saying when he said, "God
created man and woman in His own image." God created a creature over against
himself and made him almost divine. He created a creature with selfconsciousness and with a measure of freedom and self-determination, and with
responsibility and the opportunity to fall in worship and adoring praise before the
Creator of it all.
You are really something! To be human is the greatest mystery reflecting the
deepest majesty of the whole cosmological process.
When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the
stars which thou hast established: what is man that thou art mindful of
him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him? Yet thou hast made
him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou
hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands… Psalm 8: 3-6
We are created to be the co-laborers with God, partners with God in this creative
process. We are endowed with gifts, with human potential, and we have the
powers and the ability to reflect the divine image. We can think His thoughts
after Him, and we can enter into His creative activity, and with the things that
have already been accomplished through the exercise of human intelligence, who
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Humanity and Cosmos
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
would dare say what the frontier finally would be? You are really something, and
good religion will affirm human personality.
Now, we need to hear that in the Church, too, don't we, because for too long we
have spoken disparagingly of human personality. Nothing I say this morning
would in any way detract from the fact which we have faced honestly that there is
something desperately wrong with us all and we fall short of the glory of God.
There is a meanness about us and a contrariness; someone, somewhere has
thrown a wrench in the works, and man's inhumanity to man is given eloquent
testimony from beginning to end. But in the Church, so often that is where we
have left it. We talk about our misery and fail to talk about our grandeur. We talk
about our fallenness and fail to take in the destiny to which we have been called.
God has dealt with our sin, and by His grace, calls us to realize our destiny and to
develop the full potential with which he has endowed us, and to reflect the divine
image. You are really somebody. You reflect God. You were created in His image,
a little less than Him, and He has created us in order to be in relationship with
Him, to live in communion, and to live not only in communion with Him, but in
communion one with another, and in interpersonal relationships where there is
love and care and forgiveness and grace. There is a little bit of heaven. God and
His creature, living in fellowship and communion, one with another and with
Him, define the ultimate miracle and the meaning of the whole process.
Now, that is terribly important to affirm and it ought to make you feel really good
about yourself, because you really are somebody. You have potential untapped,
you have gifts yet undreamed of, you have possibilities without limit. You are
almost divine, and God calls us to that upward way more and more to respond to
that destiny for which he has shaped us, to be prepared for the future that He has
for us.
Now, when you watch Carl Sagan on Cosmos, be enrapt with him in the
excitement of exploring the mysteries of the physical world. And I affirm that,
and I love it, and when you study it, as I have more and more, you are so
impressed with the simplicity on the other side of complexity. The complexity of
the cosmos and humankind seems so apparent. But once the smoke has cleared
there appears a simplicity in the created order. All of us and all matter is made up
of the same building blocks, the same atoms, the same fundamental elements,
whether here on planet Earth or the moon or Jupiter or the sun or your beating,
human heart. Everything, being composed of very simple and fundamental
elements, seems to reflect a divine intelligence which can hardly be conceived of.
But when you watch Carl Sagan and he begins to suggest that that process that
has moved through all of the eons of time and all of that evolutionary process to
the present moment is purposeless, the product of chance, when he begins to
suggest that you are the latest and highest expression, and that there is no one
beyond, then don't you believe him, for then he is no longer a scientist; then he is
in the sphere of religion. He suggests that maybe the universes are not the
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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dreams of God, but rather, that God may be the dream of man. He is saying that
we have come to this point and then we have simply projected out, beyond
ourselves the God that we wish were there.
When he begins to talk that way, he has lost me. Then he has said that I am
simply the consequence of all of that process of development having really no
freedom and no unique spiritual character, related to all that went before but
missing completely that relationship to Him Who is beyond and above. Then I
know that he has missed the ultimate truth. Nothing that he says about our
relationship to the cosmos is in any way in conflict to that relationship we have
with a God Who spoke and called it into being. But to deny that God and to end
up here is to leave me alone without a home and without meaning. Human
existence, then, is the chance result of spontaneous reactions along billions of
years. His explanation for the first development of life is that in a primeval soup
one cell got the ability to reproduce itself and then through billions of years,
organizing by perhaps a light ray striking a cell and causing a change, a mutation,
and finally organizing and gathering and getting more and more complex, until
finally one glob of cells woke up and said, "Well, here I am." Now, that takes faith
to believe.
When we contemplate what it is to be human, then we need not deny that whole
process. But to me, it makes far more sense to believe that in the beginning there
was an Intelligence that said, "Let there be..." with a purpose, and a purpose of
love that moved the process to a point at which one day there was someone who
looked into the face of God and experienced relationship, communion.
For finally, what is ultimate and what is important?
At NASA this week they made a decision, and a correct decision, for there is really
nothing in the whole cosmos, there is no experiment, there is no technological
breakthrough so important and so pressing that it would be worth placing in
jeopardy one human life, one human life that knows itself as free and in
relationship, able to love and to care.
A couple of weeks ago when Nancy and I were at Mayo's, we did a lot of sitting
and waiting for our names to be called. You watch a lot of people and a lot of
people in various states of difficulty and need. It's always obvious when, for
example, a son or a daughter has brought an aged parent, maybe in a wheelchair
or helping them along to the desk. You think a lot about people and you watch
them. Nancy was telling me about two old gentlemen, the one helping the other,
hobbling along, finally getting to the desk because his name had been called, and
the other who was helping said to the nurse, "Is it all right if I go in with him?
You know, he's my brother."
Well, you know, to me that's more impressive than a thousand billion galaxies.
Isn't it, really? What finally counts? We stand not in any conflict with any
scientific probe of the depths of reality. Half of the physicists are mystics, trying
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Humanity and Cosmos
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
to determine the nature of what is. That is an exciting venture; it is a human
venture. But we do stand in the midst of the darkness of space and the eons of
time to say that, whatever else may be, this is ultimately important — we are, and
we know one another, and we have learned to love and to care because into our
lives, in our own flesh, has appeared Jesus. Jesus, in whose face we have seen the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God, and found Him to be gracious.
Ah, you are really something! You are really somebody. There are no limits to the
possibilities that await you and, as the writer to the Hebrews recognized, what we
see now is only a part. We see Jesus, not yet all things put into subjection to him,
but the whole tenor of that New Testament, in the wake of Jesus, tells us that
there is a future, the contours of which we have not yet begun to dream about.
For eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of
man to conceive of the things that God has prepared for them that love Him.
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children
of God; and so we are. I John 3: 1f (RSV)
And what we shall be has not yet appeared, but we know that when He appears,
we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And throughout all Eternity
we will be brothers and sisters with our Lord, lost in wonder, love and praise of
the God Who spoke and called all things into being. Blessed be His holy name.
Amen.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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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.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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1981-2014
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Scripture Text
Psalm 8, Hebrews 2:5-9
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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1981-11-15
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God, Humanity and Cosmos
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Richard A. Rhem
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Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Text
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 15, 1981 entitled "God, Humanity and Cosmos", at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 8, Hebrews 2:5-9.
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Community
Cosmic Evolution
Creation
Creator
Creature
Grace
Image of God
Love
Nature of God
Nature of the Human
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Culture Wars – Does God Take Sides?
From the series: Heroes in Clay: Samuel
Text: I Samuel 8:19-20; Matthew 5:45
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
November 15, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
… we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations… I
Samuel 8:19-20
… God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on righteous and on the
unrighteous. Matthew 5:45
Last evening on the evening news there was a brief bit of the heavyweight
championship fight of the night before and of Riddick Bowe who delivered the
telling blow to Vander Holyfield. “I won,” said Bowe, “because God was on my
side.” Now that’s really dumb! One guy beats up another, makes him bloody and
says, “God’s on my side.” But it’s really only the extreme of what we all do at one
time or another. We get in a conflict or a debate, or a discussion or we get into
something that deeply divides and we do our best to make sure that God is on our
side. We make the claim and Samuel made that claim too. Samuel believed that
God was on his side - or maybe, in all fairness to Samuel, I should say that
Samuel believed that he was on God’s side.
Samuel was one of the great leaders of ancient Israel – a good man, a man of
integrity and of spiritual depth. He had been one of the judges of Israel at the end
of that historical period we call the time of the Judges. Israel was a tribal
confederacy at the time following the conquest of Canaan under Joshua. It was
that period of time in which Israel lived as a kind of loosely confederated group of
tribes. They would, when a crisis arose, rise up together for a common defense.
They believed that God would, at a decisive moment, raise up a charismatic
leader who could rally the tribes together. Then, when the crisis had passed and
the battle won, they would go back and do their farming again in their respective
tribal territories. They were a tribal confederacy.
We can understand that because we had thirteen colonies at one time or thirteen
states that were in a confederacy. A confederacy is a kind of government where
the independent units maintain a certain amount of autonomy, but they feel the
need for a certain amount of centralizing and organizing power for such things as
common defense, etc. If you remember your ninth grade civics class, at least a
© Grand Valley State University
�Culture Wars –Does God Take Sides? Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
hundred years ago it was called the United States Civics class, you learned there
about how the Confederacy moved into a strong central government. Wasn’t it
Alexander Hamilton who wrote the “Federalist Papers” and argued the case for
the strong centralization of power? Well, that’s exactly what was going on in
Israel at the time.
Samuel had been an excellent judge and a great spiritual leader. As long as you
have a towering figure, the old forms and structures survive somehow because
such a figure as a Samuel commands such trust and respect. But we are told in
the eighth chapter of I Samuel that Samuel is old and his sons are not following in
his footsteps, and so the elders of Israel, (kind of the leading citizens, I suppose)
come to Samuel. I hope they were a little more sensitive than the text says. It
says, “You’re old.” It can be a difficult thing, you know, growing old. You don’t
need somebody to remind you! Somebody comes up to Samuel and says, “You’re
old. And your sons aren’t doing well. Give us a king.” Samuel was displeased.
These people were about to fall into the same trap from which they had so long
ago escaped in Egypt. The Hebrews had vowed they needed no king but God. So
he prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said, “Yes, I understand you are displeased,
but recognize they are not rejecting you. They are rejecting me and I am used to
it. This has been going on since the very day I brought them out of Egypt. Listen
to the people. Give them what they want.” However, Samuel warned them what
they were in for. Then we come to the ninth chapter and it is as though we are
reading a totally different account, because now we have Saul in the picture. God
speaks to Samuel and he says, “Tomorrow there is a young man who is going to
come. His name is Saul. I have appointed him to be a king and I want you to
anoint him, etc.” And very interestingly, in the ninth chapter and the sixteenth
verse, the Lord says, “Anoint him to be ruler over my people Israel. He shall save
my people from the hands of the Philistines, for I have seen the affliction of my
people because their outcry has come to me.”
Now here in the ninth chapter you have another source. You have another
perspective. You’ve got another understanding of things. Here, very much
parallel to Moses, you have God coming to Samuel and saying, “This man is going
to be my answer to meet the affliction and suffering of my people Israel. Anoint
him. Appoint him. He will be my instrument in response to the cry of my people.”
God said, “The cry of my people has risen to me and I am going to do something
for them.” The words are very similar to the ones spoken to Moses at the burning
bush. In the ninth chapter, after that rather discouraging beginning about the
initiative for a king, it seems as though God is on the bandwagon now and it is
God who is doing this thing. God is saying, “I am going to move this tribal
confederacy into monarchy in order to meet the needs of the immediate
situation.” Well, that whole section meanders between these two points of view.
You have, we’ll call it, the Samuel source, the source that speaks for the old
tradition, the covenantal community. And you have the Saul source, which
reflects the view of those who want to move into something new, into some new
social organization in order to meet the exigencies of the time. Both sides are sure
© Grand Valley State University
�Culture Wars –Does God Take Sides? Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
that God is on their side. Neither side is pure. None of us is ever pure. No faith
conviction of ours is without some measure of vested interest. You can count on
that.
Now I think Samuel was genuinely upset about the undercutting of that ancient
covenant community where a people was gathered into a community, not
through political alignment or economic philosophy or ethnic purity, but out of a
common trust in God. But I also think he was hurt. He felt rejected. And those
who were seeing where Israel had to go had a concern for the well being of Israel,
but I think probably there were also the ones who had been able to accrue some
considerable bank accounts here and there and they really wanted some kind of
security system. They wanted to take the bull by the horns and make sure that the
accumulated wealth and positions they had acquired would somehow or other be
secure. They wanted to be like other nations where a king could help maintain an
army and a measure of stability. So there is always that mixture.
What’s going on here? Well, I suppose it’s a culture war. I don’t know who
introduced the phrase “culture war,” but I do know that it came into prominence
in this past political campaign. Pat Buchanan at the Republican Convention
spoke about being at war for the soul of this nation. And out of the campaign has
come an accentuation of that polarization of our society. If we look back to Israel
we can see that polarization and culture divide wasn’t devised in the 1990s; it’s
not a 20th-century phenomena. It has been going on forever. Then, there were
two visions of what Israel was to be. There were two visions of what the identity
and the mission and the nature of the community ought to be. They were at odds.
They were at cultural war with each other.
It’s really interesting that in the biblical account you don’t have one setup as the
right way and the other way as the wrong way, but you have a weaving together of
these two positions. Now in the old way that we used to read the Bible, and the
old way I used to preach the Bible, frankly, I would have had to iron out those two
undissolvable knots of material. I would have had to make one be subservient to
the other. I would not have been able to recognize that a biblical writer might
have left in there, intentionally, an unresolved tension. The biblical writer is no
fool! He didn’t just cut and paste and put things together. It is intentional. As he
looks back on Israel’s history, the tensions and conflicts and the movement that
made them what they were and what they became, he is trying to see the way in
which the uncanny presence of God moves in the unsettled, unstable,
unpredictable human, historical situation.
It is a marvelous study of how Israel became the nation that it was and the writer
in retrospect portrays both sides of the issue for us so that we could see these
tensions that existed within this ancient people of God. There have always been
those who have clung to old values--What shall we call them? Shall we call them
the orthodox? Or conservatives? There have always been those who have felt that
new times demand new solutions. That growing explosion of knowledge and new
© Grand Valley State University
�Culture Wars –Does God Take Sides? Richard A. Rhem
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understanding in insights call for new arrangements. What shall we call them?
Progressives? Liberals, maybe? There have always been those who have looked to
the past in order to secure the present and the future. And there have been those
on the other hand who, looking to the future, have recognized the necessity of
scuttling the past as a straightjacket.
In which camp would you have been? Would you have put your arm around
Samuel and said, “You’re right, old boy. Things are going to pot and there may
not even be a future if those radicals have their way. Everything is going to pot.
No more morality. No more spirituality. No more God. Secularism. Secular
humanism, etc.” Or would you have been one of the lobbyists who were pushing
for the king and would you have said, “Look, the future is here. And the new
situation demands that we move out of this inherited confederacy that has served
its time. It’s time for a new form and a new structure to carry out into the future
in order that we can be all that God would have us be.” Where would you have
been? Let’s have an election. Shall we have another election? You can cast your
vote.
Why is it even important to look at this? In this fascinating biblical narrative,
seeing these tensions, we might get a word of enlightenment for the present
situation in our own nation and society. For we are a nation deeply divided. We
are a society that is polarized and poisoning each other, and everybody claims
that God is on his or her side. There is a kind of conflict of moral vision about
what this nation ought to be, and what kind of society God is calling us to be. And
moral vision held with passion sometimes becomes violent. There is name-calling
and acrimony, and there is division and adversarial spirit - a kind of polarization
that fragments society and makes civil and rational discourse almost impossible.
So I think that it may well be that in this narrative we have some help to
understand how we should negotiate these times.
When I was at Brandeis three weeks ago I met Professor James Davison Hunter. I
didn’t know at the time that he had authored a book which was reviewed in the
October Perspectives, entitled by the way, Culture Wars. I picked up a copy a
couple of weeks ago in New York. His focus is the struggle to define America making sense of the battles over the family, art, education, law and politics. It is
an excellent study. James Hunter is an evangelical Christian, and he is an
excellent sociologist. So I find this a very intelligent survey of what’s going on in
our nation - the things that are tearing our society apart. I would recommend it to
you. Culture Wars. He uses the phrase, and he points out the perils in which our
society stands: the potential fragmentation and the potential for the breakdown
of all discourse, which of course, is so essential for a democratic society. As we
look at the biblical account, might it not help us simply to recognize in the first
place that these tensions are endemic to the human situation? So you’re
orthodox. That’s good! But that’s not all. And so you are a wild-haired liberal.
That’s great! But it’s not the whole picture. The one who clings to ancient values
and the one who reaches for that which is new and untested need each other. In a
© Grand Valley State University
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healthy society there will be a creative tension with a strong enough center to
hold people together. But I think it is simply important first of all to recognize,
not despair, and not throw up our hands as though it is the end of the world.
We didn’t invent this kind of polarization. Maybe the mass media, and the
television, and the sound bite, maybe that accentuates, maybe that polarizes and
divides us more than in earlier times. I think that is probably true. But,
nonetheless, we have to learn to live with that and to work with that. If you are
conservative and orthodox, you have every right to be thus. And it is your
responsibility to hold to values that are tried and true, and to make sure that the
treasures of the past are not lost. Yours is a good voice, but it’s not the only voice.
And if you are always champing at the bit, and always on the growing edge trying
to break through to something not yet jelling, then, bless you! Keep everything
unsettled and unstable. Be a nudging discomforter, but recognize that there are
perils out there. As old Samuel said, “You are going to get your king, and you are
going to get yours.” What we need in a healthy society is an acceptance of the
legitimate and authentic tension that rests within any community of people.
I like the way God is portrayed in this whole narrative. I think that I would have
to say that God is kind of a grudging progressive. That I say without bias. (Oh,
come on. Where’s your humor!) [Laughter] He says to Samuel, “Samuel, you’re
right. You’re right.” I think the narrative is saying, “You can’t give up traditional
values without some significant loss, but the nature of the historical experience is
such that you have to keep moving on. Yes, they’ve rejected me. But listen to the
people. Warn them, but listen to them. Give them their king. No arguing. No
pouting. No raging. No manipulation. No coercion.” God seems to be able to
handle that which is threatening to so many of us. God seems to be confident
about the future and God’s ability to cope with the future regardless of which
alternatives are chosen.
And then I love this in Samuel’s farewell speech in the 12th chapter. The people
are rather humbled at this point, and they say, “Pray to God for us.” And Samuel
could say this to them, “For the Lord will not cast away his people, for his great
name sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.”
Don’t you love that? Isn’t that the kind of God that you could worship? Samuel
can say, “Look, this isn’t some petulant, petty, capricious deity. This is Almighty
God. This is the Creator of the heavens and earth. This is the One who has created
us in his image, who will not let any of his children go. This God will not abandon
you. This God will not forsake you. Stop quivering in your boots. Trust God. God
forbid that I should cease to pray for you. And I will continue to instruct you in
the way you should go.”
And then if you follow the story on, there is also this - that as there is this normal,
inevitable kind of movement, the values of the old tend to get incorporated into
the vision of the new. Samuel anointed Saul king, and the new was here. But
Samuel said, “Saul, buddy, don’t think you’re a sovereign, an absolute like all
© Grand Valley State University
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those puppet kings around you. Saul, you’re just another citizen before the
eternal, sovereign God.” And you know the thing that made Israel unique? Even
when it became a monarchy, it was the fact that its king always trembled before
the prophet - that its king knew that he was accountable and that he had no
absolute sway, but must always regard the ways of righteousness and justice, and
seek the ways of peace. The old values - the community and tribal confederacy in
covenant with God – that somehow or other got laced into the monarchy, so that
when we reach Chapter 16 we have David. We have the ideal king and it would
seem for all the world that God always intended that there would be such a
kingdom and there would be such a king - the Golden Age. Samuel wouldn’t have
dreamed that it could be so good.
I read from the Sermon on the Mount this morning because it seems to me that
as God’s people we are called to that kind of posture and spirit and attitude. I
think one of the great problems in our present social unrest is the fact that we
have politicized things that cannot be politicized. You cannot legislate morality.
You cannot legislate spirituality. The things that tear us apart - abortion,
homosexuality, a National Endowment for the Arts, family values - those trigger
words set off emotions and generate a lot of heat and very little light. They are not
things that the government really can handle. Those are the things for us the
people of God to deal with. We, as the people of God, are called to live an
alternative community. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. You are the
salt of the earth. Light illumines. Salt preserves.” And we are called to be Godlike. The God who causes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust, and causes
the fields of the righteous and the unrighteous alike to be watered with rain and
snow. Jesus final word is “So, be like God.”
The word perfect in the RSV is not a good translation. The word is kellos in
Greek, which is the end or the purpose. Realize that for which God created you.
God created you in God’s image. Be God-like, with a kind of universal
benevolence, with a kind of love and a compassion, a justice and a seeking of love
and fairness, and finally, peace in society. You be different. Don’t let the sound
bites polarize you. When you feel your anger begin to rise, recognize that God is
not on your side. Or rather, God is on your side - and on the side of your
adversary. Have a moral passion, but lace it with humility and express it with
compassion. Simply be God-like. God knows. God can handle this alternative,
that alternative, and another alternative, but if somebody tells you, “This is God’s
way,” don’t you believe him. God is bigger than that, bigger than my vision and
your vision. A vision that embraces us all and calls us all to be civil and
committed, agents of the kingdom that will surely come. Sorry folks, God doesn’t
take sides.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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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
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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Event
Pentecost XXIII
Series
Heroes in Clay
Scripture Text
I Samuel 8: 19-20, Matthew 5:45
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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1992-11-15
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Samuel: Culture Wars - Does God Take Sides?
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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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
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 15, 1992 entitled "Samuel: Culture Wars - Does God Take Sides?", as part of the series "Heroes in Clay", on the occasion of Pentecost XXIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Samuel 8: 19-20, Matthew 5:45.
Community
Diversity
History of Israel
Justice
Samuel
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/20a8e0c67a5f73858405c898c53b5cc0.pdf
96b765c33d65e6a86f5ecf2d3720b1c1
PDF Text
Text
“Woman, Behold Thy Son…”
From the Lenten series: The Seven Words From the Cross
Text: John 19:26-27
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Lent III, March 6, 1994
Transcription of the spoken sermon
"He said to her, ‘Mother, there is your son;’ and to the disciple, ‘There is
your mother...’”John 19:26-27
My old sidekick of eighteen years, Gordon VanHoven met me in the Narthex last
Sunday, and he said to me, "I regret so much that we are leaving for Florida this
week, and I'll be unable to be there next Sunday for the third word from the
cross." Well, I didn't work with Gordon all those years for nothing. I saw the
twinkle in his eye. He was teasing me.
You see, you don't have to be in the ministry many years before you get the
opportunity to be a part of one of those community Good Friday services. Did you
ever attend one of those three-hour services where the community worthies each
take a word from the cross and string you out from twelve to three? Well, if you
are a participant in one of those services, your "word" is determined by casting
lots, or drawing verses out of a hat. Just before you draw you pray "May it not be
the third word, Oh Lord." There are some dramatic words, you know, "Father
forgive them," or "Today... Paradise ...," or "My God, Why?" but the third word,
"Mother your Son. Son your Mother."
If you're going to do the seven words of the cross, as I have been this Lent you
have to include it. You would know if I just skipped over it. And certainly, there
are some good things to say. I mean sons ought to provide for their mothers.
There's parenting responsibility.
This year, it seems the timing is right. Saturday morning we were having a
seminar, "Parenting Parents." I thought, if I go to that seminar, I'll probably get
at least half of the material for the sermon. And, as a matter of fact, it was just a
wonderful seminar. Very helpful. Some wonderful insights and the kind of
support, and talking about family relationships, and responsibilities, and
dysfunctions, and so forth, that are so important.
© Grand Valley State University
�Woman, Behold Thy Son…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
And even better, I knew that, by coincidence, this Sunday we would be gathering
around the baptismal font. The family is going to be front and center. What a
remarkable providential timing!
Yet, deep in my heart, I really knew that this word was not about what is always
said about this word in community Good Friday services. This word is not really
about a responsible son providing for his Mother. This word is not really about
mutual support or faithfulness until death, or Jesus being so remarkable because,
in his dying anguish, he still has time to think about his mother. Those things are
important, but really now don't you know that there must be something more
going on?
John is telling the story of Jesus. John is painting the portrait of Jesus. John is
presenting Jesus as the Christ so that you might believe and have life. John has
written the first half of his gospel, the first twelve chapters, giving the signs that
Jesus effected, and then the second half of his gospel begins with chapter
thirteen. It is the passion narrative, which now comes to its climax at the moment
of Jesus dying. And Jesus dying, from John's viewpoint, is a cosmic, redemptive
event. Then all at once there is a moment when the action stops and Jesus says,
"Mother, your Son, Son, your Mother." Really don't you know that something
more is going on than that? What's happening here isn't really a matter of family
values, is it? What in the world is John saying to us by this statement of filial
responsibility in the midst of this cosmic event?
Think about the fact that Mary appears only one other time in John's gospel. Do
you know where the first appearance is? Remember the wedding at Cana in
chapter two? A party was going on and either it went on longer than they
expected, or the guest list was expanded, or the party was crashed. I don't know
which, but they ran out of the good wine. And so Mary, the epitome of the Jewish
mother, Mother Mary comes and says, "Boy, they're out of wine." And he does
what? He rebukes her. He says, "Woman, what have you to do with me?"
"Woman," not "Mom, but "Woman," a still respectful, but a distancing word, not
the kind of address that a son gives to a mother. "Woman, understand there is
something else going on here. I am not about providing wine for wedding
receptions. I am not about the kinds of domestic trivialities that characterize
ninety percent of the lives of all of us. Something else is going on here. Woman.
My hour has not come."
John uses terms very carefully. He is full of nuance, of subtlety, of artistic
creation. "Hour" is John's word for that inexorable plan of God that is being put
into effect through the life and ministry of Jesus. And Jesus says, "Woman, back
off. The hour is not here." Now it's interesting that the second time that Mary
appears in John's gospel is here at the cross. And John addresses her with the
same word, "Woman" not "My dear mother." "Woman." And then, after
addressing her thus, John moves to the conclusion of the crucifixion. It was like
this third word, where he effects the relationship between Mary and the beloved
© Grand Valley State University
�Woman, Behold Thy Son…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
disciple John, brought him to the realization that now it was finished. He utters
first another word, according to John, "I thirst." And then the final word, "It is
finished," which means it is completed. The work is done. It is over.
As I think about the words that John uses to tell the story of Jesus and how, in
the first place, he said, "Woman, my hour has not come" in the second chapter
and now "Woman." I'm realizing that Jesus, according to John's portrait, knows
now that God's hour has arrived, and God's hour has come to fruition, and its
consummation.
As the first half of the gospel ends, remember that story where Philip and Andrew
come to Jesus and they say there are some Greeks here that would like to see
him. You never hear again about the Greeks. You never hear again whether or not
Jesus ever saw them again or not, but what happens? It's almost like that request
from the Greeks was symbolic of those outside of the folds of Israel. Their request
to see Jesus triggers something in Jesus. He begins to talk about the grain of
wheat that falls into the ground and dies. If it doesn't die, he says, it abides alone;
but if it falls into the ground and dies, it bears fruit. And then he says, "Now is my
soul troubled. Now is the hour. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour?
No, for this hour came I forth. Father, glorify your name." And then there is a
dramatic voice response from heaven. "I have glorified it and will glorify it again."
Then we have Jesus' words following those words saying, "And I, if I be lifted up,
will draw all people to myself."
Jesus knew now that the hour was upon him. Jesus knew now that he had come
to that critical moment in which he would effect the eternal purpose of God. The
thing that he was not doing in this moment was talking of some domestic duties.
You want some further proof that family values is not what this word was about?
In the gospel of Mark, the third chapter verses 31-35, you read that little story
about how Jesus' mother, Mary, having not learned that her son was at Cana got
Jesus brothers and they went out after him because they had heard he was mad.
He was doing all kinds of stuff out there. They wanted to bring him home.
Remember that? They couldn't get into the room where he was teaching and so
they send a message. The message said, "Your mother and brothers are out there
calling for you." Jesus said, "My mother? Who is my mother? My mother, my
brothers, my sister are those who do the will of God."
Jesus was not about domestic relationships, Jesus was about an eternal spiritual
kingdom. Jesus had to distance himself and to break those physical and
biological ties in order that he might accomplish that eternal purpose of God to
which he was called: the vision that he had, by which he lived, and for which he
died.
At the cross he finally is able to say, "I create this new community of this woman
and this man, this ideal disciple and this woman, who now is at the foot of the
cross, this new Eve. Now I effect a relationship between them." Mother this is
© Grand Valley State University
�Woman, Behold Thy Son…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
your son. It's not her son physically and biologically, but Mother, this is your son.
Son, this is your mother. You are in a community. You are in a family. This is a
new family. It has nothing to do with blood ties, nothing biological, nothing
physiological. This is a community of the spirit because that's what Jesus was
about, according to John's gospel, from the very beginning.
He came to his own, and his own received him not. But to those who received him
he gave power to become the sons of God. Those who were born not of the will of
man, not of human will, of human flesh, but of God, of the Spirit.
Old Nicodemus came to him and said, "I don't understand what you're about."
And Jesus said, "You're a teacher in Israel and you don't understand? You've got
to be born again, or you've got to be born from above, or you've got to be born of
the Spirit. Only those who are born by the Spirit and the water, only those will be
part of the kingdom of God." And Nicodemus said, "How can you be born when
you're old?" And Jesus said, "If you're not born again, if you're not born from
above, if you don't transcend every human relationship and every earthly
circumstance and configuration, if you are not lifted out of all of that into this
eternal breath of God, you don't know yet the first word."
John in his gospel gives us this word from the cross because he wants us to know
that Jesus was effecting something new, daring, and universal that transcended
every human alignment and alliance.
John Dominique Crossen in his Biography of a Revolutionary gives us a little
insight into Jesus’ relationship to Mary. He says that, in that society, in that time,
in that Mediterranean society, it wasn't a sandwich society, such as ours, where
there is an upper class, and a middle class, and a lower class, but rather there was
a series of pyramids. If I'm a patron, you're a client in our situation right now. But
then there will be other relationships in my life where I'm the client and someone
else is the patron. And the whole society was perceived that way. If you had goods
or services to sell by which you could survive you would peddle it. That's the way
you would survive.
Now John tells us in the seventh chapter that Jesus’ brothers didn't believe in
him and we know that there was never much of an involvement on the part of his
brothers. And Mary had her problems. She wanted to bring him home. "But it
wasn't," says Crossen, "that they didn't know that Jesus had a power, had
something about him, that there was another dimension. It wasn't that they
didn't know that Jesus was a healer. What they were irritated about was the fact
that he didn't set up shop in Nazareth. Can you imagine what a good thing it
would have been for the family to have someone like Jesus to peddle his power?
Look at my brother Jesus. Look what he can do. Why, my goodness, they could
have had clients all over the place.
In the first chapter of Mark's gospel we have a day in the life of Jesus where he
teaches, and he preaches, and he heals, and then he comes to the home of Simon
© Grand Valley State University
�Woman, Behold Thy Son…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
Peter's mother-in-law. She has a fever, and he heals her. She gets up, and she
gives him dinner. And then they said after supper the whole town was outside the
door. They're all there. They're saying, "Hey, Jesus, help me, help me." He could
have exploited that. My goodness what a good thing he could have had.
Mark 1:35 says: In the great while before dawn Jesus went up into the mountain
to pray. And here come the disciples after him. They said, Hey, we've been
looking for you. Everybody is looking for you. Everybody is calling for you. Jesus
said, "That's why I'm here. That's why I came out. Because I have other places to
go."
You see, Jesus, according to Crossan, had mediated the direct, immediate
experience of God, because it was his premise that there are no brokers in
between. It's not a case of patrons and clients. It's not a case of priesthood or
pastors or church institutions or structures. You don't need a priesthood. You
don't need a temple. You don't need any of that because God is as close as your
breath. God loves you, whoever you are.
Jesus' table fellowship was a statement of the fact that everyone is included and
no one is excluded. Crossan says that the very fact that Jesus was an itinerate
preacher was the only way he could live out his message. He had to keep on the
move because the moment he stopped, people would have built an institution
around him. They would have created a liturgy. They would have had rituals to
procure his power. They would have been selling healing. They would have been
building a kingdom. Jesus wanted none of it. That's why they crucified him.
That's why religious people crucified him because, when religious people get a
good thing going, they build a church. They build a congregation. They take an
offering. Jesus would have none of it. He said, "God is present to you all. And all
of you may come to my table. And I will touch the person with Aids. I will make
no distinctions. And I will write nobody out." Now, having lived that way, he was
ready to die that way. And as a symbolic gesture of what his whole life in ministry
had been about, John, at this climatic moment, has Jesus create a new
community. He had Jesus say, "Woman, that's your son." And to the son he says,
“That's your mother.”
It had nothing to do with blood ties. It had nothing to do with biological
relationships. It had everything in the world to do with Jesus' whole life and
ministry because, according to his understanding of the purpose of God, God
wanted to create a community of people that transcended every human barrier
and separation.
We had a wonderful morning here yesterday. The church is in the business of
supporting families, bringing families together. It is good that parents are
concerned for children and children for parents. But we also learned yesterday
that while there is a natural bonding because of the biological, the blood ties, that
bonding is not all there is. Sometimes there's tension. Sometimes there's abuse.
© Grand Valley State University
�Woman, Behold Thy Son…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
Sometimes there's brokenness. And if it's true in the family, it's even more true in
larger communities. It's true in ethnic groups. It's true in nations.
We live in the twentieth century, which is the bloodiest century, the most violent,
the most war filled, the most blood curdling century in the world, and why is
that? Because we have not yet learned how to live in human community. We live
in families and ethnic groups, and tribes, and nations. We build community spirit
by creating over-againstness with the others. We live in a world where Jew
massacres Muslims, and a Muslim fires a machine gun into a van of Jewish young
people. We live in a world of Northern Ireland, and of South Africa, and of Latin
America, and of American city ghettos. We live in a world that is torn apart.
What Jesus was about, dear friends, was not taking care of his dear old mother.
You've got to go some other place than the gospels to find an affirmation of family
values. Jesus said if you don't hate father and mother, that is, if you will not give a
prior commitment to that relationship, if you can not unbind yourself; and
parents, if you cannot set your children free, if you cannot recognize that there is
a transcendent community, a community of water and blood and Spirit, then you
haven't begun to understand what I am about.
I am about creating a human community that transcends every human
relationship on every other basis. That means that our relationship together in
water, in the Spirit, is the tightest bond and becomes the model for what God
intends for the world. And all of our nationalisms, and all of our ideological
alignments, and allegiances, and all of our ethnic purity, and all of that that tears
apart human community is that which Jesus died to put away in order that there
might be a new relationship. "Mother, that's your son." "Son, that's your mother."
That's the community and that's what the third word is about, even though
certainly it's good to do the best you can for your parents.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/542eb8df17eaf2fe38fd9acf54e4c579.mp3
ba0942359385b7b172a3908ee735a7d5
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/.
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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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
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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>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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Event
Lent III
Series
The Seven Last Words of Christ
Scripture Text
John 19: 26-27
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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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/.
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KII-01_RA-0-19940306
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1994-03-06
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Woman, behold, thy Son
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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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
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Sound
Text
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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 6, 1994 entitled "Woman, behold, thy Son", as part of the series "The Seven Last Words of Christ", on the occasion of Lent III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 19: 26-27.
Community
Inclusive
Jesus' Ministry
Lent
-
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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
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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/.
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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
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
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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>
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
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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
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KII-01_RA-0-19940724
Date
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1994-07-24
Title
A name given to the resource
Retribution is Not God's Idea
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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.
Community
Justice
Nature of God
Wisdom Literature
-
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/.
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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
The topic of the resource
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.
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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>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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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
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KII-01_RA-0-19941224
Date
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1994-12-24
Title
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The Dream of Peace
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<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
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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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Sound
Text
Format
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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.
Christmas Eve
Community
Justice
Peae
Prophetic Voice
Way of Jesus
-
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PDF Text
Text
Rootedness and Belonging
Eastertide; Mothers’ Day
Philippians 3:8
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
May 14, 2000
Transcription of the spoken sermon
For Mother's Day and for our reflection on the family, I have a dilemma for you.
Perhaps a better word would be paradox, and that is that it is in the family that
we gain our rootedness which has the positive value of giving us a sense of
identity as to who we are and who we are being called to be. It is also in the family
that we can be so deeply rooted that we fail to have an appreciation for an
openness to the wonderful diversity of creation. That is something of a paradox,
and what I want to say to you today is that the family is so terribly important for
giving to us a shaping and a formation that will enable us to move through life
effectively, but it is such a perilous task because if we don't do it with great care,
we can be shut down rather than opened up.
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to Grand Haven High School for their
Diversity Day. The Diversity Day was a morning in which they brought in
someone from the outside, an actor, a psychologist-type, a very effective speaker
who addressed half the student body while the other half went to their respective
classes. And then they did a switcheroo, and I was one of a number of guests who
were brought in to address or to be with the students in their respective classes
while half of them were being addressed by the star of the morning. I, of course,
represented the field of religion, and I was paired with Rabbi Alan Alpert, my
good friend from Muskegon. Bob Kleinheksel was also one of those who engaged
with the students. But, Alan Alpert and I, before we opened our mouths, were
already a statement to the diversity that exists within the religious community
and the fact that that diversity can be overcome with mutual respect and
affection, as we were very good friends and we are able to share with the students
about our own relationship and the relationship of our respective communities.
As I began to address that situation, suddenly I recognized the fact that all of my
nurture, all of my training, all of the influences of my home and my church, all of
the efforts and the prayers of my parents and my pastors and my teachers were to
the end that I might be narrowed down, not opened up. This simply struck me.
Obviously it wasn't anything I didn't know all my life, but I never thought about it
in this context. I realized before those students that a diversity day like that in old
© Grand Valley State University
�Rootedness and Belonging
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
Kalamazoo Central when I was a Maroon Giant would have threatened the pants
off me, because I was traditioned, I was nurtured, I was shaped, I was formed, I
had rigor mortis of the soul before I was graduated from high school, and it
struck me so that all of that which was done for me was to give me tunnel vision,
narrow me down, secure me in the truth, and, as I shared with the students, done
by tender, loving, well-meaning parents and pastors and teachers with the best of
intention and done so tenderly, but it is a fact that it was to close me down.
Now I am so far from that today that I can hardly believe that it's still going on,
and so, I said to the students, "That doesn't go on anymore, does it?" They said it
does, and of course I really knew that it still goes on, because isn't that what
home and family are for? Isn't that the function of parents? And then, thinking
about it, I recognized how perilous it is to do that job of nurturing and shaping
and forming.
Now, the positive side of it is obvious. I was rooted, and rootedness is essential
for a healthy human being. I knew who I was; I had a sense of identity, a strong
sense of identity. I had a sense of God and family and faith and those
fundamental values and issues of our human condition. But the peril is that
nurture and formation end by creating walls around us, isolating us from the
other, and insulating us from the rich diversity of the human experience.
I had set aside an article that I came across sometime ago for this particular
Sunday prior to my Diversity Day experience. It was written by a fellow named
Pico Iyer in Civilization, the magazine of the Library of Congress, and the title of
the article is "Citizen Nowhere," an excerpt from a book recently published. This
particular author, who is a journalist, was reflecting on the fact that there is a new
human being emerging, a human being with a global soul. He represents that
group, which certainly is a first-world, affluent phenomenon, nonetheless a
growing phenomenon in our world today and a kind of experience that many of
us can somewhat identify with, although his situation was certainly in the
extreme. He grew up in India and he never knew his father's native tongue nor
his mother's native tongue, they all shared British English, and he was born into a
home of Hindu faith, raised in Christian schools, and identifies mostly now with
Buddhist communities. He spoke about the nature of this phenomenon which is
becoming more and more the case in our world where one may not dwell on the
continent where one works, or, in his case, have no relatives on the continent
where he more or less lives. He told about the thousands and thousands of miles,
air miles, that he clocks and said these kind of people are the people that still
engage with the rituals of death, perhaps scattering a father's ashes 6000 miles
from where one lives, or get up in the morning in Santa Barbara and in the
evening be in the broken heart of Manila Or start out in the Big Apple and end up
in the dusty streets of Haiti. A world in which we are thrown around and thrown
together, exposed to all kinds of experiences, one upon another in rapid fire,
ending up with a porous personality that doesn't really know who it is, a porous
personality that can become whatever the particular situation and location calls
© Grand Valley State University
�Rootedness and Belonging
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
for. People who grow up as he did in three different cultures and live somewhere
in the cracks, people who are so informed about every facet of every issue and can
see so many sides of every question that they have no basis for making a
judgment or come to conviction or make any commitment. He talks about being
unaffiliated. He says, "Oh, there's a blessing of being unaffiliated - one can
continue to have new experiences that bring wonder and awe. But, unaffiliation
can also cause lack of responsibility and accountability."
And then he spoke about the threat of rootlessness and the fact that the human
soul needs rooting, and that in this day, in this phenomenon which is becoming
increasingly common, the threat is for a kind of amorphous being to evolve that
has no sense of identity when no one else is around, who doesn't know really who
one is or what the human condition is all about. So, if it is possible to be so deeply
rooted that one is isolated from the diversity of creation, it is also possible to be
so exposed to that diversity that one has no sense of who one is and what one is
called to be.
Interesting juxtaposition and on this day of the family, this Mother's Day, I
thought it might be good for us to recognize the paradox of that need for nurture
and shaping and formation and that need to so nurture and form that we will be
able to transcend all of those givens of our lives, those givens over which we have
nothing to say, the color of our skin, our race, our ethnic grouping, our national
alignment, our religious tradition, our creedal grouping, our sexual orientation,
those things that are simply given to us. Nurture that is positive must root in
order to give a sense of identity, and nurture so that there is the ability to
transcend all of those natural givens in order that we might find a community in
which the other is no longer other, but is embraced in a larger grace and love and
community.
At the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus, there was a breakfast by the Sea of
Tiberius, with those going back to Galilee. Peter had said, "I'm going fishing."
They said, "We'll go with you." And, however they took up their lives, it was in the
picking up of that life in Galilee that they experienced again the presence of the
Lord, but they had come to the bonding of community.
The classic example has to be Paul, who has gotten a lot of bad press and
probably deserves most of it, but that amazing thing about Paul is the degree to
which he was able to transcend the traditioning, the formation of his life. He talks
about it in that third chapter of Philippians - circumcised the eighth day, born of
the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews. As to the
law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, persecuting the church. As far as the righteousness of
the Law was concerned, blameless. All of that and what did he do for it? And this
is the danger of effective nurture. It made him a violent person, because he was
on the road to Damascus, issuing warrants of arrest to those who were of another
Jewish sect, the followers of the Way. If nurture is not carefully given, it will
imbue in one the idea that one has the truth and, whether taught explicitly or not,
© Grand Valley State University
�Rootedness and Belonging
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
will imply that is the only truth. It will isolate one from the larger human
community and, where things don't go well, it can issue in a violent personality.
We see it in our world today which, as Piko Iyer has said, is becoming a global
village. A global village sounds secure, but it's a global city and it's threatening,
and the rising of nationalisms around the globe are full of peril and danger, and
in the religious sphere the upsurge of fundamentalists is a consequence of fear
and the insecurity of those who feel threatened in their little respective selves. If
we are not careful in the nurturing of children and adults, we'll be creating
persons who are threatened by the other and have a potential for violence.
But Paul had an experience and it was an experience of Jesus Christ, and talk
about transcending, he takes all of that bundle of credentials and says, "I consider
it refuse." Another translation says rubbish. That's a little radical, but then Paul
was never known for moderation. But he was so imbued with all of that tradition
of his Jewish Pharisaical face, that for him to be able to tie it all in a bundle and
let it go was nothing less than a miracle of grace. He saw something more. He was
the one with some validity; he is credited as being the founder of Christianity. Not
Jesus, but Paul, because Paul saw in the Jew Jesus, in the God of Jesus, the God
of Israel who was a God of inclusivity - he saw the possibility of a grace of God
that embraced the whole world. Paul was the universalizer, taking his cue from
Jesus, and he was able to let go. That's a miracle. Do you know how tough that is?
He let it all go and created a whole new community, and I want to say that the
only reason for the church is to be a community which can give a sense of
belonging and be a center for generating inspiration, emerging in conviction and
commitment for the transformation of the world through the tearing down of all
barriers that separate humankind, to tear down those barriers that separate us
from the other who become so threatening because of color of skin, because of
ethnic curiosity, because of sexual orientation. Suddenly we de-humanize, we denature, we demean and destroy.
This community is a community of inclusion intentionally, respecting no
boundaries or barriers that would divide. It's not easy. It is very easy to nurture,
deeply rooting. Giving a narrow sense and a tunnel vision builds strong
institutions, builds strong congregations. It's quite a risky thing to tell you that
we don't possess all the truth. It's quite a risky thing to tell you that there are
other places where the grace is just as free, quite a risky business to tell you that
you don't have to be here any more than you have to be here in order to be fueled
up to get out there and do the job you are called to do.
I'm proud of this place; I'm proud that last night at "A Night of 100 Stars,"
honoring volunteers in this area, 20% or 25% of the volunteers in this Tri-Cities
area came from this community. (Three of our people were very instrumental in
putting on that event - Trudy Schultz, Kathy Bolthouse, and Gloria Klinger; there
may have been some others involved.) I'm not surprised at all. Peter has been
leading the charge into this community for a number of years now because the
© Grand Valley State University
�Rootedness and Belonging
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
purpose of this place is not an end in itself; it's not that this place may exist. It is
that this place may exist in order to send people out of here with a sense of
breadth and grace and reconciling love that will tear down every barrier and bind
together all the people of God, all of the children of God. It's a tricky business, but
what a wonderful, freeing thing it is when the fear drops away. What a wonderful
thing it is to be able to embrace the other as a brother or a sister, and what a
beautiful community this is. We had an Elders' Meeting again this week and I
said to the people who came, "I love this community. I'm so proud of it. I believe
in it because of the kind of people who are continuing to come to it, all sorts and
conditions of humankind. Wonderful."
Now, how do you nurture so that you create enough rootedness through a sense
of belonging in community that you can go forth, having transcended all
peculiarities? That is the task and that is divine.
© 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
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
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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>
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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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
Mother's Day, Eastertide IV
Scripture Text
Philippians 3:8
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
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KII-01_RA-0-20000514
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2000-05-14
Title
A name given to the resource
Rootedness and Belonging
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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 May 14, 2000 entitled "Rootedness and Belonging", on the occasion of Mother's Day, Eastertide IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Philippians 3:8.
Community
Diversity
Inclusive
Mother's Day
-
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4540e21db0926f15d96182c32e2b6973.pdf
44cdc67dd6a0e239b12e4b4a44e8e69f
PDF Text
Text
Religion as Prozac
From the series: Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression
Scripture: Matthew 11:28
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost VIII, July 30, 2000
Transcription of the spoken sermon
I began last week a series of message in which I want to acknowledge the
significant critique of religion that arose in the last century, and doing it in order
that we might find fresh expression, in order that we might respond to those
meaningful criticisms that were made of religion.
The critique of religion in the 19th century was really a natural follow-up to the
whole transformation of the landscape through the development in the 18th
century of the scientific method, empirical investigation, actually looking at the
world and observing, experimenting, testing. The scientific method which has
shaped our whole modern understanding of reality, getting its full speed in the
18th century eventuated in the 19th century with the development we call
historical thinking when people began to think about where they were in light of
the past, how things developed, the history of institutions, forms and structures,
religion being one of them. We began to understand that one can only
understand the present in light of that which gave it birth and through its
development over years or centuries or millennia.
So, people began to think about their religious experience, for example, their
religious tradition in terms of the history of its development, and began to see,
began to understand that, as we said last week, religion is a human construct,
that really all of the respective religions are human constructs. They can't be
anything else. A Moses has an experience of a burning bush and I would say a
genuine and authentic experience of the mystery that we call God. But, how does
it come to expression? The only possibility is through human language, and if
that is an authentic experience of the living God, a community will gather around
it, and if a community gathers around it, there will be a teaching. Somehow or
other a Moses will have to explicate that experience. Before long, there is a creed,
and as a community gathers, it will have forms of expression, liturgies, rituals,
prayers, hymns; that whole cultic experience will be produced. And then, of
course, someone will say in light of that experience, then how should we live?
And so you have the whole ethical domain.
© Grand Valley State University
�Religion as Prozac
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
We began to see that that is the nature of religion - a founding experience, a
teaching, a mode of devotion, a way of life. And the reason that religion has been
a universal human experience is that it is that exercise, that observance in which
we are consciously and intentionally engaged with that ultimate mystery of
things, those ultimate questions that drive our existence. Who am I? Where did I
come from? Where am I going? What does it mean? What is the purpose of it all?
Is there any meaning or purpose in this human existence of mine? Those are
questions that are age-old; they dawn with the dawning consciousness of the
human person, and they are with us still. They haven't run out of their legitimacy
or their validity. They are the inevitable questions.
An interesting thing happened in the 19th century. Along came those social
revolutionaries and among those social revolutionaries, reflecting on the history
of religion and seeing religion as dealing with those ultimate questions, was a
thinker named Ludwig Feuerbach who recognized that the mark of the human
being is that a human being can jump out of his or her skin and reflect on him or
herself.
We don't have a dog anymore, but I used to love to use our dog as an example.
Hershey could look at me with those beautiful big brown eyes, but he never
scratched his ear and said, "Here I am, looking at you looking at me." Now, I will
do that. I might pause for a moment and say, "Here I am on this stool, speaking
to you who are listening to me," and I might reflect on this moment. I might jump
out of my skin and observe myself in this moment. That's a mark of being human.
That's self-consciousness. That's the capacity for self-transcendence.
Feuerbach recognizing that capacity for self-transcendence, said that is exactly
what God is. God is the project, the product, the projection of our wishes and
desires and fears and sense of dependence projected outward unto the screen of
reality. God is simply the projection of man's own infinite nature. It must have
been an idea whose day had come because it caught fire, it struck gold, it became
the unquestioned assumption of much 19th century thinking. And then along
came Karl Marx, who said religion is not just the projection of the individual's
wishes and desires outward; rather, religion is the projection of society's hopes
and dreams outward. Marx said Feuerbach dealt with the essence of the human,
but that is an abstraction. Religion is really the result of people who are suffering,
who are finding consolation in the promise of another world, a better world, a
world where there are streets of gold and angels in attendance and the glory of
God. Marx said religion is the opium of the people.
Now, that from many pulpits has been pounded on and misconstrued, really.
Marx was not criticizing religion at that point. Marx was saying the function of
religion is to console people who are living in human anguish, and in that sense,
it was a positive thing. It enabled people in dire human circumstances, which
marked 19th century European mass population, to get comfort, consolation. In
their human distress and oppression, they are consoled by the comforts of
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religion which is the construction of another world and another age, that gives
them hope and it keeps them going.
Now, Marx went further to say that because they are consoled and comforted,
and because they are kept somewhat at peace, they don't see their world as a
world that needs to be changed. They accept their oppressed situation, waiting
for their vindication and eventual redemption in another world, in another time,
and to that extent, Marx was critical of religion. To that extent, Marx believed
that one had to tear the flowers off the chains that bound the human being, not
simply so the human being would live with the bleak chains, but so that the
human being finding that, in fact, we are bound and shackled, would throw off
the shackles, and of course, Karl Marx was looking for that great social
revolution. Marx was looking for the class warfare, for the workers of the world to
arise and to overthrow the rulers of this world and to bring in the classless
society, the Utopia, in which case he said, in Utopia religion will disappear
because there won't be any need for religion. It will be superfluous, because in a
classless society where all are living equitably and justly, there would be no need
for the consolations of religion. And so, it will simply disappear.
Lenin, following Marx, said not simply that religion is the opium of the people,
but that it is opium for the people, and he charged the priesthood and the rich
and powerful of the world, those who held the power, with intentionally keeping
people in the shackles through the consolation of religion. He saw it as a scheme,
as a conspiracy. Keep the people singing hymns so that they don't realize how bad
their situation really is.
That was the critique in the 19th century, a powerful critique of institutional
religion and primarily Christian religion, Judeo-Christian religion, at least, and it
is a criticism that had a great deal of legitimacy, for the Church did miss the boat
with the working class, the masses of the European continent of the 19* century.
There was a great alienation. I suspect that Europe in its post-Christian state
today may be in part, at least, explained by the failure of the 19th century Church
to deal with the actual social problems of the 19th century. There was a collusion
of throne and altar and those who were in control and set the terms for society
failed to recognize the alienation of the masses, and that was a legitimate
criticism, the fruit of which we are reaping even today.
There was another factor that Marx saw clearly and that was that religion was still
claiming that it could explain the world rather than recognizing that religion
doesn't explain the world, science explains the world. We were in that transition
period when religion was still trying to say that in the Bible, for example, there is
a knowledge of history and there is the explanation of scientific reality, the reality
of our world, and it enabled Marx to show the backward looking, closemindedness of the Church. The Church has been dragged kicking and screaming
into the kingdom at every point with the explosion of human knowledge. As I said
last week, good religion will open the mind but traditional religion has
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characteristically sought to close the mind, and so there was that battle between
exploding knowledge and the retro view of the Church and that enabled Marx' s
criticism to be more poignant because it was obvious to those who sat up and
looked. As a matter of fact, the world was exploding with knowledge while the
Church lived in its benighted, dogmatic slumber. There was a significant criticism
of religion and as always happens we don't believe strongly enough, we don't
trust deeply enough in the Church and so we react very poorly to those criticisms.
But, we can also look from the perspective of 100 or 150 years to see that, thank
God, Marx was wrong. Marx was wrong in his analysis of social development and
the way that history would go. Marx didn't foresee it all, that a dominant
capitalism had the capacity to change and to become more socially sensitive. The
great class warfare, thank God, never eventuated, and Marx's Utopia which was a
figment of his imagination anyway, of course, never arrived. So, we can say that
in his historical development and his view of the future, he was wrong. But I
think the most fundamental way in which Marx was wrong is his failure to
understand the nature of religion and this is really where I changed my mind
about what I wanted to say this morning. Marx was saying, as a matter of fact
somewhat positively, that religion is a sedative, it's a narcotic, that it dulls people
to the pain of existence. Lenin, as I said, more negatively said that it is fed to
people in order to bewitch them, in order to drug them and give them no sense of
the reality of the life that they are living. And religion can have that
manifestation. Religion can be an orgy.
Once in a while I watch that late night television stuff and I see people totally
entranced and at other times whooping it up in the pews and dancing in the aisles
and blowing whistles and waving their hands and being slain in the Spirit, being
absolutely like a cold mackerel at the altar, and I think to myself that is nothing
but a narcotic. It reminds me of the person about the fourth row one week here
years ago who started saying "Amen" and pretty soon waving the arms, and
getting generally enthusiastic about the sermon, when an usher went up and
tapped him on the shoulder and the man said, "I got religion," to which the usher
replied, "Well, you didn't get it here."
So, I look at some of that and I realize that religion can drug, it can be an
emotional orgy. And then, this is where I changed my mind, I said to myself,
"What's wrong with that?" Because Marx was right - it's tough to be human. Now,
there aren't any that I know of here that would fit into that 19th century oppressed
class for which Marx spoke prophetically, but what Marx thought was that
religion was just a consolation for those who were oppressed. He failed to realize
that religion is something far deeper in the human being, dealing with those
ultimate questions which we, be we poverty-stricken, hungry and naked, or
among the rich and the famous, have those questions that cannot be denied.
Human existence is tough and we are all faced with those limit situations. We
celebrate births, but children die and, as a matter of fact, we'll all die and what
does it mean to be a part of this human scene? Those are questions that fill us
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Richard A. Rhem
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with wonder and sometimes with deep confusion, and before it, we seek some
meaning, some clue to what it is all about.
Why are you here this morning? Why have you stuck with the Church when
multitudes and multitudes and many of them clear-eyed and thinking people,
have simply abandoned the Church? Why are we still doing this?
I suspect because we still feel the need, the importance of community, of a
supportive community in which we can engage in the human quest together, in
which we can raise our questions, in which before the mystery of life and in its
joys and in its sadness, we can be supportive of one another, a community in
which we can experience care and express compassion. I suppose those of us who
haven't left are simply giving evidence of an ongoing spiritual hunger and thirst. I
said to someone not so long ago, most of the people to whom I could appeal have
left the Church and most of the people still in the Church wish I had left. There
are all kinds of spiritual hunger, all kinds of questions and all kinds of questings
out in the world beyond the walls of the Church because religion is not just a
matter of consoling people in their oppression as a kind of narcotic, a sedative
against reality, but it is the quest, the human quest. Our religion is a human
construct, but it becomes the agent and the vehicle by which we come into the
presence of that ultimate mystery and are faced with those ultimate questions
and find a community in which we can think together and reflect together and, in
the meantime, find that supportive love and encouragement that enables us to go
on in the midst of deep waters, through the fiery furnace, knowing that we are not
alone.
I found a piece in Cahill's Desire of the Everlasting Hills, which is a quote from
Potok's Asher Lev, a story of Asher Lev, an observant Jew going into The Duomo
in Florence, this great, grand structure, and, finding Michelangelo's final old
Pieta, as an observant Jew, is transfixed by it and he stares at it. He said,
I stared at the geometry of the stone and felt the stone luminous with
strange suffering and power. I was an observant Jew, yet that block of
stone moved through me like a cry... like the call of seagulls over morning
surf, like the echoing blasts of the shofar sounded by the Rebbe. I do not
mean to blaspheme. My frames of reference have been finally formed by
the life I have lived. I do not know how a devout Christian reacts to that
Pieta; I was only able to relate it to elements in my own lived past. I stared
at it. I walked slowly around it. I do not remember how long I was there
that first time. When I came back out into the brightness of the crowded
square, I was astonished to discover my eyes were wet.
(Thomas Cahill, Desire of the Everlasting Hills, p. 302F)
Somehow or other, all of the human suffering, for Asher Lev, was gathered up in
that sculpture and in a moment transfixed, the stone like a cry, pierced him.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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One never knows when or where that will happen. Authentic religion is the
opening of the soul and the heart to that which will not be domesticated in our
religious structures nor our creedal formulas nor our liturgies, but that which will
address us as human, speaking to us of a mysterious dimension of reality that we
can never grasp, but in the meantime, in the moment, it is speaking to us words
such as, "All will be well. All will be well. All manner of things will be well."
Religion is the poetry of the soul that lives in a world that can be explained by the
natural sciences in terms of its structure of reality. Religion gives us the images
that somehow or other inspire hope, that speak to that longing, that thirsting,
that yearning for that we know not what, but we call God.
Five or six years ago there were ten million people on Prozac and 80% responded
favorably. That's wonderful. It's wonderful how our unbalanced chemistry can be
brought into balance to enhance life and to make us alive, fully alive, fruitful and
effective. So, all hail to Prozac. So, why not religion as Prozac? Why not in the
midst of my sweaty existence, hearing a word like "Come unto me, all you who
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I suspect you come here week
after week for a phrase of a hymn, a paragraph of the scripture, a song, or the
meanderings of a preacher and just maybe sometimes, now and again, there is
the rifting of the sky and heaven shines through, and that's as good, maybe better,
than Prozac, although it can be addicting.
References:
Thomas Cahill. Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After
Jesus. Anchor, 2001.
© Grand Valley State University
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Dublin Core
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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.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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1981-2014
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Event
Pentecost VIII
Series
Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression
Scripture Text
Matthew 11:28
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Thomas Cahill. Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus,, 2001.
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2000-07-30
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Religion As Prozac
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 30, 2000 entitled "Religion As Prozac", as part of the series "Religion: Significant Critique and Fresh Expression", on the occasion of Pentecost VIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Matthew 11:28.
Community
Nature of Religion
Spiritual Quest
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9957bd1a407548e3db84be007b1cc1bb.mp3
0f5909b8157305472cc50a387f90492f
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c8a54ff423cae0a288d2a5a0a7e316be.pdf
cb7da895282f2638976a9caa4cf2e1c4
PDF Text
Text
Credo: Personal and Community
Deuteronomy 4:4-9, Ephesians 4:1-6
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
October 19, 2003
Transcription of the spoken sermon
My sermon title this morning is "Credo: Personal and Community." Credo is the
Latin first person singular form, translated "I believe." Obviously that is a
personal expression, and yet I think when the community is thought of as
community, it might also be legitimate to say, "We believe," in that same sense.
Finally it comes down to that. I believe. You believe. And then there are some
things that we share together that we believe together. Sometimes people will say
to me, "We don't believe that, do we?" Or, "What do we believe about..." and I
have to say, "We don't believe anything." But, I understand the question, because
there is a sense in which a community is marked by a certain spirit, a certain
posture. This morning I want to say to you once again in just another way what
has been said here many times -I believe, you believe, and while we share many
things in common, it finally comes down to that personal conviction of faith, a
faith not simply an assent to a number of propositions or creedal statements, but
rather, that fundamental trust, that fundamental trust of our lives, and that's a
highly individual exercise. Nobody can do that for you. You cannot abdicate the
responsibility to anyone else, church community, church official.
There were a couple of items that came into my hand as I was contemplating my
fall preaching and those two items determined the sermon for this morning. One
was a review article in The Christian Century about six weeks ago by a theologian
named William Placher who was reviewing the newly published four- volume set
by Jaroslav Pelikan, the eminent church historian. Pelikan published this in
cooperation with Valerie Hotchkiss just before his 80th year. Not too bad at this
point to be publishing a four-volume work of 3,796 pages. The first volume is
entitled Credo. 606 pages and you can buy it independently for a little under $40.
But, if you want the four volumes with the CD Rom, it costs $995. Now, can you
believe anybody would invest that much money in four volumes that contain
2000 years of creeds and confessional statements? That's what Pelikan has done.
Two thousand years, right up to the year 2000, of creeds and confessional
statements from around the globe from every conceivable kind of community and
denomination and confessional family. Four volumes, almost 4000 pages. That
could take care of your leisure time for a while.
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Richard A. Rhem
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Pelikan has written much. I have an earlier five-volume set on the Christian
tradition in which he traces the theological development over 2000 years. I have
quoted Pelikan here, a good Lutheran theologian. He's the one who said,
"Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the
living." An excellent scholar, he has put all of this together and toward the end of
his life recognizes that what he has just engaged in is an archival exercise.
As Pelikan observes, many in this age feel
"that even if the time for faith as such may not have passed, the time for
teaching Christian faith as authoritative dogma probably has, and the time
for confessing it in a normative creedal formulary certainly has."
Placher, Christian Century. September 20, 2003.
What he is saying is what I have given my whole life to and what I offer in this
final offering is an exercise in creating an archive for the future. Now, he doesn't
mean, I'm sure, that the church is done thinking theologically or that the church
is done expressing itself confessionally. What he's trying to say is that we have
moved beyond the era of dogmatic authoritarian religious prescription. The time
of formulating dogmatic statements and absolute creeds is over. We can go into
the reasons for that. Fundamentally, it is because we have begun, over the last
one hundred years, to think historically. We have seen how all of this has
developed, and we have come to see not the absolute character of these
statements, but rather, their relative character. We have come to see how all of
this has evolved, and so we are less ready in this time to give absolute allegiance
to some kind of formulation. We know that we are people on the way, and we
know that being religious is not having some externally imposed, authoritarian
statement of truth placed on us, but rather, in being engaged in seeking to find
our human experience illuminated by our religious observance and practice. I
think that Pelikan is absolutely right. The day of the authoritarian church, the
ecclesiastical hierarchy, canon and creed, is past or is passing. I might be wrong
about it, but I don't think so, and I surely hope not.
The second item that came into my hands about this time was the book I had with
me last week, Elaine Pagels’ Beyond Belief. It is an excellent study, a very
personal one. As I mentioned last week, Elaine Pagels gave up the church in her
adolescence because of its absolute exclusivism. She was turned off by that. But,
she still became a religious scholar, and she began her doctoral work about the
time that a library was found in the sands of the Egyptian desert in 1945, the Nag
Hammadi Library. A huge clay pot was found that had some fifty manuscripts in
it.
In the 4th century, when Athanasius was finally established on the Bishop's
throne in Alexandria, they were in the process of determining what was to be the
canon. Athanasius is the church father who first mentions the 27 books of the
New Testament. Athanasius was a tenacious, ferocious kind of leader He passed
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Richard A. Rhem
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an edict that all other writings that didn't make the cut of the canon should be
banned and burned, and probably some monk who didn't like that kind of an
attitude gathered some of the most valuable manuscripts, put them in this clay
pot and buried them in the Egyptian sand where they stayed for 1600 years.
Elaine Pagels at the time of her doctoral work, as these documents were
becoming available, did an excellent study which still is looked to today on the
gnostic gospels. As she did that kind of study, she learned all about those early
centuries and the formation of the Christian church as an ecclesiastical
institution and the theological tradition that formed and shaped that church in
those early centuries. She had left the church, but she does this religious
scholarship and studies particularly that period of the church that was developing
orthodoxy. Orthodox means straight thinking. She was well aware of that period
of three or four centuries during which this diverse Jesus movement was being
brought under control, reined in and given a normative form.
Then, as I mentioned last week, she has personal tragedy in her life and one
Sunday morning while out jogging in New York City, to warm herself, slips into
the narthex of a church and finds herself deeply moved by the music and the
prayers and the liturgy. She goes back, she goes to the lower level of the church
and gets into a support group and finds her life being nurtured by the religious
observance from which she had absented herself for many years. Just as Pelikan
sees no future for that dogmatic structure of Christian faith, so Elaine Pagels, who
has studied the whole formation of that structure, while returning to community,
to religious, specifically Christian, community, is not willing to return to that
authoritarian, dogmatic, ecclesiastical structure, for she says, "While I learned
again the things that I loved in the Christian tradition, I also learned the things
that I cannot love." Part of what she cannot love is documented in that insert in
your liturgy which I included from her book. I'm not going to read that, but in
that little section she tells about the church father Irenaeus, who was a Bishop in
the second century in the area of Gaul. Irenaeus, as a leader in the church,
experienced people all over the place. He experienced all kinds of people who
were having visions and revelations, who had their own intuitions, and their own
insights and their own wisdom and they were all giving expression to it, and in a
word, that Jesus movement, that early Christian church, was chaos. It was messy.
There was no uniformity of expression of faith, and there was no uniformity of
practice and observance.
So, Irenaeus was one of the chief shapers of a movement that brought a
normative structure to the Christian movement. Athanasius, I mentioned a
moment ago, was another one. There were a number of such people. Finally, that
Christian movement was brought into a uniform expression when the church was
made legitimate by the Emperor Constantine. We speak about the Constantinian
establishment of the church. All of that diverse expression was brought into an
acceptable expression which was orthodox opinion. In the little insert I gave you,
you can find how nasty that process can become because what happens
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immediately when you establish what is "in," is that you also rule out what is
"out" and the process begins, the process of excluding and exclusivism and of a
triumphalism that claims to have the very truth of God and damns that which
differs from it. It is a normal process, it is a human process, we can understand
how it happened, we can understand that these leaders were good people who
sincerely believed they were doing the will of God.
Elaine Pagels is sympathetic to these leaders, but as she indicates and as we
religious leaders don't like to admit, if indeed we claim for your benefit that we
have the truth of God, and if we believe that we are the guardians of that truth,
and if we believe that for the honor of God and for the well-being of the church
we have the obligation to hold to that authoritatively, then we can do that with all
humility. Who am I but a servant of God? Except the servant has honor in
proportion to the one he serves, and so if God has invested me with this deposit
of faith, then some of the authority of God comes to me, too.
As Elaine Pagels says, the process in those second, third, fourth centuries was to
create a canon and a creed and an ecclesiastical hierarchy, and I'll tell you what, I
was born too late. I wish I'd been born when there was a canon and a creed and
authoritarian hierarchy. (I would like to have been a Cardinal, if not the Pope.)
What a way to go! If you have the canon, and you have the creedal formulation,
and the power to enforce it, you are golden! What I'm talking about is actually
what happened very normally, very understandably in the process of the
emergence of the Christian church into a dominant institution.
Elaine Pagels says, "I can't go back there. I've come to see that I really need
religious community. I've come to see there's a great treasure there that still
touches me inside and I want to expose myself to it. But, I can't go back to those
things that I cannot love, an authoritarian, dominating dimension marked by
canon, creed and absolute, ecclesiastical hierarchy."
I wonder about the future of the church. Pope John Paul II just celebrated 25
years and we're going to be seeing a lot out of Rome in these next weeks and
months, maybe years, who knows? We know his failing health. Obviously, there
were conversations in Rome. But, what a marvelous system. He has appointed all
of the Cardinals that will appoint his successor, so the deck is stacked. How can
he lose? But, isn't it amazing that that dogmatic structure can continue to
perpetuate itself in our world today, our world of satellite and internet and four
volumes of two thousand years of creeds and confessions? I wonder how long
even the Roman Catholic Church can resist the democratizing spirit that
undercuts authoritarianism?
I think about a church sort of in-between, the Episcopal Church right now trying
to keep from breaking communion. It's a grand tradition, again, but should the
leaders of the American Church who believe that they have acted with integrity
and honesty and in accord with the will of God as they understand it in the
determination to consecrate a gay man to the office of Bishop, should they back
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down in order that the body of Christ not be rent? What is the future going to
hold for grand ecclesiastical institutions? I don't know. But, I know this - and
that's why I talk about it this morning because I want you to be very selfconscious about it -I know this, I am so delighted to be a part of a community, a
religious community, a community committed to the religious quest, a
community Christian in that it finds its access to God in the face of Jesus, the God
of Israel whose creed was, "The Lord our God is one God."
The Jew Paul saying that that one God for him was now seen through the lens of
Jesus, his Jewish brother. It was Paul who pleads with the Ephesian community
to be patient with one another and deal with one another in gentleness and to
bear one another in love, and to keep the spirit of unity and the bond of peace.
Now, Paul was passionate. He was so passionate about it because he did believe
he had that apostolic mission, and yet in his better moments, he spoke to the
community and those were all separate communities at that time, to be gentle
and patient, forbearing one another and to keep that bond of peace and love.
I am so happy to be a part of a community like this which is weak and vulnerable,
that in the face of the world is powerless. The best way for a religious community
to be is to be powerless and vulnerable so that we give attention to the things that
are really those things to which we ought to be attending, and that is the
illumination of our human experience before the face of that mystery, because
finally, it is not some grand ecclesiastical institution or some absolute creed or
some carefully defined canon apart from which there can be no other light, but it
is credo, it is "I believe," and by extension, "We believe." A congregation that
blesses diversity and encourages conversation, walking together. We're not
isolated, atomistic, fragmented folks. We're in community and we converse and
we care, we support. But, we don't have all that baggage beyond us. Nor do we
have some authoritarian system imposed upon us. We can "roll our own" and do
it together. I'm so delighted to be a part of a place like this, and I'm so proud that
we have come this way together. It's not for everybody and we certainly have not
arrived, but we've positioned ourselves to capture the future. Not everybody's
happy about that.
A couple weeks ago Don was accosted in the hardware store in Graafschap for
affiliating with a place like this that doesn't believe anything. And this week we
got an e-mail, it came to Barbara; must be that the Center for Religion and Life
mailing that stirred this up. The subject is the truth. It's from Steve:
I want to encourage your organization and Christ Community Church to
abandon the liberal, non-biblical perspectives you are putting forth. You
are misleading many people who are new believers or not mature in their
faith with lies from the pit of hell. I pray that you will preach the gospel of
Jesus Christ alone, not your gospel, and teach the Bible as the true and
complete revelation of God to man. This will change lives and bring people
into God's kingdom rather than waste time on the useless discussions you
© Grand Valley State University
�Credo: Personal & Community
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
seem to promote. Thank you for your consideration. May God bless you
and return you to the truth.
Well, thanks, Steve, but no thanks. I've been there. I know about that experience
of authoritarian domination and authoritarian absolutism and narrow
exclusivism, and I don't ever want to be a part of it again, because you spoil me.
You're wonderful. And together we live before the face of God with confidence,
with joy, and it's so good.
References:
Elaine Pagels. Beyond Belief, 2003.
William Placher. (Review of Jaroslav Pelikan. The Christian Tradition: A History
of the Development of Doctrine, Vols. 1-4. University of Chicago, 1984.) Christian
Century, 2003.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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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
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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
Scripture Text
Deuteronomy 4:4-9, Ephesians 4:1-6
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
William Placher, Review of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, 1984, in Christian Century, 2003.
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-0-20031019
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-10-19
Title
A name given to the resource
Credo: Personal and Community
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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
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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
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 19, 2003 entitled "Credo: Personal and Community", on the occasion of Pentecost XIX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Deuteronomy 4:4-9, Ephesians 4:1-6.
Community
Fundamental Trust
Non-authoritarian
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8d318e328034c733717d5bd24faae2e6.pdf
39397f776b4fdfb5e22a9baf5345814f
PDF Text
Text
Here I Stand
Sunday Evening Gathering
Spring Lake Country Club
Richard A. Rhem
September 24, 2006
Well, that’s a little dramatic, I suppose. It comes from Martin Luther as he stood
before the Diet of Worms giving an account of his faith. This is not such a historyshaping moment and where I stand is of little interest beyond the narrow
confines of Christ Community. Yet we have shared a wonderful experience of
faith community and beautiful worship: intelligent, aesthetically uplifting and
inspirational, all marked by excellence. And now for many there is an absence of
that experience and a void in the soul.
I share that experience, or lack of experience.
We are still part of the community; we still support it financially. We still hope for
it a good and strong future.
Yet, Nancy and I must acknowledge that we feel estranged and sense ourselves
more at home with the community in exile––the Diaspora.
That being the case I feel it important and necessary to be clear about my
engagement or lack of it since Thanksgiving, 2005.
Let me say that I wondered if I should be here tonight. I was happy to do the
three summer Sunday evenings. When asked, I was assured this was an
opportunity for good friends with much shared history to meet, an opportunity
since those envisioned were those who had dropped out of regular worship
attendance and missed the experience of community.
Those evenings arose quite spontaneously and were not the result of some
strategy session by a committee looking for an alternative to CCC. Was it naive to
think such gatherings would not make the sense of loss felt more deeply?
Perhaps. Were those gatherings created purposefully to create such a sense and a
yearning? Simply, no; there was no ulterior motive I know in my mind and I do
not believe in the minds of the initiators either. In any case, the gatherings
generated a desire and request for more monthly gatherings and, now, with this
difference:
Now beyond the original purpose of social gathering, it was announced that the
community itself would discuss where it was in relation to CCC.
© Grand Valley State University
�Here I Stand
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
A clear demarcation was made between the three summer gatherings and this
evening’s gathering and those to follow. That’s why I questioned whether I should
be here; to gather with you where no CCC talk was allowed was one thing; to be
here where you are beginning to ask, “Where are we? What is our future?” is
another. I decided to be here and to speak because I decided it was important for
me to set the record straight since inevitably all sorts of rumors abound. I am
willing to be judged for all for which I am responsible but I want for those who
care for me and trust me to hear from me where I have been and where I am.
Hence my title: “Here I Stand.”
I have a further motivation––a pastoral concern for you here and for the whole
community. But I will come to that shortly; first my story.
The Crisis
As I turned over the reins, I don’t think anyone would deny I had given Ian a
“running start.” The retirement celebration was marvelous. The timing was right.
I was ready and delighted to retire and to let go. And I did. And for 18 months I
was present and supportive of Ian’s ministry.
In the Fall of 2005 I realized I was sensing a growing concern about the direction
CCC was moving. I had early on suggested to Ian that people don’t get out of bed
to hear what they can hear at Rotary even though I granted he was dealing with
important issues, was well prepared and obviously gifted. But increasingly I
missed the liturgy, the “cathedral worship” and the experience of being ‘moved”
on Sunday morning. And I was concerned at the numbers that were no longer
present.
My concern was not really theological but the so-called Progressive label I felt
was not so much Progressive Christianity as Progressive Religion in General for
which the biblical tradition was almost incidental.
It was not my place to voice complaint. I still claimed, “All he has to do is make
it,” but I knew I was not spiritually fulfilled or satisfied on Sunday morning. But
then I was put on the spot: Ian emailed me––the first communication in quite
some time––asking if I would add a paragraph to the stewardship letter or, at
least, co-sign it.
I must tell you that put me in a real conflict situation. I wrestled and wrestled
with that request. At a lunch with Cindy Anderson, Board Chair, about another
matter, I told her of the request and that I couldn’t do it. I had written out why
and gave that to her and she said she would tell Ian, although I emailed the same
response to him. With integrity I could not ask you to support what I increasingly
found troubling and this for a long-held conviction that the people have two votes
on community direction: their presence; their financial support. We lived that
way for years. We were “Team Driven,” supported by competent lay leadership,
but I always knew finally the people ruled. Here is the email I sent:
© Grand Valley State University
�Here I Stand
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
cccgrace@charter.net
Subject:
RAR Reflections
Date:
November 30, 2005 10:44:38 PM EST
Reflections of One Retired but Caring Still….
I was quite certain they were wrong who claimed I could never “let go;” I
have.
I found it not difficult. A marvelous retirement celebration, the excitement
of the community for a fresh, new beginning, and the freedom from the
daily/weekly pressure all added up to what I think was a graceful passing
of the baton. I made clear that I would do what was asked of me but
initiate nothing. I have lived up to that.
When there emerged an uprising in the spring I did my best to support
the leadership in any way I could. Beginning as Ian did in a presidential
election year in a destructively polarized nation, I supported the prophetic
note that sounded from the pulpit. On the one occasion I was asked by Ian
to express my sense of how things were going, I pointed out my concern
about the Sunday morning experience. In a nutshell, I affirmed Ian for
dealing with significant subjects, displaying serious preparation and
intelligent treatment. My one concern expressed was the lack of an
experience of awe and wonder in the presence of Mystery—the elevation of
spirit, the experience of being “moved.” My word to Ian was that people
will not get up on Sunday morning to hear an interesting lecture that they
might hear Friday noon at Rotary. I put it that way in order to attempt to
indicate what I felt was lacking.
As the weeks and months passed, it was evident that while many CCC
members were absenting themselves, there was a new energy and many
new faces. My “mantra” to those who were critical was “all he has to do is
make it work.” I knew what I missed reflected the person I have become
and that which was so central to my being—a love of high Worship, the
traditional Liturgy re-interpreted/translated, received again with a second
naiveté, able to touch the depths of my soul, along with an aesthetic
elevation of my spirit in the seamless, carefully crafted liturgy of Word and
Sacrament laced with the finest artistic expression. What my being loves
and longs for is perhaps a fading appreciation. I remained unapologetic in
my manner of apprehending and being apprehended by the Sacred
Mystery, but I was aware that I had had my day. If the current format
could bring new growth and vitality to the community and meet the needs
of the rising generation, I would affirm that as the way into the future—“all
he has to do is make it work.”
© Grand Valley State University
�Here I Stand
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
The fall Courier raised concerns of a deeper dimension for me. The
“Turning Eastward” raised questions. Pluralism has long been taken for
granted at CCC. The study of World Religions in the Perspective Hour has
occurred for several years. However, the importation of elements into our
corporate worship—I still use that word intentionally—did not feel to me
authentic nor did I think it enhancing of the corporate experience.
My concern deepened when in September I received a call from a person I
deeply respect whom I knew to be enthusiastic in the early stages of
transition and whose spirit is positive and caring. She asked if I would read
a piece she had written in an attempt to articulate what she was feeling
about where our community was heading. I did so. I could not deny that
her analysis was precisely my own. Subsequently I read a few other similar
expressions that came to me. I could no longer deny that what a few
thoughtful and supportive folk were saying was what I too had come to
feel.
Let me be clear—I am part of this community and want to remain such.
This is our spiritual home, our “family.” Our pledge for 2006 is turned in.
We desire the continuing well-being and prosperity of the community. I do
think, however, that the voices of serous people of good heart need to be
heard.
I, perhaps as much as anyone, can identify with Ian in the leadership role.
He must lead. He must lead out of his center, where his vision burns and
his passion flows. I do not want him to trim his sails or be untrue to
himself. That being said, the respective Governance Boards are
responsible not only to him and the Team but to the People. It is here that
I see our greatest challenge: Can the present direction of the current
leadership succeed in bringing the community to a new future?
During the years of my leadership we operated with a Team-Driven
ministry, the respective Governance Groups affirming, supporting,
critiquing. There has not been for a long time essential congregational
involvement beyond the governance groups and thankfully, very little
congregational discord. To those who suggested we “greased the skids”
and ran freely I always replied, “The people are in charge—they vote with
their feet and their dollars.” If the people are present and are paying for
the ministry, then we are doing something right.
I hold by that position.
These reflections arise because I have been asked by Ian to sign with him
or add a paragraph to a fund-raising letter. I have anguished about how to
respond. I have concluded that to sign would be to endorse a course and a
future I cannot with integrity endorse.
© Grand Valley State University
�Here I Stand
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
I remain. I desire the well being of the community. I remain thankful for
the place open to all—a true alternative to church as usual. I want CCC’s
best/ I want Ian’s best.
And I want—apart from my involvement – to let the 2005 giving and the
2006 pledging tell us how we are doing and what is required of us.
RAR
11/30/05
Soon after that decision it seemed the CCC situation was less than healthy in
finance, team, and community. Perhaps I stepped over the line at that point but I
communicated my deep concern to the then Board Chair, Cindy Anderson, and
the day before I left for Florida, to the Chair-elect, Ron Zoet.
Was I out of place? Perhaps.
Why did I do it?
It was my sense that it was time to acknowledge that the community was in
trouble and perhaps time to face that honestly with Ian, trying to determine a
gracious way to deal with what I thought was the reality of our situation. No need
for anger or hostility––just an honest conversation.
I had stepped over the line. My intention was positive for all involved but the
consequence of that communication was that, upon my return from Florida, I was
confronted with the charge that it was widely perceived that I was not supportive
of Ian’s ministry. A half dozen close friends knew that, but beyond the present
and future Board chairs––no one else knew that from me.
The charge was made by Ian in the presence of Jack Spong who had been
thoroughly apprised of the situation and, with his long experience as a Bishop,
had concluded the problem was that the old guy couldn’t let go. This was grossly
unfair. He did say in the middle of the lunch, “How does it feel to be
mousetrapped?” He sensed something but never asked why I felt as I did––and I
had acknowledged to Ian that it was true––I could not be supportive of his
ministry.
Ian wanted to continue the conversation that week. I resisted. Finally I agreed to
sit with him but only with another present, my trusted friend Peter Hart. Ian was
not sure of that but eventually agreed and brought the Board Chair, Ron Zoet.
That was my moment of truth. Ian asked if I would be involved in some
education. I declined, saying if I had continued to be involved, perhaps I could,
© Grand Valley State University
�Here I Stand
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
but now, with the hiatus of almost a year of any significant involvement and with
the current direction, I did not feel I could. And then I tried to be clear with Ian.
In summary, I said, “Ian, I think you will make it. I wish you well. I will do
nothing to undercut you. And when you succeed, it will not be the future I had
hoped for, but that doesn’t matter. There will be a new CCC and that is the
future.”
I then added this footnote: I said, “I have so many friends in this community. To
this point I have been so careful but now I must tell you I will be honest with my
friends. I can no longer act contrary to my own inner being.”
We parted on positive terms, understanding each other––simply on different
wavelengths. But I assured him that I was content with a future I did not desire if
he could effect that. That was not my business––I wished him well. But, in being
honest with him, I felt I gained my freedom to be true to myself.
Jack Spong had suggested I had to get in or get out. I chose the latter and have
distanced myself from the community over these past six months, although, as I
indicated above, we continue our financial support and remain a part of CCC.
And, I repeat again as I said above, my first choice would be for CCC to have a
strong, vibrant future with us or without us. When that future is secure, we can
choose to be a part of it or not. But until that future is determined and secure, I
would hope the whole community, those currently engaged and those considered
the Diaspora, might with civility and mutual respect examine what options there
are for CCC going forward.
As we are aware, this evening is different from the summer series because we will
intentionally take up the question of future options. And to the summer series
folk who requested that these monthly gatherings continue, there is added a
group of people who quite independently have been probing the question of the
future for themselves and others who were like-minded.
Let me underscore the fact that this emerging group arose totally independent of
the Summer Gathering initiative and prior to the first gathering on July 9. As
must be obvious, the future of CCC was on the minds of many.
For the summer gathering initiative, the driving motivation was community––
being with good friends. For the emerging group, the driving motivation was a
sense of the absence of experience of transcendence, the experience of being in
the presence of the Mystery that embraces us and inspires us.
This evening those concerns converge with the Key Question––Can there yet be a
return to one community even if there were sub-communities meeting different
needs and desires. This is a question for the whole community to take up––not
one initiated or led by former team members.
© Grand Valley State University
�Here I Stand
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
Here I stand; I’ve done my best to give an account of myself over the past ten
months. But I have one more concern to share and that is a pastoral concern. It
has to do with the spirit in which we seek our future. We have been marked by
Grace over all these years and I would hope, however the future unfolds, Grace
would prevail all around.
In our religious formation and our spiritual commitments, powerful emotions are
engaged and deeply felt. And we are all vulnerable to feelings of anger when the
religious core of our being is touched. Friendships are strained, alienation is
common and we fail to act out of our best selves according to our highest values.
We are all in jeopardy at this time. And so, while my “Here I Stand” was an effort
to set the record straight, my most important message this evening has to do with
the care of our souls and concern for the spiritual well-being of those who
constitute the present CCC ongoing.
There is anger about and probably all around––in those who resent those who
have left and in those who saw no alternative to leaving. That reality reminded
me of a dialogue between God and the runaway prophet Jonah. The Hebrew
Scripture book of Jonah is unlike the great books of the Hebrew prophets in that
it is a parable or a folk tale rather than a concrete address to a historical situation.
The story is familiar––God calls Jonah to preach to the foreign city of Nineveh
and instead Jonah goes in the opposite direction. He doesn’t want Nineveh to
repent and be spared God’s wrath. As Jonah is sailing in the opposite direction,
God sends a storm and finally Jonah acknowledges he is the cause of the storm.
He is thrown overboard, the storm ceases and Jonah finds himself in a whale of a
belly––or is it the belly of a whale! Jonah repents, is spewed forth on land and
makes his way to Nineveh, preaches repentance and the Ninevites heed the
prophet, repent, and God mercifully spares them.
What fascinates me about the story is the dialogue between God and Jonah at this
point. Jonah is angry because God spared Nineveh, indeed, so angry he says
“God, take my life.” And then that wonderful question: God asks,
Is it right for you to be angry?
At that point Jonah goes out of the city and makes a booth for himself and sat in
its shade to see what would happen to the city. But God was not through; God
caused a large plant to grow and give shade to Jonah to save him from
discomfort. Jonah was happy. Then God caused a worm to attack the plant and it
withered. The sun rose and God caused a sultry east wind to blow and the sun
beat down on Jonah and again he asked to die.
And then again the question––Is it right for you to be angry about the
bush?
© Grand Valley State University
�Here I Stand
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
And Jonah said, “Yes, angry enough to die!” To which God points out Jonah’s
concern for the bush pales before God’s concern for the people of Nineveh.
I retell that ancient tale because of the question “Do you do well to be angry?”
What the writing is really about is Jonah’s “mode of being.” God doesn’t argue
with Jonah, nor does he condemn the anger or deny its presence. Rather, Jonah
is asked to become aware of his own spirit and attitude. One commentator uses
an interesting translation of anger––”a burning of the nostrils”––anger is a
burning and while it is a common human emotion, left unattended it burns
within and is destructive of the human spirit.
I won’t linger here but simply suggest to all of us in many and various situations
when we feel a burning within, we remember the question––Is it well or good to
be angry?
Why are we angry?
What is the source of our anger in our own being?
What does my anger say about me?
The other passage that came to me is from the New Testament––Ephesians 4.
The 26th verse counsels:
Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.
Again the reality of anger is recognized. The counsel is: own it, be aware of it and
let it go.
The previous statement is apropos to our situation:
So then putting away falsehood, let us speak the truth to our neighbors,
for we are members of one another.
and verse 32 offers a beautiful appeal:
...be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in
Christ has forgiven you.
and 5:1 continues,
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as
Christ loved us....
Ephesians is probably a post-Pauline letter in the name of Paul and its theme is
the church or the Christian community, so it is especially relevant to our concerns
at present. One of the most moving pleas for the unity of the Body of Christ is
found in the first 6 verses of Ephesians 4. Hear this eloquent appeal:
© Grand Valley State University
�Here I Stand
Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
...with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one
another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the spirit in
the bond of peace.
And then concluding with the reality that there is one body and one God...and the
following section continues in a most compelling fashion to plead for unity
aiming at maturity in Christ.
So this is my pastoral concern––that we be very much aware of our own mode of
being––self aware, self-critical, tending our own souls.
And then that we hear the plea for unity in the spirit of humility and love in the
bonds of peace.
In a word, let Grace abound all around.
I honestly do not know what the future holds for Christ Community. I hope there
is a strong and vibrant future. It may be such that once again I can feel at home
there, finding my spirit lifted to the face of Mystery.
It may be that a future emerges such that for me there continues to be an absence
of that for which my spirit yearns.
In either case there is no place for anger, for anger burns and destroys.
And no place for demonizing another, for that divides and alienates.
It is not my place to create that future.
In freedom, I will follow my heart, determined to be kind, tenderhearted, loving
and seeking peace.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Sunday Evening Gathering
Location
The location of the interview
Spring Lake Country Club
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-0-20060924
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2006-09-24
Title
A name given to the resource
Here I Stand
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Text
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 24, 2006 entitled "Here I Stand", on the occasion of Sunday Evening Gathering, at Spring Lake Country Club .
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Worship
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aeecc18407706389379fff49fc7f1a9e.pdf
56fa8a030d919793a88aa60640caf68a
PDF Text
Text
Love Never Ends
Fred Meijer Memorial Service
Meditation
I Corinthians 13; Luke 10:25-37
Richard A. Rhem
Sunshine Community Church
Grand Rapids, Michigan
November 30, 2011
Let me begin by saying what an honor it is to conduct the funeral of Fred Meijer.
That must be obvious; what a man! I’m grateful to the family for inviting me to
bring the funeral meditation.
As I have been thinking about little else since receiving the call that Fred was
stricken and then that he died, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar came to mind. Caesar
has been betrayed by his trusted friend Brutus; he is assassinated, Brutus
pointing to Caesar’s ambition and the peril he presented to empire – and then
Mark Antony is invited to speak. Remember those lines – “Friends, Romans,
countrymen, lend me your ears.” With great irony he says,
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
I smiled as those lines came to my consciousness for I knew at this moment I
would be reversing what Mark Antony claimed –
I come not to bury Fred Meijer;
I come to praise him!
In other words, although my roots are Dutch Reformed, this will not be a
Calvinist funeral sermon! With Fred, evil was non-existent; the good he has done
will live on for generations.
Has it not been amazing in the days following Fred’s death how Fred stories have
been told, literally by thousands who had the good fortune to be encountered by
him and upon whom he bestowed grace, love, compassion and generosity. This
was no ordinary human being and I make that claim without fear of
contradiction.
Where would one begin the list of adjectives by which to describe him? His
authenticity, his simplicity, his humility, his generosity, compassion, passion for
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Fred Meijer Memorial
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
justice, his brilliance, his courage, his business acumen…but we all know that and
we marvel at him – the way he was.
But rather than pointing to the amazing human being he was, let me share the
dimension of Fred of which I am aware because of experience with him which
goes back about a decade.
In the 1990’s, serving the congregation of Christ Community in Spring Lake, I
stirred up some theological controversy. One of my members was one of Fred’s
skiing buddies and Fred would ask him how his preacher was doing.
As in the whole spectrum of the human endeavor, so in religion and theology,
Fred had an insatiable appetite. He was curious. He had his own very well-honed
ideas and insights but he loved thoughtful probing and serious conversation. One
day my member suggested lunch and thus began our friendship. What fun it was
– he with his brilliant mind and well thought out insights loved to push and prod
this preacher as you can imagine. He was delightful, not disrespectful nor rude
but acute in pointing to so much in institutional religion and dogma that didn’t
fare well before critical thought and common sense. Those were fun
conversations and more often than not we were in agreement.
A couple of times the lunch included Duncan Littlefair, famed long-time pastor of
Fountain Street Church and notorious as the voice of the liberal in the bastion of
Dutch Calvinism. I remember the twinkle in Fred’s eyes when he related his first
meeting with Duncan. It was at an airport I think. And Fred said to Duncan, “I
would come to your church if you weren’t so conservative!” I’m not sure Duncan
quite knew how to respond but Fred had his fun.
Well those lunches were feasts and I am not referring to the food. Can you
imagine the fun and energy and deep probing that occurred! For about a decade I
had had lunch every Tuesday with Duncan at Dubas. The whole theological
spectrum was present but the communion transcended our differing perspectives
and bonded us into a marvelous community.
I relate this to you to explain why I am doing Fred’s funeral. In 2004 I conducted
Duncan Littlefair’s funeral and Fred was present. We spoke following the service
and, as son Hank said to me yesterday, “I think that is when dad decided he
would like you to do his funeral.” I suppose he thought if I could get Duncan into
heaven maybe I could assist him too.
Well, as a matter of fact, I’ve never known anyone of a deeper spiritual life, who
followed the Way of Jesus any more than Fred Meijer. I Corinthians 13 is
sometimes called Paul’s Hymn of Love. It reads like a description of Fred.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or
rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Fred Meijer Memorial
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
does not rejoice in wrong doing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
Don’t you recognize Fred in that description of love?
Jesus didn’t write letters as did St. Paul; he told stories, and finally it is in story
that truth shines most brightly. You are not surprised, I’m sure, that for Fred’s
funeral meditation I selected Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan. The religious
establishment was greatly threatened by Jesus because the common people heard
him gladly and sensed he carried authority in contrast to the religious
“authorities.” So they tried to trip him up. A lawyer put him on the spot with a
question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus pointed to the law and
asked, “What do you read?” The lawyer answered, “Love God, love your
neighbor.” Jesus responded, “Do this and you will live.”
But the lawyer wasn’t through. He asked, “And who is my neighbor?”
It is in response to that question that Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan.
The man who is robbed, beaten and left to die is passed by by a priest and a
Levite. But the Samaritan – one of the despised ethnic groups – ministers to the
wounded man, takes him to an inn and pays his way. In a word, he shows
compassion.
So Mr. Lawyer, which one was the neighbor? Obviously the one who showed
mercy.
The story is so simple, so clear; the meaning is so obvious:
What do I do to inherit eternal life?
Love God and your neighbor.
Who is my neighbor?
The one in need who crosses your path.
Fred Meijer has been a Good Samaritan literally to thousands, has he not?
I could wax eloquent at this point, taking the part of the lawyer in the story or the
serious Calvinist community in which Fred lived and raise all sorts of theological
questions and objections, but I won’t. I think you get my point:
Paul’s portrait of love is a portrait of Fred;
Jesus’ Good Samaritan who embodies the way to eternal life
portrays the way Fred has lived his whole life.
Fred didn’t bother much about heaven. When you live heaven on earth for nearly
92 years, why should you? Enough is enough!
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Fred Meijer Memorial
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
But I wonder…I remember at one of our lunches Fred sat on my left. At one point
he leaned forward, looked me in the eye with that irrepressible smile and asked,
“How would you answer if someone asked you if they were going to heaven?”
Well, I suppose I stumbled and stammered until Fred told me of the time when
Lena’s mother, of strong Lutheran faith, failing in health, asked Fred if he
thought she would go to heaven.
Well, not really certain of pearly gates, yet ever kind and sensitive, he said,
“Grandma, if anybody is going to heaven, you are!”
Wonderful gracious ambiguity!
Thinking about Fred, I hear Paul’s words, “Love never ends.”
Paul goes on to acknowledge that now, in our present existence, we “see in a
mirror dimly – there is so much we do not know, mysteries we’ve not yet probed.
But St. Paul writes,
Now we see in a mirror dimly
But then face to face.
Now I know in part;
then I will know fully…
Recently another most unusual human being died – Steve Jobs – universally
recognized as a genius who has changed our world just as Fred changed retailing.
Steve, of course, was no Fred Meijer in human relationships. Through much of
his life he was a terror to those who worked for him and, in earlier years, very
difficult for his family. But he did mellow and had time to contemplate his death.
In her Eulogy, his sister told of his last moments. His family was around him. He
looked at them and smiled and then looked beyond them as it were and said,
“Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!
His last words.
Paul writes, "Love never ends.”
Fred lived the way to eternal life. He lived a Wow! for all his days.
Had I been with him at the end and he popped grandma’s question – “Will I go to
heaven?”, my response would have been instant: “If you won’t, I don’t want to!”
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Fred Meijer Memorial
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
Who knows what mysteries lie before us? But this I do believe: love never ends,
and our Good Samaritan who lived so fully, so richly – indeed, who lived a Wow!
– is simply amazed by Grace beyond his wildest dream.
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5c248425cc8a896f0d0947bd4e4c1c9c.m4v
1795d3261f933325257d9f3fef4c8930
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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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.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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Fred Meijer Memorial Service Meditation
Scripture Text
I Corinthians 13, Luke 10:25-37
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Sunshine Community Church, Grand Rapids
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KII-01_RA-0-20111130
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2011-11-30
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Love Never Ends
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Richard A. Rhem
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 30, 2011 entitled "Love Never Ends", on the occasion of Fred Meijer Memorial Service Meditation, at Sunshine Community Church, Grand Rapids. Scripture references: I Corinthians 13, Luke 10:25-37.
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application/pdf
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Good Samaritan
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d7f159f9bc772149c653ef1c5f165beb.pdf
2e3554de0ca536024d8ae79b39df19ff
PDF Text
Text
Rock Solid – Soft Center
Meditation for Marvin Bottema
Text: Psalm 16: 8; Romans 8: 31, 35-39
Richard A. Rhem
Spring Lake, Michigan
March 2, 2013
Prepared text of the meditation
I suspect, to the extent that you know Marv Bottema well, you will understand
why I have entitled my meditation “Rock Solid – Soft Center.” Does that not
describe him? Was he not solid as a rock – settled, secure, unmovable when it
came to his trust, his values, his commitments? He was the rock solid center of
his family and, throughout his life, responsible, dependable faithful. Of course, it
was in his genes. Son of Gerrit and Johanna could be no less. But it was more
than that; his life was deeply rooted in God, the God of the Psalmist, the God
revealed in Jesus Christ.
As always, I chose the Scripture lessons that were reflected in his life. They
happen to be among my favorite passages as well, but they were chosen because
they were lived out concretely in Marvin’s life.
Psalm 16:8 – I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right
hand, I shall not be moved.
The English translation misses the image of the Hebrew text which is, literally,
“before my face” –
I keep the Lord always before my face.
What do you suppose the Psalmist is saying? God fully in his consciousness 24/7?
Probably not. I don’t even know what that would be, what that would entail. This
is poetry and don’t you suppose the poet is trying to bring to expression the fact
that his whole being is shaped by his awareness at deep moments that, aware or
not, he lives in a “God-shaped” reality? God is the source, ground and goal of all
being. The poet believes that, trusts that.
Paul on one occasion speaks of God in whom “we live and move and have our
being.” God, the unspoken Presence, the backdrop, the foundation that gives us
our being so that there is no secular and sacred. And we don’t have to signal in
every situation, every conversation, that God fills our mind and heart.
© Grand Valley State University
�Rock Solid – Soft Center
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
In fact, I’m a bit allergic to those pious ones whose language is replete with God’s
latest miracle in their lives. This was not my friend, Marvin. No, his deep-seated
spiritual grounding did not need to be expressed; it was simply the constant
center of his being. It informed the total experience of his life in labor and leisure,
in the family or at Burger King.
He got a head start; he chose his parents well. His traditioning, his spiritual
formation, was deep; it started early. And, when it is deep and authentic, one
never gets away from it. One doesn’t put it on like a Sunday suit (although
Sunday suits are not put on so much either anymore!)
I am perhaps belaboring the point but, as I too grow older and can see the end, I
become acutely aware of the critical importance of early formation, being
nurtured through a lifetime of worship in the community of God’s people.
That was Marv’s story. A life of faith in family and church and community – in
Sunday school, consistory, and keeping the spotlight on the church Bell Tower.
He loved the church. He hung in there a long time. On day I was in Grand Haven
and received a call on my cell phone. The Cross was coming down. Since I was
close I drove over and parked at the edge of the parking lot as the bucket truck
was getting into position. I thought of Marv whose scrapbooks were filled with
local history of community and church. I called him – 842 2958 – one of the
numbers in my mental file. In hardly any time his pickup drove up. He moved
with more quickness than I had seen him move for some time. His camera at the
ready, he documented the event – for him a cause for great sadness. In Marvin I
saw how much so many had invested their lives in the church community. I saw
how much he and so many cared. I felt his loss.
This is just one vignette illustrative of the deep spiritual rootedness, commitment
and devotion of this one whose life we celebrate today. I will think of him on
Good Friday when I hear the cross will be placed again on the Bell Tower. He will
be pleased – maybe even joining the angel choir for an anthem – Lift High the
Cross!
I have set the Lord always before me…
Thus sang the poet; Marv’s life said an Amen to that.
Rock solid he was, immersed as he was in a God-consciousness that needed not
to be spoken about because it showed all over.
And the story gets even better: He had a soft center. Was there anything he
wouldn’t do for his children or grandchildren? Many the times I stopped by and
one of you was borrowing or bringing back the pickup or the Pontiac. Or maybe
buying a new washer and dryer for the farmhouse. And those are just a couple of
© Grand Valley State University
�Rock Solid – Soft Center
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
instances I can remember, but it was a way of life. He never ceased caring,
providing, aiding in any way he could because he was soft at the center – a
pushover as it were – and that was no accident. By “Soft at the Center,” I mean
there was Love at the Center.
The Epistle lesson, Romans 8:31, 35-39, expresses beautifully exactly what we
have been talking about from Psalm 16. For the Psalmist – The Lord always
before my face – was described by St. Paul as the God who is “for us.” And
further:
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
And then he lists the possible assaults on our human condition and concludes,
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who
loved us.
And then one of the most beautiful acclamations from the apostle:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from
the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Marvin was soft at the center for his whole universe was soft at the center. The
center is Love; the last word is love. Love is the final reality – as the writer of the
first letter of John affirmed – God is Love. And nothing will separate us from that
love – nothing in life, nothing in death.
With God always before one’s face, the God who is love, one grows rock solid in
all life’s circumstances, while being soft at the center, emulating the God who
keeps us in all life’s experience secure in Love Divine.
One more thing:
I must say to you – sons and daughters, grandchildren – you are a very
beautiful family. When I would say to Marv, “You have wonderful kids,” he
would say, “That was Thelma’s doing.” And I would suggest he was
probably a little bit responsible as well. But my point is you have returned
the love and care that you learned from your parents. It always warmed
my heart to witness it.
I will miss him and I will miss you. We have had some beautiful moments
– around the kitchen table, on the deck, in the yard celebrating the
sacraments of Baptism and The Lord’s Supper. You are a wonderful
© Grand Valley State University
�Rock Solid – Soft Center
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
family. Stay close. Keep alive those meaningful traditions and celebrations
we have shared. I have come to love you very much.
And so we say farewell, good and faithful servant – Rock Solid/Soft Center. He
has entered into light eternal, into the joy of the Lord, together again with all he
loved and lost awhile.
Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
© 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
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
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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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
Meditation for Marvin
Bottema
Scripture Text
Psalm 16:8, Romans 8:31, 35-39
Location
The location of the interview
Spring Lake, Michigan
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/.
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KII-01_RA-0-20130302
Date
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2013-03-02
Title
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Rock Solid - Soft Center
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<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
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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 March 2, 2013 entitled "Rock Solid - Soft Center", on the occasion of Meditation for Marvin Bottema, at Spring Lake, Michigan. Scripture references: Psalm 16:8, Romans 8:31, 35-39.
Format
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application/pdf
Community
Faith
Love
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ef491e75f01ba4ce45bbeba2f9573143.pdf
a2947b7c28743d5bf25ec22b27af7261
PDF Text
Text
Prayer
On a Tour Group Sunday
Richard A. Rhem
September 19, 1993
Prepared text of prayer
Let us be in the spirit of prayer,
aware that we have been gifted with life
not of our creation,
that we live at the far end
of a creative process spanning billions of years,
an extension of time beyond our capacity to comprehend,
evolving in a cosmic expanse of space
beyond our ability to imagine.
We have seen rugged mountain peaks
thrust heaven-ward by volcanic explosion,
issuing in a fiery river
that, after aeons of time,
became rivers of ice crushing all in their path.
All of this wonder would be beyond belief
except our eyes have seen the narrative
written in rock and ice and lake and rivers
and undulating oceans
stretching beyond where the eye can see.
In the familiar words of the song
brought to such beautiful expression by Louis Armstrong –
What a wonderful world!
And yet, when we have stood in awe,
amazed at our earthly home,
wondered at its wonders,
we have only begun to scratch the surface
of the miracle, wonder, glory and joy of life.
For we have not even begun to contemplate the beauty of the human –
the likes of us who have emerged in this creative process
billions of years in the making.
Here we are, conscious, aware –
reflecting on it all...
We have become the awareness of the cosmos,
© Grand Valley State University
�Tour Group Prayer
Richard A. Rhem
the voice of that awareness,
creating poems that paint pictures with words,
writing music that lifts our spirits in worship
and sets our feet to dancing,
celebrating the wonder of it all.
And still we have only begun
to touch the depths of our human experience,
for we have not yet spoken of human relationship,
the human kaleidoscope
of faces, of languages, of body form and skin tone –
all this diversity but the manifestation of the oneness
that unites us in our common humanity.
We have experienced the beautiful reality of that oneness
in the diversity of those who have cared for us so well –
cleaning rooms, waiting tables,
creating the ambience of grace and pleasure of comfort.
The external differences fade
before the sparkle in the eye, the smile,
the appreciation of being well served and serving well.
And still there is more –
for we have experienced again the joy of communion –
knowing afresh the wonderful process
of the knitting of human bonds forming a new family
where there is appreciation, mutual care, affection, laughter
and a new circle of love.
These days have been too full, fully to take in.
We will relive them and their beauty,
and wonder will continue to wash over us.
How blessed we are!
How grateful!
And now we enter these final days –
still much to see, to do.
And yet home begins to beckon –
those we love, waiting for us,
and the routines of the ordinary days
that fill our lives with order and meaning.
For home and deep human relationships that await us there,
we are thankful as well.
Surely goodness and mercy have followed us
all these days and we dwell consciously
© Grand Valley State University
Page 2
�Tour Group Prayer
Richard A. Rhem
in Your presence, Holy Mystery,
from whom all emerges and to whom all returns,
a mystery for us come to expression
in the Word become human –
Jesus, who taught us to pray.
© Grand Valley State University
Page 3
�
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
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
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Event
Group Tour in Greece
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
RA-1-19930919
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993-09-19
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Title
A name given to the resource
Prayer during Group Tour in Nauplia, Greece
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>
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Description
An account of the resource
Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 19, 1993 entitled "Prayer during Group Tour in Nauplia, Greece", on the occasion of Group Tour in Greece. Tags: Prayer, Wonder, Emergence, Awareness, Community.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Awareness
Community
Emergence
Prayer
Wonder