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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/efa87a05ef4bf1c92c035b5442ec6b72.mp3
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Living Before the Face of God
Baccalaureate Sunday
Text: I Timothy 6:11-16
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
June 5, 1988
Transcription of the spoken sermon
But you, man of God, must shun all this, and pursue justice, piety,
fidelity, love, fortitude, and gentleness. Run the great race of faith and
take hold of eternal life. For to this you were called; and you confessed
your faith nobly before many witnesses. Now in the presence of God, who
gives life to all things, and of Jesus Christ, who himself made the same
noble confession and gave his testimony to it before Pontius Pilate, I
charge you to obey your orders irreproachably and without fault until
our Lord Jesus Christ appears. That appearance God will bring to pass in
his own good time -God who in eternal felicity alone holds sway. He is
King of kings and Lord of lords; he alone possesses immortality, dwelling
in unapproachable light. No man has ever seen or ever can see him. To
him be honour and might for ever! Amen. ... I Timothy 6:11-16 (NEB)
Commencement is a time of the giving of many speeches and most of them can be
lumped in the category of moral imperative, an urging of graduates to plunge into
life with seriousness of purpose and diligent effort, to pursue lofty goals, to live by
high ideals and to strive for nobleness of life. Who could argue with that? Surely
this is a good occasion for such stirring rhetoric.
What is usually missing, however, and in the context of public education
necessarily is missing, is any foundation for such moral urging. One might well
raise the question to much commencement speechmaking, "Why?" It is the
"Why" I want to address on this Baccalaureate Sunday. From the perspective of
biblical faith, the reason one ought to enter seriously into life with discipline and
purpose and live fruitfully, creatively and significantly as a catalyst for the
betterment of one's world and society is because one is not one's own; rather life
is a gift and is lived before the face of God. It is the consciousness of God, the
Living God, the Creator of the Universe, the gracious, saving God revealed in
Jesus Christ, that shapes human life into a faithful response, pointing one to the
highest and best and fullest realization of one's potential.
© Grand Valley State University
�Living Before the Face of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
The text this morning might seem to lead us down the pathway to another
instance of moralistic cheerleading:
Pursue justice, piety, fidelity, love, fortitude and gentleness. Run the
great race of faith and take hold of eternal life.
Good counsel, to be sure; who would argue with such encouragement? But, again,
why?
Let me try to answer that and thereby avoid the pitfall of another blind call to
goodness and duty. The call to serious, disciplined living here is based on the
assumption that one is not one's own. Note the address, "But you, man of God."
Is that a technical designation of one in Christian ministry? Perhaps in this
instance. Yet it is not to be so limited. The biblical assumption from beginning to
end is that God is God and the human person lives before the face of God. That is
stated expressly in verse 13:
Now in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Jesus
Christ...
The solemn charge to duty is given "in the presence of God," but what is explicitly
stated as the context of this charge is true for us all at all times and in all
circumstances. We live before the face of God. God is the great reality embracing
all of nature and history and God is the ground and goal of our lives as well as the
origin, preserver and finally the goal of all existence.
Since the 18th Century, the Enlightenment Movement in France and Germany,
our thinking has been secularized. Reality has been bifurcated in such fashion
that the world has been viewed as a self-contained system running on its own
with its own natural law and bound together in a chain of cause and effect. God, if
God is still retained as a reality or possibility, is outside the reality of history and
nature. If God is given place at all in the natural world and the drama of history,
it is at specific points of intervention, still maintained by the religious but even
that is denied by the thoroughgoing naturalist.
In the philosophical movement, which gradually filtered down to popular
thinking, this removal of God from historical existence and the natural world was
spoken of as emancipation. Just as Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed
the slave, so clearing the world of God was thought to give space to the human
person to develop potential and carve out a destiny free from the oppressive
restraints of religion.
Much religion was and is oppressive. Much coercion and manipulation by
religion has done untold damage to human personality and bound the human
spirit in a strait jacket of fear and guilt and neurosis. Let that be freely
acknowledged.
© Grand Valley State University
�Living Before the Face of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
But, that being candidly admitted, it must be recognized that a godless world and
a godless existence is a dismal business leading not to creative freedom and selfexpression, but rather to a dead end of hopeless futility. It is the absence of a
sense of the reality of God that is responsible for much of the malaise, the
ambiguity, the confusion, the moral crisis of our present world.
In a Christian Century editorial (June 1,1988), James M. Wall addresses the loss
of the transcendent source of moral values, the loss of a norm beyond the
standards of individuals or communities. Entitled "Ed Koch, Call Your Office,"
the editorial suggests that from time to time one ought to check in to determine if
one is still aligned with what is true and good and right - call your office. Koch
roused the Jewish community in New York City against the black democrat
candidate, Jesse Jackson, in the recent primary. Wall suggests Koch acted as
though a moral compass were irrelevant. He goes on to declare,
The ethical crisis in our public life stems not from the lack of parochial
ethical standards but from the failure to turn to any transcendent
standard in making decisions as individuals or as communities. We are not
calling our offices because there is no one there to take the call. And if we
did call, we would get only a recorded message we ourselves had made,
advising us to do whatever will enhance the bottom line, make us feel good
or guarantee a profit and/or a victory, preferably both.
Examples of this attitude abound in contemporary society. In addition to Koch,
they include Ed Meese in the Justice Department and Ivan Boesky on Wall Street.
The dominant operative mind-set tolerates and actually encourages a rudderless
moral climate.
Modernity has brought us incredible advances in the way we live, but it has left us
in a situation where we do not know how to live. The prevailing standard is
victory, not values....
Wall quotes a Czech-born novelist, Milas Kundera, (The Art of the Novel, p. 2)
who regards Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote,
... Kundera regards Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote as the first
novelist of the modern era who captured what it means to exist in a society
that puts all its emphasis on knowing a lot about little pieces and cares
nothing about the largest piece of reality. It was during Cervantes's era
that Western civilization began to assume that the only reality that matters
is that which is subject to measurement.
The central authority for all existence had once been called God, and that
authority's representative on earth was the church. Both of these entities
were pushed into a sacred reservation to keep them out of harm's way,
while rational and wise men (never women) pursued knowledge. Or as
Kundera puts it:
© Grand Valley State University
�Living Before the Face of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
As God slowly departed from the seat whence he had directed the
universe and its order of values, distinguished good from evil, and
endowed each thing with meaning, Don Quixote set forth from his
house into a world he could no longer recognize. In the absence of
the Supreme Judge, the world suddenly appeared in its fearsome
ambiguity; the single divine Truth decomposed into myriad relative
truths parceled out by men. Thus was born the world of the Modern
Era... [p. 6].
I cannot begin to draw out and document the disillusioning end of the demise of
God in the modern world, but if you are really interested in one person's account
of where we are after a century of Nihilism filtered down to popular
understanding, read Allan Bloom's book. The Closing of the American Mind,
whose subtitle reads, "How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and
Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students."
Nihilism is a philosophy, a world and life view that denies any reality beyond the
human mind and system of values. There is no God, no ultimate source of truth
or goodness. It is all simply human devising. Nihilism means Nothingness. Hans
Küng, in Does God Exist?, defines Nihilism as
"The conviction of the nullity of the internal contradiction, futility and
worthlessness of reality." (p. 388)
Bloom traces the line from Nietzsche’s philosophical ideas to contemporary
American Society where the denial of any Absolute is a given, but where the
resultant chaos of right and wrong, truth and error has led to the recognition of
the need for values clarification. The problem is there is no transcendent
reference, no absolute standard or norm. Consequently, one must determine
one's own values and then live authentically in the light of those values. Since
there is no norm, one value is as valid as the next and tolerance rules over all.
Bloom writes,
My grandparents were ignorant people by our standards, and my
grandfather held only lowly jobs. But their home was spiritually rich
because all the things done in it, not only what was specifically ritual,
found their origin in the Bible's commandments, and their explanation in
the Bible's stories and the commentaries on them, and had their
imaginative counterparts in the deeds of the myriad of exemplary heroes.
My grandparents found reasons for the existence of their family and the
fulfillment of their duties in serious writings, and they interpreted their
special sufferings with respect to a great and ennobling past. Their simple
faith and practices linked them to great scholars and thinkers who dealt
with the same material, not from outside or from an alien perspective, but
believing as they did, while simply going deeper and providing guidance.
There was a respect for real learning, because it had a felt connection with
© Grand Valley State University
�Living Before the Face of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
their lives. This is what a community and a history mean, a common
experience inviting high and low into a single body of belief.
I do not believe that my generation, my cousins who have been educated in
the American way, all of whom as M.D.s or Ph.D.’s, have any comparable
learning. When they talk about heaven and earth, the relations between
men and women, parents and children, the human condition, I hear
nothing but clichés, superficialities, the material of satire. I am not saying
anything so trite as that life is fuller when people have myths to live by. I
mean rather that a life based on the Book is closer to the truth, that it
provides the material for deeper research in and access to the real nature
of things. Without the great revelations, epics, and philosophies as part of
our natural vision, there is nothing to see out there, and eventually little
left inside. The Bible is not the only means to furnish a mind, but without a
book of similar gravity, read with the gravity of the potential believer, it
will remain unfurnished.
The moral education that is today supposed to be the great responsibility
of the family cannot exist if it cannot present to the imagination of the
young a vision of a moral cosmos and of the rewards and punishments for
good and evil, sublime speeches that accompany and interpret deeds,
protagonists and antagonists in the drama of moral choice, a sense of the
stakes involved in such choice, and the despair that results when the world
is "disenchanted." Otherwise, education becomes the vain attempt to give
children "values." Beyond the fact that parents do not know what they
believe, and surely do not have the self-confidence to tell their children
much more than that they want them to be happy and fulfill whatever
potential they may have, values are such pallid things. What are they and
how are they communicated? The courses in "value-clarification"
springing up in schools are supposed to provide models for parents and
get children to talk about abortion, sexism or the arms race, issues the
significance of which they cannot possibly understand. Such education is
little more than propaganda, and propaganda that does not work, because
the opinions or values arrived at are will-o'-the-wisps, insubstantial,
without ground in experience or passion, which are the bases of moral
reasoning. Such "values"" will inevitably change as public opinion changes.
The new moral education has none of the genius that engenders moral
instinct or second nature, the prerequisite not only of character but also of
thought. Actually, the family's moral training now comes down to
inculcating the bare minima of social behavior, not lying or stealing, and
produces university students who can say nothing more about the ground
of their moral action than "If I did that to him, he could do it to me" - an
explanation which does not even satisfy those who utter it.
Bloom concludes,
© Grand Valley State University
�Living Before the Face of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
Thus our use of the value language leads us in two opposite directions - to
follow the line of least resistance, and to adopt strong poses and fanatic
resolutions. But these are merely different deductions from a common
premise. Values are not discovered by reason, and it is fruitless to seek
them, to find the truth or the good life. The quest begun by Odysseus and
continued over three millennia has come to an end with the observation
that there is nothing to seek. This alleged fact was announced by Nietzsche
just over a century ago when he said, "God is dead." Good and evil now for
the first time appear as values, of which there have been a thousand and
one, none rationally or objectively preferable to any other. The salutary
illusion about the existence of good and evil has been definitively
dispelled. For Nietzsche this was an unparalleled catastrophe; it meant the
decomposition of culture and the loss of human aspiration. The Socratic
"examined" life was no longer possible or desirable. It was itself
unexamined, and if there was any possibility of a human life in the future
it must begin from the naive capacity to live an unexamined life. The
philosophic way of life had become simply poisonous. In short, Nietzsche
with the utmost gravity told modern man that he was free-falling in the
abyss of nihilism. Perhaps after having lived through this terrible
experience, drunk it to the dregs, people might hope for a fresh era of
value creation, the emergency of new gods.
Perhaps no one has given finer expression to the reckless affirmation of selfdetermination apart from any tradition, community value or transcendent
ground of existence than Frank Sinatra singing, "I did it my way!"
Call the office? No need; no one is there. I did it my way!
But, what of God? If God is God, then human life is lived before the face of God.
Our text speaks of "The presence of God and of Christ Jesus who in his testimony
before Pontius Pilate made a good confession." There we have a model set forth:
Jesus before Pilate.
Sinatra sings, "I Did It My Way!"
Jesus trembles and cries out, "Nevertheless, not my will but Thy will be done."
Can there be any starker contrast? Two different worlds. Two different
conceptions of life and Reality.
My Way! Thy Way!
The whole life of Jesus was characterized by an overwhelming sense of living
before the face of God. With Jesus, it was not a matter of finding out what works
and doing it in order to become successful as the world judges success. Rather, it
© Grand Valley State University
�Living Before the Face of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
was to determine the will of God and do it in spite of human approval or
disapproval.
Before Pilate he was strong, steady, unmovable. Tell me, if you had to choose,
would you stand with Jesus knowing it would lead to crucifixion, or with Pilate
thereby saving your power and position?
What choice would you make?
Of course, you would stand with Jesus - masterfully clear-eyed, strong, not with
the pathetic Pilate, anxious, fearful, equivocating, vacillating. Who was really on
trial? Who was really in command of the moment? Is it not abundantly clear that
Jesus' "Thy will be done," freed him from every other bondage? True to God,
therefore truly himself.
They crucified him.
But, Jesus reigns, and one day every knee shall bow to him, every tongue confess
him Lord, to the glory of God!
To the glory of God!
The phrase sets the writer on fire. He breaks out into praise with a great
doxology, as he calls to mind God Who will bring all things to their
consummation in His own time, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
God Who in eternal felicity alone holds sway. He is King of kings and
Lord of lords; he alone possesses immortality, dwelling in
unapproachable light. No one has ever seen or ever can see him. To God
be honour and might for ever!
Doxology. That is the tone quality of a life lived consciously before the face of
God. To live in the spirit of doxology is to live spontaneously, creatively in a
constant sense of awe and wonder, awe and wonder before the mystery of God,
the meaningfulness of existence, the sheer majesty of an eternal purpose already
at work, in us, through us, moving from Creation to new creation.
Doxology: The breaking forth of worship from one who is already participating in
life that is eternal - that is life lived within our time and space, but breaking
through those limits, breathing already the air of another reality, a transcendent
dimension.
... take hold of eternal life. For this you were called. So enjoins the text. In John's
Gospel, Jesus says,
I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.
Again, he declares,
© Grand Valley State University
�Living Before the Face of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
This is life eternal that they might know the only true God and Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent.
To live before the face of God is to live in the consciousness of a Reality beyond
the limits of time and space, beyond the appearances empirically perceived,
beyond the limited realm of nature that can be measured and of history that can
be documented. To live before the face of God is to have a transcendent reference
point, an absolute from which to measure, truth by which to discriminate the
confusing clamor of claims to validity that play upon one.
Doxology!
Not passive resignation to Fate.
Doxology!
Not unprincipled yielding to what works, is effective, gets one by or brings one
instant reward.
Doxology!
Not self-serving narcissism that aims at the instant gratification of desire, the
pleasure principle - doing what feels good.
Doxology!
Not a spineless, careful, fearful failure to dare, to risk, to live, to love -satisfied
with an obscene mediocrity.
Doxology - The overflowing life that senses the very Creative Spirit of God
rushing through it, reaching for the stars, dreaming the impossible dream,
believing that there is so much more, unwilling to rest with what has been,
dissatisfied with what is, always stretching, reaching, pushing the limits, knowing
that the possibilities of Reality are as limitless as the God Who is the ground and
goal of all that is.
And so I call you to take hold of life eternal and I ground that challenge in who
you are - a person, created in the image of God, the God Who is the source, the
ground, the norm of all that is good and true and beautiful and whose purpose for
you is the fullness of life in the present and beyond what eye has seen or ear
heard or has ever entered the human heart's conceiving.
That is to live fully, richly, creatively - that is to live before the face of God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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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
Baccalaureate Sunday
Pentecost II
Scripture Text
I Timothy 6:12-14
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19880605
Date
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1988-06-05
Title
A name given to the resource
Living Before the Face of God
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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 June 5, 1988 entitled "Living Before the Face of God", on the occasion of Baccalaureate Sunday, Pentecost II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Timothy 6:12-14.
Awe
Baccalaureate Sunday
Consciousness of God
Mystery of God
Transcendence
Values