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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
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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
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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
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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
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Richard A. Rhem
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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
�
Dublin Core
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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.
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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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KII-01
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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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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/
Language
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eng
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Text
Description
An account of the resource
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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Text
World-View: Room For God?
Spirituality in the Modern World
Text: Psalm 16:5-11; Luke 17:20-21
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
February 4, 2001
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Last week in sunny Naples, Florida, Nancy and I invited a couple of Christ
Community members to go to breakfast with us. The breakfast had to be at a later
time, because the gentleman had to attend his regular Tuesday morning Bible
study group. I get a little nervous when my people get under other tutelage, but
what can one do? So we gathered at this lovely restaurant, got settled down, and
after giving our order, his wife looked at him and said, “Are you going to ask him
the question?”
He said, “Oh, yes. The earthquake in India; where was God?”
Obviously, it had been a topic of conversation in the Bible study, but I wouldn’t
be surprised if it had crossed his mind before the class, just as it has crossed
probably all minds who think seriously about such things. Who cannot be moved
by the deep tragedy, the devastation that came so quickly into the lives of so
many thousands and thousands of people?
So there we were, just the four of us, with the question posed. I knew that either I
would have to do what pastors usually do and fudge, or I’d have to be honest. So I
said to him, “God doesn’t have anything to do with earthquakes.”
This was not one of those intense, existential moments, of course. It was a
moment in which it was not difficult for me to be candid, and what I said to him
was honestly what I believe. If you want to know about earthquakes, you have to
go to the geologists and you have to study the formations of the earth and all of
that which makes up the cosmic reality, this material universe in which we dwell.
You don’t go to the Bible to learn about the why or the wherefore of earthquakes.
I smiled to myself, because I had just been reading John Hicks’ The Fifth
Dimension, and in the early pages Hicks speaks about the spiritual dimension of
our life and of our cosmic reality, and he refers to what has been a classic
paradigm of this issue, the earthquake in Lisbon in 1755. I have read references to
this earthquake in many, many books, because it is that classic case study of the
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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relationship of God to human suffering and tragedy. There is a book actually
entitled The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755.
The Lisbon earthquake shattered the optimism of the eighteenth century, for at
this time people were operating with an image of God as the sovereign ruler and
governor of the universe who controls all things. Suddenly it was necessary for
the Church to explain the earthquake’s devastation. And so the Church fathers
said that Lisbon was a very wicked city and the earthquake was the consequence
of a very angry God. One of the more difficult dimensions of the explanation,
however, was the fact that many of the great churches of Lisbon were decimated
while a street with a whole row of brothels wasn’t touched. True story. The clergy
was left to explain how the churches had become the object of God’s wrath by
misusing sacred spaces while God had mercy on those miserable sinners that
visited the brothels.
Well, I had just read that earthquake story again, and it was so ironic to me that
this classic case coming out of the eighteenth century should have confronted me
at breakfast. It is an ancient question, but in the whole modern period that has
ensued since that eighteenth-century earthquake, with our tremendous
knowledge of the natural world and all of the amazing discoveries of the natural
sciences, we have not brought our images and conceptions of God into line with
our knowledge of the reality of which we are a part. We still use images from
ancient cultures. We still tell ancient peoples’ stories and pass them on
uncritically, even though they collide with our present knowledge of the world.
To re-imagine God is a scary business, of course, and it is an arduous business.
But once again, the fact that the earthquake question is still being raised tells me
so many of us, so much of the time, operate with a world-view that has not ever
been brought into relationship with the knowledge of the world as we have it and
as we know it. And so this morning I want to begin a month’s sermons on the
subject of Spirituality in the Modern World. By that I mean how one can live a
vital, spiritual life here and now in this world, in full light of all that we know.
And it will involve re-imagining and calling into question many of the uncritically
held presuppositions with which we operate.
All this is really a question of world-view. Our world-view, whether consciously or
unconsciously held, is the big picture of things: how things are; how everything
is—God, the world, and human existence. The world-view is the lens through
which we encounter all of reality. Our world-view is the unquestioned,
uncritically held assumptions with which we meet everyday experience to carry
on our ordinary lives, making our judgments in this mundane, day- to-day world
of which we are a part.
We all have a world-view. It is not something we have arrived at critically. Most
likely it is something that we have inherited or picked up along the way. It is just
the way we see things. We take it for granted until someone calls it into question,
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
until perhaps someone wonders where God is with the earthquake, and someone
else says, “God doesn’t have anything to do with earthquakes.” And then we say,
“Umm, I have to think that over.”
My point in dealing with this, let me assure you, is deeply pastoral. My hope is
that we live with integrity and with honesty, with freedom and with joy in a vital
faith posture that takes account of all of the knowledge available to us about this
reality of which we are a part, and when that knowledge is accounted for, one is
able to say, “And there’s something more.”
Part of the consequence of the Church not keeping up to date with the knowledge
available to us, reconciling it with its own faith understanding, is that a conflict
between religion and science has developed in the modern world. As so often
happens, the Church digs its heels in and becomes defensive out of the threat to
its preconceived notions and ideas. On the other side there is a culture dominated
by academics, by the scholarly elite that operate very largely with a naturalistic
world-view in which there is no room for God.
I could give you statement after statement, clear and concise, which indicate that
the world-view or the whole of reality of some who are scientific naturalists or
materialists is what can be measured or put into a test tube or a mathematical
formula. That is all there is and there is nothing more. That has been the
dominant world-view of much of the elite intellectual leadership of our twentiethcentury culture in the West. It is the consequence of a breakdown of
communication and conversation and an adversarial relationship between those
who would be people of faith and those who would follow the scientific method
with empirical verification as the only measure of what is true or real.
I can remember the day in Europe when it struck me with a special clarity that
the real divide in the world was not between the respective religions, but between
the religious and the atheist. Many of you know my story. In 1960 I came to this
congregation out of seminary as the most orthodox, conservative and evangelical
graduate of the class. I had gone through all of my education without learning.
Instead, I learned the system. I came to buttress all of the presuppositions with
which I began. I used whatever intellectual skill and power I had to reinforce that
faith of my childhood Sunday school, catechetical training.
Four years here and three years in New Jersey with pastoral situations that didn’t
square, that made me uncomfortable, unable to deal honestly and forthrightly
with people who were facing life, not in its joy and wonder, but its horror and
terror and devastation. It put a crack in the foundation of the system I espoused.
And so I left for four years of study in Europe, not so much for a degree as the
need to struggle with my own faith understanding.
I remember the day I read an essay by Wolfhart Pannenberg, whose theology I
was studying. I read it in the heavy, theological, philosophical German, trying to
© Grand Valley State University
�World-View: Room for God?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
translate that miserable stuff. The essay laid forth the presuppositions and the
consequence of atheistic naturalism. It was as if I looked into a deep abyss of
darkness. I began to see that the position of naturalistic atheism was a position of
faith just as much as an opposing position that posited the creator God whose
heart is love. It was a watershed experience for me. I recognized there was a
fundamental world-view that was not ascertained by the scientific method, but
rather, was a presupposition, a predisposition, a fundamental posturing of the
heart. The ultimate divide in the world, I could see, was between those who
affirmed God and those who denied that there was anything beyond this material
reality of the cosmos of which we are a part.
As I said, for me this was a watershed experience. I have struggled ever since to
understand my own Christian faith in terms of that fundamental insight, coming
finally to see, as you have heard me say many times, that religion is a human
construct—our response to the Ultimate, to the real, to the Infinite One. The
respective religions may differ from one another, but they are alike in that
fundamental predisposition to believe the deep intuition of the human heart, the
intuition that there is something more. Our reality is not simply free-floating, a
chance occurrence wandering willy-nilly without meaning or purpose. Rather, in
the midst of this life that we share together, with all of its wonder and its glory
and its miracle; its beauty, its terror, and its horror; its tragedy and its suffering;
its joy and its freedom, there is something that cannot be touched, that cannot be
put into a mathematical formula or examined in a test tube. For me that
fundamental question of world-view is the ultimate divide, and to come to
understand that is then to be ready, I believe, to deal honestly with the reality of
life as it presents itself to us. It is time for us to heed the voice of our dear friend,
Huston Smith.
What a fine, remarkable gentleman Huston Smith is, and his just published book,
Why Religion Matters, reads as though he were talking to us here (which he did).
Huston Smith is a voice no longer in the wilderness, but a significant voice among
others that is calling into question the dominant world-view, the view that says
there is this cosmic, material reality and nothing more. As he bears witness to his
own faith, and as other works call attention to the question of world- view, we
realize that we are at a very exciting time in this whole journey of faith and faith
understanding. It is a great time to be wrestling with these issues and to come to
see that a world-view that has room for God is a world-view that can stand with
integrity and honesty in the marketplace of ideas.
There are some things I think we have to acknowledge in the Church, and one is
that our images of God portray a God too small. J.B. Phillips wrote that book
years and years ago. The title itself says it all: Your God Is Too Small. God is not a
God of earthquakes. I had thought about the question before it was posed to me,
as I am sure you had as you saw the tragedy written across the face of a mother
who is praying for her child trapped inside a fallen structure. I would pray, too.
It’s the emotional, instinctual response of the human heart.
© Grand Valley State University
�World-View: Room for God?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
But I know that the finger of God does not hold up the floor, the concrete slab of a
story of a flat, to give breathing room to a child. The reality with which we live
teaches us that there is a world out there which runs on its way according to its
course, according to its forms and structures. We have to grow up and become
mature and face the reality of the cosmos without a God who fixes things.
That is not to say that prayer is not effective and does not affect things in the
material world, the physical body, or whatever. I don’t want to get into that. But I
want to say this morning that if we are going to be spiritually alive with a vital
faith in the modern world, there are images of God that simply won’t work
anymore, and it is high time that people in my position are honest with you about
that. We know in this congregation all too recently that cancer grows in saintly
persons, and infection rages in the best of us until it kills. And we know that we
are all subject to all of the vicissitudes of the human condition. God is not picking
one here and letting one off there.
That’s not the way it is, and if we are honest with our human experience, we know
that. It is time we think together about how we can re-image God in light of all
the knowledge we have about the world of which we are a part.
Thank God for someone with the credentials of a Huston Smith. He can look at
the most erudite scientists in the world and call them to account. He says to
them, “When you have said all you can say, when you have told us all you can tell
us, you haven’t told us all there is, for there is more.” There is still room for God
in a world-view purged of ancient fantasy and honest to today’s knowledge.
Yes, we have to let science tell us about our world. But we can still find God here
and now in the celebration of life, in its beauty and its terror, in its triumph and
in its tragedy, where flowers grow on manure heaps and cancer grows on
beautiful bodies, in a world where children are born and baptized, with all of the
wonderful potential, and where earthquakes wipe out thousands. You see, that is
life, and God doesn’t play favorites, fix things, pull strings, shift gears. God is and
God is with us and God is experienced in those “thin places” of our human
experience. That deep intuition within us that longs, yea, knows something more.
It is the spiritual dimension that is a part of a world-view with room for God. To
be able to live honestly before the face of God, in the light of everything we know,
and to celebrate and to know joy and freedom—that is to be fully alive, by God.
References:
Huston Smith. Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of
Disbelief. HarperCollins, 2001.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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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>
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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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Sound
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
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Event
Epiphany V
Series
Spirituality in the Modern World
Scripture Text
Psalm 15:5-ll, Luke 17:20-21
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Huston Smith. Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief. HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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KII-01_RA-0-20010204
Date
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2001-02-04
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World-view: Room for God?
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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
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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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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 4, 2001 entitled "World-view: Room for God?", as part of the series "Spirituality in the Modern World", on the occasion of Epiphany V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 15:5-ll, Luke 17:20-21.
Cosmic Evolution
Divine Mystery
Supernaturalism
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f198b4f446a1e7edec0f23a7697950d0.mp3
393e612e02abdfa404521b525537f890
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/48db89d0aacfc5cb27e83d9f5814ccd8.pdf
883ffa3b29b2332d13bf6ecbb9dea4cf
PDF Text
Text
Hunger for God
Romans 8:12-27; Luke 12:13-21; Psalm 42:1
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
September 29, 2002
Transcription of the spoken sermon
I'm not going to read the “Reading From the Present,” except a few lines in order
to introduce what I want to reflect upon with you on this morning. Robert
Solomon is a philosopher in a university in Texas. I came across his book recently
and was enamored with the title, Spirituality for the Skeptic. I thought, "Well,
that fits," and found out that he is a person who in his mid-life woke up to the
question of what is the meaning of life. His background was Jewish, but a Jewish
person can lead a totally secular existence, as he did, non-observant altogether,
and then came to a point of wondering what is the meaning of it all. He
discovered a larger, enhanced sense of life, and he came to think again about
Nietzsche, the German philosopher-nihilist; and Sartre, the French atheistexistentialist; and Hegel, the German philosopher, and he began to think of them
who are identified in our minds generally with modern atheism, and began to see
them as thinkers who were trying to re-value and revise spirituality. And now, in
his mid-life as he is asking about the meaning of life, he is looking at them with
new eyes and seeing perhaps what they were doing in their day was what he finds
it necessary for him to do in his day, and frankly what we have been trying to do
around here in our day. He says, speaking of Hegel and Nietzsche, "They
attempted to revalue and revise our concept of spirituality. Or to put it a different
way, what both Hegel and Nietzsche tried to do was to naturalize spirituality… "
When I read that, I thought, my goodness, that's what we have been talking
about.
Have you found it true that sometimes you become aware of something or you
learn a new word or a new idea and suddenly you find it everywhere? It was
always out there, but just sort of passed over, and suddenly you become aware of
it and you see it every place. Here I read Solomon and he is talking about
naturalizing spirituality to get away from the other-worldly religions and
philosophies and to re-appreciate or re-enchant everyday life. That word reenchantment has been popping up all over the place. That, as a matter of fact, is
what we are all about. I mentioned it several times this summer, the reenchantment of life, for us to come to a new appreciation of ourselves and our
reality and God in order that the human experience, the daily experience of our
© Grand Valley State University
�Hunger for God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
lives, the world might be re-enchanted, that we might receive it with a new
dimension of delight and awareness and gratitude and joy. So, here is this
philosopher down in Texas who is going back to these old 19th century
philosophers and he says, "What I think they were trying to do was re-enchant
everyday life." The idea is to recombine spirituality with science and nature,
rather than play them off against each other. How often have we been talking
about that here? To recombine spirituality with science and nature rather than
that awful war that has existed for so long. Thus, for Hegel, nature is spiritual,
and spirituality is nothing less than nature fully developed in us. Hmmm. Nature
is spiritual and spirituality is nothing less than nature fully developed in us. My
goodness, I have been saying that. I must have been right.
You will remember this summer we talked about Creation as God's ecstasy and as
the garment of God, and about God, the Infinite Source of all, being a Mystery,
outflowing and becoming embodied in the world, becoming embodied in the stuff
of the cosmos, the story we are told that goes back 15 billion years, fifteen billion
years of the development of this process that eventuated in stars and stuff, and
then just lately on the scale of that 15 billion years the appearance of life, of
consciousness, of awareness, of the human being. The human being has just
arrived, as it were, in this long process of billions of years, and that human being
with awareness has become the intelligence of the cosmos, being able to rise
above, to transcend the process and see the process, and to speak of the process,
and to stand in awe and wonder of the process, to become the tongue of praise of
the process, to become the consciousness of it all. This human being that we are,
the finite embodiment of the Infinite Mystery, with a mind and a voice so that
here we are, human that we are, finite, matter, matter which is one with the dust
of the universe, because we are stardust, after all. And yet, we are stardust that
has come alive, become conscious, become aware, able to wonder, stand in awe,
and we human beings find within us a longing for something.
The Psalmist said it so beautifully and it was sung so beautifully in our presence
this morning, "As the deer longs for living streams, so longs my soul for thee, 0
God."
The Apostle Paul, in the 8th chapter of Romans, in that very complex letter when
he was giving expression to that amazing experience he had, there was something
in him that recognized that there was something in God in him, and there was
something in God in him that was reaching out to God beyond him. The Spirit
sighing, sighing within us, or longing within us.
And Jesus in this little story I read, where somebody says, "Settle this dispute,"
and he says, "This dispute isn't worth worrying about. Let me tell you about the
investor whose stocks were so good that they were going through the ceiling, and
he began to plan his future in terms of wonder and glory. And then in the midst
of it all, it was over." And Jesus said, "You really ought to be concerned about
being rich toward God."
© Grand Valley State University
�Hunger for God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
The point of those lessons is simply my contention that there is a hunger for God
in the depths of every human being, and that is not surprising because, after all,
we are made of God-stuff. We are the consciousness and the awareness of the
finite creation which is the embodiment of the infinite God, the infinite source of
all being that is Mystery beyond us, flowing out into the concretion of creation of
which we are the conscious inhabitors, become co-creators, having within us a
longing for something, a longing for God. And why shouldn't we have a longing
for God? For we are made of God; we are inspirited by God. God is our home;
God is our source, the source of our being.
Paul quoted an old pagan philosopher, "In God we live and we move and we have
our being." Someone like Robert Solomon, studying the 19th century philosophers
– we have talked about them all here, Feuerbach and Marx, Freud and Nietzsche,
identified with modern atheism – Solomon looks again and says, "I wonder if
they weren't just trying to find a way to say God in a world that had drastically
changed?' Because, you see, our storybook arose at a time when the conception of
everything was totally different than our present conception of everything. The
sense of ultimate reality was altogether different. In the expressions of the
Hebrew prophets or in the New Testament letters of Paul or in the talking of
Jesus, it was a totally different conception of the reality of which we are a part. So
maybe it was necessary for this old world, on its way in human development, to
go through that period, that backwash of atheistic thinking, which sent such
tremors through the Church, an atheistic movement that alienated scores and
scores of people and generations, a modern atheism that has affected the
academic community and the intelligentsia of the world today so that the Church
becomes a defensive community trying to hold on, but too often trying to hold on
with an old way of thinking and speaking so that it doesn't resonate with the
reality of our present world.
Robert Solomon says maybe those atheistic philosophers were simply trying to
naturalize spirituality. Maybe they were trying to learn how to say God in their
day, because A-theism does not necessitate atheism. And that is not just a little
play on words, because what the modern period did was to reject a theistic
conception of God that was in the tradition, the idea of that supernatural being
up there in control, running things, the God who interrupted the process on
occasion, the God who could intervene here and there. In a world that had
become so convinced of the findings of the natural sciences, a God out there
doing that kind of thing just didn't make a lot of sense. And so, to a lot of people
who thought about it, there was alienation and there was movement out of the
Church. Bishop Spong would call them believers in exile.
I believe that the largest part of the congregation of Christ Community Church is
out of the Church, and if they could only hear the good word, they'd be back in,
because it is possible to say God and to have a spiritual existence in our day
without adopting a world view that doesn't make sense anymore. Down deep in
the human heart is a hunger for God, but the heart can not long rest where the
© Grand Valley State University
�Hunger for God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
mind cannot follow. That is, if the mind is operative at all, if one is thinking at all,
the heart cannot long rest where the mind cannot follow. And so, so many have
been alienated.
I decided long ago, before we left for Europe, to speak about the hunger for God
today because I knew I would be coming back to preach this Sunday, and then
next week David Ray Griffin would be here, and David Ray Griffin is the one who
has been so stimulating to me. He was introduced to me by Howard VanTill in
the book Religion and Scientific Naturalism. It is a very fine book in which he
tries to do what Solomon speaks of here, he tries to say God in a conception of
reality which is consistent with all that we know. In other words, with the best
understanding that we have of ultimate reality, given that, how do you say God?
That's the thing that David Ray Griffin has worked at. In the concise title of his
latest book which I have quoted here, Reenchantment without Supernaturalism,
he says volumes. Reenchantment of the world -that's what Solomon speaks of
here. He says that is what Hegel was about and Nietzsche, trying to find the
reenchantment of everyday, because what was happening was that old image of
God and that old conceptuality was so challenged, leading to atheism.
There were those who were living then alienated without any sense of the reality
of God. And yet, you can't wipe out that deep hunger for God, because we are,
after all, the embodiment of God, so if that Infinite Mystery has overflowed into
the concretion of nature, and if we are the voice, the awareness, if we are the
human beings who are the finite embodiment of God, the conscious expression of
that concretion, then is it any wonder that there is a longing for God within us
because, after all, God is our source and God is our home, and we cannot be at
home in this world, we cannot be at home with ourselves unless we are at home
with God. Unless we have a sense of the reality and the presence of God in the
reality of our lives and of our world, we cannot be whole. We have an opportunity
next week to have in our midst someone who is working hard trying to bring all
that to expression.
How do you naturalize spirituality so that our spiritual life isn't some otherworldly thing, so that our spiritual life isn't some Sunday business, so that our
spiritual life is not some compartment in our being that does not affect the
totality of our everyday? Rather, our spiritual being is the expression of our
authentic being living with an awareness and a wonder and a gratitude and an
amazement at the miracle of life. Because, you see, I want you to sense this - God
breathes in you. It is not a question of whether or not God is in you. It is only a
question of your awareness.
Let me tell you about Marina. She was our guide in St. Petersburg, Russia, for five
days. A lovely, lovely person, a beautiful woman, articulate, with impeccable
English, bright, knowledgeable, great humor, delightful spirit, and we all fell in
love with her. And as we went day after day, one day on the tour bus she said,
"That yellow church I was baptized in."
© Grand Valley State University
�Hunger for God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
I said to her later, "So you were baptized?"
"Yes, she said, "I was."
I said "What year?" a question you must never ask a woman. She said, “ 1959.”
I said "Oh, '59. So, you were baptized in '59?"
She said, "Yes, but my parents weren't religious at all. And I'm not religious and
my friends are not religious." She said, "I did have my 12-year-old daughter
baptized."
I said, "You did?”
She said, "Just in case."
And when we came off the grounds of a monastery, she made the sign of the
cross, and I said, "I saw that."
As we gathered in Oslo a couple of Sunday nights ago at our little group
reflection, I said, "I am convinced more than ever through this wonderful
engagement with the Russian people, and that Eastern rite of the Orthodox
tradition which was in danger of being intentionally stamped out, but which
cannot be stamped out, I am so convinced of the irradicability of the spiritual
being, because Marina is a spiritual being, a beautiful human being, and God is in
that woman, and she is resonant with God. I would love to have the opportunity
to pursue that more.
I said to Marina, "Tell me about your spiritual life."
She said, "Well, with my friends, we talk about ideas." (I think what she was
saying was we do grapple with meaning.) She said, "We have suffered and
suffering can lead to a spiritual sense."
Once again, you see, here is a non-observant Russian woman who is every bit
modern, contemporary, wonderful and delightful, totally non-religious. But she is
not non-spiritual, and it seems to me the only thing she lacks is the awareness of
the Source of the beauty of her humanity, of her spirituality.
There is a hunger for God within the human breast, and those who may seem
farthest from any kind of practice or observance, nonetheless at some time or
other must, as Robert Solomon, come to say, "What does it mean? What does it
mean?", and hopefully find some way through the maze. He concludes, finally in
the end, thoughtful love of life is spiritual being. Well, yes. Thoughtful love of life,
because life is gift and to be able to live with awareness and intentionality and
appreciation and gratitude, to be able to lift a glass to the wonder, miracle, glory
and joy of life, to be able to look at a sunset and an evening star, the smile of a
© Grand Valley State University
�Hunger for God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
child and the embrace of human connection, to be able to live not just in the
morning awake, breakfast, work, dinner, back to sleep, awake, breakfast dinner,
sleep, but to live with awareness of every moment of every day that it is Godfilled, that it is God-breathed, that we are the embodiment of that Infinite Source
of being full of grace and creativity, to look at it all and to live with that constant
sense of wonder and amazement - that is to come to the awareness of the roots of
the hunger within us and, finally, to be at home in our skin, in our world, because
we are the children of God.
References:
Robert C. Solomon. Spirituality for the Sceptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life.
Oxford University Press, 2006.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost XIX
Scripture Text
Romans 8:12-27, Luke 12:13-21
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Robert C. Solomon. Spirituality for the Sceptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life, 2006.
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-0-20020929
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2002-09-29
Title
A name given to the resource
Hunger For God
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
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 29, 2002 entitled "Hunger For God", on the occasion of Pentecost XIX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Romans 8:12-27, Luke 12:13-21.
Cosmic Evolution
Divine Mystery
Natural religion
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Text
Creation: Stardust to Human to…
From the series: Once Upon a Time…
Text: Genesis 1:1-5, 26-27; Ephesians 4:1-16
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
October 13, 2002
Transcription of the spoken sermon
[Beginning remarks to the community about last week’s David Ray Griffin
lectures on his book, Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism: A Process
Philosophy of Religion during the Center for Religion and Life weekend]
I do this morning want to say something that will enable you … to know that you
had in your midst this outstanding scholar whose scholarship is not an
intellectual curiosity as an end in itself, but very practically in order to learn how
to say God today and how to understand that Infinite Mystery, that Divine
Presence, the sacred and the holy in a world such as we understand our reality
today.
For, really, our storybook, our ancient text, the Bible, comes from an ancient
people and ancient languages that understood the world altogether differently
than we did. They had no knowledge of the physical universe as we do, and so
their image of God, their imaginings of God were quite other than those which we
would have if we would try to think of God in the light of the cosmos as we
understand it and in the light of our human experience.
Probably most people don't even think about that - how to speak of God, to think
of God, how to live a human existence, given the world as it is. Probably most
don't even think about that until maybe they pray passionately for the life of a
child and the child dies. Or, plead with God for something else which never
comes to fruition, and then get to wondering about the suffering in the world and
maybe something as horrible as the Holocaust. And then maybe, in moments of
solitude, there would come a question - Where is God? Who is God? Is God at all?
David Ray Griffin's work is to try to give us an opening on that eternal
transcendent dimension which is not other than our world, but is a part of our
world.
This morning I intended anyway to begin a new series of messages. When I set
these series far in advance, eventually as the time comes, I can twist them any
way. So, I am going to keep with the series title, Once Upon a Time ..., because I
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation: Stardust to Human to…
Richard A. Rhem
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want to call to your mind immediately that the things we are going to talk about,
and we are going to go to the book of Genesis for these messages, are stories.
"Once upon a time...," for the ancient religious storytellers were dealing with
those ultimate questions and that ultimate reality - Why is there something
rather than nothing? What does it mean to be human? Who am I? Whence have I
come and whither am I going and what does it all mean? Those ultimate
questions lived before the rather fearsome reality of a mystery that can never be
penetrated. Those early human religious figures, dreamers, poets told stories, and
we have a story, too, and our story is precisely that. So, once upon a time...
Once upon a time, there were Hebrew dreamers and poets and prophets who
believed that all that is was the consequence of a word of the creator God who
called it all into being. And that creative act was by a God who was not a part of
the created order, but stood above it and continued to guide it and providentially
to move it and here and there, now and again, to intervene in it and to interrupt
its processes, if necessary. That belief in a supernatural being we speak of as
theism, God "out there," tweaking the creation which that God called into being.
That was the ancient picture, the old story, and we read it again a moment ago.
But, in this particular message, I entitle it "Creation: Stardust to Human to..."
because we have come to know that we are a part of a cosmic process of 15 billion
years. Whether it is 15 or 14 or 16, we won't argue. But, we have come to know
that all that is part and parcel of the same thing, that this cosmic process has
been evolving and unfolding with new emergence over billions of years, and that
the stuff that we are is the stuff of the universe, that we human beings are made
of star-stuff, the explosion of those marvelous stars that sprinkle the inky
darkness of the night, that explode and seed the planets and the galaxies with the
elements that are the elements of life. And all reality is uniformly a part of that
explosive explosion of elements and, amazing miracle of miracles, those elements
at some point came alive. Was it an amoeba or an algae or a moss? I don't know,
but it was life, that point of life with no one there to witness it. And then, greater
miracle of all, that life again, over billions of years, eventuating in conscious life,
self-consciousness, consciousness of the other, community, human community.
And here we are.
Someone has said if you took that 15 billion years and collapsed it into one year
so that you had the whole 15 billion years with all of the markers that can be
marked as to what developed when and so forth, all of human recorded history
would have arrived in the last 15 seconds of the last minute. The last 15 seconds of
the last minute. That's who we are - we are Johnny-come-latelies, we are
newcomers. We are a recent emergent in this whole cosmic process, and there is
nothing about us that is any different than that which was part of the process 12
billion years ago, 14,15 billion years ago, and it is absolutely an amazing thing. In
an expanse of time we cannot take in, in an expanse of space that is simply
beyond our comprehension, there is one process going on: billions of galaxies and
billions of stars, and this little planet earth in the midst of the solar system, in the
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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midst of a galaxy just a speck, just a spinning mud heap, just a pile of rocks, and
here we are human beings, conscious, reflecting on it all. That's amazing! That is
really a miracle.
David Ray Griffin is simply one of those thinkers who thinks about all of that, and
he has taken in what all of the sciences tell us about that reality, and the
philosopher who has informed his work, Alfred North Whitehead, is one who
said, at the beginning of this century, the problem with the modern period is that
it has separated matter and mind, or matter and spirit, and a consequence of that
in the modern period has been a kind of an absolute materialism with no one
knowing what to do with spirit or even denying its existence.
But, Alfred North Whitehead has said, the thing is that that matter is inspirited.
The whole thing is permeated, is shot through with spirit, with consciousness,
and it is on that kind of radically "new" conception of reality, although we can go
all the way back to Plato 600 years before Christ to find echoes of that as well,
that he is trying to say: in this totality of which we are a part, God is fully
present in it all, and there is a creative spirit nudging and moving, but not
coercing or forcing, but beckoning, persuading.
The lure of love, if you will, seems to be the way of the cosmos and, among
human beings that we are, thinking, conscious, aware, one day one was born and
those who encountered him said, "That's it. That must be the divine intention for
the human." In the beginning was that divine intention and all things came into
being through that one, and in the fullness of time that divine intention became
flesh, human, and no one has ever seen God, but that one, that one reveals who
God is. That is our story because we say, concretely, there was a human being. To
look upon that one was to look upon the face of God. And so incarnation or
embodiment: this spirit that inspirits everything becomes concrete in the human
form.
The mistake the Church made was to say it happened once for all in him. The fact
is that it happened in him in order that we might know that it happens in
everyone at all times, that it is the human that is the embodiment of the divine,
that that infinite spirit has become concretized in the human being, and that
human being in Jesus. Those who saw him said, "That is human."
"Stardust to human," human paradigmatically, preeminently in Jesus who is our
pattern. And then my title says, also, three dots, "Stardust to Human to ..." To
what? Are we the apex of it all? Are we the summit of it all? Are we the end of it
all? Or, is there something more? Is there another stage?
Let me tell you where we are today. We who have lately come on the scene, we
“last 15 seconds” human pride, let me tell you where we are today. The nation
stands on the brink of war, and great religious leaders, the Pope, the Dalai Lama,
and others, the Catholic Conference of Bishops, the National Council of Churches,
heads of denominations - all across the board, except the Southern Baptists and
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Jerry Falwell, but otherwise quite uniformly across the board all have said war is
not the answer, war is not the solution, go slowly, go cautiously. Nobody is
listening. I know that we religious leaders really don't deserve any real attention
because what do we know? The face in a book, dealing with sweet communities of
people, what do we know about the real world? I almost find it a little humorous
when I think about the universality of the spiritual counsel and the total
disregard. It wasn't always that way. But, if you want to know the impact of the
spiritual community in today's world, you have a parable before you. Nobody
gives a rip about what the Church is saying. But, I have a little stripe of cynicism
in me, so I don't always trust myself.
I have been saying that this whole thing is really, finally, about oil. And then,
praise be to God, yesterday's Grand Rapids Press headline was: "Seidman Bullish
on War." William Seidman, local boy who has made good, at age 81 now comes
back to Grand Rapids to speak to some business leaders about matters similar to
insider trading, only this is the inside information to a few folks. It's at the
Peninsular Club, a nice place to eat. I'll bet you President Bush could shoot him,
because he has let the cat out of the bag. "Seidman Bullish on War" - that's an
obscene headline. The article says that he claims that defeating Saddam Hussein
and controlling Iraqi oil is at least as important as eliminating weapons of mass
destruction. Now, you are getting it from an insider who says that it is political
rhetoric about the weapons of mass destruction and the locus of evil that
therefore needs to be wiped out. He is really telling us you're just being played
because it is not about mass destruction weapons. It is about oil. He goes on to
say that it would never deepen the bear market (that's a misleading reading of the
market - war, that is). "Oil prices fluctuating is a very large drag on the economy,
ours and the world's, said Seidman. If we are in Iraq, nobody can use oil as a
weapon. I think probably the most bullish thing I can think of today is winning
the war. We are planning to set up a MacArthur-like government," referring to
Japan after World War II," getting control of that oil, thereby gaining sway with
neighboring Saudi Arabia's oil production will make a vast difference to the
economy in all sorts of areas, but particularly the price of oil. Having the two
major oil producers not part of any radical Muslim or any other unfriendly
government," he said, "would be a huge additional factor in the world's
economy." And then, and this is the clincher, he said he's not surprised that the
Bush administration is not the one heralding a return to profitability by way of
war. Oh, really? The administration is not saying that by way of war we could
return to profitability? No, he's not surprised they are not doing that. Neither am
I. But, he says, "I deny it specifically on behalf of the government," he said,
joking. That's obscene.
Now you have the whole religious world trying to whisper in somebody's ear, and
nobody's listening. But, you have an insider coming back to say finally, folks, the
talk is about eliminating weapons of mass destruction, but finally it's about oil,
because finally it is about the economy, because finally it is about beating the
bear market and returning to profitability. And you know what? It might work. I
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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may yet be able to retire. It could work. We could go in there and maybe if we're
successful, maybe we'll knock the stuffing out of Saddam and maybe we'll be able
to establish our own puppet government there and maybe, over years, maybe,
maybe, maybe ... But, you see what we're doing? We are the superpower and we
can act unilaterally. We can have our way in the world. Do you want to be with us
or against us? Well, we don't believe in what you are doing. Do you want to
support us or not? We'll go to the United Nations and we will use the United
Nations if it works, but if it doesn't work, we'll do it alone. And we might pull it
off. But, don't you see that if we pull it off one more time, we will not have solved
anything except the present generation's prosperity?
What about the rest of the Muslim world? Why are we the victims of terrorism? Is
terrorism not the technique of those who have no power? And is there any power
in the world that could protect against terrorism? So there is the irony that here
we are, wealthy, powerful, top of our game, and we live with fear. We live with as
much fear as a nation as the people around Washington D.C. are living in fear of a
sniper right now. That is the kind of irrationality that cannot be defended against.
Yet, we can go in there and we can square things around, and we can dominate
and we can hold on powerfully enough, long enough, perhaps, to pull it off for the
likes of us for another generation, but, eventually, don't we know eventually it is
only justice and compassion that can ever solve the anguish and the agony of the
world? Don't we realize the cynicism of this world that talks about being born
again and about Jesus, only to go to war, when Jesus said blessed are the
peacemakers and the merciful and the gentle? Don't we know what a mockery it
is to be called a Christian nation when we are no more ready, even though we are
the superpower that would have it within us to change the game, that we will
continue one more time to use our power and, if need be, violence and war? And
the secret is out. … I'll bet they could kill him for letting the cat out of the bag and
confirming what some of us have worried about all the time.
The passion of David Ray Griffin's life right now is global democracy. He is
working now on a book in which he suggests, if there were an objective, neutral
observer who was good, who had all of the facts and who could adjudicate the
human situation, wouldn't that be good? And after all of his philosophical and
theological explorations, it is the God reflected in the Jesus of the Sermon on the
Mount for whom he sees room in this cosmic process of 15 billion years. What we
need is not a little tweaking of the system. What we need is a transformation of
human consciousness.
What do you think? I'm just blowing bubbles, huh? I'm just blowing smoke. I'm
just another idealistic romanticist. I'm just another preacher. But, unless there is
a transformation of human consciousness that gains a critical mass that
revolutionizes the way we are human with each other, we will keep on in our
tribal ways and we will keep killing each other and we will continue to be afraid.
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation: Stardust to Human to…
Richard A. Rhem
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References:
David Ray Griffin. Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism: A Process
Philosophy of Religion. Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, 2000.
© 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.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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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 XXI
Series
Once Upon a Time_
Scripture Text
Genesis 1:1-5, 26-27, Ephesians 4:1-16
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Barbara Brown Taylor. The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion, 2000.
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KII-01_RA-0-20021013
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2002-10-13
Title
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Creation: Stardust to Human to...
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 October 13, 2002 entitled "Creation: Stardust to Human to...", as part of the series "Once Upon a Time_", on the occasion of Pentecost XXI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 1:1-5, 26-27, Ephesians 4:1-16.
Cosmic Evolution
Lure of Love
Transformation
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bc5a61ec9d6088fc3f475aee620b1669.pdf
2137dbaf0b4a677585c3ef4e18e9ac60
PDF Text
Text
Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Lakeshore Interfaith Community, Mother’s Trust, Mother’s Place
Ganges, Michigan
September 13, 2009
Today is my last presentation for the 2009 season – my fifth this summer – and I
want to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to Tapas and the
community that gathers here for the privilege I have been afforded in my
retirement to continue to reflect and write and present on subjects that catch my
attention and interest – subjects I think are critical for our consideration as we
continue to wonder about our human existence and what we are being called to
be in this age of Radical Evolution.
Radical Evolution – that is the title of the book by Joel Garreau about which I
spoke last time. I can usually discern whether I did well or not by Nancy’s
response. I think the grade last month was C+ plus grace. As she told me, “The
folks that come, come for an ‘emotional fix’ from you.” She did not add the
obvious – and you aimed at their heads and missed!
That isn’t a new problem for me. Most of my ministry I have been tolerated
because my people sort of liked me and put up with me even though I
apparently shot over their heads with regularity. But I am not really penitent
because I am convinced that the things with which I deal are of critical
importance for our human being. I do, however, recognize the necessity of
making that with which we deal touch the heart as well as the head. And so let
me attempt to portray our human situation in the context of where we have
emerged and suggest that the only hope for a human and humane future lies in
the love of God which we find incarnate in Jesus.
Let me be clear. I speak as a Christian. I speak as a Christian who loves his faith
tradition, who loves and, with his whole being, would follow Jesus. But I speak
not in an exclusivistic sense that Jesus is the only exemplar of the Love which is
our only hope. Jesus is my window to God, not the only window to God.
I learned that so powerfully one day at the magnificent cathedral at Chartres
outside Paris. I led a tour group of a couple dozen and I had been told that an
Englishman named Malcomb Miller had lived in the shadow of the cathedral for
years and gave a fascinating lecture and tour of the cathedral. We arranged for
our group to meet him and his lecture was as good as I had been told. We
gathered in the nave. Beautiful stained glass windows were brilliant in the
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
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morning sunshine. Our guide told us something I had never realized – the
windows were created to reflect biblical characters and biblical narratives – that
was obvious, but then he said, the cathedral was like a town library before the
printing press. Here the people were taught the biblical story in visual images.
We were then taken through the great cathedral, Malcomb Miller knowing, it
seemed, every stone and carving in that high expanse of sacred space – the
transcepts, the choir, the chancel, the magnificent Rose Window over the altar.
At some point it came to me as a parable. I imagined all the great religious
traditions – each religious group gathered before one of the great windows, the
window telling its story in stained glass – Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus,
Buddhists, Native Peoples – some in the Nave, some in the Transcepts, some in
the Choir, the Chancel – each group focused on a particular story – not
contradictory stories but complementary stories. And then – as a burst of light –
I thought – different stories, but all illuminated by One Light.
I had been probing this whole question. To be sure, I was ready for such an
answer but the cathedral image provided me with a story that focused for me
the whole question of the universality of the religious quest and the recognition
that in each of the great religious traditions there was a common purpose – that
the respective stories of the human family address ultimate questions of our
beginnings, our endings, and the meaning of the human adventure and how we
should then live. In sum, I was and am convinced that in all the great religions
there is the mediation of truth and grace to live and die by. It seems so obvious
to me at this point in my life.
After that excursus, if I speak of the biblical story and the Love of God that came
to expression in Jesus, you will hear me speaking of a particular expression or
story in the context of a universal quest.
Last month I spoke of the heady and harrowing place we humans have come at
present with the knowledge and techniques we possess – the information
explosion with the Internet, robotics, genetics, and nanotechnology, creating
amazing, incredible potential for good or ill. All of that was a bit technical
perhaps even though what Garreau was portraying as the radical evolution we
are engaged with has very practical implications and ramifications: Where does
our future lie? Will our further progress lead us to a heavenly world or a hellish
world? Or will we just keep on muddling through – will we prevail?
But there is a bigger picture that I want to paint today, to set, as it were, the
present moment and crisis in a cosmic context.
In the biblical story, “in the beginning” God calls creation into existence from
nothing. Then ensues the story of the temptation and fall of the human being.
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
For the rest, the biblical story is a story of human sin and divine grace, God
providing redemption leading to the original purpose of God – the creation of a
new heaven and earth and the Shalom of God emerging, the darkness being
banished.
That story – and it is a story which our ancestors told to make sense of the
human situation as they experienced it – that story reflected some profound
understanding of the human, historical situation –
The cosmos does not ground itself but is grounded in that which calls it
into being.
And the human being is in the image of God, always before the decision
to choose wisely or destructively – and it is universally true that humans
fail in the test. Human test, human failure, human guilt, and human hope
for redemption. Somehow that is all involved in those early Genesis
stories or myths.
But that story of beginning and human unfolding, while still appreciated for what
was being wrestled with, no longer can be our story because our knowledge
and understanding of the cosmos, of the evolutionary unfolding of the cosmic
reality – the movement from Big Bang to the present – tells us an amazing tale
that makes the Genesis account pale in comparison. It is a mind-boggling
account that has only been available to us for a little over a century.
In Joel Garreau’s Radical Evolution, which portrays for us where we are in terms
of what is presently within human capacity, he makes an obvious statement, but
a statement that should give us pause as religious people with our respective
stories. Garreau declares, “Right now the stories we tell do not match the facts.”
(p. 264)
One of the truly great and visionary thinkers, who as a scientist had penetrating
knowledge of and insight into the natural order and who simultaneously was
concerned to relate that knowledge to his Christian faith understanding, was
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. A leading paleontologist whose scientific credentials
were unquestioned, he was also a devout Roman Catholic belonging to the
Jesuit Society. In his most important work, The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard
created a new story, a story based on the best scientific knowledge, an amazing
intuitive gift of imagination and a profound faith in God as Source, Ground and
Goal of the unfolding cosmic process. In a few paragraphs from Wikipedia, his
teaching as it came to expression in his posthumously published magnum opus
is summarized:
…Teilhard writes of the unfolding of the material cosmos, from primordial
particles to the development of life, human beings and the noosphere,
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
and finally to his vision of the Omega Point in the future, which is “pulling”
all creation towards it. He was a leading proponent of orthogenesis, the
idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal-driven way. To Teilhard,
evolution unfolded from cell to organism to planet to solar system and
whole-universe (see Gaia theory). Such theories are generally termed
teleological views of evolution.
Teilhard attempts to make sense of the universe by its evolutionary
process. He interprets mankind as the axis of evolution into higher
consciousness, and postulates that a supreme consciousness, God,
must be drawing the universe towards him…
Teilhard studied what he called the rise of spirit, or evolution of
consciousness, in the universe. He believed it to be observable and
verifiable in a simple law he called the Law of Complexity/Consciousness.
This law simply states that there is an inherent compulsion in matter to
arrange itself in more complex groupings, exhibiting higher levels of
consciousness. The more complex the matter, the more conscious it is.
Teilhard proposed that this is a better way to describe the evolution of life
on earth, rather than Herbert Spencer’s “survival of the fittest.” The
universe, he argued, strives towards higher consciousness, and does so
by arranging itself into more complex structures.
Teilhard identified what he termed to be different stages in the rise of
consciousness. These stages are analogous to what are termed the
geosphere and the biosphere. The Law of Complexity/Consciousness
traces matter’s path through these stages, as it ‘complexifies’ upon itself
and rises in consciousness. Teilhard claimed that, although it is not
evident, consciousness (in an extremely limited degree) exists even in
rocks, as the Law of Complexity/Consciousness implies. In plants, matter
is complex enough to exhibit a consciousness that is the very life of the
plant. In animals, matter is conscious enough to an extraordinary degree
to where consciousness shows itself in a wide range of reactionary
movement to the whole universe.
However, Teilhard here proposed another level of consciousness, to
which human beings belong, because of their cognitive ability; i.e. their
ability to ‘think’. Human beings, Teilhard argued, represent the layer of
consciousness which has “folded back in upon itself”, and has become
self-conscious. Julian Huxley, Teilhard’s scientific colleague, described it
like this: “evolution is nothing but matter become conscious of itself.”
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
So, in addition to the geosphere and the biosphere, Teilhard posited
another sphere, which is the realm of human beings, the realm of
reflective thought: the noosphere.
In the noosphere Teilhard believed the same Law of
Complexity/Consciousness to be at work, although not in a way
previously seen. He argued that, ever since human beings first came into
existence 200,000 years ago, the Law of Complexity/Consciousness
began to run on a different (higher) plane. Consciousness in the universe,
he argued, now continues to rise in the complex arrangement and
unification (Teilhard sometimes called it ‘totalization’ of mankind on
earth.) As human beings converge around the earth, he reasoned,
unifying themselves in ever more complex forms of arrangement,
consciousness will rise.
Finally, the keystone to his phenomenology is that, because Teilhard
could not explain why the universe would move in the direction of more
complex arrangements and higher consciousness, he postulated that
there must exist ahead of the moving universe, and pulling it along, a
higher pole of supreme consciousness, which he called Omega Point.
This is an amazing vision. An evolving, emerging cosmic reality from primordial
particles to the development of life, human beings with conscious awareness,
an envelope of mind/intelligence/consciousness being “pulled” toward the
Omega Point. He believed evolution occurs in a directional, goal-driven way. “To
Teilhard, evolution unfolded from cell to organism to planet to solar system and
whole universe”– and God is drawing the universe toward Him.
Now there is a new story. It is a story as Genesis is a story, but there is this
difference. Genesis is an ancient story of an ancient people asking deeply
human questions and the story reflects some deep truths or experiences which
the writer brought to expression. Teilhard, too, composed a story reflective of a
deep faith in God – Creator/Source/Ground and Goal of the whole process, but
his story takes account of all available knowledge of our cosmic journey as the
secrets of the universe have been laid bare through scientific investigation.
The hard evidence of science is gathered and the grand evolutionary movement
of reality is analyzed. But, of course, that evidence cannot answer the question
of the mystery of beginnings nor the mystery of the end. There the believing man
expresses his faith that this cosmic dance is not an accident, or simply a
random unfolding of a meaningless cosmic phenomenon along whose unfolding
has appeared life, consciousness, and the human being who – as Garreau
suggests – is seizing the keys of creation and beginning to determine its future
course.
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
I must say I was enthralled with Teilhard’s The Phenomenon of Man. Written in
1938, he was anticipating the very kinds of developments Garreau tells us in his
Radical Evolution are now within our reach. The work was not published until
1955 because Teilhard was forbidden by the Roman Catholic hierarchy to
publish his work during his life and, being obedient to his Jesuit vows of
obedience, he did not. Posthumously his manuscripts were published and it is
amazing how far-seeing was his vision before the actual scientific data was
known.
Over fifty years after Teilhard’s grand imaginative story, Gordon Kaufman,
Professor of Divinity at Harvard University, wrote In Face of Mystery (1993) and
as I revisit that study I am amazed that what Kaufman reflects on was already
envisioned by Teilhard. Kaufman writes,
…the traditional notion that God works through all of cosmic history –
and is working in human history in particular toward the creation of a
thoroughly humane order (that is, toward human salvation) – now
becomes understood in terms of the modern notion of the evolutionaryhistorical process within which humanity has emerged and developed:
the serendipitous creativity underlying and working through all reality is
expressing itself here (over many aeons of time) in a trajectory toward
human and humane orders of being. In a slow, long-term development of
this sort the direction in which things are moving may, of course, remain
unclear for a very long time. Not until a stage of considerable
differentiation and specification has been reached is it possible to
imagine, or make judgments about, what is really happening; and even
then many quite diverse possibilities remain open. But each new stage of
the ongoing biohistorical process specifies a bit more precisely what
directions the movement is going and what outcomes may be expected,
as some possibilities are cut off and eliminated, and others are opened
up and increasingly realized; and there may come a moment of decisive
“revelation” of what is going on in the process as a whole.
Thus, for example, at the moment of cosmic time in which the earth was
gradually cooling and solidifying from the ball of fire it had earlier been,
there would have been no way to anticipate or predict that in due course
it would become a womb and home for living creatures. Later on, when
living organisms began to appear in the sea, it would hardly have been
possible to guess that they would eventually evolve into myriads of
species of life – birds, insects, animals, plants with infinite varieties of
flowers and fruits, and so on. Even with the appearance of mammals it
could hardly have been suspected that anthropoids would appear further
down the road. And with the emergence of fully formed Homo there was
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
still no sufficient basis to foresee the development of ancient Egypt,
Babylon, India, China, Greece, or Rome – and certainly not the various
forms of modern civilization. However, if from the vantage point of
modern humanity we look back over this long cumulation of events, we
may begin to discern what appears to be a more or less continuous line
of development up to the present. It is striking to realize that this line was
not visible until the last half of the nineteenth century; before that (even
one hundred years earlier), it could not be seen at all. It seems, thus, that
with a trajectory of this sort what is going on is by no means evident at all
points along the way; the events which give it its distinct character and
significance become determinate only in the course of the process itself.
Only as certain crucial thresholds were crossed did new possibilities
appear and in due course become realized; and only after many such
decisive thresholds were crossed did beings appear with a vantage point
enabling them to see that it was possible to interpret this whole
development as somehow implicit from the beginning. One speaks of a
“process of development” when one can specify certain points or stages
through which a particular trajectory has proceeded, the process as a
whole being marked off and defined by some (at least implicit) beginning
and end. “End” and “beginning” and “process of development” are thus
all logically interconnected with one another; they illuminate and
determine one another conceptually, and no one of them can be clearly
understood – as the “end” or the “beginning” of “this particular process”
– without the others. Because of these conceptual interconnections we
are inclined to think of the end of a particular process of development as
implicit from its beginning; and if it happens to be the process of our own
development into humanness that we are considering, it will be of
importance to us to attempt to see, on the basis of the direction it seems
to have followed up to the point at which we humans now find ourselves,
where it may be going. (p. 386f)
Where are we going? That is the critical question and to what degree will we
move the process toward the realization of a humane community of love and
experience union and communion with God – the vision that captivated
Teilhard?
On Friday we remembered 9/11. That date has been imprinted indelibly on our
minds and hearts. A writer who for twenty years wrote science musings for the
Boston Globe, Chet Raymo, wrote a piece in the wake of that horrendous event.
He entitled it “The Problem of Good,” and after beautifully describing a celestial
scene as he gazed upon the heavens, he raises the question in the third
paragraph: “Why must human violence disturb nature’s peace? But on second
thought he writes,
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
…But, of course, I had it exactly backwards.
It is nature that is violent. Astronomers point out how few places in the
universe are sufficiently calm for life to exist. Massive black holes at the
centers of galaxies gobble gas and stars. In the arms of galaxies, suns
explode with a violence that shatters surrounding worlds. Comets and
asteroids smash into planets. Galaxies collide…
We now understand that violence and death are corollaries of life. To
persist, living creatures must take matter and energy from their
environment. As life proliferates, competition for resources becomes
inevitable. Aggression is advantageous, even necessary. Genetic
variations that confer a competitive advantage are favored in the struggle
to survive. If nature were not cruel, conscious creatures such as
ourselves would never have evolved.
It is as Loren Eisely wrote: “Instability lies at the heart of the world.” The
criminals who wreaked havoc on New York and Washington were acting
out an ancient biological script.
Yet there is ground for hope. Our brains are of sufficient complexity to
give rise to that mysterious thing known as self-awareness. Our genes
may predispose us to act in certain ways, good or bad, but they do not
constrain us. We are effectively free to choose good over evil. Humans
alone, of all the things we know about in the universe, can escape the
bipolar logic of evolution.
To a cheering extent we have done so. As Margaret Meade pointed out,
the circle of those whom we do not kill has steadily expanded throughout
human history. The optimists among us imagine that the circle will
ultimately embrace the entire planet.
From nature’s point of view, there is no such thing as the Problem of Evil:
order and disorder, life and death, cooperation and competition are the
twin principles of nature’s creative force. What humans uniquely face is
the Problem of Good: How to create on this tiny planet an oasis of
unalloyed peace.
“The Problem of Good.” I was struck by that phrase. I don’t think I had ever run
into it; I had never heard it spoken – the problem of good. I have heard a lot
about the problem of evil, of course. The problem of evil is a constant focus of
attention for our time. The problem of evil is portrayed for us and documented
for us 24-7, with the ceaseless coverage of the world by the cable news
networks. We are constantly facing the evil and the tragedy in the world. But
what about the good? As Chet Raymo suggests, evil, violence and war are not
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
the whole story. There are signs of growing humanization. The problem of good
is “to create on this tiny planet an oasis of unalloyed peace.”
In two places in the New Testament occurs a brief statement I have come to
greatly value. The statement is,
No one has ever seen God…
It occurs in John 1:1-18 and I John 4:12. The consensus of scholarship locates
the origin of both the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John in Ephesus, The
Gospel, the earlier document dated in the 90’s of the first century. The Epistles
are usually assigned a date around 100 C.E. This is only of interest to us
because this means the Jesus Movement that was becoming the Christian
church had, by the time of these writings, three generations of believers and
enough time for questions and conflicts to arise.
Coming to these statements from my own faith understanding, I see the
statement “No one has ever seen God” as an acknowledgement of Mystery.
Interestingly, The Gospel begins,
In the beginning was the Word….
Word in the Greek language being Logos, the term used to express reason. So
we are dealing with the subject of the revelation of God who can only be spoken
of mythologically, but the Christian myth here being described claims to be
about the Logos: myths about Logos as it were!
Of course, my claim will be challenged because Jesus was a concrete figure of
history and the writer claims precisely that the Logos was enfleshed in the
human, Jesus of Nazareth. This is exactly the claim the writer makes after the
acknowledgement that no
one has ever seen God. He goes on:
It is God the only Son…who has made him known.
This is the explicit claim of the central Christian claim of Incarnation: The Word
became flesh! The mystery of the God no one has ever seen has now a “face”
and therein lies the clue to the mystery of God. Jesus is the epiphany
(manifestation) of God.
The First Epistle of John has as its central thrust the Incarnation as well. Its
opening words make that clear:
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page10
We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched
with our hands, concerning the word of life.
But I am fascinated by what I judge to be a further development of the idea of
incarnation. In the First Epistle, following “No one has ever seen God,” we read:
If we love one another God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
A bit later, the writer underscores that claim:
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in
them. (vs. 16)
Has not the author of the Epistle expanded on the idea of Incarnation? Now it is
not only the luminosity of the divine enfleshment in Jesus as the locus of
revelation; rather what came to expression in Jesus has expanded to the
community of love.
In sum, the Johannine Community believed God is love, a love that found
concretion in the human being, Jesus, as the revelation of the mystery of love, a
revelation that came to expression in the life of Jesus of Nazareth or, as I like to
express it – in The Way of Jesus. (Just a reminder of where we began – for the
Christian community Jesus is a window into the mystery, but not exclusively so.)
Teilhard had a grand vision – the evolution of the cosmos– in which has
emerged, after 13.7 billion years, a human being with self-consciousness and
intelligence, an evolutionary reality grounded in a Creator and being “pulled” into
the future toward the Omega Point – the total unification of personalized reality
in God. Gordon Kaufman remarks that, in agreement with Teilhard, there is no
reason to assume the evolutionary process has reached its end; the process
continues. Chet Raymo is shaken by human violence after 9/11, but on deeper
reflection sees the violent course of the cosmic evolutionary drama but
recognizes the issue before us is the problem of good. Kaufman asks where are
we going? Raymo suggests the problem of good is to create “on this tiny planet
an oasis of unalloyed peace.”
Only love can create a global community of wellbeing. Only non-violent
resistance to evil and tangible expression of love in action can save us. For us, it
is not a problem of evil, it is a problem of good. It is a problem of finding a way
to make the good predominate. It is a way with our consciousness whereby we
can become self-aware and resist that native move to violent response. And,
good grief, we have come a long way. We do care for the weak. We do
recognize the call to compassion. We do care, not only for our own, but we
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page11
recognize the intrinsic value of humanness. We have come a long way. And yet,
collectively, we still live in tribal culture.
For us it is the problem of the good. There is no reality apart from the reality in
which we are woven, and the reality into which we are woven is the
externalization of the Infinite Mystery that is God, Spirit externalizing, Spirit
incarnating, and that which is incarnate becoming conscious of Spirit so that
that which becomes incarnate and conscious says, “I don’t have to go any
longer in this native course, this natural course, this ordinary human kind of
response. I can stop. I can become aware of myself. I can recognize that what is
necessary is not to perpetuate the hell on earth, but at some point to stop it.”
Jesus knew that. Jesus actively resisted the domination system of his day.
Jesus was crucified because the old system will always rise up violently,
because the old system believes that what is at stake is survival. Jesus said,
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” They knew what they
were doing. They were surviving. They were surviving, if need be, by violence.
But, they didn’t ultimately, not in the long run, for violence begets violence…
It is a self-creating universe and it is violent and it is brutal, and there is no one
out there tweaking the system. But, that self-creating universe has come to the
likes of you and me who have had a taste of decency, who know a thing or two
about civility, who know that the intention of God that became human was an
intention that that human might learn to love, for God is love, and the one who
dwells in love dwells in God, and God dwells in that one. So that the Infinite
Mystery that is love becomes concrete and tangible in that interrelationship of
love, person to person. In that relationship of love, person to person, that native
response to violence is undercut. It is possible to come to a point, if there were
a critical mass living thus, that the world could be changed.
There was a Trappist monk in Algeria, a Prior of the monastery there. Algeria has
been one of those hot spots of Islamic fundamentalism conflicting with the
government. Sensing the dangers around him, Dom Christian de Cherge, Prior
of the Trappist monastery, had written a letter which was sealed and to be
opened only in the case of his murder. Two years later, in 1996, seven Trappist
monks were beheaded. The letter was opened on the day of Pentecost after the
prior’s death. In the letter, de Cherge indicated that if he were killed, he didn’t
want any reaction against Islam or a caricaturing of Islam. Committed as he was
to interreligious dialogue, he indicated he had remained in Algeria as a fraternal
presence. He concluded the letter by saying that some day he and his murderer
would both meet in paradise before the God they both worshiped.
So, a man anticipates a violent end and he writes a letter just in case, and when
it happens, he says, “Please don’t retaliate. Please don’t damn the enemy.
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�Tell Me a Story
Richard A. Rhem
Page12
Because he’s not my enemy. He is my brother, and he who murders me will
stand with me one day in the presence of God.” Now, you figure that one out
and you will have the formula for quite a different world.
Some years ago there was a film that moved me greatly. It was called Places of
the Heart. Perhaps you saw it. A rural Texas farmer is murdered. His widow is
left with a crop to harvest. A black man comes through town looking for work.
She hires him. She boards a blind man. Between them, they struggle and they
harvest the crop and they save the farm, only to see the Ku Klux Klan move in
and drive the black man away with their burning cross in the yard. And one’s
heart sinks and one has to say, “That’s always the way it is!” But, the film then
moves off into an ethereal future and there’s a church service in that little rural
community. And there’s the man who was murdered and the man who
murdered him. There’s the bully of the Ku Klux Klan and the black man and the
widow and the blind man. And they pass the bread and the cup down the row
with the words, “The peace of Christ be with you.”
And at first I wondered if the filmmaker was mocking the communion of the
church as though one thing goes on out there and then we come here as though
it isn’t true, but I think, rather, since the passage that was read in the service
was I Corinthians 13, he was saying, “Now – but then. Then, finally, love’s
vulnerability will triumph over all of our selfishness and our self-centeredness
and our failure to care, our violent ways that beget violence. Only love has the
power to change us. Only love can create a cosmic future. Someday love will!
References:
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The Phenomenon of Man, 1938, published 1955.
Joel Garreau. Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our
Minds, Our Bodies – and What it Means to be Human. Broadway, 2006.
Gordon D. Kaufman. In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology. Harvard
University Press, 1995.
© 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
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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.)
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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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Lakeshore Interfaith
Gathering
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Lakeshore Interfaith Center, Ganges
References
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The Phenomenon of Man, 1938, pubished 1955.
Joel Garreau. Radical Evolution, 2006.
Gordon Kaufman. In Face of Mystery, 1995.
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Tell Me a Story
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Richard A. Rhem
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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 13, 2009 entitled "Tell Me a Story", on the occasion of Lakeshore Interfaith Gathering, at Lakeshore Interfaith Center, Ganges.
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Cosmic Evolution
Emergence
Mystery
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bdbf8feb65f2ac2c464cfcf0c388e7c1.pdf
0fae8d580784c10584e0ad8b8e8d7e84
PDF Text
Text
Spirit, Spirit: A Cosmic Drama
Pentecost
Text: Genesis 1:2; John 3:6
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
May 18, 1997
Transcription of the spoken sermon
The consternation in the heart and mind of a Nicodemus brought him to Jesus,
confused as to exactly what was going on in the life and ministry of this one, this
respected teacher of Israel. And so, he came to him, saying, "Rabbi, we know that
you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you
do apart from the presence of God." Jesus responds with the claim that one must
be born again, from above. Nicodemus' confusion only deepens. He says, "How
can this be?" And I suppose that all religion arises out of those deep existential
questions, from whence have we come? Whither are we going? And what is the
meaning of it all, the purpose, the intention? What is our life? With Nicodemus, I
think, from time to time we all say, "What does this mean? How can this be?"
We keep ourselves busy for much of our lives, frantically pursuing our
penultimate goals, but there are those moments that dawn upon us, maybe when
we take a candle as a young person, maybe as a parent holding an infant at a
baptismal font, maybe some moment with the bread in our hand; or at a moment
of great fear, tragedy or loss, or deep joy and delight. Sometime or another, we
ask, "How can this be? Whence have we come? Whither are we going? What does
it mean?" Because we are human, and after a cosmic drama of 15 billion years,
the likes of us have emerged on planet earth, able to wonder about it all,
becoming when, how, who knows but, at some moment, conscious, selfconscious, aware, aware of the other, finding voice, having language, able to
express deep thoughts. And before the mystery of life, its wonders causing us
awe, its terrors causing us dread, we ask, "What does it mean? Where are we
going? And what is this human existence into which we've entered?"
That is the source and the origin of the wide diversity of religions, belief and
religious practice throughout the ages and around the world. That was no less the
case with the Hebrew poets and prophets. Interestingly, the clear statement of
God's creation in Genesis did not arise until that people had a national identity
for centuries. The creation account in Genesis arose out of the situation of exile,
when that people in their alienation and estrangement had lost their confidence
in their Yahweh God, believing as did most ancient peoples, that God was the God
of the winners, or that the winner's God was God. Then, in the midst of that
© Grand Valley State University
�Spirit, Spirit: A Cosmic Drama
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
rather despairing exilic community, there arose a voice, a poet, who stirred them
to the depths, reminding them that the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob was
none other than the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and he wrote that
marvelous poem, "In the beginning, God ..." There was an earlier account,
somewhat less sophisticated, that focused on the human person, the creation of
humankind.
In those stories we see a people orienting themselves and their lives around the
sharp focus of a God Who spoke and called all things into being. Obviously, the
conception of the natural world, the universe, the cosmology reflected in those
Genesis accounts was representative of the understanding of the age in which the
poet wrote. It was a three-storied universe, the heavens above, the waters
beneath the earth, and God was the Great Mechanic, the Great Architect, the
Great Designer, the Great Clockmaker, as it were. God was a being, a Superbeing.
God was like us, personal, only bigger, more so. God was the Supreme Being
Who, from beyond, out of the depths of eternity, decided to call into being that
which was not, and did it like a designer, like a contractor, like one who
constructs a model. There was a kind of naiveté about that account, as we look at
it 25 or more centuries on. The world is not the world that was conceived of by
the biblical writer. But, ancient people were not naive. Ancient people had all of
the questions that we have. Those creation accounts are an attempt to give
account of the reality of the universe and of the human experience. And there is a
profundity there. The Spirit of God - in the Hebrew language, spirit, breath, wind
are all translated by the same word, Ruach - brooded over the chaos. Over that
soupy chaos, the poet tells us, the breath or the wind of God brooded or hovered,
and out of the chaotic stew, through the brooding of the breath of God, came the
cosmic miracle of which the ancient writer knew only a little.
In the other account in the second chapter, you see the beautiful simplicity of this
Creator God coming down to the earth that was created and scooping up a
handful of mud, fashioning a body and breathing in life so that the man became a
living soul. Such an insight saw the human person connected absolutely with the
elements of the earth, but having something more, that spirit dimension that
created the possibility of consciousness and awareness and attentiveness. Rooted
to the earth but beckoned upward by the Spirit, the human person comes from
the hand of the Creator God.
The Psalmist sang about it, sang about it with delight and with joy. "Every living
thing, the whole vast created order, all of it emerged at the behest of the Creator's
Word Whose breath, whose Wind, whose Spirit enlivens it all. You remove your
Spirit and we die. You bestow Your Spirit, and we live." The Psalmist sang about
the God Who is life, the life of the world, the life of all that is.
The Hebrew tradition out of which we have come is a tradition that is centered in
that breath of God, Spirit of God, wind of God. Poets and prophets with vivid
imagination envisioned a whole new world endowed with Spirit, looking for the
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day when one would come, filled with the Spirit. The story goes on to the point at
which one was conceived by the Holy Spirit, according to the Gospel, Jesus by
name, in whose life and ministry there developed that movement from which we
stem, a Christian Church, celebrating the birth of that movement on the day of
Pentecost, according to Luke. For Luke would have us see that that which
happened in the wake of Jesus was nothing more than the continuation of that
activity of the breath of God, the breath and the wind of God that swept upon that
early gathering of disciples, empowering them, enlivening them, firing them to go
out and to tell the story, the Good News of what God had done in Jesus Christ.
So, on Pentecost we recognize that we are preeminently a people of wind, the
people of breath, the people of Spirit, that it is Spirit that marks us as humans,
that causes us to wonder, to raise those deep questions and to seek after God.
Nicodemus came to Jesus in his confusion and Jesus confused him even more.
"You must be born again," or "You must be born from above," or "from beyond."
That new birth, if we were to understand it today, would have to be translated
from the understanding of Jesus, because Jesus didn't know our cosmology.
Jesus saw a distinction between the flesh and the Spirit, and we certainly
understand what he meant. All of us know and of some of us it is true that we are
dead while we live. And certainly that was the reality to which Jesus was pointing,
the possibility of living a human existence without being human, being a human
automaton without spirit, without consciousness, without awareness, without
attentiveness, without that spirit dimension, that depth dimension. But we would
have to say today, in the light of what we know about this amazing cosmic drama
into which we have been caught up, that there is no such thing as flesh and spirit,
for there is only one cosmic river of energy.
Fifteen billion years ago there was an explosion, the Big Bang, as the physicists
speak of it today; 15 billion years ago, Jesus, would you believe it? They tell us it's
not like an explosion of TNT, but rather, the explosion of a musical chord,
perhaps the most famous chord in all the world, Beethoven's Fifth. You know
how it begins. It's "Boom, boom, boom, boom." That's it, you see, the Big Bang. It
is a chord that begins to reverberate outward, outward, outward, and as it goes, it
does not fill space, it creates space; it does not take time, it creates time, so time
and space are expanding in resonant circles outward, outward, outward, for 15
billion years. Here we are at this late point of development in a cosmic drama,
and we understand that we have been created with spirit that has become aware
of it all. Fifteen billion years until there emerged the likes of us, who could ask
"from whence did we come," and "whither are we going," and "what is the
meaning of it all?"
We have discovered that we are not flesh and spirit, but we are enspirited flesh,
for we know that energy and mass are interchangeable, and that our mass is but
dammed up energy, coalesced for a time and then released in another form. We
find ourselves little whirlpools of meaning in that cosmic river that has been
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flowing for 15 billion years, and if we cannot discover the meaning of it, we have
become those who can give meaning to it and create meaning for it. We create
meaning in our lives in community with one another, trusting in that process that
has been emerging, baffled by the mystery of its beginning, and being without a
clue as to the manifestation of its culmination, but in the meantime, trusting God
Who is spirit, Who enspirits, enlivens, fires the imagination and creates between
us and among us human community.
As you know, this past week Nancy and I spent a few days in New Jersey and we
were privileged to hear the English scholar, Karen Armstrong, who spoke twice
last Tuesday, in the morning on "The History of God." In 1993 she published her
rather significant work, The History of God: 4000 years of the human
understanding and conception of God. Then in the afternoon she spoke of "The
Future of God," and she addressed, I thought, very profoundly the present state
of the human family. We don't get a very good feel for that in Western Michigan,
but the institutional Church is certainly in trouble, and the manifestation of the
great religious traditions around the world that were once thought to be passé are
experiencing a resurgence. There is confusion on every hand. Karen Armstrong is
currently researching a book on Fundamentalism, which she sees as the
desperate human attempt to resuscitate the God of the Bible, the God of that
cosmology of the Genesis writer, that God "out there," that Clockmaker, Designer,
King and Ruler. That conception was reflective of the understanding of the day
but cannot carry the freight in our day. She said in all of the monotheisms, Islam,
Judaism, Christianity, even in some of the Eastern religions, there is currently a
fundamentalism which is a kind of a fanatical attempt to resuscitate an old
conception of God, bringing that which is dead and to bring "Him" crashing back
into history, the God that has long since been dead.
Well, are we then in a period of atheism? Much of the world is, notwithstanding
the resurgence of that fundamentalism manifest around the globe. In the long
haul, where we are going is into the darkness of atheism. But then she said a most
interesting thing, and I believe she's right. You don't have to worry about
atheism, not even if you're making your Confirmation today, because atheism is
not a rejection of God. It is simply a rejection of an inadequate conception of God.
Years ago, J.B. Phillips, who paraphrased the New Testament, wrote a book
whose title says it all: Your God Is Too Small. We are living in a period of time
when the conception of God that has come with us out of the past is not adequate
anymore to connect with our human experience. That conception makes no sense
of this 15-billion-year river of energy that is flowing, God knows where. But, in
the meantime, in the darkness it's as the poet Keats claimed: You don't just sit
down and write a poem. You wait in the darkness. You wait in the darkness until
the poem writes itself. And so, now, we don't know so much, and there are big
questions afoot. But if we trust, if we have faith to believe, then we will not idolize
those formulations and conceptions that have come to us. We will recognize
where they are inadequate, where they can no longer connect with our
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experience, no longer give orientation for our human life. We will wait, wait in
the darkness, trusting, not knowing what will be, but knowing what can no longer
be.
And I want to say to you young people, those who tell you so clearly all about
God, don't know, because we don't know; we trust that Mystery, and we have
seen the reality of the Mystery revealed in the face of Jesus and we have
experienced the breath of God in community. Thus we know all will be well. Let
God be God and let us with confident trust move into the future unafraid, for you
see, Pentecost keeps happening. Pentecost is simply the presence of the Spirit.
In the words of the poet,
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights of the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings
Pentecost. Breath. Spirit. God. Wonder. Wonder!
© Grand Valley State University
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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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Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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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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Pentecost
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A Cosmic Symphony
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Genesis 1:2, John 3:6
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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Spirit, Spirit: A Cosmic Drama
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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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 May 18, 1997 entitled "Spirit, Spirit: A Cosmic Drama", as part of the series "A Cosmic Symphony", on the occasion of Pentecost, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 1:2, John 3:6.
Community
Consciousness
Cosmic Evolution
Spirit of God
Trust
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/16dd2ff5245dadf2f636d112ef2e7e02.pdf
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Text
Jesus: Episode or Epiphany?
From the series: Varieties of Religious Experience
Text: John 1:1, 14, 17; II Corinthians 4:6
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
April 11, 1999
Transcription of the spoken sermon
I find that it’s really wonderful to grow old; actually, every decade has been better
than the one before. But, there is a downside, too - one doesn’t necessarily go
right off into dreamland immediately, as sometimes one wakes up two or three
times during the night, for whatever reason. When I can’t get to sleep, I do a little
late night surfing. When Jay Leno’s having a bad night and when I’m really, really
desperate to sleep, I’ll tune into a TV preacher because preaching, you know, has
been defined as one man talking in another man’s sleep. Of course, I’m always
thinking about what’s coming up to preach and I just happened a couple nights
ago to see a rather well known TV preacher and he was preaching about the
resurrection of our bodies and, toward the end of the service, as these services
tend to go, there was the presentation of the Gospel, the invitation aspect where
one is invited to become a Christian, to believe in Jesus, and so forth, and the
ritual is pretty much the same. I’ve done it myself in years past. I know it pretty
well; I know all the Bible verses that go with it. We are sinners; we cannot help
ourselves; we stand under the condemnation of God; God sent Jesus, God’s son,
into the world to bear our sin as a penalty for our sin on the cross, and God raised
him up as indication that the sacrifice had been received and now there was
forgiveness and there was heaven for all who repent of their sins and believe in
Jesus. And that was all very familiar. I’m sure it’s very familiar to almost
everyone here. At one point the TV preacher got down on his knee, and he said,
"If you will say, ‘God, I believe Jesus was Your Son, I believe Jesus died for my
sin, I give myself to him, forgive me and make me Your child,’" and then he said,
"It’s done. If you do that, it’s done. You are a new creation and you are no longer
under condemnation and you have the promise of eternal life."
I tell you that story because I’ve been thinking about Jesus - whether or not Jesus
is an episode or an epiphany, and I thought to myself that that is the traditional
Gospel paradigm of evangelical, conservative Christianity really in all of its
aspects, all of its branches. Jesus is an episode.
Now, the word episode comes from the Greek language, and it refers to the
entrance of something in-between, such as in the Greek tragedies, with two great
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choral pieces and an act, a part of the play between separating the two great
choral pieces, and so an episode is something complete in itself, but a part of a
larger picture. I thought to myself that is the traditional understanding of Jesus
Christ and what Jesus has done. Jesus is an episode in God’s grand creative
sweep of things. Jesus came in from outside because God is outside. Jesus
becomes the Divine Intruder; God sends Jesus who intervenes into our history
for a brief time in order to do something, in order to effect our salvation
primarily, supremely, in his death bearing our sins, taking our guilt, making a
sacrifice acceptable to God, making us, thereby, who believe in him, acceptable to
God. Jesus comes in, accomplishes that work, and departs. He’s in again, out
again. It’s an episode. That really is the way traditionally that the Gospel of Jesus
Christ has been presented. And like the TV preacher says, that was good news
because we are fallen, under condemnation, incapable, and therefore in need of
being saved.
Now, there’s nothing new in that. That’s just "old hat." You learned it first in
Kindergarten. But, what if the world is not fallen? What if creation is not fallen?
What if humankind is not totally depraved and totally incapable of salvaging
itself? What if there was not a moment of pristine perfection in paradise from
which everything fell to this present abysmal state? Then, how would one
understand what Jesus did? Then why would Jesus come? What if we are not
fallen from some pristine perfection but, rather, what if we are clawing our way
out of the jungle? What if we are slithering out of the slime? What if we, in our
animality and our bestiality, are trying to move by the nudging of God’s creative
Spirit toward the manifestation of Spirit? What if we are as humankind on a long
trajectory which began billions of years ago in an inanimate state, moving to
animate state, to life, to self-conscious life, to human life, to tribal existence?
And what if we do not so much need to be redeemed from a fallen state, but
continue to be beckoned to that intention of God for us? What if, in the midst of
our human darkness, we saw a face, we encountered a human being, and we saw
there something that was deep and true, and we said, "Oh, I see."
That, of course, would be an epiphany, wouldn’t it? For epiphany also comes
from the Greek language, and the epi begins it as episode, but that’s the prefix
which can be moved around a bit in terms of the context of the root word of the
intention of the statement. An epiphany is manifestation; it is that moment of
intuitive insight. It is that flash of insight. It is that "Aha" moment. It is that
which we speak of when we say, "It dawned upon me. Suddenly it dawned upon
me." We see something and we see deep down into the truth and the nature of
things.
What if Jesus was not sent from outside in to assume our human nature, but
what if Jesus, in the intention of God, became that moment in our history when
there was full-blown a human being whom to look upon would be to say, "My
God!" and whom to look upon would lead one to say, "And there, by the grace of
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God, I ought to be. I must be." What if such a manifestation were not coming into
the historical drama, but arising within the historical drama? (Even now that I
say that, I can hear Karl Barth rolling over in his grave, so intent to deny that
history could lead to the manifestation of anything divine. Nonetheless, down,
Karl, listen to me.) What if the historical, biological, evolutionary track on which
we find ourselves at that point, call it the fullness of time, if you will, but at that
point, emerged in the humanity of Jesus who, according to the intentions of God
and through the creative Spirit of God was that epiphany of what God is all about,
what God is and what God is about? Then Jesus would not be simply an episode,
sent, then, to do something, a grand transaction, leaving again, preparing for us a
kind of salvation that would spring us loose from this veil of tears, this realm of
darkness, promising to us peace with God and eventual home in heaven. But,
what if Jesus came into the midst of history according to the purpose of God in
order to show us what history was to be all about, what the intention of God was
for our history?
What if Jesus wasn’t just an episode? What if Jesus was that manifestation of
what is true everywhere at all time, what God has been about from the beginning
and what God will be about to the end? What if Jesus was the epiphany, a
realization, an incarnation of God’s eternal intention?
I think Paul and John were trying to say that, but let me be honest. Paul and John
were episodic. Jesus was an episode for Paul and for John and I don’t try to make
John and Paul into something else. Jesus came in from outside and left again,
and in the Gospel of John, the 14th chapter, Jesus says, "I came from the father
and I return to the father." John understood Jesus as an episode. Paul
understood Jesus as an episode. Paul understood Jesus as an episode coming in
to effect the salvation of the world which was going to end very soon. Now, I grant
you that. What if we read them and if we understand them better than they
understood themselves? What a presumptuous thing to say! But, what if we see
what was operative in them? What were they saying?
John starts his gospel by saying, "In the beginning was the word," in the
beginning obviously referring us to Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth." John is talking about the one true and eternal God,
Creator of all. He is connecting the word, the intention, the idea of this Creator
God with, in the 14th verse, this word, idea, intention becoming flesh, and he says
we beheld him and behold, we saw in him the glory of God. He says no one has
ever seen God, that Ultimate Mystery of things, but the son has revealed God
from an eternal realm into the realm of our history, John episodic at that point,
nonetheless understanding that Ultimate Mystery of God landed in our history
and in our history became incarnate so that we could look upon the flesh of Jesus,
look into the face of Jesus, and we could see the nature of God.
In fact, this is what Paul says explicitly in the second letter to the Corinthians, the
fourth chapter, the sixth verse, where the God who said, "Let light shine out of
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darkness." Whose God is it? Of course, it’s the Creator God Who in the beginning
created the heavens and the earth and said, "Let there be light." The same God
John is talking about Paul is talking about. They want to be very clear. We’re not
talking about some little tribal deity over here; we’re talking about God! And this
God Who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shined into our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Fantastic
claim, but again both of them suggesting that in the midst of the trajectory of
history which has behind it that biological evolutionary development which has
behind it all of those eons of cosmic development. At this point there arose in this
process one whose very flesh became the incarnation of God and it is no wonder
that, when the Church for several hundred years struggled to understand who
Jesus was, what happened in Jesus, what in the world God was doing, the Church
came finally to make a contradictory statement in the Council of Chalcedon, 451,
but that’s where we get that famous phrase with which the Church has rested for
all these centuries, "Jesus Christ, true God, true human."
What they’re saying is, I see Jesus and I say, "Oh, God!" I see Jesus and I say,
"There’s the human in the midst of this historical, biological, evolutionary
continuum upon which we are traveling; there has been a moment in which there
was a face that shined the light of the eternal God into our hearts as we beheld
him." That, I think, is Jesus as epiphany who in his incarnation was telling us
what is true about God and what is true about humanity and what is true about
human history. In Jesus we get the clue as to the grain of the universe.
When I see a preacher do as admittedly I myself have done in earlier years, boil it
all down to a Jesus coming from outside in order to die for my sins in order that I
might have heaven, I want to say to myself that’s really not terribly important.
That’s awfully self-centered and frankly, simply irrelevant to what’s happening in
my world. I don’t think Jesus would even recognize himself, for was Jesus about
getting us to heaven, or was Jesus about changing the world? Was Jesus about
some future age, or was Jesus about the here and now, the rough and tumble of
history? Was not Jesus that non-violent resister of the world as it is in order to
bring it to the intention of God, the God of justice and mercy? And I am so struck
by it because our world is again in the convulsions of war.
A couple of weeks ago I said to you if you were meeting with the President this
morning, how would you vote - do we bomb or not? And last week it seemed as
though that bombing which was the decision was simply violence eliciting greater
violence. And now here we are on a third Lord’s Day and I really can’t gather you
in worship and speak to you of eternal things without constantly having before
my mind and putting before your mind what’s going on in the world because I
think that’s what the Gospel is about; I think that’s what God is about; I think
that’s what Jesus is about, and it would seem today, in spite of all the spin doctors
and all of the critique that we have to do with the filtered news that we get in
quotation marks, it would seem that there is a horror being perpetrated in our
world. It would seem that there are some resemblances, not in numbers, but
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nonetheless in intention and in consequence to the Holocaust of the Second
World War, and it would seem that in a world where we would follow Jesus who
stands for the God of justice non-violently, that our world has not yet come to a
point where non-violent protest will stop the slaughter, and so in this world
which is still so much in darkness, so marked by brokenness, we are having to use
violence on behalf of humanity.
I say to myself it’s Easter Sunday in Orthodox country, it’s Easter Sunday in
Serbia Yugoslavia, and I think about not only the orthodox church, but the
Roman Catholic Church and all brands of Protestant church and I think for 2000
years we have made Jesus Christ into a salvation figure; we have made Christian
faith into a salvation cult; we have made the Church into an institution of
salvation, and we have done precious little to effect the things that Jesus was
about. The darkness continues, and we are satisfied to have a Savior when that
one who was the epiphany, the manifestation of the intention of God in our
history was about the concrete stuff of history. We do our liturgy and we let our
incense flow heavenward and repeat our creeds and we have, in my opinion,
missed it so drastically that Easter can be celebrated in Serbia today with not
much connection with ethnic cleansing that is going on over there.
But, wasn’t Jesus simply the exemplification of the intention of God? Didn’t Jesus
say to his disciples, "As the father has sent me, so send I you. Receive the Holy
Spirit." Did Jesus ever say, "I am unique and have a monopoly on this?" Did not
Jesus rather say, "As I have been, you are to be. Go forth, do this as I have done.
Be what I have been."
We in the evangelical Church have been so concerned about the uniqueness of
Jesus. Tell me why. Why is it so important that Jesus be the only way? Why must
Jesus be unique? Of course, if he is a salvation figure, if he’s someone from
outside who came in to do this thing, I can see, I suppose, that you need to hedge
him around and make him unique. But for God’s sake, he didn’t want to be
unique. He wanted to be one of us in order that we might be one with him. I think
what Jesus was about was for all of us, more and more to manifest that spirit,
that fullness that dwelt in him in order that we might stand in solidarity with
him, in order that we might make our world a different place.
So, here we are in Europe again, in war. I was reminded of the book, A Man
Called Intrepid, I read several years ago by William Stevenson about Sir William
Stephenson, the Englishman who ran the secret war in the Second World War.
He writes about November 5 of 1940, shortly after Franklin Delano Roosevelt had
been elected to his third term, Roosevelt gathered with his neighbors in Hyde
Park. His opponent that year was Wendell Wilke who had said that electing
Roosevelt to a third term would mean, "dictatorship and war." Roosevelt had
said, "I will not send our boys to fight a foreign war." But Roosevelt saw more
than the American people. For two years he had been working with Churchill and
the English, and then the English were able to break the Nazi code and in order to
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make that a valuable accomplishment, they couldn’t let the Nazis know that they
had broken the code, and so now Hitler, irate, was ready to begin to bomb cities,
non-military targets. November 14, 1940, Churchill learned through the breaking
of the code, the decoding of the message that it was to be Coventry, England. If
you go there you will find a grand contemporary cathedral on the ruins of the old,
bombed out cathedral. Coventry was to be bombed. Did Churchill let them know
so they could evacuate the city? That would have tipped off the Nazis that they
had the code. And so, a sleepless night he tossed and turned and while Coventry
was bombed, he knowing that they would be bombed, not able to let them know,
lest they faltered in the larger picture. You see, this world of darkness where there
is all this ambiguity, and FDR said to Sir William Stephenson shortly after that,
"We are being forced more and more to play God."
And I would say, "Exactly, exactly. We are called to play God!" God is not the God
of the quick fix, dipping in here and there, fixing that, healing that, saving this
one. Damning that one. God of infinite patience has come to full expression in
humankind in a human face; we have looked into the face of Jesus and we have
seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and Jesus said, "As I am in this
world, you are to be." God is waiting for us to play God. We are making those
hard decisions with particular judgment and not enough knowledge, fallible and
flawed that we are, we are called to be that, the Church of Jesus Christ, the people
of God in the midst of this world to break that cycle of vengeance and retaliation
and hatred. What’s going on in the Balkans is the result of centuries of tribalism,
us against them, nursing old wounds, blood feuds. We have to stop it. We have to
address it. We have to deal with it gently, kindly, now firmly. But, we cannot sit
by and allow evil to happen. It has happened with the knowledge of the Holy
Father and the President of the United States during the Holocaust. And maybe,
eventually, maybe more and more will come to a dawning of the truth if they see
it, that which came to expression in Jesus, coming to expression in more and
more who are not nearly so concerned about heaven as earth, about the next life
as this life.
In last night’s news there was a note about millions being raised in Israel for
relief because they remember, you see. They remember when it was them. And
there was the flash of 75 Israeli doctors at the Macedonian border ministering to
Kosovars who are Muslims who, during the second World War, supported Hitler.
You see, that’s what has to happen. There has to be a forgiving; there has to be
resistance to violence; there has to be a refusal to do any harm; there has to be
where possible that manifestation, that epiphany, that grace that came to
expression in Jesus, and here and there, now and again when someone in
solidarity with Jesus decides to heal and forgive and to embrace in order that the
world may be changed.
Heaven can wait.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/64dc013092819ee8444e5cb6b8d53b4c.mp3
97738b02ec3ff25b16f6666788c8d2b9
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
Eastertide II
Series
Varieties of Religious Experience
Scripture Text
John 1:1, 14, 17, II Corinthians 4:6
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-19990411
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1999-04-11
Title
A name given to the resource
Jesus: Episode or Epiphany?
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
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
Text
Sound
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 April 11, 1999 entitled "Jesus: Episode or Epiphany?", as part of the series "Varieties of Religious Experience", on the occasion of Eastertide II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 1:1, 14, 17, II Corinthians 4:6.
Cosmic Evolution
Divine Intention
Epiphany
Incarnation