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1+1+1=1 to the Higher Power
Trinity Sunday
Text: John 1:1,14,18; John 14:9; II Cor. 3:18
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Father’s Day, June 18, 2000
Transcription of the spoken sermon
As the early Jesus movement moved into the early Catholic Church stage, the
experience of Jesus moved out of the context of Israel geographically, but also
spiritually, into an alien culture as far as Israel was concerned. It moved into a
world dominated by Imperial Rome and marked by Greek culture, Greek
thinking, Greek language, Greek philosophical ideas. And so, it was the task of
those who were sent out by Jesus Christ to tell their experience, what they had
experienced in him, in quite another context, quite another religious, cultural
context, and that is always a difficult thing. To translate an experience is difficult,
even when you are talking to those in your own language and your own
environment. But, now to try to tell someone of a transforming experience in a
totally different context to those who have had no share in your background, your
spiritually traditioning - that, indeed, was a major task, and that was the task of
that early Jesus movement.
It was a movement Jewish to the core. The disciples were those who had been
nurtured on the central tenet of the creed of Israel, "Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our
God is one." And now they had experienced in a transforming way that God, in
their encounter with Jesus, a human, historical figure with whom they had
walked and talked and shared the table of fellowship. In that human, historical
figure they had encountered the God of Israel, the God of Moses, the God of
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
When they met God in Jesus, they didn't meet some other God. They didn't stop
to say, "I wonder about my Judaism. I wonder now if I have to become something
other." No, they were fully cognizant of that experience of Jesus being the
experience of God, the only God they ever knew, they ever worshiped. The task
was how to give expression to that, how to translate that into another context so
that it could be understood. In order to do that, we always have to find some
common meeting ground; we have to find something in common so that those to
whom we are bringing a message or translating an experience can relate to it
through some shared knowledge or experience. The Greek civilization, the
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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ancient world, those to whom they went were not irreligious. They were religious.
There were Oriental, mystical religions, there was all the Greek mythology, there
was certainly a religious context from which to try to find that which might help
communicate their experience. Secondly, there was the whole Greek
philosophical tradition. Philosophy was born of the Greeks centuries before.
Someone has said all of Western civilization is a series of footnotes to Greek
philosophy. So that Greek philosophy conceptually provided the intellectual,
rational tools by which they attempted to translate that God experience.
But, in the beginning, of course, it was the experience and they stammered and
stuttered and tried to give expression to that which had transformed their lives,
and we have the raw material of the eventual church dogma in the New
Testament. The church dogma says, according to the title of this message, “1 + 1 +
1=1.” (One of my dear friends said to me yesterday, “You restructured religion;
now are you starting on math?”) “1 + 1 + 1=1” because these were Jewish people
and they could not begin to conceive of God other than one, but they had
experienced God in Jesus, a human, historical figure, and once they had
experienced God in Jesus, Jesus crucified was alive with them still, a powerful
presence still with them in the Spirit. We find this in the documents of the New
Testament.
Paul was the earliest one to write. I love Second Corinthians 4:6. It has been a
text for us. "We've seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ." That's how Paul said it. In the third chapter of that letter, he was
defending his apostleship and he was saying, "Do you think I need letters of
recommendation? I don't need letters of recommendation; you are my letters of
recommendation; your transformed lives validate my gospel." And then he goes
into a paragraph with Moses and the veil of Moses' face. I'm not going to get into
all that, but he comes down to the end of the chapter and says, "But we, with
unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the Lord, are transformed by degrees into
his likeness by the Spirit." The last paragraph of the third chapter says, "The Lord
is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is..." One might ask, "Does Lord
refer to God? Or does Lord refer here to Jesus?" and one might find different
commentators coming up with different answers. Those are a very confusing few
statements because Paul is confused, because this great monotheist of the God of
Israel is talking about God in a human face, and how does one do that? He says
somehow or other by the Spirit in that face the glory of the Lord was shining, and
then he talks about that face as the Lord, and he says, "As we gaze on that face,
we become like that face, shaped like that one who was the shape of the heart of
God," and he says all of this is through the Spirit of God. And so, Paul is trying to
give expression to that experience that he had. He never encountered the
historical Jesus, we don't believe, but he did have that visionary, mystical
experience and this great champion of the God of Israel became the apostle of
Jesus Christ as the incarnation of the God of Israel.
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Richard A. Rhem
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This is what John says, as well. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word
was with God, the Word was God." I like to translate that, "In the beginning was
the intention, God's intention. In the beginning was the intention of God and in
the fullness of time, the intention became flesh and dwelled among us, and we
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God." No one has ever
seen God, but the Son has revealed God and, as John was telling the story of
Jesus decades later, Jesus has that discussion with the disciples. Jesus is going to
leave them. They know the way and all that, and finally Phillip says to him, "Just
show us the Father and we'll stop bugging you," and he says, "Oh, really, Phillip?
Have I been with you so long and you still don't get it? If you've seen me, you've
seen the Father."
Did Jesus say that? I doubt it. I don't think so. Wouldn't that be a bit off-putting,
Jesus going around ringing a bell saying, "Here comes God. Just look at me, here
comes God." That doesn't feel right to me. I think what we have in the Gospel of
John is precisely the experience of finding God in Jesus. This is faith's
affirmation. Jesus simply was that authentic human incarnation of the living
God, and those who encountered God in Jesus tried every which way to bring to
expression that which they had experienced, that which was the deep conviction
of their lives, that Jesus was the intention of God in human flesh so that in order
to communicate that, John has this beautiful discussion with the disciples in
which Jesus says, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father," which is the same
thing that Paul was saying, "We've seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ."
The New Testament is not a systematic document. Paul was not a systematic
theologian, but all of that raw "stuff" eventually got gathered up because the
Jesus movement, which was a Jewish movement, had to somehow or other come
to understand its own experience. The God of Israel now, these monotheists had
to reckon with, had been enfleshed in a human, historical figure who was
crucified and yet present and powerful with them still so that they broke bread
and remembered him and experienced him and went out to do his work in the
same powerful fashion as when he was in the flesh. How do you figure?
Well, eventually, of course, they had to give some account of that. Now, if they
had been in India and Jesus had been an Indian and they had been Hindus, they
wouldn't have had a problem. Cast the mold for another little image and put it on
the shelf, because Hinduism is polytheistic and it believes in numerous historical
manifestations of the Divine Mystery. That doesn't work for a Jew, because you
can have not only no representation of God, but there is only one true God,
Creator of all. But, to touch Jesus was to touch God! To look into Jesus' face was
to see into the heart of God! How could it be? So, Jesus is God? But, Jesus is
human. That was the problem of the nature of Christ; it consumed a couple of
centuries. And if Jesus is God, and God is God, and the Spirit of God makes Jesus
present now, now you have 1 + 1 + 1=1. How do you figure?
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Richard A. Rhem
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We could ridicule the doctrine of the Trinity because that is what this eventually
became, the dogma or the doctrine of the Trinity. We can ridicule it; we can be
confused by it; we can be frustrated by it, but we have to know that some of the
most brilliant minds, some of the most serious persons in that ancient world
wrestled with this experience which they tried to translate into Greek
conceptuality, and they knew they were up against a real problem. Augustine
wrote a treatise on the Trinity and after it was over, he said, "We say these things
not because we would say these things, but because we wouldn't be silent," trying
to give some kind of word to experience. Eventually the Church formulated this
doctrine of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, one God blest
forever. 1 + 1+1=1. You see, it's not a problem as long as you are in the heat of the
experience, the white heat of the experience of God, because the experience is
enough to say I can't make logical sense of it, but I know. Then, once the
experience gets translated into a formula and it becomes a dogma and then the
dogma is used to catechize the next generation and the next generation, now we
have a problem because there is no longer that white heat experience. Now it
becomes an intellectual conundrum; it becomes a puzzle, and now you have
creedal authority and a Church institution enforcing a creedal statement with
those who may or may not have had the experience of God. Then you have
orthodoxy which can be very, very killing if it lacks the experience.
This sermon was born one day when an old veteran of the A.A. movement said to
me, grousing about ministers and churches, which is his custom, and I suppose
finding a sympathetic ear in me, he said, "I wish I could take all the community
pastors down to an A.A. meeting and make them sit there and listen to people
who really talk about God!" And I have had enough experience with the A.A.
community in the past to feel that would be a very good move. So, I went back
and went through some of the A.A. material again. I found reference to Ernest
Kurtz who was here a few years ago. Ernest Kurtz wrote the definitive history of
the A.A. movement, entitled Not God. This is what the human being has to learn Not God. I am not God. But, God is. That is, there is a Higher Power, and the AA.
movement, in its steps, gives one the freedom to understand God in one's own
way, not worried about dotting the I's or crossing the T's, but recognizing that
God is, coming to an awareness that I am not my own, I have not created this
whole phenomenon we call the world, I have not created my own life. All is gift,
all is given, I am given and I am a part of that which is given, and there is a
mystery that is beyond and beneath and above all that is.
And in the A.A. movement, just call it the Higher Power. Call it anything you
want to call it. Visualize it any way you want to visualize it. Use any kind of an
image that will work. But it is the movement from I am not God to God is, and as
the veterans of the A.A. movement say, if one can take that step, in other words, if
one can come to an awareness that God is, that Ultimate Mystery of all things,
and if one can trust that power to be gracious in the transformation of the human
person, then one is on the way to health and healing. Then the doctrine of God
may become refined. Then someday someone along that path may discover the
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Richard A. Rhem
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face of Jesus, and in the face of Jesus, may see into the heart of God and all of its
wonder and all of its beauty, because Jesus is the face that gives form to the
Mystery. And then one may feel some tingle in one's pinkie, and that would be
because there is a connection, because it is not the ancient One, period, but the
ancient One who is present in the Spirit. After all, that's all that Trinity Sunday is
trying to say - that God is, and that God is for us, that God is focused in the face of
that gracious one full of mercy and available to us through the Spirit of God or the
Spirit of Christ or the Holy Spirit, or whatever you want to call it, because, you
see, finally God is not about giving us a theological exam, and coming to worship
is not about a rational discussion of the conceptual framework of the ontological
Trinity, thank you very much.
We come here in our deep grief and brokenness and our great joy and
celebration, when the diagnosis is cancer, when the last week has left us bereft of
our most beloved, when we launch our youth, bundle our babies, and experience
the deepest dimensions of human experience. It is then that God is that which
gives us hope, that is what sustains us and keeps us, that infinite and
inexhaustible ground of our being, that overshadowing presence, because you
see, it's 1 +1 + 1 = 1 to the Higher Power. Image it as you will, but I suggest you'll
go a long time before you'll find a more beautiful image than that etched in the
face of Jesus, and we, beholding as in a mirror that image, we with unveiled face
beholding that image, miracle of miracles, are shaped into that image. We begin
to take on the likeness. And so, you know, the historical Jesus is no more, but the
Spirit who is affecting that transformation is yet still, and though I cannot see his
face, I can see your face, and in your face, I see his face which is the picture of the
heart of God, God, who is good. That's all Trinity is all about -1 + 1 + 1 = 1 to the
Higher Power.
© Grand Valley State University
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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.
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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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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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
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Event
Trinity Sunday, Pentecost II
Scripture Text
John 1:1, 14, 18, John 14:9, II Corinthians 3:18
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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2000-06-18
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1 + 1 + 1 = 1 to the Higher Power
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 18, 2000 entitled "1 + 1 + 1 = 1 to the Higher Power", on the occasion of Trinity Sunday, Pentecost II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 1:1, 14, 18, John 14:9, II Corinthians 3:18.
Divine Intention
Father's Day
Jesus Movement
Spirit
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God in the Mirror of Christmas: A Child
Advent IV
Scripture: Hebrews 11-4; Luke 2:1-7
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
December 23, 2001
Transcription of the spoken sermon
The thing that I want to say to you this morning is really quite simple. I broached
the subject last week; it is the realization on my part of that tension within the
New Testament between the Christmas story and what it mirrors about God, and
the post-Easter biblical material that speaks of the triumph and the reign and the
coming again of Jesus with power to reign and to judge. As I indicated last week,
I have lived with that tension for years and years and I never recognized the
tension. It never struck me that to speak about the one who came in poverty and
humility and then to speak about that one who came as coming again with the
splendor of royal power was giving me two pictures of God, two mirrors.
It was reflecting God in two contrasting ways: the mirror of Christmas, that is the
mirror of the God with the human face– the God who is in the manger as a child
in all of the vulnerability and all of the beauty of that moment which we will
celebrate again tomorrow evening – and the God of the rest of the New
Testament is the same old God, the same almighty, omnipotent God who is in
control, the God who at the right moment will send the Son and the Son will
come in glory and splendor with power to reign and to judge, and there will be
the vindication of the righteous and there will be vengeance on the wicked. That
whole judgment scene of the God in control, the sovereign Lord of history, that
picture of the New Testament is strung throughout the whole New Testament,
and if you want to read it in all of its bare horror, read the book of Revelation.
That picture is in contrast to what the Christmas story mirrors about the nature
of God.
Last week we read in John's Gospel, "In the beginning was the divine intention,
and the divine intention became flesh and dwelt among us. No one has ever seen
God but the son has revealed God." Or Paul's statement "We have seen the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Or the statement
from the Epistle to the Hebrews that I read a moment ago, where how could it be
more explicit? Jesus is spoken of as the Son who is the exact image of God, the
reflection of the exact nature of God. That's the Christmas story, and what God is
mirrored as being in the Christmas story is a God of vulnerability and ultimately,
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Richard A. Rhem
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finally, a God of love. Christmas is about heaven touching earth with love.
Christmas mirrors a God who moves by love to persuade, but never coerce, for
the child that is the central focus of this Christmas season is a child with all of the
wonder of a child, dependent, vulnerable, beautiful, innocent, harmless - there is
a picture of God.
But that stands in such sharp contrast to the revelation of God in the rest of the
story, almost as if Christmas happened and the life of Jesus happened, Jesus of
the Sermon on the Mount, counseling compassion over against the good and the
evil, the righteous and the unrighteous as reflective of God's attitude and spirit.
Jesus of the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus of the parable of the Prodigal
Son, Jesus - all those stories of the God who draws near, the God who is full of
grace, the God who is accessible, the God who is approachable. Jesus of Passion
Week who goes right into Jerusalem and speaks his truth to power and is
crucified for it, not resisting. Resisting only violent response, praying finally for
his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”– that Jesus
gets jettisoned on Easter, and from there on the Christian story and the Christian
Church has become one triumphalistic procession down through the centuries,
waiting for that one who came in humility and vulnerability, to come in smashing
glory.
How could I preach for years and years and years and not feel that contradiction?
And which God do we choose? Well, of course, we choose the God who raised
Jesus from the dead. Of course we choose the God who will bring history to its
culmination point. Of course we will choose the God who has time in his hand,
who will call the shots, who will send the Son in clouds of glory to judge the quick
and the dead, finally to reign. Of course, that's the God we will choose, the God
we can worship. That’s the God we can be secure with, that's the God who can set
things right.
And what happens to the God of the child? What happens to the God mirrored at
Christmas? What happens to the God with a human face? We talked about that
last week, but I want to say this week one further insight on this whole week, and
that is that, in spite of the fact that we have moved too quickly from Christmas, in
spite of the fact that we pray, "Come, Lord Jesus," nonetheless, every year we
come back to Christmas. We can't forget it. We can't get it out of our system. We
can't get it out of our bones. Every year we come back to this moment. Every year
we begin to experience the magic and the wonder of Christmas. Every year we
come again to bow before the manger that holds the child, and every year it
happens again. We all know it. There is no question about it. The world is a softer
place this weekend. The world is a softer place at Christmastime. The tear flows,
the lump in the throat, the old carols stir something deep within us. The simple
and beautiful story told again moves us.
I've already celebrated Christmas because I have gone through a couple of
rehearsals for the early service for tomorrow night. So, I know the baby gets born
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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again, a real-live baby cries, and as I stood as one of the narrators for the story,
being beautifully portrayed by our lovely young dancers and our shepherds, and
Mary and Joseph, as I saw it again yesterday, I was cognizant myself of the fact
that it does move you again. It happens again. It's a lovely story. It's a story that
reaches the deepest part of the human being, and we come back to it every year,
and it's the same old story but it's new every year and it moves us every year, and
we celebrate every year, and we rejoice in it every year, and I want to submit to
you that we do that because it has gotten into the marrow of our bones and we
know intuitively that that story is the ultimate truth. We know that the love that
came down at Christmas reflects the grain of the universe, the truth deep down in
things.
You see, most of the rest of the year, we don't live that way. Most of the rest of the
year, we simply get caught up in all of the power games and all of the power
structures, political life, economic life, social life. We move away from Christmas
and we forget the radicality of the vision that we have seen. But, for just a little
while, we remember and it touches us because it is true. It is the final truth. And
there is that within us that knows it is the final truth. Jesus is our window to God.
Jesus isn't the only window to God. Jesus isn't everybody's window to God, but
Jesus is our window to God.
I appreciate the fact that a dozen or so of you sent me the last page of Time
magazine, the essay by Rosenblatt entitled, "God Is Not On Your Side Nor On My
Side." I like the fact that so many of you thought of me when you read it, because
it tells me that you are listening and that you identify with me with that kind of
idea. I appreciate that fact. But, Jesus is our window, and I want to tell you, Jesus
is a radical window. Jesus is a magnificent window. Jesus is a window on God
that is so profound and so magnificent, that we ought not to miss it. It is so easy
to take it for granted because it is the old, old story and we know the story so well,
and how could we ever find anything new in it, and then one sits back for a
moment, and says, "My God! Do you realize what that story is telling me about
God?" It is radical! It is revolutionary! It is so radical and revolutionary that the
world hasn't been able to deal with it yet.
Our old world is rocking with war again and I am sure the reason that this Advent
season I was not able to live with the contradiction without at least lifting it up
was the fact of current events, what is going on in our world. That often happens.
One has an old story, an old tradition, and suddenly something happens to you or
something happens in the world, and one sees something that was always there
and one didn't see it at all! Suddenly I see it everywhere now. I see what the
future, if there is to be a future, I see what it has to be. It has to be a world that is
posited on the nature of God reflected in Bethlehem, in Jesus.
That is hardly the way we have lived, even though in the West Jesus has been our
window. That’s hardly the way we have lived. It's dangerous to live that way. It
can put your national security in jeopardy, of course. But, you see, in this old
© Grand Valley State University
�God in the Mirror of Christmas: A Child
Richard A. Rhem
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world of ours, after 9-11, it has become apparent to us what has long been true,
and that is that there is no ultimate security through power or might or force of
arms.
It would be political suicide for our national leaders without talking about
securing this nation, but this nation is not secure, and given the technology of our
world today, given where we are in our world today, it will never be secure again.
It will never be secure in a world where there are those who are dispirited and
despairing and hopeless and helpless and alienated and angry and full of rage –
never be secure again. And so, what we really have to do is find out another way
to be in this world, because power isn't going to do it. It just might be that, while
we're number one, it might be the smartest, most savvy thing in the world for us
to begin to create a new one world reality. You see, right now, the way it has been,
might, force, power has ruled, and the international game is a vast chess game,
and those analysts of international affairs plot out those chess moves. We should
do this, they'll do that, and if we do this, we can checkmate at this point, because
it's a power game, it's a game about winning, or at least not losing. And it isn't
going to work anymore.
Our world is rocking with war and there is no security and down deep in our
hearts, we know, and we keep coming back to Christmas every year and we're
moved by it Our eyes moisten again, we get a lump in our throat again, our hearts
are softened again. You can feel it on the street, because down deep we know
that's true, and we try to get on with life according to the only way life can be
survivable, right?
Well, one wonders. We come back and we're touched, because that is the deepest
truth and, if that is the deepest truth, I wonder when we're going to try it Let me
tell you about a savvy move we made in that chess game. You know it, too; it's
been in the news. You know that we funded Osama bin Laden. You know that we
funded and gave arms to the Taliban, right? As long as they were fighting the
Soviet Union. And why did we do that? Simply because we didn't like the Soviet
Union? We are smart. We knew if we could get the Soviet Union to have our own
Vietnam, it would suck the life blood and resources right out of them. We'd bring
them to their knees. And, by God, we did it. There are those among our leaders
right now who were responsible for that policy, who are defending it, and I'm
sure there are some of you out there who would say that was a good move,
because the Soviet Union was brought to its knees. Didn't President Reagan call it
"the evil empire"? Ah, dear friends, as long as we're in that kind of a game, we will
be trying to save our necks, we will be trying to defend our borders, we will be
trying to perpetuate the preeminence of our position, and it's a no-win game,
ultimately.
You know the problem with the American people? We're a good people at the
pinnacle of power, and Christmas has seeped into the marrow of our bones. If we
could just use our power in any brutal and violent fashion, we could shape this
© Grand Valley State University
�God in the Mirror of Christmas: A Child
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
world up. You wouldn't have to pray. You wouldn't have to ask for God's blessing.
You wouldn't have to pray "God bless America." Just turn our resources loose
with no moral qualms, with no ethical consideration, just bomb 'em, baby. Bomb
them into submission. We have the stuff, folks. We could do it.
But, we can't do it, because we have Christmas in the marrow of our bones. We
have been touched by Jesus. We've seen God in the face of a child, and once
you've seen God in the face of a child, you just can't go on being a mean S.O.B.
anymore. That's our dilemma. A good people at the pinnacle of power who know
the ultimate truth, but haven't quite dared to live by it yet. Maybe this year.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Event
Advent IV
Series
God in the Mirror of Christmas
Scripture Text
Hebrews 1:1-4, Luke 2:1-7
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-20011223
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2001-12-23
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A Child
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Text
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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 23, 2001 entitled "A Child", as part of the series "God in the Mirror of Christmas", on the occasion of Advent IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Hebrews 1:1-4, Luke 2:1-7.
Advent
Divine Intention
Incarnation
Pluralism
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3eab6a43d32514739c6acfc1f0b7b882.mp3
4609fb47b960281d3782bac9d8f94377
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3cc9447ef09b915a2182a5cf3462fe6d.pdf
899b203b548a21fe3c53afcc1c52546f
PDF Text
Text
A Song of Serenity
A Reflection on the Psalms
Text: Psalm 8:1
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 19, 1987
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Human experience is uneven.
It may seem that for some it is always Summer, and for others it is always Winter,
but it would be more accurate to recognize that for most of us human experience
is varied; it is dynamic, in flux, and it contains both light and shadow, good times
and difficult times.
The Psalms are a beautiful reflection of human experience as it is lived
consciously before the face of God and, if we are honest in letting the Psalms
speak to us in the full spectrum of these experiences, they will have a word for us
in every season of our lives. They will bring to expression the depths of our
experience, whether that be of joy or sorrow, of pain or pleasure.
Walter Brueggemann in his study of the Psalms suggests that the whole range of
human experience, which comes to expression throughout the whole Psalter, can
be diagrammed as a movement. There are three life situations which are easily
identified in many Psalms and those life situations are true to our common
human experience. There are Psalms of orientation which express confident trust
in the good order of Creation, reflecting the seasons of wellbeing; there are
Psalms of disorientation which reflect the struggle of the person in conflict and
confusion, the dark night of the soul; there are Psalms of new orientation which
give expression to the joy and gratitude felt because of the surprise of grace which
has effected healing and brought wholeness to life again.
Most of life is lived in movement from one state or condition to the other. Human
experience is uneven; we are always in process; life is fragile and we are
vulnerable to the slight tilting of the axis of the heart, which can move us from
settled confidence to disarray, and again, from disarray to the healing of grace.
Each condition of our human expression finds an echo in the songbook of Israel.
Psalm 8 is a song of serenity, singing the confident trust of one who is
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
experiencing reality, the world and life as well ordered, well structured, reliable
and harmonious. The Psalm ends as it begins with a paean of praise to the
majestic greatness of God, Who has created and Who sustains this well ordered
world.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth!
The psalmist stands in awe of creation, of the wisdom with which all has been
ordered. How great Thy name means how gloriously Thou art manifested in the
whole created order. Here is an expression of buoyant faith, of a sense of wonder,
of a joyful acknowledgement of God Who has brought about the harmonious
symmetry of all of reality. Here we have a confident, serene settlement of the
faith questions. The Psalmist has found a place to stand, a place to set his feet.
Since God is trustworthy and reliable, there are some things that are simply
settled. One can go on to other things because there is a kind of untouchable core
of trust that moves one beyond doubt and anxiety.
Life is good because God in His goodness has created a good and hospitable space
in which one can live and move and have one's being. There is an elemental
certitude that forms a solid foundation on which to rest one's life.
Such is the conviction of the poet who penned the eighth Psalm. Let us look at the
heart of faith's conviction as it comes to expression in this song of serenity.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth!
Exclamation point; so the Psalm begins, so it ends. Worship, praise and
adoration of the greatness of God form as it were the brackets, the boundaries
within which the psalmist contemplates the identity and dignity of the human
person. At its heart, the Psalm is an affirmation of human power and authority,
which is grounded in and bestowed by the eternal God. In this Psalm, doxology at
the beginning and end form the context in which the dominion accorded to the
human person is celebrated.
There is a proper order and a careful balance in the contemplation of our place in
the total scheme of things. And what is that place?
We are placed over creation, under God.
The prepositions are critically important.
We are placed over creation. The psalmist celebrates this fact.
In the beginning we find him feeling extremely small and insignificant as on a
clear night he contemplates the stars and the moon and the vastness of the deep,
dark reaches of outer space. Within him runs the question,
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
What is the human person that Thou shouldst remember him, mortal
humanity that Thou shouldst care for them?
The eternal God Who spoke and brought the worlds into place, Who spoke again
and hung the stars in place – that God behind and beyond the vast Creation must
be so majestic, so awesome that One can hardly believe that One so mighty and
magnificent would bother about the frail and fragile human creature who lives
beneath the stars, so vulnerable to the overwhelming might and mystery of the
natural world.
That is the psalmist's initial reaction as he lies on his back, staring into starry
space. But then he contemplates further; he goes on to realize,
Yet Thou hast made him little less than a god, crowning him with glory
and honour.
The psalmist was no doubt familiar with the beautiful first chapter of Genesis, the
Song of Creation. There, too, in poetic fashion the wonder of God's creative work
is celebrated and the crown of that work, the pinnacle of God's creative genius is
the creation of the human person in God's own image. God made us like Himself
– that is the daring biblical affirmation, and therein the greatness and the dignity
of the human person are proclaimed. The Bible will have nothing to do with the
denigrating or scorning of humanity. Rather, it proclaims loudly and clearly the
greatness of the human person.
God has committed to us rule and authority.
Thou makest him master over all Thy creatures; Thou hast put
everything under his feet.
Again the Creation chapter from Genesis comes to mind. The human person is
charged with responsibility for the good Creation; to be the steward of Creation,
to care for it, preserve it and make it fruitful.
And so, as God is to the whole created cosmos, the human creature is to the good
earth. The vastness of cosmic space, which the psalmist could only guess at but
we know to be beyond our contemplation, which in the beginning seemed to
dwarf him and his sense of significance, is now brought into perspective. Now the
very wonder of Creation points to the pinnacle of Creation itself, the human
person who, godlike, contemplates the whole and takes responsibility for it.
That is what the Psalm celebrates: human dignity, power and authority bounded
by the eternal God Who willed it thus and Who grounds the whole structured
reality.
The human person – over creation, under God, finds thus his dignity, her destiny.
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Professor James Cook of Western Theological Seminary preached on this psalm
here some months ago and entitled the message, "The Poem That Puts Us In Our
Place," a fine title for the psalm. That is precisely what we have here – a poem
that puts us in our place, over creation, under God. We learn who we are and we
learn what we are called to do. Identity and destiny are terribly important issues
to get settled. To know who I am (and Whose I am) and what I am called to do is
to find my place, to get my bearings, to gain a sense of orientation.
In the psalms of orientation there are some matters of critical importance that
are settled. One can get on with life because the large questions of human
existence are settled. The God Who in grace has embraced us is the God Who
upholds the world He has created and preserves it in its course and will finally
realize His purposes of love, bringing all things to consummation.
Is it important, thus, to believe and to live? Yes, without question.
You will remember the opening scene of "Fiddler On The Roof." Tevye tells us
that life is precarious; it is a delicate balancing act, like playing a fiddle on a peak
of a sharply sloped roof. And, he asks, how do we keep our balance? He answers
his own question - Tradition.
And a great foundation stone of that Tradition would be Psalm 8 with its praise of
God's majesty which grounds reality and gives meaning and dignity to human
existence, holding out the promise of a final redemption.
The story goes on to portray the three daughters who successively test the limits
to greater and greater extent – finally to the breaking point. Yet, even the
breaking of the traditions gives a definition of human existence because there was
a settled order, a tradition against which one struggled.
Three years ago I returned from the Netherlands where I had spent much time
with my mentor, Professor Berkhof, who spoke of the near impossibility of
communicating with the youth of the Netherlands who seemed so lost, so much
adrift without any fixed and settled points on the compass of their lives. His
comment was that one could not offer answers to their disorientation because
they themselves did not even know the Question.
And then he said something that struck me and I have shared with you. "The
youth of this generation are not the prodigals; they are the children of the
prodigals who left home but never returned." The prodigal had a memory of
home. The prodigal knew somewhere there was a father, somewhere there was
something called home. But those born and raised in the faithless wasteland of
the Far Country do not even have a meaning of home.
We are told of today's youth as being without orientation in our own country, as
well. The reason often cited is the nuclear threat that hangs over our world. The
scourge of drug trafficking is attributed to the meaningless malaise that seems to
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
characterize the lives of so many. Our culture has in large measure lost its
orientation. There are no longer those certainties that can simply be trusted. Life
is without definition.
How thankful we can be if we have been given the gift of trust in the good and
gracious God Who created and Who preserves and Who will bring all things to
consummation. That is an affirmation of faith. It cannot be proved by methods of
scientific demonstration. It is gift.
To have received such a gift is to cry out with the psalmist,
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth!
To have received such a gift is to have a place to stand, to sense a solid foundation
from which one can get on with life. To have received such a gift is to have some
matters settled, some issues put to rest. To have received such a gift is to be
moved beyond anxiety, beyond fear.
Let me underscore the blessing of such a gift: it speaks of the givenness of life,
the world, the order of reality. There is no sense of peace about achieving the
world or securing the world; no sense of super importance as though one is
responsible for the survival of the world. As Bishop Quail heard God say in the
midst of a sleepless, restless night: "You can go to sleep now, Bishop; I will stay
up."
What a wonderful gift it is so to trust.
But, let me point to a serious error to avoid: That does not mean presumptive
trust, nor irresponsibility as though we can simply "leave it all to God." He has
given us dominion over the works of His hand. He has crowned us with glory and
honor and called us to the responsible stewardship of nature and responsible
engagement with the course of history.
But with trust intact, we are free from paralyzing fear, free to plunge into life
exercising our best gifts to further God's purpose in the assurance that finally all
things are in His gracious hand.
Finally, we must recognize that the Psalm is a song of serenity; it is the
expression of calm and confident trust in the great tradition that is ours. But,
tradition must never be allowed to degenerate into traditionalism. Jaroslav
Pelikan has said that tradition is the living faith of the dead; but traditionalism is
the dead faith of the living. And if the Church has in its tradition a very great gift,
it has often sinned by allowing that tradition to harden and to die. Failing to
recognize that tradition is living and growing and needs always to be translated
into contemporary idiom as it is brought into engagement with the present
horizon, the Church has too often acted as though its faith were recorded in
timeless statements that can never be interpreted anew. Then in a world like
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
ours, with the explosion of knowledge, there is no light shed from the tradition on
the new discoveries and insights of the present, and to believe becomes
adherence to an anachronistic belief system, which no longer illumines human
experience.
We have too often offended here; we have lost the best and brightest.
It is not only those who are offended intellectually. There are also those whose
lives are not precisely marked by serenity, but rather by severity, whose lives are
in disarray. There are those for whom there seems to be no symmetry, no
harmony, no well-ordered cosmos.
They, too, have a true insight. For many, there can be no easy orientation. The
writer to the Hebrews knew that. Citing Psalm 8, "What is man ...," he concludes
the citation with these words:
Thou didst put all things in subjection beneath his feet. (2:8)
But then goes on quickly to add,
But in fact we do not yet see all things in subjection to man.
And then he goes on,
But we see Jesus…
That author knew what some of you know. In this our Father's world there are
still many things out of sync. There is yet much to be put in subjection before we
exercise our royal rule in the created order of God.
But we see Jesus - he lived, died, experienced the darkness of hell from which
God raised him up, giving him a Name above every name!
Therefore, even when I cannot find the light, I cling to Jesus; I live by hope; I
appropriate already that which is promised but is not yet. And thus even in life's
confusion I begin to hear the melody of a greater harmony and I know one day all
Creation will resound with the song of serenity when all God's purposes are
realized in heaven and on earth and He is everything to everyone.
Reference:
Walter Brueggemann. The Message of the Psalms. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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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.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
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 VI
Scripture Text
Psalm 8:1
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Walter Brueggeman. The Message of the Psalms, 1984.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19870719
Date
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1987-07-19
Title
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A Song of Serenity
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 19, 1987 entitled "A Song of Serenity", on the occasion of Pentecost VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 8:1.
Divine Intention
Psalms
Stewardship
Tradition
Trust
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/107627a179fd06af9600318274593c77.pdf
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PDF Text
Text
An Invitation to Life
From the series: A Fresh Look at an Ancient Story
Scripture: Psalm 16:5-11; I Peter 1:3-9,19-29; John 5:1-9 Text: John 5:24
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Easter Sunday, April 15, 2001
Transcription of the spoken sermon
There is a lot available to you today and tonight on Easter and Jesus - television
specials and programs, one dealing with the face of Christ. Apparently there is an
archeologist that has studied Jewish skulls going back through all the diggings, a
couple of thousand of them, and then a medical artist whose specialty is putting
flesh to bone, and now there is another head of Jesus to compete with Salman's
"Head of Christ," which is so famous in our experience.
Last year the National Catholic Reporter had a contest for the image of Jesus for
the Third Millennium, and the winner was a woman by the name of Janet
MacKenzie who painted an African American woman, and, of course, that caused
a little bit of stir among the faithful. But her point, of course, was Jesus as the
liberator in that image, and what was being conveyed was that there are still
those who need to be freed, liberated. So, there is going to be this long special
about images of Christ tonight.
There is another one, 'The Face of Christ in Art," and in all of these it is
interesting that we should be concerned about it, if we are, because as I reflected
on it in terms of Easter this morning, I was struck by the fact that the important
thing is not what Jesus looked like, but that he was, indeed, human. That is the
critical matter.
I say that in the light of our understanding of the reality of which we are a part. A
cosmic process that they tell us has been going on for some 15 billion years,
perhaps, and that that cosmic process with all of the complexity and all of the
fascination of that development should issue in creatures like us, human beings,
human beings who are conscious and aware, who give the universe a voice,
creatures who are able to reflect on that whole process, and to wonder at it, that
among those human beings there should have been one Jesus, the Christ. Now,
that is amazing. If you want to speak of miracle, that is a miracle, that this
process has eventuated in the human and that, among the humans, there should
have been one Jesus. That is the wonder of it all and that is the critical matter,
© Grand Valley State University
�An Invitation to Life
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
not what he looked like, but that he was genuinely bone of our bone and flesh of
our flesh.
You might have already seen this weekend another television special that is
created by the Coral Ridge Ministries. I have made reference to it an earlier time
when I saw it, perhaps around the Christmas season, about who is this real Jesus.
This is produced by D. James Kennedy, and if you would catch that you will see
that the concern about what Jesus looked like is not evident at all. There is no
concern. But there is a concern and that is the factuality of the resurrection, that
Jesus who was crucified, as a matter of fact, walked out of the tomb. This word
“fact” comes through often. The point is, of course, in this evangelical
understanding of the Easter miracle, that it was Jesus who died as the sin-bearer
for the world, who was raised by God as an indication that that sin offering was
accepted, and, if you would watch that video, it will conclude with the Sinner's
Prayer where you will acknowledge that you are a sinner, that you believe that
Christ died for your sin, and that you ask for forgiveness and claim the promise,
then, of heaven. That, of course, is the old, traditional conception of the
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. So, you can see that tonight, too, and that
still speaks to millions and millions of people.
I was reminded of the fact that when I went to Europe in 1967 the resurrection
was the hot topic. There had been 100 years of European scholarship in which no
one hardly dared speak about the resurrection. There was still the impact of the
Enlightenment and miracle was not one of the possibilities, and so certainly no
one dared speak about the resurrection of Jesus. But, about the time I got there,
there was a whole class of students who were the students of the great Barth and
Bultmann, and they were beginning to think again and speak again about the
resurrection, and that the New Testament really could not be understood apart
from the resurrection, and their emphasis, what they had hold of, was not like the
Coral Ridge video– Jesus dying for sin and being raised again– but rather, Jesus
being raised in the midst of history as the illuminator of history, and I can
remember how powerful that was at the time. A theologian named Moltmann
spoke about the theology of hope, and there was this whole emphasis on the
resurrection of Jesus as the sign of the future consummation and all of the
promises of God would be realized, and the kingdom of God would come fully
into view. That was an important moment for me, frankly, personally, that
resurrection in the midst of history. In fact, I came back to this congregation in
1971 under false pretenses. They thought I was the same one that left in 1964 but,
anyway, the one thing that I did say to them early on was "Give me Jesus and the
resurrection, and the rest is negotiable."
As I have been thinking about Easter 2001 and this morning, I realize that my
conception of things continues to grow, my sense of God, my appreciation for
Jesus, and my sense of what the whole cosmic drama is about, so that it is not
that sin offering and it is not even the fact that in the midst of history there is a
sign of history's ultimate culmination. As I thought about it, the important thing
© Grand Valley State University
�An Invitation to Life
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
for me is that life of Jesus, as I said a moment ago, that in the course of this
cosmic process, out of this tapestry of swirling energy there should have arisen,
not only a human being, but one like Jesus. And as I thought about it, I realized
that Easter at one time for me meant the solution to the problem of death, and
the resurrection of Jesus was to be celebrated because it signed the conquering of
death. But, that isn't nearly so important for me today. What is really important
is that life, that life that was lived in the midst of our history, that life that
confronted power with truth, that spoke truth to power, that spoke against all
systems of domination and oppression, that life that revealed the heart of God
full of mercy and compassion, that spoke for justice and equity. Jesus, that
magnificent life - that is the important thing: that he died trusting God, of course,
but that he lived out a vision, the vision of what he believed was the divine
intention. That is the amazing thing to me today.
And then, as I thought about that, the question came: "Well, then, what is
Easter?" Easter is what happened when his followers had the same experience I
did. After the disappointment of his death, the fear and their fading into the
woodwork, they began to come together again, and they said, "My God! He's still
with us. He's alive. He's alive with God, and he is present with us." What they
began to see was that what he was is what God is, and they knew that what he
was, which is what God is, can never finally be defeated, can never finally be
executed, can never finally be rubbed out. For one way or another, in one form or
another, what Jesus was was a reflection of the divine intention. It was a
reflection of that love and that mystery at the heart of things, and you can crucify
it, you can execute it, you can try to put it away, you can stamp it out only so long,
and it rises again. What he was is what God is, the divine Lover, the divine
Intention, the Sacred at the center of things that will not be defeated, that will not
finally be overcome.
That is why we live with an indomitable hope. That is why we have this annual
celebration, this affirmation of faith that all the wonder and the beauty and the
truth, the integrity and the magnificence of that one life can never be overcome,
never be defeated, never finally be put out, for the light will shine in the darkness
and continue to shine, and finally, no matter how dark the abyss, life will return
and Jesus is an invitation to life. You can get all of the images in the scripture,
you can get the Coral Ridge image, you can get the Hope and History image, and
even in John's gospel there is that paragraph back to back, the word of Jesus that
gives life to the dead, some of them the living dead. And in the next paragraph,
the dead in the tomb. It is all there, all of the images are there, all of the scenarios
are there. But, for me, on this Easter, I celebrate Easter because of the life of
Jesus and what he was is what God is, and that is why I follow him. Not because
he died, but because he lived, and when I come to this table, I take bread and cup
in order that I may be in solidarity with him and, taking bread and cup, I receive
that promise that, to the end of the age, he will be with me. The lure of love at the
heart of things came to expression in one Jesus. Now, there's a life and an
invitation to true living.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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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.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Easter Sunday
Series
A Fresh Look At an Ancient Story,
Scripture Text
John 5:24
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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2001-04-15
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An Invitation to Life
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Richard A. Rhem
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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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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 15, 2001 entitled "An Invitation to Life", as part of the series "A Fresh Look At an Ancient Story, ", on the occasion of Easter Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 5:24.
Divine Intention
Love
Resurrection
Sacred
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8d14dc85e456c6a400ad46fef4e0e964.mp3
0cacdcb75f985cace882993f76aac345
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5fae365219acf9e96959d3ac9b07171a.pdf
626e817bd13d079dd8a54305f0448edd
PDF Text
Text
Creation Emerging: Tending the Garden
From the Eastertide series: Credo
Scripture: Genesis 1:1-5, 31; John 1:1-5 Text: Genesis 1:1, 31; John 1:3
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Earth Day, April 29, 2001
Transcription of the spoken sermon
In the wake of Easter, the disciples found that the crucified was with them still
and the overwhelming sense of the presence of Jesus, the spirit of Jesus,
convinced them that what he stood for, what he embodied, what he was, could
never die, could never be destroyed, and so in the wake of Easter, it is that the
Christian tradition arose. Credo, I believe. Credo, in the Greek and Latin
language, the verb and the subject being expressed in that particular form, I
believe. Not that I believe this, that and the other thing, but I believe in God. I
believe in that which was embodied in Jesus. I believe in that which I experienced
in Jesus as being ultimately true. Credo. I believe in God.
What God?
Well, the God of Israel, of course, the one eternal and true God, the God who
created heaven and earth.
What God?
Well, the God we have seen in the face of Jesus, the God with a nature and
character that came to expression in Jesus, the word made flesh.
What God?
Well, the God that we sense present with us still, present in the spirit, the spirit of
Jesus, the God who gives us the burning heart still in conversation, in
community, in the breaking of bread.
Credo. I believe, I trust. Not I believe a lot of things, but I trust in that God as the
bedrock of my life, the source and ground of all being, believe, in the original
sense of that word and its old English meaning, to belove, to cast one's heart
upon. I trust in God. The fundamental posture of my life is one of confident trust
in God.
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation Emerging: Tending the Garden
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
Thus, Christian faith was born in the wake of the crucified and risen one, and the
ongoing experience of his presence with those who became his immediate
followers. That Christian tradition which was born at Easter, was a tradition that
stood in continuity with that Jewish womb from which it emerged. That
continuity with the face of Israel meant, of course, that the God embodied in
Jesus was the God of creation.
There was an intentional purpose to connect the God of Jesus with the God of
Israel, for as the Hebrew scriptures began, "In the beginning, God created the
heavens and the earth," so in the Gospel of John, as one example, we have "In the
beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God,"
trying to say, as a matter of fact, we don't believe in some other God. We believe
in the God of our forebears, we believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
We believe in the creator of the heavens and the earth. This God we believe is
revealed, embodied in the flesh of Jesus, for the word that was in the beginning in
the fullness of time became flesh and dwelt among us, this God embodied in
Jesus, present with us still.
What God?
God the Creator.
What God?
The God revealed in the face of Jesus.
What God?
The God ... don't you experience the burning heart even as we speak?
Thus, we have the Trinitarian format of the Apostles Creed, for example. "I
believe in God the father, I believe in Jesus Christ his only son, I believe in the
Holy Spirit." The Trinitarian form of the Apostles Creed is simply the setting
forth of the experience that they had of God, of God revealed in Jesus, of God
experienced in the Holy Spirit. Gradually, little by little, things came into focus.
Three hundred and twenty-five years after Jesus, the Council of Nicea met, and
the Nicene Creed is still used in the Church. Credo. I believe. The Apostles Creed
coming together in its form as we know it some centuries later, but still, these are
very early beginnings. Credo. I believe in God. Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
This morning is Earth Day and what a glorious Earth Day it is, and on this Earth
Day as we continue our series, "Credo," I believe, I want to think about creation,
for the God whom we confess, the God whom we have experienced in Jesus, the
God who is present with us in the Spirit, is the God, we say, who created the
heavens and the earth. In that Genesis account we have Israel's testimony of faith
that creation, the cosmos, the physical reality of which we are a part, the tapestry
into which we are woven, is not just an accident. It is not just a chance unraveling
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation Emerging: Tending the Garden
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
of whatever, but is the result of an intention that God created the heavens and the
earth, and that creation at the end of the account, and the verse that I failed to
read, verse 31, says, "God looked at all that was made and behold, it was very
good." An affirmation of creation. An affirmation of the natural world.
That is not an insignificant fact, for there are great spiritual traditions that do not
understand the natural world, the physical world in that positive sense. There are
great spiritual traditions with great spiritual insights that see, rather, matter as
evil. They see a dualism of life in darkness and the darkness and the evil being
carried in matter, and salvation for such a tradition is not the resurrection of the
body, but it is, rather, the deliverance from the prison house of the body. It is a
spiritual kind of existence, to be set free from the body, to be set free from matter.
So, when the Genesis creation account says that God said it was very good, it is
not insignificant, and the implications of that are great. I'm not going to draw
them out this morning. That is not my intention. But, I want to say that the faith
of Israel that saw creation as the creation of God in a very positive light has
impacted us in a very positive sense in terms of our understanding of the body
and nature.
Of course, as you go on in that first chapter of Genesis, we have, as well, this word
to the human pair, the human person that was created, "Be fruitful, multiply, and
subdue the earth." That word was also a word intended very positively. It is a
word of human dignity, calling the human being into co-creatorship with God, to
become an agent in the unfolding of creation. But, that biblical word that comes
at the end of the creation story has been a word that has been criticized rather
severely in recent years in terms of the environmental crisis and the ecological
crisis that we are experiencing in our world today.
I can remember when I first read a critique of Genesis 1 as one of the sources of
the environmental crisis. This goes back a good number of years, and I still
remember it was in a book review, and the book took the Jewish scriptures and
Christian scriptures to task for that mandate at the end of chapter one that said
“subdue the earth,” and it said that that created a domination model that gave
license to the human creature to exploit the earth. I can remember when I read
that and I remember my resistance to it. I was resistant to it because it went
contrary to everything I had ever been taught or my whole understanding of that
first chapter of Genesis.
I had understood that first chapter of Genesis was lifting up the human being, as
I said, as some agent of creation and as a matter of fact, saying here it is. Develop
it. Not exploit it, to be sure, but develop it. Utilize it, use its resources, become a
co-creator with God. And when I first read that as a criticism, I was not at all
ready to receive it. I was not really fully cognizant of the crisis into which our
physical universe and our planet had come. I wasn't really terribly concerned
about it because, after all, I was a minister of the Gospel and I was concerned
about the souls of my people and I didn't have a lot of time to worry about the
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation Emerging: Tending the Garden
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
earth. That was the day of my rather conservative past when I would have
thought to celebrate Earth Day on a Sunday would have been sacrilege, in which I
would have gone out and gotten those young people out cleaning up the
environment and brought them into church! Good grief! You don't let them get
away from hearing a good sermon by cleaning up papers and bottles out in the
environment! Liberals would do that. Let the godless do that. We worship
because we're concerned about spiritual things.
I can remember this old article from Newsweek, which says, "In the major
religions of the West, the world of nature from planets to plankton has little
theological significance. As peoples of the Book, Jews, Christians, Muslims, look
primarily to sacred text for God's revelation. The enveloping universe may offer
evidence of divine wisdom and power, but it plays no part in the essential drama
of mankind's sin and salvation. What matters is human redemption, not divine
creation."
Amen and amen. That is what I was about. I was about getting people saved. I
was about getting people spiritually right with God. I had very little concern, very
little understanding of any kind of spiritual obligation to be worried about the
good earth. Of course, God created it. Of course, God said it was good, so let's use
it. And then let's get on with this matter of sin and salvation.
I am confessing to you that that is where I was. I honestly can remember when I
first saw that critique, I wasn't ready to receive it. But I recognize now that the
critique is legitimate. It is not that you cannot interpret the first chapter of
Genesis in a positive sense, and the word that probably puts the best face on it is
the word stewardship, and there has been a good deal made in recent years to
put a positive spin on the biblical revelation to say that we are called to be
stewards of the earth, shepherds of the earth, to care for the earth. I do believe
that is a legitimate interpretation of "be fruitful, multiply and subdue the earth."
But, the fact remains that "subdue the earth" created a domination model which
did give license for the development of the created order by the human creature
which very easily slides into the exploitation of the good earth by the ingenious
and clever human creature.
So here we are today celebrating an Earth Day in our worship, acknowledging
that our environment is in crisis and our planet is in crisis, and that it becomes a
spiritual concern, a concern to find a better model than the biblical model.
Perhaps instead of a domination model in the words of "subdue the earth," would
it not be better for us to think in terms of a sacramental model? Sacraments in
the Church are the use of physical, material means for the conveying of spiritual
meaning of the sacred. In the first service, we conclude with the breaking of bread
and pouring of the cup, and the fruit of the vine and the grain of the field into a
loaf become the mediators, the vehicle by which we receive the grace of God. In
the waters of baptism, that natural element becomes a vehicle of grace. We use
the physical. The physical, we know, can be the agent of conveying the spiritual,
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation Emerging: Tending the Garden
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
and I would suggest that a conception of the universe in sacramental terms would
remind us that permeating the structure of reality is the Creator Spirit, and that
the creation itself, when we have eyes to see it, can become the vehicle of the holy
and the sacred. Rather than an exploitation or a domination model, a
sacramental model will enable us to behold the wonders of our world and to say,
"Oh, my God!" That, I think, would be a great step forward from where we have
been traditionally and I must confess that it is for me a relatively new and fresh
understanding. Yet, as I have come to see that there is something much bigger
and broader than sin and salvation, as I have come to see the whole of creation
with eyes of wonder as the mediator of the sacred, that world has become far
more precious to me. I know it can happen.
Because of the constant harassment of one of my children, I began again this
week to walk, and I feel rather good about that. People say to me, "Don't you feel
good when you're done?" and I say, "No, I don't. I feel tired." But, you know, one
does what one ought to do, and so I was walking yesterday on one of my favorite
treks south of where we live and there is this ancient, gnarled tree. Its trunk is
huge, and it has these huge branches low down so that a child can catch them and
climb up through that trunk system, and it soars in the sky. Yesterday, as I was
coming back, the sun caught the buds about to burst into leaf, and I looked at that
gnarled, old trunk that has seen so many seasons and I said to myself, "You old
devil, you're going to do it again, aren't you?" The next time through there will be
a leafy canopy that will give shade from the sun's rays and that tree will be
regaled again in all of its wonder and all of its glory.
Coming in this morning, I checked as I always do, Little Pigeon Creek, and Mrs.
Beautiful White Swan is faithfully on her nest, as Mr. Swan glides about as most
irresponsible males do. As I look at that, I see wonder. It is beautiful. It is
exhilarating. Then I think of the tragedy it would be to lose the awesomeness of
the earth. What we have to do is recognize that we have come to a point of
development with our great capabilities as human creatures, with our scientific
knowledge and our technological breakthroughs, where we can move beyond
sustainable development, which seems to me is some kind of an ideal. We have
come to a point where we can develop such that the resources of nature are
outstripped without the time or the ability for nature to regenerate itself. We have
come to such a degree of insight and knowledge and control that we can actually
alter significant natural cycles.
Ancient, primitive peoples lived in the rhythm of nature. In the First Axial Period,
one of the most significant periods in the history of humankind, 800 to 200
before Christ, all the great religions of the world that we know today were formed.
It was a time of the self-consciousness of the human being, the moving out of that
tribal identity and that moving away from the cycles of nature, the cycles of the
earth, the fertility cycles, and all of the development that we know, particularly in
the West, is the consequence of that movement, back a few centuries before Jesus
Christ. In the rise of that consciousness that allowed us to step out of nature and
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation Emerging: Tending the Garden
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
to become an agent over against nature, the one thing that we did lose, for all that
we have gained, is that sense of connectedness in the web of being, in the chain of
being, and, if there is one thing that is incumbent upon us to recapture, it is that
sense of being woven into this awesome creation. You see, the biblical writer had
no sense of 15 billion years of evolutionary bio-historical development. But, here
we are, and we can see it, we can test it, we know about it. Tragically, in issues
like this, there become frenzied prophets who with great panic make claims that
cannot be verified, and then on the other side there are vested interests that want
to hear nothing about it, whether there be hell to pay or not. And so, we get this
impasse of opposing views. It is so necessary for us to get beyond that rhetoric to
decent, civil, human conversation in order that we may preserve this good earth
and realize the divine intention.
I was thinking last evening about what it might take for the whole human family
to become aware and aroused to tend the garden of the earth. I was remembering
as a lad the Second World War. We were just ordinary people. I remember our
old '41 Oldsmobile had on the right- hand corner a card that was an "A" card.
That meant three gallons of gas a week. That meant we could go to the evening
service, the morning service, midweek service, and get groceries on Saturday, and
that was it. The rest of the time that car sat there. We didn't have any gas. We
didn't have a lot of meat, either, because it took red tokens and I still don't like
oleomargarine because it is what I had to use instead of butter. I remember as a
lad the Second World War and those rather severe limitations.
And yet, you know, there was no question about it, no sacrifice was too great.
There was no grumbling about it. We were concerned only for those who were
serving their country in the war zones. We were concerned only for the
preservation of our freedom. We were concerned only for the dignity and the
honor of this nation, for democracy, liberty, freedom, and all of those values that
had made us a great people. No sacrifice was too great.
I was thinking that as a lad I grew up near the bank of the Kalamazoo River. My
father was a superintendent of Hercules Powder Company which used to be
Papermakers Chemical. There were a lot of chemicals, folks. I used to go over
there as a little brat and bother the maintenance person who used to have to take
carloads of what they called "satin white." We took them way out into the back
property and dumped them on the banks of the Kalamazoo River. As a child
growing up next to the river, the river held no fascination for me. It was a
stinking mud hole. I wonder now why it took so long to come to awareness of the
wonder of a tree, of the majesty of a river, of the marvel of God's creation. I
wonder. What will it take?
Now, for sure, I want whoever does anything to do it such that it won't impinge
on my pension funds. That's probably the issue, isn't it? But, what will it take
before we have eyes again to see this good earth, God's gift? Let us tend the
garden.
© 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
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<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
Earth Day, Eastertide II
Series
Credo
Scripture Text
Genesis 1:1, 31, John 1:3
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-20010429
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2001-04-29
Title
A name given to the resource
Creation Emerging: Tending the Garden
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 29, 2001 entitled "Creation Emerging: Tending the Garden", as part of the series "Credo", on the occasion of Earth Day, Eastertide II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 1:1, 31, John 1:3.
Divine Intention
Earth Day
Trinitarian Nature of Religion
-
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PDF Text
Text
Creation’s Goal: Sabbath Rest
From the summer sermon series: Faith’s Foundation
Text: Genesis 2:2-3; Isaiah 65:23, 25; Revelation 21:3; 22:2-4
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 24, 1988
Transcription of the spoken sermon
On the sixth day God completed all the work He had been doing, and on the
seventh day He ceased from all His work. God blessed the seventh day and
made it holy...Genesis 2:2-3
They shall not toil in vain or raise children for misfortune... they shall not hurt
or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord. Isaiah 65:23,25
Now at last God has His dwelling among humankind! Revelation 21:3
... the leaves of the trees serve for the healing of the nations. Every accursed
thing shall disappear. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be there and His
servants shall worship Him; they shall see Him face to face. Revelation 22:2-4
In the beginning, God. And in the end, God. And in the meantime, every seven
days, the Sabbath in which to rest and to contemplate the God of our end and of
our beginning.
In the midst of its history, Israel told its story over and over again and finally
wrote its story down - the center being the story of God's mighty act of
deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, the freeing of God's people, and the
bringing of them to their own land. As they reached back to trace their own
history, they appended to the story of their history a prologue, the story of the
Patriarchs. And then, in order to connect themselves to the whole cosmos and the
whole human race, they appended a series of stories in which they gave
expression to their understanding of the universal human condition and the
creative purpose of the Eternal God, of the relationship of God and human
society, of their understanding of the life and the existence in which they were
participating. Genesis 1, "In the beginning, God," expressed the bedrock of their
conviction that all that is, is because God said, "Let there be ...," that there is
something rather than nothing because God said, "Let there be...," and that the
totality of reality is a consequence of a creative intention and design of the One
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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true and eternal God. They went on to speak of the human situation - the story of
Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden in chapters 2 and 3. Not a story of two
ancient individuals, but your story and my story, the human story, the story of the
God Who calls us to vocation, grants us freedom, sets certain limits and
boundaries and waits for our response. Genesis 2 and 3 tell us that the tragedy
and the tears and the toil of the human situation are the consequence of the
human creature usurping sovereignty, taking one's life and destiny into one's own
hands, trying to manage and control that which only God can manage and
control. Consequently, the disaster and the tragedy that is a very real part of the
human situation.
We looked last week at the Garden of Eden and the story of Adam and Eve, and
we saw the setting and the test and the failure and the consequence, but even in
that dark story there were hints of grace. Even there there were indications that
God was not through, and that the disobedience of the creature would not finally
disrupt the intention of the Creator. In the day that they ate thereof, they did not
die. Driven from the Garden, to be sure, yet amidst toil and tears, carrying on a
meaningful existence, raising a family, God graciously clothing them, covering
the shame of their nakedness, giving us hints of grace and the sense that God was
not through with this creature, and that the creature's disobedience would not
finally disrupt the Creator's intention. Indeed, the sense we get is that the Creator
will bring creation to the consummation of His original intention.
That was the faith of Israel. That was the conviction of the Old Testament people
of God. The Creator will bring creation to the realization of the Creator's purposes
of love and grace.
So, Israel appended these stories to its own history, these stories which had
universal application and were the common store of all humanity. Israel
appended those stories in order to give expression to its own understanding of
who it was and what it was called to be and why the human situation was like it
was.
When it seemed to be all lost at the end of the third chapter, we have the hints of
grace, and we ask ourselves, "What now? Where will it lead? What's going to
happen? What's next? Who will win - the 'No' of the creature, or the 'Yes' of
God?" And we set ourselves up for this breathless drama that will unfold before
us.
Well, it's not only an ancient question, you know. Is there any hope? Has history
any meaning? Is the world going anywhere? What's it all about? What now? What
next? In a year of election politics we're going to have many easy answers to the
world's dilemma. If you'll pardon just a bit of pastoral cynicism in the wake of a
political convention, let me ask the question whether there’s anyone here this
morning that really thinks that either Michael Dukakis or George Bush can really
change the intransigence of the Pentagon. Is there anybody here this morning
that really believes that Gorbachev and perestroika and glastnost will change the
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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face of the Soviet Union? Is there anyone here this morning that believes that the
hopelessness of the homeless and the hunger of the hungry and the thirst of the
thirsty, the despair of the despairing and the lostness of the forsaken will simply
be taken care of by the wave of the wand of a new administration? Is there any
hope? Where is it going? Where will it end? Might not one, seriously reflecting on
the human condition, on the national scene, on the international prospect, come
to a sense of futility and hopelessness? And if that's true in the most powerful
nation in the most affluent society, in the summertime in western Michigan with
sand and surf and blue sky, then what must it have been to the people in exile in
the sixth century, the people of Judah living under the oppression of Babylon
ready to throw in the towel, ready to say that the gods of Babylon have it? Where
is our Lord and God? Is there any hope?
It was to that situation that some person of God stood up and said, "In the
beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and God spoke and it was so,
and God looked and said it's good, and the evening and the morning were the
first day. And when God was done, God rested from all His work of creation and
took delight in it. He blessed the seventh day and made it holy." And to those
exiles in Judah, forlorn and despairing in hopelessness, mantled with a sense of
futility, they heard the creed of creation put together by some very, very astute
weaver of words and ideas which made a powerful statement in their darkness
and said, "Our God in the beginning spoke and called all things into being. Our
God is the source of light and our God is the source of life. Now, lift up your
hearts and wait on the Lord, Who after all of the work of creation, rested, ceased
from His work, caught His breath, contemplated the work of creation and said it
is good."
By putting that seventh day, a day in which God created nothing but tranquility
and serenity and peace at the conclusion of the creed of creation, the writer was
saying that in the end God will have His way. Genesis 1 was written probably 500
years after Genesis 2 and 3. Five centuries later some prophet of God took it and
put it in front of Genesis 2 and 3 in order that Genesis 2 and 3 and everything
that followed would be read in the light of Genesis 1, "In the beginning, God," so
that there would never be any question in the minds of the people of God that the
God that they worshiped was the God of Creation, that the God of their salvation
was God alone, the One Who held the whole world in His hand and held their
destiny in His hand and in His heart.
There was a vision of the Creator Who would bring creation to consummation.
That's what Sabbath meant, and that's why every seventh day Israel was called
again and again to remember God, to cease from their labor, to desist from their
acquisition and their feverish activity, to let go and contemplate God and to
worship and to rest and to take delight in God's world. There was a vision by
which that people lived through all their days, and in their darkest moments a
dream kept them alive. It was the dream of the Creator Who was the redeemer,
Who would be the consummator. And what was the dream? Well, around the
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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same time that Genesis 1 was written there was a prophet speaking to the exiles
in Judah who said, "In the name of God, behold I create a new heaven and a new
earth, and the former things will not be remembered. And there will no longer be
a child born living for a few days, dying in infancy. And they'll not toil in vain.
They'll build houses and live in them. They'll plant vineyards and eat the fruit
thereof. It's going to be a beautiful new world, a new heaven and a new earth.
Why, he said, it will be such that all toil and all tears and all tragedy will be
removed and they'll not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. Shalom. Peace."
Right in the midst of their darkness, one prophet said, "In the beginning, God,"
and another prophet said, "I create a new heaven and a new earth." It didn't
come, and it didn't come, and it didn't come. But, one day Jesus came, and Jesus
announced the sovereignty of God, the kingdom of God. And Jesus called to
repentance all of those who were living by relative values, called them to God and
the kingdom of God. Of course, Jesus was crucified, but God raised him up,
raised him up on the first day of the week, and the Early Church moved its
worship from the seventh day to the first day, but with exactly the same intention,
because they called it the Lord's day, the Lord's day. In the Old Testament the day
of the Lord was the day of the End, and what the Church was saying was that the
Lord's day is the anticipation of the day of the Lord, of the End, of the Judgment,
of the Consummation.
What did they believe would be true at the End? Well, we read the magnificent
vision, that vision given by Jesus to John when he was in exile for his witness to
Jesus when the Roman Empire was mighty in the world, as mighty in its world as
the U.S. of A. in ours, or the Soviet Union in our day. And when the persecuting
fires of Rome were burning and raging, there was one who had the audacity while
he himself was in exile, to bear witness to a vision he had, a dream. What was the
dream? The dream was of the heavens opened and the throne of God and of the
Lamb, and he heard them singing, "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, Thou
art worthy to receive power and glory and dominion, for Thou hast created all
things, and Thou hast power to reign." And the vision went on, scene after scene,
and he saw that time when the angel would proclaim the kingdoms of this world
have become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. He saw all of the events
of the consummation coming to their climax and he heard a voice out of heaven
saying, "I create a new heaven and a new earth," and he heard a voice from the
throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with human persons. And he will
dwell with them and they shall be His people and He will be their God. And He'll
wipe away every tear from their eyes, and pain shall be no more, nor crying and
death shall be no more, for all the former things shall pass away. Behold, I make
all things new." And then he saw the City and he saw a river sparkling like crystal
coming down the midst of the city, and on its banks was a tree with leaves and the
leaves were for the healing of the nations. And the throne was there, the throne of
the Lord and of the Lamb and His people worshiped. He wrote His name on their
foreheads, and they didn't need the sun or the lamp, for the Lord Himself is their
light, and they shall reign forever and ever.
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation’s Goal: Sabbath Rest
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
A dream. A vision spoken into the darkness, spoken into circumstances that
seemed to deny it, into a human situation that seemed to betray it over and over
again, but a dream and a vision, nonetheless. Every seventh day, people of God
cease from their labors, let go, rest as God rested, receiving the world and life as a
gift, all of grace, being free for each other, free for God. One seventh of a human
person's existence given over to the contemplation of God, Creator, Redeemer,
Consummator. One-seventh of our lives carved out in order amidst all of the
pressures that press upon us and all of the forces that beat us down and all of the
darkness that would enshroud us, one-seventh of our lives to stop, to be still, and
to know that He is God, the God of the beginning and the God of the End, the
God Who will make good on all His promises, the God Whose yes is stronger than
any human no. The God before Whom every knee will bow and every tongue
confess, the God Who will finally win and not be defeated. When we join with
myriads and myriads and thousands of angels and the four living creatures and
the twenty-four elders and the whole created order and sing, "Hallelujah, the
Lord Omnipotent reigns."
There's a parable at the beginning; there's a parable at the end. There's a garden
at the beginning; there's a city at the end. And both of them point us to the
deepest, most profound truth that we can ever come to contemplate: the God of
our beginning will be the God of our end. That's why every seventh day there is
nothing more wonderful than resting in the presence of God. The day of all the
week the best, emblem of eternal rest. Alleluia, blessed be His holy name. Amen.
© Grand Valley State University
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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.
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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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
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Sound
Text
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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
Pentecost IX
Series
Faith's Foundation
Scripture Text
Genesis 2:2-3, Isaiah 65:23, 25, Revelation 21:3, 22:2-4
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19880724
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1988-07-24
Title
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Creations' Goal: Sabbath Rest
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
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 24, 1988 entitled "Creations' Goal: Sabbath Rest", as part of the series "Faith's Foundation", on the occasion of Pentecost IX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 2:2-3, Isaiah 65:23, 25, Revelation 21:3, 22:2-4.
Creator
Divine Intention
Grace
Hebrew Scriptures
History of Israel
Nature of God
Sabbath
Shalom
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4fd1af0029a540177eab5147df4fdfdc.mp3
0ef7fb8819cb54b7acf7df98094910f3
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1ce834ef0a96085368bd7d4f3c563bfb.pdf
c63925665e3f00b70f05ff28ce113808
PDF Text
Text
Don’t Do It For God’s Sake
A Response to 9-11
Jeremiah 29:4-13; Ephesians 3:14-21
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
September 16, 2001
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
W. H. Auden
I am aware that this week, while I was away, good things were happening in
this community. I always tell Peter Theune that when I am not here, it's up to
him, and he with the team, has had created for this community and the broader
community a significant week. Part of the celebration were the four candles
behind me that were symbols of those sites of devastation, and this morning we
lighted, as well, the paschal candle as a sign of our remembrance of those who
moved from life through death into eternal life. I want to express my
appreciation to the team for the fine way that all of you in significant numbers
have been here.
The lines of W. H. Auden's poem that so powerfully catch the mood and spirit of
our day were written September 1, 1939. Auden attended the theater and I believe
the Yorktown section of New York City that was heavily populated with German
people. He attended the theater and, in the midst of the showing, as was the
custom at that time, there was a newsreel that showed the Nazi invasion of
Poland, and when that news came on, the theater erupted in shouts of triumph
and applause. W. H. Auden left the theater thoroughly shaken at what he had
just experienced, that eruption of emotion and elation at the forthcoming
devastation that was wreaked by Hitler and his troops on the European
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Richard A. Rhem
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continent. It so shook him concerning human nature, that he began a spiritual
pilgrimage that led him eventually to Christian faith.
Indeed. We, too, are in a time when suddenly we become aware of that potential
for evil that is part and parcel of our human condition.
The sermon subject this morning is titled, "Don't Do It For God's Sake." It
was intended to be a word spoken particularly to parents and to this community
about being serious about the nurture and the traditioning of our children, for
this is opening Sunday and I am well aware of the fact that parents today face
tremendous tensions and pressures. There is such a competition for the time and
the energy of our children and our youth. So many good things to do, so many
difficult choices to make, and the sermon was going to be,"Don't do it for God's
sake," for God doesn't need our children to be nurtured, but do it for our sake. Do
it for the sake of our children and our youth, and for the sake of their future.
I was going to put in a good word, not in the typical fashion of church where it is
for God's honor and God's glory and God's demand and God's requirement -I was
simply going to say to you, "Don't do it for God's sake. Do it for your sake. And for
the sake of your children." And then, of course, everything changed and I was in
touch with the office throughout the week and we made obviously some liturgical
alterations, but I thought that title can stand, with a bit of a different twist. I
would still speak to you this morning for just a few moments under the title,
"Don't Do It For God's Sake."
Don't do what for God's sake? Don't build human community for God's sake. Do
it for our sake and for the sake of the future of humanity. Don't be serious about
religious faith and vision that moves toward love and peace for God's sake, but for
our own sake, for the sake of the world, for the sake of the possibility of a human
and humane future.
Were you shocked at the darkness that erupted this week? Really, on reflection,
you ought not to have been. For if we are traditioned in the biblical story which
arises out of Israel's faith and finds expression in the faith through Jesus Christ
our Lord, then you would know that what has happened is that which is always
possible and always potentially on the horizon of the human situation. Whether
you take the story in Genesis 3 of the Fall, or whether, as I have suggested, we
write some new story that is more consistent with our knowledge of the human
situation, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter the story we tell.
It is the fact, the message, the reality to which the biblical story points, and our
human experience has confirmed. The great church father and theologian, St.
Augustine, created the doctrine of Original Sin, and Original Sin was simply an
attempt to express that which is commonly true, that all of us are tainted with
that inward corruption that makes us always potentially on the threshold of some
fresh expression of the darkness. This is not a problem of a particular ethnic
group or racial group or religious tradition. This is the human condition. We are
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Richard A. Rhem
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born in sin, says the Psalmist, the human heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked, says the prophet. And in those early stories of Genesis,
God repents that he's ever created this human creature, given the darkness that
emerges from his behavior. No, we need not be shocked at what we have
experienced, nor can we separate ourselves from it, for it is the universal human
condition.
You may say, "Ah, but this was something special. This was something different,"
and I would say, "Dear friends, just look at our own history." I have not time this
morning to document it all for you, but let me simply remind you of Crusades in
which Christian forces put the Muslim to the sword until the blood ran thick in
the streets of Jerusalem. I have only to mention the word Inquisition to remind
you of that demand to deny one's native faith in order to confess Jesus or to be
burned at the stake. I have only to remind you that in the experience of some of
us who are older here, in our own lifetime, this world has seen the annihilation of
six million Jews perpetrated by a darkness that emerged amidst a people most
cultured, most educated and most Christianized in Western civilization. It is not
a matter of Islam. It is not a matter of Christianity or Judaism. It is a human
manifestation of darkness that is ever hovering in the wings the moment there
are those who become so obsessed with hate, anger, that they are willing to
perpetrate the holocaust of devastation.
We might ask the question, "What drives people to that kind of hatred?" I think
we have to distinguish here between the leadership of those who follow and are
recruited into this cruel business, leaders with calculating brilliance and full
resource, implementing this attack with devastating efficiency. Those who realize
a potential within all of us to become evil incarnate, and then they, in their wake,
gathering others who have nothing to lose, who need a cause, who need some call
to nobility with some promise of eternal reward, and wherever there is a world
where there are masses of such people, there is a potential for demonic
leadership to manipulate them and to move them to the kind of darkness that
we have experienced in this week past.
It ought not to shock us, but it ought to cause us to raise the question - What is
there in our world that would create the context for that kind of hatred, anger,
and violence? I could play for you the tape of the sermon of July 1 of this past
summer, "Beyond Nation, Ethnicity and Creed," in which I suggested at that time
that it was not really wise for us to be seeking to build a missile defense system
against some nuclear bomb of a rogue nation, but that we might better sit down
with those rogue nations and ask them, "What are your fears? What are your
hopes and your dreams? How can we, the world's one super power,
with seemingly limitless resource and giftedness, what can we do in order to
bring you into a global community in which we can dwell together in peace and
harmony?
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Richard A. Rhem
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It is incumbent upon us at a time like this to search our own souls and not miss
the symbolic value of the targets that were struck. The World Trade Center and
the Pentagon, the symbols of our wealth and of our military might by which in
self-serving interest, we perpetuate a world in which we can continue to enjoy the
ascendency. Those are the questions that we need to ask ourselves.
And how are we to respond?
With great care. We are not different than any other people. We stand in
solidarity with the world's darkness; we carry within us in our own hearts the
seeds of potential violence, but we have been nurtured in a tradition that has
taught us that the only hope of the world is the breaking of the cycle of violence.
Hate begets hate. Violence begets violence. And if we haven't learned the lesson
by now, then certainly it is time for us to think again. We have heard calls for
retaliation and revenge. We all, being human, feel the anger. We experience the
emotion of needing to respond. Not so long ago, I saw the film, Pearl Harbor,
and reliving that day of infamy, I remembered as I saw the Japanese pilots
climbing into their Zero planes on the aircraft carrier, I remembered as a child at
school how with our doodling we would make pictures, war pictures, tanks and
planes, how the P-38s and our Mustangs would shoot down those Japanese
Zeroes, and as I saw in the film and relived again the emotion I felt as a child, I
hated the Japs! The enemy was demonized. And even now, we can so easily fall
into that trap, the consequence of which would simply escalate the cycle of
violence one more time. And in this world, with the technology and the
weaponry that is available in this world, if we don't break the cycle of violence, we
will destroy ourselves.
The rhetoric has to cease. Tell me how a Christian television evangelist named
Jerry Falwell, speaking on the TV evangelist program of Pat Robertson, can point
the finger at liberal civil rights groups and abortionists and gay and lesbian
people and say that all such are partially responsible for this devastation? Don't
they know that it was the anti-Semitic, hateful, anti-Jewish rhetoric of a Martin
Luther, no less, that flowered into the Holocaust? Don't we realize, at least in the
Christian Church that, unless we are touched by the gospel and the grace of God
so that we do not react naturally, we will become the instruments and the agents
of that movement that will cut out the possibility of a human and humane
future? Don't we know, don't we really know that it is finally, only in the
acknowledgment of our own involvement in the human situation and the
responsible response to that situation by which the world can be changed?
A friend called me last evening, and I said to him, "If you were preaching
tomorrow, what would you preach?" He said, "I'd preach on anger." And then he
said to me, "I am just amazed at how little the gospel has really sunk into us."
And he spoke of a friend with whom he enjoys a conversation, cultured, educated,
Christian, intelligent, who said, "We should round all the Islamic people up and
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Richard A. Rhem
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ship them out," reminding me of what we did during the wake of Pearl Harbor
when we incarcerated Japanese Americans, doing a terrible injustice.
Dear friends, we do not have the luxury of responding according to our own
animal nature. The cycle of violence must stop here. Not that we do not take
responsible action to root out that which threatens not only this nation, but the
whole of civilization. But, it is the function of good religion to enable us to
transcend those native responses and that is why we need a community like this.
That really is what our struggle has been all about. That is why we need to do it,
not for God's sake, but for our own sake. We cannot bring shalom to the earth, we
cannot bring in the kingdom of God universal, but this we can do - we can
love one another. We can act with compassion. We can seek justice. We can love
mercy, and we can walk humbly with God, arm in arm together. That is why we
need each other. That is why we need a faith community that will lift us, enable
us, who are part and parcel of the human scene, who in solidarity with all of those
across the globe would enable us to transcend our anger, and to be spared the
violence that will simply keep the trauma moving toward the darkness and final
doom.
One of the great things about the biblical tradition is the prophetic voice that
called upon the people of Israel to be self-critical. The prophets called Israel to
awareness of sin and corruption in their society. They were relentless in their
critique of the self-satisfied religious and political institutions. Jeremiah's famous
temple sermon in the seventh chapter condemned the presumption of a hollow
religious practice that failed to do justice and love mercy. At the Temple, he cried
out,
Do not trust in these deceptive words, "This is the Temple of the Lord, the
Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord."
Jeremiah excoriated the people of Judah for their lack of compassion and mercy
and justice, and the judgment that he promised came sure as his word, and
Babylon moved in and Jerusalem was devastated and the exiles were moved off
into Babylon and there there were voices of unrest. There were other voices there
counseling the exiles not to settle down, for surely they would soon be delivered.
But, Jeremiah wrote a letter saying, do not listen to these voices. You will be there
for a long time. Settle in. Build houses, plant gardens, and pray for Babylon's
welfare. And then, beautifully, this prophet whose stern warning had
been unheeded but whose word had become reality gave this wonderful word of
hope and comfort:
I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans of good and not for
evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah's God was the Lord of history who moved the nations in direct,
determining fashion. I no longer can conceive of God as the one who controls the
movement of history in such direct fashion, but I do believe that the grain of the
© Grand Valley State University
�Don’t Do It For God’s Sake
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
universe moved by the Creator Spirit beckons to life and a hopeful future realized
in loving community.
It is to that beckoning Spirit that I point you, to respond to the lure of love
believing God's intention is to give us a future and a hope.
Television coverage this past week has been full of stories of heroism, of
kindness and gentleness, of the compassion of so many who have given of
themselves and some giving their lives in their effort to save others. Such dark
times reveal not only the worst, but the best of the human spirit. And in those
stories we see the hope and possibility of a future of human well-being.
We cannot effect the kingdom of God nor the condition of universal shalom
by ourselves. But, we can ensure that its small beginning is tasted here concretely ,in this loving community as we embrace one another, care one for
another, and together create here a free and gracious place for all who would
abide in love and peace.
We do it not for God's sake, but for our own sake, and the sake of a human and
humane future - surely the Divine intention.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Event
After 9-11, Pentecost XV
Scripture Text
Jeremiah 29:4-13, Ephesians 3:14-21
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-20010916
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2001-09-16
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Don't Do It For God's Sake
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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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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 September 16, 2001 entitled "Don't Do It For God's Sake", on the occasion of After 9-11, Pentecost XV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Jeremiah 29:4-13, Ephesians 3:14-21.
Divine Intention
Human community
Non-violence
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ebf8372ced3741e2f5179ad43a9607e2.pdf
7b83dbc41ee9e14e7c25455219585b08
PDF Text
Text
Dream On!
From the sermon series: The Dream
Text: Acts 10:34-35
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Easter Sunday, April 16, 1995
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Throughout these long weeks, if you've walked this way with me, you've heard me
say repeatedly that dreamers die. And that's a sad and tragic fact. Dreamers die.
But, we've also discovered as we've looked at the dreamers that the dream, the
vision, doesn't die. The dream doesn't die because the dream is rooted in the
heart of God, and Jesus gave expression to that dream. Being confident that he
was expressing the deepest intention of God, Jesus dreamed of another kind of
world. Jesus dreamed of another kind of society. Jesus dreamed of a world that
was a community, that was laced with compassion, a community that had no
barriers, so that there was no inside and outside. There was no inclusion and
exclusion. There were no lines drawn, but rather, a circle that embraced all God's
children. This was Jesus' dream. And Jesus brought that dream to expression in a
way that brought him to death, but in a way that has also enabled us to continue
to dream on.
If I were to ask you what was the central symbol of Jesus' ministry, what would
you say? Well, I suppose because we're a part of the Christian community, you
would say, obviously, the Cross is the central symbol of the Christian faith. And
that's true. But it's also not true that the Cross is the central symbol of the life and
ministry of Jesus in the days of his flesh. You know what it was? It was the Table.
Table fellowship. You've heard me say many times in these past weeks, Jesus'
ministry was marked by table fellowship. The meal was central in the ministry of
Jesus. That sounds so innocent. It sounds almost innocuous. That doesn't really
sound like something substantial enough to be the central symbol of the whole
life and ministry of Jesus. Let me see if I can establish that from the scripture
itself.
Jesus had a vision of a different kind of world, a world in which there was no
division, in which there were erected no barriers, and so in his life and his
culture, for him to have a meal and to invite all comers was a radical statement. It
was a statement of social protest. It was a political action. It was a religious act. It
challenged the structure of the society of his day that was reinforced by the
temple cult and was guaranteed by the occupying Roman power. That society was
© Grand Valley State University
�Dream On!
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
structured; there were custodians of the tradition; there were guardians of the
law. They were the responsible and the respectable people of the society of which
he was a part. They were all invested in that system that was able to demarcate
very carefully who was in and who was out, who was pure and who was impure,
who was given access, who was excluded. And for Jesus to have a meal with just
anyone was, therefore, an action of protest.
You might say, "Well, still, a table? A meal? Is this whole thing about with whom
one eats?" And I want to say, "Yes." Because social protest and prophetic actions
are that which become catalysts for transformation. You see, it was no big deal
when Rosa Parks sat down in the front seat of a bus in Alabama. No big deal: just
one black woman. Why didn't they simply disregard it? Why didn't they just let
her have her nickel's ride and be done with it? But, you see, they couldn't. That is,
those who were invested in maintaining the status quo of a society that was
oppressive, of a society that was not founded in truth, of a society that denied the
dream in the heart of God. For Rosa Parks to sit there had to be dealt with, or the
whole system would become exposed. And isn't that precisely what happened?
Was not that the action that became the catalyst for the whole Civil Rights
Movement? Was it not then Martin Luther King who paid with his life, who led
that people to call for their own rights and dignity in the human story? Just a
black woman who sat in the front of the bus. Social action of protest, when the
time is right and the Spirit of God moves, can change the world.
Ask Robert McNamara. I really don't want to do a commercial for his book but
Robert McNamara in a vibrant old age reflects, in retrospect, on the 60's. Do you
remember the 60's? Well, some of you are young enough to have been a part of
the 60's. And some of us are old enough to have been very angry with you! Wasn't
it during the 60's that the world started to unravel? Wasn't it during the 60's,
with flower children and hippies and young people marching on campuses,
marching at the White House, and the Vietnam protest – wasn't that the time
that our society began to unravel, to deteriorate, to degenerate? Aren't all of our
problems now because there were some of you in the 60's who sat in and
protested and maybe burned things? I think so. That's the problem, you see. In
McNamara's book you'll see an elder statesman who looks back on the 60's, who
in his interview with tears in his eyes, says, "I was wrong. We were wrong. Those
of us that stood in the center of power, we were wrong. We were full of arrogance
and pride so that we would not hear logical argument. We would not hear ethical
appeal." And so now, in his vibrant old age, a very comfortable Robert McNamara
says, "I was wrong. And we were wrong."
I want to say, folks, they were wrong. And the kids are often right. Those of us
who are settled and steeped and stuffy and stultifying - it is we who maintain
repressive structures. It is we who defend with self-righteousness that which is,
maintaining the status quo in a world that knows no justice and has no
compassion and is not at all a community. We support and reinforce and
perpetuate a world that continues to kill the dreamers.
© Grand Valley State University
�Dream On!
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Robert McNamara justifies his not criticizing Lyndon Johnson when he left in
'67, though he himself was coming to understand that the war was wrong,
because of protocol. This is what the good and the proper and those in power do they don't say anything. Unless you're a Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and then you raise
your voice, then you act, then you see your government going in the wrong
direction. You see the powers that be leading the world toward destruction and
death, then you take your stand. You do your political thing; you act and you give
your life.
Jesus did what appears to be almost an innocuous, non-threatening, simple act setting a table and sitting with all sorts of people. And it is that action that is the
very center of his ministry, which is the expression of a dream that could change
the world. If you don't believe me, this afternoon take the Gospel of Luke and find
that, more than any other activity, Jesus is at meal. He is at meal with sinners. He
goes with those who invite him. He's going through a tax office one time and
there is Levi, and he says to Levi, a tax collector who was on the outside, "Follow
me." And the guy follows him, and Levi is so thrilled about it that he throws a
party, and whom do you think he invited to his party? Others just like himself.
And the leaders, the guardians, those who were invested in establishing and
maintaining the status quo, grumbled at him. They said, "Look with whom he
eats." If you go again to the 15th chapter of Luke, you will find that he was eating
and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, and they grumbled at him, and he
told a story - The Prodigal Son - which is really the story of the waiting father who
waits simply weeping, watching, hoping, eagerly anticipating the return of all his
children. That beautiful story comes because Jesus was eating with those with
whom one ought not to eat. And in response to the grumbling, he told the story.
Or, if you would go to the 14th chapter, you would find that he was willing, as
well, to sit at table with the Pharisees, those who were devout and serious and
deeply concerned and, when he sat there at table with them, he saw that they
were vying for the top seats, for the best seat in the house. And he said, "Don't do
that. In fact, when you have a feast, don't invite your friends and your relatives,
don't invite the rich; invite the poor and the lame and the halt and the blind.
Invite the people that'll never have a chance in the world to pay you back."
And someone said, "Oh, my, wouldn't it be wonderful to break bread in the
Kingdom of Heaven?" Jesus said, "You know what? The Kingdom of Heaven is
resisted by those who have obviously received the invitation." And so, he tells the
story of the lord of the house who sends his servants out into the highways and
into the byways, out in the bush, out in the street, and he said, "Find the riff-raff
of society and tell them to come in, compel them to come in because I want my
house filled!"
You think that the table wasn't central to Jesus? Do you think that was not the
central prophetic act by which he embodied the dream, which was a dream
rooted in the heart of God? That was it, you see? And throughout that Gospel,
© Grand Valley State University
�Dream On!
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
he's always eating, drinking with somebody. He gathered with his disciples on the
night on which he was betrayed, when the shadow of the cross hung heavily over
him, and he took bread and he blessed it and he broke it and he said to them,
"This is my body, and when you eat bread, remember me, and don't let the dream
die." Is it any wonder, then, that on Easter eve the risen Lord, joining two
disciples on the way to Emmaus, invited to come into their house as a guest,
proved to be the host at the table, who took the bread and blessed it and broke it
and shared it with them and was gone?
Then they looked at each other! They said, "Did not our hearts burn within us?
Oh, my God!" They said to each other, "He was made known to us in the breaking
of the bread." It was in the breaking of the bread. Because that, Luke says, was
the link, the hinge. The dream goes on, Jesus was saying. Luke was saying in
telling the story - all those meals back there - they're not over! The meals
continue to be the symbolic moment at which the world becomes community.
And Jesus on the evening of the Resurrection once again came to table, broke
bread, blessed it, gave it to them, and he was known to them. His presence, his
power, his transforming, dreaming power was known to them in the moment of
the breaking of the bread.
The Gospel of Luke was written by Luke and so was the Book of Acts, and if you
move on to the Book of Acts, you find that the Jesus movement was characterized
by community, a community of the Holy Spirit, a community in which there was
no human need; every need was ministered to. We are told that they went from
house to house, breaking bread, singing hymns with great joy! That was what it
was all about! It was about table fellowship! A meal that was the symbol of
community laced with compassion.
And if you want one more instance, there's old Peter. Peter would have thought
that he understood. But, as a matter of fact, Peter didn't have a clue as to the
dramatic dimensions of the dream. So, one noontime on a rooftop, he fell asleep
and had a vision of a sheet or something like a magic carpet coming down and
there were all sorts of animals. In the temple system that was a social system and
a political system, as well, they knew which animals they could eat and which
animals they weren't to eat. And the voice said, "Rise and eat." And Peter said,
"Not me. I am a Jew. I stick to the tradition. I am observant. I have been obedient
to the fathers of the faith. I have followed every prescription. No, I will not rise
and eat." And a voice said, "Rise and eat." And Peter said, "I cannot." And the
voice said, "Don't call unclean what I've made clean." And just then there was a
knock on the door and there was a delegation from Cornelius, the Roman
centurion, a military man from the occupying power, a Gentile, one from the
nations. There were two kinds of people in Peter's world - Jews and those who
were not Jews. The Chosen, the elect, the community, and the rest. Now here's
one from the rest!
© Grand Valley State University
�Dream On!
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
And behold, this guy is a dreamer, too, because when Peter finally cannot resist
and goes to Cornelius' house, Cornelius tells him of a dream. He saw a bright and
shining angel and the angel said, "Your prayers are heard. Your alms are
received." Here's one from the outside whose prayer God hears, whose offerings
God receives, and is blessed now with the presence of none other than Peter, and
Peter says, "I shouldn't be here. This is against the catechism, against the Bible;
this is against everything I've ever been taught; this is against the tradition. I am
breaking the tradition. In breaking the tradition and going over this threshold,
the whole tradition is shattered!" But he did it. And he told them the story of
Jesus. He told of Jesus' mighty deeds and all that he did, and how he was
crucified and raised and made manifest. And the Holy Spirit fell with power and
they were drunk with God together! Peter, the Jew, follower of Jesus and Gentiles
- they were all drunk with God together.
Ah, do you believe me? The Table. This central motif for our life, this central
image for the ministry of Jesus. To follow the way of Jesus is to take up the cross
by embodying a ministry of inclusivity.
Do you remember where we started in Lent? The first week, also around the
Table? You remember, the meditation was "Retrieving the Memory: A Dangerous
Dream." Do you remember that I pointed to the Table and I said, "Dear friends,
there are Tables in Christian churches to which I'm not welcome." Do you
remember? The Table, which Jesus used as a central symbol of community, has
become in the Christian Church, a symbol of division. When the World Council of
Churches tried to celebrate Holy Communion for the first time in Sweden, in the
50's, they could not have just one Table. The World Council of Churches had to
set up three Tables. Some went to one room and some went to another room, and
some went to yet another room!
I want to ask you, where are you activists of the 60's? Why do you tolerate it?
Why do we allow the Church and its ecclesiastical leaders, its arrogance, its
dogmatism, its blindness, why do we allow it to go on? This Table, this Table that
Jesus set in the middle of the world, inviting all, this Table has become once
again the instrument of the old temple cult! This Table says to some, "You may
come." And to others, "You're not welcome!" It is a scandal! A scandal of the
Christian Church! And if there's a scandal in the Church, there's a scandal in the
world of religions. Japan is on the alert because the fundamentalist Buddhist cult
may attack again. And there are Israelis grieving because Muslin fundamentalists
have once again struck with their terrorism, killing, killing. And tomorrow we
may read of the retaliation of the Jewish fundamentalists, and we will read, as
well, of the violent actions of American fundamentalist Christians.
The scandal of the world of religion that has made this world dangerous, filled
with violence, doing precisely that which denies the dream of Jesus, which he
believed was rooted in the heart of God, that there be no inside and outside, no
exclusion and inclusion. There is a scandal of those who, in the name of God,
© Grand Valley State University
�Dream On!
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
while saying their prayers to God, continue to play God, saying who is in and who
is out! It is a disgrace!
But, it's Easter. And when we have admitted that scandal in the Church and in the
world of religion, then let me go on to say that today is a bonus. You see, it was in
the breaking of the bread that they recognized him and knew his presence. It was
Luke's way of saying that now, post-Easter, the living Lord will be made known in
the breaking of the bread. It was Luke's way of saying that this feast is not really a
feast that focuses on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. There is no day in all
the Christian year when it is so important to celebrate this feast, which is really a
feast, not of crucifixion, but of resurrection. This is a feast that says, Dream on!
I know that there are those of you who are celebrating your first Easter since
having loved and lost a while someone so dear. And right now you can't even
think about the scandal in the Church or the scandal in the world of religion.
Your heart breaks because of the loss you've sustained. But let me be very clear the Lord lives. We, too, shall live. And those who have moved through death have
passed into light eternal. And for them all is well. All is well.
But for us, the presence, the recognition, the manifestation of the living Lord
does not come as we passively try to get through unscathed, hoping for heaven by
and by. This is the insight of Bonhoeffer - for us who are still on the way, though
we take up this cross, it is at this Table that we follow Jesus. And it is in the
following of Jesus, living out the dream, embodying the dream that paradoxically
we find communion with God. This is what Bonhoeffer learned - it is in joining
God in His sufferings in the world that one finds oneself in the arms of God,
communion with God. Recognition of the living Christ who is crucified and raised
again - this comes to those who follow the dream, who follow the way, who walk
in the steps, who risk, who commit, who dream and will not quit dreaming until
the dream is realized in the eternal purposes of God.
Dream on, believing that Easter assures us that all will be well and all will be well,
and all manner of things will be well. Thanks be to God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/84a4ead8b5a208c4209468bcf1a368bc.mp3
c851d9247f23668272b4b4de99dd098a
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
Easter
Series
The Dream
Scripture Text
Acts 10:34-35
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-19950416
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1995-04-16
Title
A name given to the resource
Dream On!
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 16, 1995 entitled "Dream On!", as part of the series "The Dream", on the occasion of Easter, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 10:34-35.
Community of Grace
Divine Intention
Easter
Inclusive
Table Fellowship
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/da5fcc1cf7affa7689a8acc7c98ff66c.mp3
4508c2163ce6c177f52acbbf713803da
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7beb25a746e130ab88dc98445e3663d6.pdf
6d37b6b917f4beef3c452ea1035f784d
PDF Text
Text
Finding Our Destiny in God’s Gracious Purpose
From the sermon series: The Mystery of God’s Sovereign Grace
Text: Esther 4:14
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
August 23, 1987
Transcription of the spoken sermon
…if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise…from
another quarter, but…who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom
for such a time as this? Esther 4:14
To have a sense that one's life is caught up in a larger purpose, a drama of cosmic
proportion and eternal significance must be one of life's greatest gifts. To have a
sense that one's life makes a difference, has a meaning and purpose, is to be
energized, to be fulfilled, to find happiness. To have a sense that one's life plays a
role in the gracious purpose of God must be the ultimate satisfaction. It is a
source of peace and wellbeing; it conveys a sense of worth and value, enabling
one to live with self-esteem and confidence.
God's purpose is not accessible to human reason. It may even sound
presumptuous to speak of finding our destiny in God's gracious purpose. Yet, the
Scriptures are replete with stories of those who had a sense that God had a
mission for them to execute through which He would effect His purposes. God
does reveal Himself; He does move in and through the structures of history and
the circumstances of our lives as He moves the created order toward the
realization of His purposes.
To believe that is an act of trust. It is trust in God, in God's sovereign, gracious
purpose. It is trust in the midst of conflicting evidence and ambiguity. It is trust
in the face of mystery. But it is trust which confirms itself in the assurance
worked in the hearts of God's children by God's Spirit.
Biblical faith affirms that God is active in history, that history will be brought
finally to the goal God has established and that God will realize that goal through
the free and responsible agency of those who make themselves available to be the
instruments of His purpose. That is saying a great deal; it is a statement of faith trust in the providence of God.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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That providence is not self-evident; it is not easy to trace; it can never be verified
with anything like scientific proof. Providence operates in a provisional and guilty
world, a world full of capricious events which we call chance and full of
determinism, which we call fate. The purpose of God will be effected through the
agency of free and responsible persons who can say "no" as well as "yes" to God's
purpose; He will not crush nor coerce. Still, our faith affirms, He will accomplish
His purpose -a purpose of salvation - working all things together for our good.
That is our confidence. In all of life's circumstances, in light and shadow, in
success and failure, in heights and depths, we are securely in the hand of God
and, whether the way is plain or full of confusion, we trust God's sovereign grace
to accomplish His goal; even more, as we open our lives to God we have a sense of
destiny, of being a partner in the great drama of redemption.
There has been so much argument and debate, so much confusion and conflict
over the question of the will and purpose of God and finding God's will for one's
life that it may seem futile to try once more to discern that purpose and discover
one's destiny. Yet we do so not to engage in speculation, not to play theological
games. Our purpose is rather to gain that sense of being in the will of God, of
finding our destiny in His gracious purpose.
A story is better than philosophical discourse and the Bible is full of narratives
from which we gain insight into the trust that has characterized the People of
God. Such a story is the Old Testament book of Esther. It was probably the most
contested book to enter the Old Testament canon. It has always had its
detractors, even among Jewish scholars. Martin Luther disliked it intensely. It
has been much debated but finally it is part of the Jewish canon, part of our Old
Testament and it witnesses to the theme of our present series, affirming in a
powerful way faith in God's sovereign gracious purpose at work in the arena of
human history.
The story probably has an historical core, although it is probably also an
adaptation of a Persian story about the origin of a festival – perhaps a Festival of
the New Year. It tells of the origin of the Feast of Purim on the Jewish calendar.
Just as the early Christians adapted pagan feasts, which lie behind our Christmas
and Easter festivals, but filled them with Christian meaning, so the Jews in the
story of Esther gave a "historical" setting for the origin of the Feast of Purim.
The story itself is full of drama and intrigue. Carey A. Moore gives a concise
resumé of the story in The Anchor Bible Commentary on Esther. He writes,
Before going further, we should summarize the story which has raised so
much controversy.
One day, during one of his lavish drinking parties, King Xerxes was feeling
high and ordered Queen Vashti to appear before his guests, so that he
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might show off her much rumored beauty. When she refused, the king
deposed her immediately (ch. i). Later he launched a large-scale search
throughout the kingdom to find someone suitable to replace her. Among
the many attractive candidates taken to his bed - but only after a year of
extensive beauty preparations - was the Jewess Esther, the niece and
adopted daughter of Mordecai the Jew. A beautiful and shapely girl,
Esther was quite popular among all who knew her at the palace, and not
surprisingly, the king chose her as his queen.
Some time after this Mordecai learned about a court intrigue against the
king; he told Esther, who in turn warned the king in Mordecai's name but
without revealing that she herself was a Jewess. As it turned out,
Moedecai's good deed was officially recorded although he was not
rewarded at the time (ch. ii). Later on, Mordecai refused to bow down to
the king's prime minister, Hainan, because he was an Amalekite and thus
the mortal enemy of all Jews. In revenge for this disrespect, Haman
persuaded the king to approve a pogrom against the people who were the
principal obstacle to the.success of all his plans for the empire. These
"enemies" were, of course, the Jews. Nevertheless, Haman succeeded in
getting the pogrom accepted without identifying them by name. Thus an
edict was sent throughout the empire, declaring that on the thirteenth day
of the month of Adar, all Jews, including women and children, were to be
wiped out and their possessions plundered. Dictated by Haman but
written in the king's name and sealed with the king's signet, the edict was
irrevocable (ch. iii).
As soon as Mordecai heard about the edict, he ordered Esther to intercede
for her people. Reluctant to approach the king unsummoned, for fear of
being summarily executed, Esther was finally persuaded by Mordecai to
take the risk. To improve her chances of success, she insisted that all the
Jews in Susa, herself included, observe a strenuous three-day fast, after
which she would appear, unsummoned, before the king in her most
fetching attire (ch. iv).
When Esther approached the throne three days later, the king received her
most cordially, assuring her that her request would be granted no matter
what it was. But instead of interceding for her people then and there,
Esther invited the king and Haman, her greatest enemy, to dinner. At that
time the king repeated his sweeping promise to grant her almost any
request, but she asked only that the king and Haman come again for
dinner the next day; then, she assured him, she would ask her favor.
Haman, of course, went away jubilant, flattered that only he had been
invited to the queen's dinner with the king. The taste of victory and joy
turned to ashes in his mouth, however, when he noticed Mordecai sitting
at the gate, acting as if nothing had happened to him or his people, and
still refusing to bow down! Haman controlled himself until he got home,
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Richard A. Rhem
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where. after boasting to his wife Zeresh and friends of all his
accomplishments and honors, he admitted to being robbed of any joy and
self-respect by Mordecai's continuing contempt for him. When someone
suggested he ask the king's permission to hang Mordecai, the idea struck
him as perfect; and he ordered a seventy-five-foot gallows constructed
outside his home (ch. v).
That night, when the king could not sleep, he had his journal read aloud.
In this way he was reminded of how Mordecai had saved his life by
uncovering the assassination plot against him. Embarrassed to realize that
Mordecai had never been rewarded, the king determined to remedy the
matter right away and, on learning that his prime minister was waiting in
the outer court, asked that he come in. Without indicating the particular
person he had in mind, the king asked Haman what should be done for
someone he especially wanted to honor. Unable to recognize anyone's
merits but his own, Haman assumed that the king wanted to honor him;
he therefore advised that a royal robe and horse be given to that man, and
that a high-ranking official of the court go before him throughout the city,
crying, "This is what is done for the man whom the king especially wants
to honor!" One can imagine Haman's surprise and dismay on learning that
Mordecai was the man to be so honored and that he, Haman, would be the
high-ranking official to wait on Mordecai and walk before him. Returning
to his home mortified and seeking solace, Haman was cautioned by his
wife and friends that if Mordecai really was Jewish, then Haman would
never get the better of him (ch. vi).
If Haman left home for the queen's party hoping to forget his humiliating
experience and have his ego bolstered, he was rudely disappointed. During
the party the king reaffirmed, for the third time in two days, that he would
grant Esther virtually any request. Realizing that it was now or never,
Esther asked that she and her people be saved from destruction, arguing
that she would not have bothered the king if they were only to be made
slaves. When the king demanded that she identify her enemy, she pointed
to Haman as the one who had abused his position of power and the king's
friendship. So surprised and incensed was the king that he bolted from the
room. Haman, left behind, begged Esther to intercede with the king on his
behalf. As Haman begged Esther for his life, and possibly even touched her
as she lay upon her dinner couch, the king returned. For this serious
violation of decency and harem etiquette Haman was sentenced to death
on the spot. When Harbonah, one of the eunuchs attending the king,
informed him that Haman had constructed a gallows for Mordecai, the
king ordered Haman to be hanged on it himself (ch. vii).
As compensation for Esther's suffering, the king awarded her Haman's
estate, which she, in turn, gave to Mordecai; the king also appointed
Mordecai Haman's successor. Unable to revoke Haman's letter instituting
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Richard A. Rhem
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the pogrom against the Jews on the thirteenth of Adar, the king did the
next best thing: he granted Mordecai full authority to compose a letter, in
the king's name and sealed with the king's signet, granting Jews the right
to defend themselves that day and, more importantly, encouraging all
public officials to aid them. Mordecai hoped that this letter, copies of
which were sent throughout the empire, might counteract the potential
evil of Haman's letter; but although the letter may have had its intended
effect on many, it did not deter all (ch. viii).
When the thirteenth of Adar arrived, the enemies of the Jews were still so
numerous that the Jews that day killed five hundred men in Susa and
seventy-five thousand elsewhere. But although granted specific permission
to plunder, the Jews did not do so. Throughout the empire they celebrated
their victory on the fourteenth of Adar with feasting and the exchanging of
gifts, but their enemies were still sufficiently strong in Susa for Esther to
request permission to fight there the next day as well, and to expose the
corpses of Haman's ten sons killed the day before. Permission was
granted, and so the Jews in Susa fought also on the fourteenth, killing
three hundred people but not taking any plunder. Thus they celebrated
their victory on the fifteenth of Adar, instead of on the fourteenth with the
rest of the Jews throughout the empire (ix 1-19).
Mordecai kept a record of these things, and later wrote to all the Jews,
commanding them to continue to observe Purim on the fourteenth and
fifteenth of Adar (the holiday being named after the pur, or "lots," which
Haman had cast to determine the propitious day for the pogrom) as the
days of salvation and deliverance, and to observe them with feasting and
gladness. Later on, to re-enforce Mordecai’s command, Esther used her
authority as queen and as the people's heroine to write a letter to the Jews
throughout the empire, encouraging them to observe forever both days of
Purim (ix, 20-32). With Mordecai as his prime minister, the king's
fortunes and programs prospered; Mordecai himself grew in power and
influence among the Persians and in the affections of the Jews (ch. x).
Esther, like Ecclesiastes that provided our text for the first message in this series,
is an Old Testament Wisdom book; it is probably neither pure fiction nor pure
fact. It may be characterized as an historical novel. It has more in it of
nationalistic passion than religious devotion; yet it witnesses to a profoundly held
conviction which has always characterized the faith of Israel and thus of the
Christian Church - namely - God is working His purpose out in the history of the
world and He uses persons open to His call to be the instruments of His
purposes. Esther found her destiny in the gracious purposes of God to rescue His
people.
This conviction is rooted in faith in God's sovereign gracious purpose to redeem
the world. We can use the term predestination - God is a God of covenant. He
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wills to be the God of us human persons and He created us to live in covenant
community with Him. This is His predestinating will. That term scares us. It has
been terribly abused, entangled with speculative philosophical notions that have
made God too often a monster and the human person a puppet. Yet, rightly
understood, predestination is the source of our confidence and our peace. God is
for us - God will redeem the world, renew the whole cosmic order, gather His
children, rebellious, guilty, anxious and untrusting though they be, to Himself
and we shall dwell in the brightness of God's eternal kingdom. Predestination
simply points to God's decision, God's intention that precedes everything.
Predestination speaks of pre-decision, not pre-determination, as though
everything is mapped out and set in ironclad mechanical fashion ahead of time.
Everything that happens is not pre-determined. Everything that happens is not
the will of God.
God deals with us in a gracious personal relationship. God created us in His
image endowing us with freedom and responsibility. He invites us to join in the
movement of His Kingdom and the adventure of realizing the world's salvation,
but God is not a divine bulldozer cutting a swath through all cosmic, historical
and human obstacles; God is not a divine steamroller crushing and squashing all
in His path. God invites cooperation, but tolerates opposition. And yet, and here
is the mystery, His children who have come to trust Him live in the confidence
that finally His purposes of love, of sovereign grace will be realized.
All of this is evident in the words of Mordecai to Esther:
…deliverance for the Jews will appear…
The question in Mordecai's mind was not whether God would come to the aid of
His people; it was only when and where and by whom. Mordecai confronted
Esther in a calm and deliberate manner. He was confident under pressure.
Disaster loomed in the near future; yet there is no panic; he is not biting his
fingernails. He simply sets forth the situation inviting Esther to act, to put herself
at God's disposal for the salvation of His people. Mordecai is not paralyzed by
fear or overcome with anxiety.
Nor is Mordecai a superficial optimist who simply whistles in the dark, hoping
the evil will be denied by a cheery, if hollow exterior. The crisis is real; the
situation is serious; tragedy may well be the outcome. His word to Esther is that if
she keeps silence she need not think that her privileged position as Queen will
secure her safety; she will be exposed to the same suffering and possible death as
are all of her people. Faith in God's redemptive purpose, confidence in God's
sovereign grace does not mean insulation from the suffering and tragedy of
human existence. There is no safe island free from the ravages of human sin and
the scourge of evil. Is it not paradoxical that precisely the Jewish people who have
suffered so tragically throughout the centuries are the people who give to the
world this faith in the God of history Whose sovereign grace will prevail?
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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In Fiddler On The Roof, the closing scene silhouettes the villagers of Anotevka
and their wagons piled with their worldly possessions, leaving the village, on the
road again seeking some safe oasis in a world that has visited pogroms and
persecution on them, driving them from place to place but seldom giving them
rest for long.
Mordecai is no superficial observer of human existence. He knows he may die. He
knows Esther may die. He knows his generation may be wiped out from the
Persian empire. But he knows something more. God will not die, nor will His
purposes finally be defeated - finally, "deliverance will appear."
And then this, too, is so vividly illustrated in the story: God's sovereign grace
operates, not apart from but precisely through the human agency of His people.
This is the challenge Mordecai puts to Esther:
Who knows whether it is not for such a time as this you have come to
royal estate?
Who knows, Esther, but that your rise to position in the Kingdom might not have
been for just such a moment. In the Greek translation of the Esther story, the
word for time is not chronos, ordinary time, the succession of moments and
minutes and hours and days - the word from which we get chronology. Rather,
the word is translated Kairos - the moment weighted with eternal significance,
the opportune time. The critical moment, the moment which will shape and
determine all succeeding moments of chronological time. The Kairos moment is
the moment in history in which is unleashed the sovereign, gracious power of
God which moves history along toward the goal of God's determining. It is a
"hinge time" on which swings the future. It is the moment of great opportunity
for those who would put themselves at God's disposal to be the instruments of
His purpose.
It may be missed.
Jerusalem missed it and Jesus wept over the city, crying,
If only you had known, on this great day, the way that leads to peace!
But no; it is hidden from your sight…because you did not recognize God’s
moment when it came.
But it may be captured and one may sense that one's life, one's destiny is caught
up in the gracious purpose of God to bring salvation to the world.
Such a view of human existence, historical reality and the sovereign purpose of
God is far removed from a pagan fatalistic view of things. God is not playing chess
with us, moving us about on the board of history. There is genuine human
involvement, sometimes yielding to His gracious will, sometimes resisting His
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�Finding Our Destiny in God’s Gracious Purpose
Richard A. Rhem
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sovereign purpose. But through it all – and again – this is the mystery – God is
working His purposes out. He has contingency plans.
Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day, “Say not we are the children of
Abraham” as though only through them could God's purpose come about, for,
Jesus said, “God can raise up of these stones children to Abraham.”
God will not coerce us. But our stubborn rebellion will never paint God into a
corner.
All does not depend on us; that would be too heavy.
But God will use us if we are willing, and to be caught up in God's great
movement to bring about His kingdom is to find life's highest and best; it is to be
finally satisfied, fulfilled, happy with a joy that will never fade but only grow
through the eons of eternity as we live in the brightness of His eternal presence.
Esther made her choice; she captured the moment; she was used of God as an
instrument of salvation for God's people. She took the risk, saying, "If I perish, I
perish." In total commitment to the purpose of God, she found her destiny.
There is no higher privilege or richer gift.
Reference:
Carey A. Moore, Esther (The Anchor Bible Commentaries). Doubleday, 1971.
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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.
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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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Event
Pentecost XII
Series
The Mystery of God's Sovereign Grace
Scripture Text
Esther 4:14
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Carey A. Moore, Esther (Anchor Bible Commentaries), 1971.
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1987-08-23
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Finding Our Destiny in God's Gracious Purpose
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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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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 23, 1987 entitled "Finding Our Destiny in God's Gracious Purpose", as part of the series "The Mystery of God's Sovereign Grace", on the occasion of Pentecost XII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Esther 4:14.
Divine Intention
Hebrew Scriptures
Nature of God
Providence of God
Salvation
Sovereign Grace
Wisdom Literature
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8d54ee0f4e4677ca003d3062dc541c59.pdf
8a8860e50bd30961fbfec4fa746edacd
PDF Text
Text
Global Mission in a New Key
Text: Isaiah 58:6, Acts 1:4-8
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 11, 1993
Transcription of the spoken sermon
“...to loose the bonds of injustice, ...to let the oppressed go free, and to break
every yoke.” Isaiah 58:6
“...to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:4-8
It would be difficult to challenge the statement that it is the intention of God that
all God’s children live in freedom and human dignity. I don’t think anyone would
want to challenge that. Certainly that is the biblical vision. We noted last week in
the celebration of our own Declaration of Independence that God has blessed this
nation. This political arrangement was founded on the conviction that God has
created all people, all people, equal in God’s image. That to live in freedom is to
realize the human potential with which God has endowed us, and to live in that
freedom as we have for the last two hundred plus years, we’ve also found
economic prosperity because there has been, along with political freedom,
economic freedom. I suggested last week that perhaps, after some two hundred
years living with a Declaration of Independence, it is time for us now to declare
our Declaration of Interdependence because history doesn’t stand still. History
moves on.
While those thirteen colonies on the eastern seaboard were knit together by a
common vision, they lived not in nearly the proximity to each other that we live
with the whole globe today. Through the satellites that go through our sky we are
in touch with the whole world, and we know what’s going on everywhere. We
have become a global community. That global community calls us to a concern
for the whole world, for the freedom and the dignity of all people everywhere.
Certainly that is God’s intention. It was the prophetic vision the prophet was
most often called to speak to the people of God, to remind them that God’s
purposes transcended their own narrow interests. The prophet in Isaiah 65 of last
week’s Old Testament lesson spoke of the “new heaven and the new earth,” in the
time when people would build houses and dwell in them, plant gardens and eat
their fruit, living with dignity without exploitation or coercion, where the world
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eventually would become a place where the lion and the lamb could lie down
together, and no one would hurt in all God’s holy mountain.
The Old Testament lesson this morning from the 58th chapter of Isaiah says the
same thing. The people of Judah having returned from the Exile carrying on their
religious observances said, “Why doesn’t God heed? Why doesn’t God hear us?”
And God says to the prophet, “Look, religious observances are not ends in
themselves. If you want to be truly religious, then care one for another. Break off
the thongs that bind people. Be done with injustice. Set the captive free. This is
God’s intention for humankind, for all people everywhere.”
With the globe becoming no larger than a grapefruit, and community becoming
world community today, it is incumbent for us to think of global mission “in a
new key.” Jesus stood in that prophetic tradition. Jesus sent his disciples into all
the world, “to the ends of the earth,” he said. He proclaimed the Gospel, the good
news. That good news – Jesus standing in the prophetic tradition – was that God
is near. God is present. God is gracious. That God would include and would
reconcile all people. Jesus said, “Go tell that good news.” And the Church has
become a missionary church.
We have noted in past weeks since Pentecost that it was unfortunate that there
had to be that break between Judaism and the Jesus Movement, but even so God
has used that division. The Christian Church has brought the God of Israel to the
nations. But the history of the Christian Church now encompassing the globe is
really a mixed affair. On the one hand you can write the story of the spread of the
Christian Church in glowing terms. There have been many heroes and heroines in
the faith. Christian Mission at its best has been concerned for medicine, and for
education, and for agriculture, and for the whole human condition. There have
been those who have given their all in order that the light of Christ might illumine
the lives of people. But the Christian Movement has a shadow side too. If we
would be honest we would have to admit that that movement into all the world to
make the world Christian was a movement that was characterized at many
periods with coercion. There were the enforced baptisms. There was the
development of that anti-Semitism which came to its ugly climax in the
Holocaust. There was the Inquisition - the enforcing of faith on people. There was
too often a lack of sensitivity to native cultures and native mores. So the history of
the Church has been a history of mission movement with a light and a shadow
side.
The modern missionary movement of the 19th century is the mission movement
that most of us are aware of. It was a movement that arose out of a passion to
bring all people to knowledge of Christ. What fired that mission was a conviction
that outside of Christ there was no salvation. But as that modern missionary
movement arose there was also the development of modern atheism. That whole
development of atheism in the Western World said that religion is not anything
that has any true counterpart here, but rather arises out of the human need itself,
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Richard A. Rhem
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that human beings create religion. And then, encountering atheism, that most
serious of all criticisms of religion, there was the counterclaim that human
religion doesn’t start with us but starts with one who encounters us from beyond
and draws response from us.
That’s about where I was in Europe about a couple of decades ago, a quarter of a
century ago, wrestling with that one. Recognizing that if human religion is
response to the encounter of God from beyond us, which is really the vital claim
that we must make, then it became more and more difficult to say of all the
human responses in the respective religions, there is only one that is right, and
that one is mine. I didn’t have to solve that when I came back here in the early
70s because some of us went out to California to the Institute for Successful
Church Leadership, and we learned that you ought to bloom where you are
planted and that mission is where you are. So we gave ourselves to creating here a
loving community, a compassionate community. The last couple of decades are
the story of creating here a Center for Creative Christianity.
But time marches on. History moves. The world changes, and it’s time for us to
make another move. It’s time for us to come to Global Awareness. I have to credit
Peter Theune for bringing to us, as he came to the Christ Community team, a
greater sensitivity to the larger world. The Task Force on Global Awareness in our
midst has been a catalyst to get us to think outward. I think in the recent past, for
the past two or three years, our whole world has exploded to such an extent that
we know that we are part of a global community whether we want to be or not,
and we have to decide whether we will put our resources and our efforts in trying
to maintain things as they are - building walls and developing a fortress
mentality, or whether we will cast ourselves on the side of the agents of change to
bring about reconciliation, to remove the barriers and the divisions, and to bind
the human family together, which it seems to me is reflective of the biblical vision
of God’s intention. The God of all compassion who loves people, who would
mediate grace to all, who would gather all in his bosom in order to build the
family of God.
Let me challenge this community of faith this morning to a new engagement with
concrete mission. We’ve begun already. For a number of summers now some of
you have gone to Staten Island, Project Hospitality, where The Rev. Terry Troia
works with the alienated and the outcast of society. Your lives have been touched
and changed by that encounter. We are sending today a group of young people to
Chicago to an urban ministry to encounter the realities of the city. Later this
summer we will send a group to Wales to be with Bob and Kris Kleinheksel in
that urban ministry in the city of Cardiff. Concretely this morning you have
before you Jeanne Farrer who will be going from us to be our presence in Africa,
in Gambia, to teach, to serve, to be there as the presence of the love of God that
she has come to know in Jesus Christ. Let me challenge all of us this morning to a
new commitment to Global Mission.
© Grand Valley State University
�Global Mission in a New Key
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
But that commitment to Global Mission needs to be in a new key.
I hinted a moment ago that when I came back here in the 70s I could not rouse
you to passionate action in order to bring Christ to the world as though that was
the world’s only hope. That was the theological problem I was struggling with.
Now let me simply say boldly, having not solved all those problems, this I know the world is a hurting, bleeding, wounded place. We cannot deny it any more. It
comes into our living rooms and our kitchens and our dens day after day after
day. The anguish on the faces of the adults who bury their dead, who look into the
eyes of the starving children. The knowledge that in Zambia sixty cents per child
per year goes for their education. The knowledge that our world is being torn
apart most decisively by religious fundamentalisms. The knowledge that, with the
umbrella of oppression that held the world at bay for some decades now
evaporating, there is a new uprising of ethnic feuds and national pride and
arrogance. Our world is bleeding. Our world is wounded.
The God of biblical vision is a God who cares, a God full of compassion, a God
who calls God’s people not to the exercise of religious observances - the fasts and
the rituals, and the worship that ends there, but rather the God who calls God’s
people to true religion which is to be concerned for the poor and the homeless
and the naked. To break off all injustice and take away the yoke and set the
captive free. Jesus in his inaugural sermon in his hometown quoted Isaiah 61
saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim liberty to the captive.”
Jesus, standing in that prophetic tradition with all of the compassion of God
moving through him, crying out to a world to break off the bonds and to set the
prisoner free.
Jesus would call us to his way; Jesus gave us the promise of Pentecost, which was
not a commission to found a church and a religion, but to move into the era of the
Spirit of God who transcends all human forms, the God of all mercy and
compassion who calls us to love the world as God loves the world. A new
commitment to Global Mission but in a new key. Not in order to found Christian
churches all over the globe, but in the name of Jesus to love, to heal, to bind up
the wounds, to teach, and to create a world in which it is possible for every person
not to become Christian, but to become human - for God’s sake. To realize God’s
purpose for human kind so that people might live in justice, peace - dancing
before the God of creation who dances in our midst, whose light shines upon us
when we catch the vision and allow our passion to be unleashed.
To bring salvation, salve, healing to the world. That is our calling. That will be
our joy. Together. We can’t do everything, but we can do something.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4ec061812bf32614060e0e536e0dc425.mp3
f80480ef2361f13cb33bfe6c91a22fc5
Dublin Core
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
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KII-01
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost VI
Scripture Text
Isaiah 58: 6, Acts 1:4-8
Location
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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/.
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KII-01_RA-0-19930711
Date
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1993-07-11
Title
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Global Mission In a New Key
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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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 July 11, 1993 entitled "Global Mission In a New Key", on the occasion of Pentecost VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 58: 6, Acts 1:4-8.
Divine Intention
Global Community
Inclusive
Interdependence
Shalom
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/92992b6aa3d8b5d4a4a8903f5ff9588f.pdf
3d9d78ff830b00b996f30c61a03257b1
PDF Text
Text
God, Can’t You Do Something?
From the series: God in the Mirror of a Human Face
Text: Mark 14:36
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Lent, March 14, 1999
Transcription of the spoken sermon
It has been my contention this Lenten season that it is critically important that
we get a proper fix on the historical Jesus, because if we get it right on Jesus, we’ll
get it right on God, and if we get it right on God, we’ll get it right in ourselves, for
Jesus is the human face that mirrors God, and the God that we worship, the God
that we serve, the God that we imagine is the God that will shape us, determine
the contours of our life, the attitudes, the posture of our spirit. So, it’s so very
important to get it right on Jesus in order to get it right on God, in order to be
right ourselves.
We have seen thus far two varying visions of Jesus, one by John the Baptist and
the other by Jesus. Now, both John and Jesus were looking for the end of the
world, not the space-time world so much as the end of the world as it is,
structured through its institutions, through its society, through the powers that
be. Both John and Jesus believed that there was something fundamentally wrong
with the world, that it did not reflect the justice and the compassion that were the
intentions of God. Both John and Jesus believed that there was a divine mandate
for world transformation. Both of them were committed totally to the bringing in
of the kingdom of God, and both of them were looking for God to break in
dramatically and to execute righteousness with violence, at least for a time. That
was basically John’s view, and there was a time in which Jesus identified with
John. He was baptized by John. He and his disciples were baptizing and carrying
on a mission similar to John in the vicinity where John was ministering in the
early days of Jesus’ ministry. John’s vision was apocalyptic, the in-breaking of
God, the purifying of the righteous, the damning of the wicked, the setting of
things right, violently.
Something happened in Jesus’ consciousness. Maybe it was reflected in the
temptation narratives, where Jesus was seeking his own identity and the nature
of his mission. But, there was a point, at least, when Jesus separated himself from
John the Baptist. He moved from Judea in the south to Galilee in the north and
there he was carrying on quite a different kind of ministry. We might describe it
as a ministry of grace, a ministry of healing, a ministry that proclaimed good
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Can’t You Do Something?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
news to the poor, that God had drawn near to all people, including all and
excluding none. It was quite a different message than that with which he began,
the message of John the Baptist, of the imminent judgment of God.
What happened? Well, whatever happened, John wondered, too. He was, in the
meantime, imprisoned by Herod, and in the prison he heard reports of Jesus’
gracious ministry, quite out of sync with that with which he had nurtured Jesus
and mentored Jesus, and he sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the
one? Or, should we look for another?" Jesus said to the disciples that came from
John, "Go tell John what you see and hear, how the blind see and the deaf hear
and the lame walk and the poor have good news preached to them." But, as a
matter of fact, what Jesus was saying is, "Go tell John the answer to his question
is ‘No, I am not the one he thought I was.’"
John’s ministry, John’s vision was that of a God of justice who affects justice on
the earth violently. Jesus’ vision and ministry was of a God of justice, non-violent
justice, a God of infinite patience who would wait until justice would rise in the
earth. Jesus distanced himself from John the Baptist, saying, in effect, to the
disciples that came to him, "Go tell John I am not who he thought I was, because
I have a different vision of the nature of God which, in turn, gives me a different
cast to my mission to bring in the kingdom of God."
John, obviously, must have been disappointed, and we can understand that.
Certainly we can identify with John. John was one who wanted God to do
something.
Don’t you often want God to do something? Aside now from the great affairs of
nations, cosmic events, even in our own lives, don’t we often want God
to do something? Don’t we want a God that does something? Isn’t there
something within us that stirs when we see corruption in high places and low
places? Isn’t there something within us that rises up and wants God to do
something when we read of yet another hate crime, another brutal slaying,
another abortion clinic bombed? Isn’t there something in us that wants God to do
something about the ugliness of all of the darkness in all of the tragedy that is
visited upon humankind by structures of domination and oppression, by those in
positions of power and privilege who would perpetuate that privilege and power
by the oppression of the rest?
That was going on in Palestine at the time of John the Baptist, Roman
commercialization driving the peasants off their land, driving them into
destitution. There was enough reason for one like John the Baptist who believed
in God, who believed in justice, who believed in righteousness, there was enough
in John the Baptist, to cause him legitimately to cry out to heaven and to say,
"God, why don’t you do something?"
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Can’t You Do Something?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
I can identify with that, can’t you? If we can’t, then we aren’t aware of our own
heart in which there resides always just beneath the surface the potential for
violence in all of us. But, Jesus had come to the insight that by violence the
kingdom of God could never come. Jesus must have arrived at the insight that it
was only non-violent protest in the midst of the battle, in the heat of the day,
consistently and firmly that would ever be the means of the transformation of the
world. Jesus must have come to see that violence begets violence, begetting
violence and more violence, even when it is the violence of God, for the kingdom
of God could be imposed upon us violently, it could be brought upon us with
coercion, it could be held in place by domination, and we would be the same as
we are now. A totalitarian tyrant can enforce total morality and absolute justice,
but that’s not the kingdom of God.
Jesus must have come to see that the kingdom of God will dawn only when there
is an inward awareness and a personal and social transformation of the world,
and therefore, he followed the course that he did, a course which now led him to
Jerusalem, to his denunciation of the establishment of the temple, to his last
supper at Passover time on the eve of his death, of which he must have been fully
aware, and he went to Gethsemane with his disciples to pray. That’s where we
find him, in prayer. Falling on his face on the ground, crying out, "O God, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me."
"Afraid to die, Jesus?"
Oh, probably not, although execution on a Roman cross is enough to create fear
and trembling in anyone.
"Feeling the absence of God, Jesus?"
Probably not, at least in Mark’s portrait we have Jesus using the most intimate
address possible, "Abba," "Pappa."
"What was it, then, Jesus, this cup that you wanted removed, this foreboding, this
sinking feeling, this being torn inside, this wrenching of your soul, this being
totally distraught, this condition worse than death? What was it, Jesus? Was it
that you were now in the position that John the Baptist had been a year earlier?
When John sent his disciples with his question, when John was wondering
whether he, John, had gotten it wrong, whether his whole life project had been
wrong? Was it like that, Jesus? Were you wondering, did you get it right? Were
you wondering in the face of the darkness that you were encountering, were you
wondering in the face of the entrenched evil in the world, were you wondering
whether or not your vision of God was adequate? Could a God of non-violence
ever bring in the kingdom of peace?
"Jesus, were you wondering whether or not that vision by which you lived that
you learned in Isaiah, the suffering servant, the suffering servant who does not
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Can’t You Do Something?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
crush the bruised reed or snuff out the smoldering wick, the servant who goes as
a lamb to the slaughter, who resists not, are you wondering whether that model of
your ministry which was reflective of your understanding of God - were you
wondering whether or not it was adequate to the darkness of the world that you
were facing? Is that what you were struggling with, Jesus? For, certainly in the
heat of the battle, you must have sensed the overwhelming power of the way
things are, which is fundamentally wrong.
"Did you wonder if maybe John, with his God Who affects justice through
violence, might have been wrong, after all?"
Whatever he was wrestling with, he finally won through to freedom when he was
able to say, "Not my will, but Thy will be done."
I suspect that if we could have encountered a conversation between Jesus and his
Father in heaven, Jesus might have said, "Is there no other way? Can’t you do
something?"
And the answer would have been, "No, I can’t do anything, given Who I Am, and
the intention of creation and the goal of My dream. No, Jesus. There’s no other
way."
"What, then, must I do?"
"Stay the course."
"But, if I stay the course, I’ll die."
"Yes. You will die."
Was it, then, the will of God that Jesus die? Absolutely not. It was the will of God
that Jesus should continue to be what Jesus had been, continuing that nonviolent protest against all that was wrong, standing for all that was right,
revealing the compassion and the grace of God that embraced all and excluded
none. That was God’s intention and will for Jesus. But, it would get him killed,
executed, the separation of his body and his blood.
Was there no other way? No other way, because violence, even God’s violent, final
solution, breeds violence, stiffens resistance, builds walls, and can never create
community.
Jesus died, but he was free, he was free, because, you see, if I look into the mirror
and I see at least some semblance of similarity to the contours of the face of
Jesus, then I’ll know that my face reflects what his face reflects, which is the
justice and the grace and the compassion of God. And if I’m sure of that, I’m free.
You can do anything. You can strip me of everything, but if I see the reflection of
my face in the mirror that had all the reflection of Jesus, then I’m strong, then
I’m free.
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Can’t You Do Something?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
"God, why don’t You do something?"
"Why don’t you do something? You’re waiting for me? I’m waiting for you. It’s in
your hands, this world that I’ve created."
"Well, then certainly a God like You, a pansy God, a milktoast God, a passive God
will never bring in the kingdom. How long will it take?"
"I don’t know. How long will it take?"
Is that God of Jesus too weak for you? Does it disquiet you a bit, that passive God
of grace and justice?
Well, let me just remind you that we know the agent of imperial power resident in
Jerusalem at the time of Jesus; his name was Pontius Pilate. We know him
because his name was inserted into the creed that confesses Jesus as Lord. And
Jesus, the one whose blood was separated from his body, through 2000 years has
continued to elicit the best, create the highest nobility and commitment of those
who have followed in his steps. Of course, it will cost everything ... as Gandhi
found, Bonhoeffer found, Martin Luther King found. It will cost everything, but,
by God, you’ll be free.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ff945147a66586d6caf9967444e1145d.mp3
5905a82cdb590daf9f12316e116c2842
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
Lent IV
Series
God In the Mirror of a Human Face
Scripture Text
Mark 14:36
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19990314
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1999-03-14
Title
A name given to the resource
God, Can't You Do Something?
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 March 14, 1999 entitled "God, Can't You Do Something?", as part of the series "God In the Mirror of a Human Face", on the occasion of Lent IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Mark 14:36.
Compassion
Divine Intention
Justice
Nature of God
Way of Jesus
-
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6092de23c5cebd0ab8fb6fa0979b71c3
PDF Text
Text
God, Cosmos, Grace and Thanksgiving
From the sermon series on the Cosmos
Text: I Chronicles 29: 11-13; Ephesians 1: 4-6, 9
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1981
Transcription of the spoken sermon
And now we thank thee, our God, and praise thy glorious name.
I Chronicles 29: 11-13
In Christ he chose us before the world was founded…. Determined beforehand in
Christ – to be put into effect when the time was ripe; namely, that the universe,
all in heaven and on earth, might be brought into a unity in Christ.
Ephesians 1: 4-6, 9
Worship is the ascription of worth to God; it arises from a sense of awe before the
majesty and marvel of who He is. It arises, that is, it is a spontaneous,
irrepressible expression of praise and adoration.
Gratitude is likewise a spontaneous feeling that wells up in the human heart in
the wake of the recognition of some grace or mercy or kindness done, some
blessing received. We teach our children to say "Thank you" but we cannot teach
nor can we coerce gratitude. How often do we not say of some person helped who
fails to express gratitude, "What an ingrate!" But if it is not felt, then it cannot be
forced.
In this marvelous and moving outpouring of thanksgiving and praise of David in I
Chronicles, we sense the essence of worship and gratitude - a heart totally
transfixed in the presence of the grace of God. Let me tell you briefly about the
situation that called forth this eloquent expression of praise and thanksgiving.
Having consolidated his throne and expanded and secured Israel's borders, David
wanted to build a great temple for the worship of God in Jerusalem. However,
according to the prophet's word, that task would be denied David; it was rather to
be his son, Solomon, who would build the temple. David yielded to that prophetic
word, but he nonetheless made preparations for the building and used his power
and persuasion with the people to gather gifts and resources with which to build.
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Cosmos, Grace and Thanksgiving
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
The occasion of our text is the great service of thanksgiving at the ingathering of
the gifts of the respective tribes. A great outpouring of generosity to make the
temple project possible was celebrated in a service of thanksgiving which was led
by David, the King. The majestic doxological prayer, which is our text, is David's
expression of the gratitude and praise he felt to God Who had moved the hearts
of the people to support so generously the temple offering. David can hardly find
words adequate to ascribe to God the worthiness of His grace.
…Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the
victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is
thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above
all. Both riches and honor come from thee, and thou rulest over all. In thy
hand are power and might; and in thy hand it is to make great and to
give strength to all. And now we thank thee, our God, and praise thy
glorious name. I Chronicles 29: 11-13
The deep emotion surges through that ascription of praise. We still "feel" it. It
poured out. And true worship, praise and thanksgiving are the irrepressible
expressions of a heart touched by mercy, overwhelmed by grace, subdued by love.
True worship has the note of doxology and doxology cannot be coerced or
conjured up. It arises.
Doxology was a hallmark of Paul's worship. The burning passion of that great
apostle was the consequence of a grand vision of the Truth. Paul's vision of God
was no narrow understanding of some local, tribal deity, but rather of the Eternal
God Who from eternity had a plan of cosmic scope to bind together all things into
a glorious harmony and the very heart of that eternal purpose was grace.
Like David, Paul can hardly find words adequately to express the grandeur and
scope of the grace of God at work in the world, culminating in the grace that
appeared in Jesus who is the very center of this vast cosmic drama.
Listen to his outpouring of this cosmic vision:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as
he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be
holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons
through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of
his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. …For he
has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will,
according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the
fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on
earth. Ephesians 1: 3-6, 9
In this series of messages, I have been attempting to sketch the amazing
dimensions of the universe of which we are a part. To catch even a fleeting
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Cosmos, Grace and Thanksgiving
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
glimpse, to gain even a faint impression of the wonders of the natural world is to
stand in awe.
And this I have tried to say to you – that the power and might and majesty of the
Creation can be seen in another realm, the realm of His gracious reaching of us,
creatures of His making, created to reflect His image, to live in communion with
Him and one another.
The God of Cosmos is the God of Grace. Our Creator is Our Saviour.
As we reflect on the first chapter of Ephesians, we can sense the excitement of
this insight into God's cosmic plan of salvation. Paul had received the revelation
of God's gracious plan as we saw in the previous message. God had acted in Jesus
to bring to the world the knowledge of Himself and in Jesus, to accomplish the
salvation of the whole world. If we read the various letters of Paul, we know that
salvation for him involved nature and people - the whole cosmos. It was this
amazing revelation that Paul could hardly fathom, before which he bowed in
adoring praise. Worship, praise and thanksgiving arose from the depths of his
being.
God had a plan.
Before the foundation of the world He loved us and included us in His gracious
purpose of love. When the time was ripe, He unveiled His hidden purpose that
the universe, all in heaven and on earth, might be brought into a unity in Christ.
Mindboggling, is it not! It was to Paul. He broke out in doxology.
David and Paul both understood the grandeur and the wonder of God's gracious
purpose. They knew God's grace was as expansive as the Cosmos and as personal
as the individual person touched by grace. Grace is the secret of the universe - the
world of nature. Grace is the secret of our human existence. Grace is the ultimate
ground and cause of praise and thanksgiving.
The Hamburg Times, dated October 9, 1981, has an extended article telling of a
conference sponsored by the Thyssen Foundation. The purpose of this conference
of scientists was to explore the "Anthropic Principle" - looking at the universe
from the perspective of humankind. The amazing result was the realization that
this whole cosmological process of billions of years is delicately balanced to
provide at this point in the cosmic drama the presence of persons able to know
who they are, know the history of the cosmos and assume responsibility for its
future.
Taking all the data available to us today through the research of the natural
sciences, this convention of scientists discovered the universe to be delicately
balanced, finely tuned in order to provide an environment in which life such as
ours is possible.
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Cosmos, Grace and Thanksgiving
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Were the speed of expansion greater than it is, our universe would not have
formed as it has. Were the force of gravity less or greater, our universe would not
have formed as it has.
The author of the article, “The World Is As It Is,” Reinhard Breuer, at the Max
Planck Institute for Plasma Physics at Garching, Bavaria, concludes by declaring,
The interplay of exactly four forces seems, thus shows the anthropic
principle, to have been already a quite frugal method for making possible
an evolution through diversity and selection. The structure of the cosmos
through natural laws as well as also a special process of evolution evidently
cooperated effectively in an almost unique manner within the network of
relative relations of forces in order to bring forth an intelligent civilization
- us. The American physicist Freeman Dyson once said: "If we look out
into the universe and recognize how many chance occurrences worked
together for our benefit, then it almost seems as if the universe had known
in a certain sense that we were coming."
The anthropic principle thus permits a new and uniform valuation of the
seemingly (at least in part) accidental development of the world and of the
role of man in it. This indeed does not yet make possible an "explanation"
in the sense of a scientific theory. Until today it has been shown that
terrestrial life is most closely anchored in this structure, that our roots
reach back all the way into the properties of the big bang. This
transparence doubtlessly orients itself by the example of terrestrial life; it
remains open whether an alternate cosmos could be populated by an
entirely different form of intelligence.
The new mode of thought underpins at any rate the thesis that the world is
as it is because with any other constellation of natural laws we would not
be here at all. To talk of an "accident" or of "chance" as the cause of our
existence is therefore meaningless.
Carl Sagan is fully aware of all the data of which these scientists were aware. He
looks at it and is enthralled by it, but ascribes it all to chance, accident,
coincidence. You and I look at it and fall to our knees as we begin to sense the
Grace-Structure of the Cosmos. And with Paul we do more. We see in the vast
Grace-Structured Cosmos a point in time - when the time was ripe -when one
appeared whose name was Jesus, in whose face we see reflected the image of God
Who is first and last the God of Grace.
Could it be that this vast cosmic drama involving such immensity of space,
billions and billions of years, could have been effected and set in motion for the
purpose of love being shared, community being formed, community of God and
humankind? That would seem to be the case.
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Cosmos, Grace and Thanksgiving
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
What does that do for us? It certainly is no cause for boasting and pride. Are we
not rather overwhelmed? Do we not identify with David, who in the ecstasy of
experiencing the grace of God, cried out....
But what am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to give
willingly like this? For everything comes from thee, and it is only of thy
gifts that we give to thee. I Chronicles 29: 14
What am I? I am known and loved of God!
O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Grace is the ultimate truth, the final reality. Whether we search the distant stars
or probe the mysteries of the minute atom, it is grace that meets us. Thanksgiving
and praise arise from a heart transfixed by the grace of God.
It is good in the Season of Thanksgiving to count our blessings, to take stock of
our situation. Yet the immediate circumstances of our lives may not cause praise
and thanksgiving to arise spontaneously. Perhaps our situation presently is one of
adversity. Can we still give thanks?
Certainly we can if we take the broad view, if we catch the vision of the cosmic
grandeur of the Divine Purpose. In the long view, our immediate circumstances
lose their urgency. In the light of the "big picture", we cannot but stand in awe
before Grace.
Grace is the ground of thanksgiving. Grace, as broad as the Cosmos, as personal
as our names, engraven on the palms of His hands, is the first and last word.
…Blessed art thou, O Lord, the God of Israel our father, for ever and ever.
Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the
victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is
thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above
all. Both riches and honor come from thee, and thou rulest over all. In thy
hand are power and might; and in thy hand it is to make great and to
give strength to all. And now we thank thee, our God, and praise thy
glorious name. I Chronicles 29:10-13
Amen.
© 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
Thanksgiving Day
Scripture Text
I Chronicles 29:9-18, Ephesians 1:1-10
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-0-19811126
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1981-11-26
Title
A name given to the resource
God, Cosmos, Grace and Thanksgiving
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 26, 1981 entitled "God, Cosmos, Grace and Thanksgiving", on the occasion of Thanksgiving Day, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Chronicles 29:9-18, Ephesians 1:1-10.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
David
Divine Intention
Grace of God
Gratitude
Thanksgiving
Worship