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The Root of Vision and Values to Die For
Memorial Day Weekend
Trinity Sunday
Scripture: Jeremiah 9:17-24; Acts 7:51-60; John 14:15-20
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
May 26, 2002
Transcription of the spoken sermon
On the calendar of the Church, this is Trinity Sunday, always the Sunday after
Pentecost. After going through the cycle of the life of Christ and celebrating the
gift of the Holy Spirit, the Church has paused to take in its image of God - God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
On the calendar of the nation, this is Memorial Day, the day in which we
remember those who have paid the supreme sacrifice in order to preserve the
freedoms and the liberties that we enjoy as a people. On this Trinity Sunday,
which is also Memorial Day weekend, I want to suggest to you that the liberty and
the freedom and the blessings that have endured in us as a people are rooted in
the Triune God, that the vision and the values that have flowered and blossomed
into this marvelous civilizational opportunity that is ours is not an accident, but a
consequence of the vision and values that are rooted in God. Not accidental. To
try to combine these themes this morning, let me suggest that the Trinity has
become simply a dogma for us. It is a code word; it is that which marks the
Christian tradition, a doctrine, and is largely incomprehensible to the vast
majority of Christian people, incomprehensible because it was forged in language
and philosophical conceptuality that we no longer share. It is no longer
meaningful to us, and so, what we do is repeat the formula and, as I said, it has
become a code word. It is a symbol for the God that Christians imagine. But it is
hardly understood in the terms in which it was originally forged. And yet, the
forging of it was very important because, through that very dogmatic structure
down through the centuries, we have preserved that initial vision, that vision of
God, the God revealed in Jesus and experienced in the ongoing presence of the
Spirit.
As a matter of fact, all religious experience is Trinitarian in form, for we cannot
understand God or comprehend God. God is a Mystery, but that Mystery takes on
a face. It takes on a form or a shape now and then, here and there, a shape, a face.
Moses, perhaps, killing an Egyptian, seeing the abuse of his own people, fleeing
into the wilderness, struggling, wrestling with the nature of the human condition,
© Grand Valley State University
�The Root of Vision and Values to Die For
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
confronting a bush that burns and is not consumed, hears the voice of God and
goes to lead the people of Israel out of bondage and into freedom. Moses becomes
a founding figure, and the Exodus becomes a founding story, and a people, a
community is shaped and a tradition is formed. And out of that tradition comes
the Jew, Jesus, whom, encountered, caused those who knew him to say, "My God,
this is indeed the embodiment of God. This is the face of God. In this one's face
we see the heart of God." He was crucified, but they said, “You know, he lives. He
is with us still - in the Spirit."
And so, John, writing his Gospel some six decades after the event itself, trying to
give expression to it, stammers and stutters when he says, "I am in the Father and
the Father in me, and you in me and I in you..." This kind of religious gobbledygook - what does it mean, after all? Can you make any sense of it? Hardly, I think.
Yet, one certainly gets the feel for what John was trying to say. He has Jesus
speaking about the Father and he says, "I'll talk to the Father and have him send
you another advocate, a helper, the Spirit of truth that will be with you." And then
two lines later, he says, "I am coming to you. I won't leave you orphan, I am
coming to you." Well, is the Spirit coming or is Jesus coming? I suppose that is
what was being pointed at.
The reality behind it was an ongoing experience of the presence of the Mystery
that had taken concrete shape - whether in Israel as Torah or in the Christian
movement as the continuing presence of the Risen Lord rooted in Israel,
finding embodiment in Jesus,
articulated in the Trinitarian dogma.
All religious experience is that way - there is a Mystery, there is a concretion, and
there is a personal experience, or presence. Stephen, having encountered Jesus,
seeing God in Jesus, giving witness to his faith, enraging those who were
listening, is set upon, and he has a vision to which he gives witness. The heavens
open, the throne of God, the brightness, the glory, and Jesus ... Stephen, full of
the Holy Spirit, dying in the manner of Jesus with forgiveness on his lips.
All religious experience is Trinitarian in form - a Mystery finds concretion and
continues to be experienced as a personal spiritual reality, and, as a matter of
fact, the history doesn't matter much once you "get it."
I laughed a year or so ago when I heard on the radio about a Jewish rabbi in
California who suggested to the Jewish community that there wasn't a shred of
historical evidence for the Exodus. Well, they got as angry with him as some
people have gotten with me. Misery likes company. I enjoyed that. But, as a
matter of fact, what difference does it make if the values of human freedom and
dignity that came to expression in the Exodus, if the understanding of God as the
© Grand Valley State University
�The Root of Vision and Values to Die For
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
God who grounds human dignity and freedom, if that is grasped, if that is
understood? It doesn't really matter if there was a Red Sea or not, or if the Sea of
Reeds parted or not. And if what came to expression in Jesus, if what was
embodied in Jesus is once grasped and one is grasped by it, then, if you're
interested and curious you can ask about the historical Jesus, but as the
philosopher Santayana said, when we have to do with poets and saints and
heroes, that which comes to expression in them is a grace and a beauty and a
truth that flows through them. They are the channels of it, they are not the source
of it. They are simply the channels of it. And that which comes to expression
through them, the truth, the beauty, the grace, is the thing in itself, and the
historical data becomes as insignificant as William Shakespeare to the marvel of
the drama, the plays which he offered, for you don't experience "Romeo and
Juliet" or "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" and wonder about 0l' Will, for it is the
truth, the aesthetic experience, it is that which moves us in the depths of which
Shakespeare was but the channel, the container, as it were. So, on this Trinity
Sunday, all religious experience is Trinitarian.
I performed a wedding for a Jewish young lady yesterday, and in a prior interview
of the bridal couple, she asked, "Do we need references to the Trinity?" I said,
"No, God's enough." "But," I said, "as a matter of fact, your religious experience is
Trinitarian," and it took her aback a little bit. But I think I convinced her, because
that is the nature of religious experience. It is Trinitarian, because the deep
mystery of God, the ground, the source, the creative center of all that is – for,
after all, we didn't create ourselves, this cosmic process, this amazing venture of
which we are a part, whatever its source, whatever its ground, whatever the
creative process, whatever the creative interaction that moves it on – that
Ultimate Mystery we call God. That God takes on a shape or a form or a face and
continues to be experienced as an immediate spiritual reality, and that is the
truth of the Trinitarian nature of religious experience.
In Israel, it was all rooted for us, but it came to sharp focus in the face of Jesus,
and continues to be experienced in the power of the Spirit. Thus, this Trinity
Sunday we celebrate God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. That, for
us, is a statement of our faith and I am suggesting that that is the root of our
vision and our values. It is that which has shaped Western civilization. I think I
can say that, without fear of contradiction, Western civilization is rooted in that
kind of vision and those values that emanate from Hebrew prophets, from Jesus,
from the articulation of the Nicene Creed, that creed that gives expression to the
experience of Jesus who was the embodiment of the God of Israel.
Look where it has gotten us. On this Memorial Day weekend we celebrate
Western civilization in all of the awesome wonder that it is, all of the blessings
that we have received, those blessings of political democracy, human freedom,
the rule of law, pluralism - all of the wonder and all of the blessing of being a part
of this Western civilizational grouping in this United States of America, which has
blossomed and flourished, this society that was founded at the time when
© Grand Valley State University
�The Root of Vision and Values to Die For
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
authoritarianisms of every sort were being thrown off. Although Western
civilization is not synonymous with the separation of Church and State, that is the
manifestation in this nation, and I would advocate that greatly, because any kind
of religious authoritarian claim on a people, on a human spirit, tends to stunt and
to stifle. But we have been free, free to dream, free to create, free to organize, to
assemble, to worship. It is a magnificent vision, with marvelous values rooted in
God, the God of Israel who took on human flesh in Jesus, who continues with us
in the power and the presence of the Spirit.
We are at the peak of our power. We have power to act unilaterally in the world.
We have power to impose our will and to have our way. We are the mightiest
nation on earth at this time, unchallenged by that which would take second place,
and we are afraid. We are afraid because we have been faced with the reality of
the fact that might and power cannot secure us, that billions spent in military
armaments, that borders guarded and walls raised high cannot make us safe. We
have become as a civilizational grouping and as a nation challenged by Islamic
civilization in a clash of civilizations, not simply Islam as a religion, but thinking
now in terms of those great civilizational groupings, we have been challenged and
we are challenged. We have found that there is no safety in our might and our
power, in our position or our prestige.
Bernard Lewis, who teaches at Princeton and is purported to be the foremost
authority on the Islamic culture, has written a book, What Went Wrong? It was
published just months before 9/11. He does not blame the West or America for
the situation of the Islamic civilizational grouping. He does not blame Israel. He
gives a very careful, historically accurate analysis of the Islamic civilizational
group at this time, and he concludes his study by saying, "If the peoples of the
Middle East continue on their present path, the suicide bomber may become a
metaphor for the whole region." This was written months before 9/11. 'The
suicide bomber may become a metaphor for the whole region." There will be no
escape from a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, poverty and
oppression culminating sooner or later in yet another alien domination. The
suicide bomber, a metaphor for a whole civilization.
Here we are at the peak of our power, with all of our might, and we are afraid,
because we have learned the limits of securing our self in such a situation.
Last week in our Perspectives discussion following the service, Tom Wright
suggested that we are empire, and he said, "I hope that you will not have to learn
the lesson that the British Empire learned after the 19th century's domination."
Someone listening heard him say that we were evil empire. He did not say we
were evil empire, he said simply we are empire. That really cannot be disputed.
We are the dominant power in the world, and any power so dominate that it can
impose its will and act unilaterally is empire. And an empire need not be evil. An
empire need only to operate as an empire in order to create the kind of alienation
© Grand Valley State University
�The Root of Vision and Values to Die For
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
that we have in our world today. The only possibility of resistance to empire is
that revolt from weakness of which the suicide bomber is a metaphor.
So, in this Memorial Day weekend, when our vision and our values rooted in the
Triune God are under siege, how will we respond? It is a very complex situation,
dear friends. You see, the vision and the values that we claim, that we hold, that
have flowered so fruitfully in our midst are the vision and values that have
emanated from below, from Israel. On the world scene, nothing. From Jesus, a
Jew, crucified. We call ourselves in the West "Christian." That is our religious
tradition. But, that which was embodied in humility, indeed, humiliation, poverty
and alienation has flowered and blossomed until it is the professed creed of the
mightiest nation on earth. It is one thing if you're wealthy. It is one thing if you
are in poverty to suggest redistribution of wealth. It is one thing if you are small
and without strength to suggest the sharing of power. It is one thing if you have
no say to seek your place at the table and to claim that everyone should have a
voice.
But, what do you do when you rule the world and claim to be shaped, indeed, to
have been shaped by the vision and the values of the God reflected in the face of
Jesus? It is a very, very complex situation that we face. For, those who are poor
and alienated and destitute and hopeless are not intrinsically virtuous. And we
are not villains. But we are altogether human and the issue involves politics and
economics, but finally it is not a political matter nor an economic matter. It is a
moral question. What do you do if you follow Jesus? If you value the kingdom of
God, the realm where God rules, what do you do when you are top dog? Or, is it
top gun? How do you act? How do you respond? How do you address the wounds
and the bleeding and the bruisedness of the human family?
We can continue to be strong and mighty and as vigilant as possible, as long as
possible. But empires rise and fall and the West will be no exception. Or, we
might try some radical thing that has never been tried before - that is, from a
position of strength with an authentic humility, asking what the moral solution to
the ache of the world might be. And how we in our power, our might, our
resource, might begin to make a difference that would drain off the hate and the
resentment and begin to reconcile the alien nations, if indeed it might be possible
to move toward human community.
It is one thing when Jeremiah, simply a preacher in the midst of little Judah,
speaks as the mouthpiece of God saying, "Let not the powerful trust in their
power, nor the wealthy in their riches, but let them delight in this - that they
know me, the God of steadfast love who delights in justice and in righteousness."
It is one thing for Jeremiah in Judah. But, what if it were not some poor
preacher, but some eminent figure who could capture the fascination of his
people, this people, I believe, who are of good heart, far better than the system
that they have put in place? What would it be if someone might rise to say, "It is
time for us, from the peak of our power, to begin to take seriously the Triune God
© Grand Valley State University
�The Root of Vision and Values to Die For
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
revealed in Jesus, that ultimate Mystery?" Oh, we speak about God, I know. We
know so much about God. We are so confident and so familiar about God. It
doesn't matter if you call it God. What we are talking about is that which is
Ultimate. What I am asking is that which goes against the grain. But it is the
grain of the universe, by God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Trinity Sunday, Memorial Day Weekend, Pentecost I
Scripture Text
Jeremiah 9:24
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-0-20020526
Date
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2002-05-26
Title
A name given to the resource
The Root of Vision and Values To Die For
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
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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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 May 26, 2002 entitled "The Root of Vision and Values To Die For", on the occasion of Trinity Sunday, Memorial Day Weekend, Pentecost I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Jeremiah 9:24.
Embodiment
Experience of the sacred
Mystery
Trinity