1 24 21 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/16dd2ff5245dadf2f636d112ef2e7e02.pdf 9407e0b0c1ca8b8a6a0575953663d5d0 PDF Text Text Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? From the series: Varieties of Religious Experience Text: John 1:1, 14, 17; II Corinthians 4:6 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan April 11, 1999 Transcription of the spoken sermon I find that it’s really wonderful to grow old; actually, every decade has been better than the one before. But, there is a downside, too - one doesn’t necessarily go right off into dreamland immediately, as sometimes one wakes up two or three times during the night, for whatever reason. When I can’t get to sleep, I do a little late night surfing. When Jay Leno’s having a bad night and when I’m really, really desperate to sleep, I’ll tune into a TV preacher because preaching, you know, has been defined as one man talking in another man’s sleep. Of course, I’m always thinking about what’s coming up to preach and I just happened a couple nights ago to see a rather well known TV preacher and he was preaching about the resurrection of our bodies and, toward the end of the service, as these services tend to go, there was the presentation of the Gospel, the invitation aspect where one is invited to become a Christian, to believe in Jesus, and so forth, and the ritual is pretty much the same. I’ve done it myself in years past. I know it pretty well; I know all the Bible verses that go with it. We are sinners; we cannot help ourselves; we stand under the condemnation of God; God sent Jesus, God’s son, into the world to bear our sin as a penalty for our sin on the cross, and God raised him up as indication that the sacrifice had been received and now there was forgiveness and there was heaven for all who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus. And that was all very familiar. I’m sure it’s very familiar to almost everyone here. At one point the TV preacher got down on his knee, and he said, "If you will say, ‘God, I believe Jesus was Your Son, I believe Jesus died for my sin, I give myself to him, forgive me and make me Your child,’" and then he said, "It’s done. If you do that, it’s done. You are a new creation and you are no longer under condemnation and you have the promise of eternal life." I tell you that story because I’ve been thinking about Jesus - whether or not Jesus is an episode or an epiphany, and I thought to myself that that is the traditional Gospel paradigm of evangelical, conservative Christianity really in all of its aspects, all of its branches. Jesus is an episode. Now, the word episode comes from the Greek language, and it refers to the entrance of something in-between, such as in the Greek tragedies, with two great © Grand Valley State University   �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   choral pieces and an act, a part of the play between separating the two great choral pieces, and so an episode is something complete in itself, but a part of a larger picture. I thought to myself that is the traditional understanding of Jesus Christ and what Jesus has done. Jesus is an episode in God’s grand creative sweep of things. Jesus came in from outside because God is outside. Jesus becomes the Divine Intruder; God sends Jesus who intervenes into our history for a brief time in order to do something, in order to effect our salvation primarily, supremely, in his death bearing our sins, taking our guilt, making a sacrifice acceptable to God, making us, thereby, who believe in him, acceptable to God. Jesus comes in, accomplishes that work, and departs. He’s in again, out again. It’s an episode. That really is the way traditionally that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been presented. And like the TV preacher says, that was good news because we are fallen, under condemnation, incapable, and therefore in need of being saved. Now, there’s nothing new in that. That’s just "old hat." You learned it first in Kindergarten. But, what if the world is not fallen? What if creation is not fallen? What if humankind is not totally depraved and totally incapable of salvaging itself? What if there was not a moment of pristine perfection in paradise from which everything fell to this present abysmal state? Then, how would one understand what Jesus did? Then why would Jesus come? What if we are not fallen from some pristine perfection but, rather, what if we are clawing our way out of the jungle? What if we are slithering out of the slime? What if we, in our animality and our bestiality, are trying to move by the nudging of God’s creative Spirit toward the manifestation of Spirit? What if we are as humankind on a long trajectory which began billions of years ago in an inanimate state, moving to animate state, to life, to self-conscious life, to human life, to tribal existence? And what if we do not so much need to be redeemed from a fallen state, but continue to be beckoned to that intention of God for us? What if, in the midst of our human darkness, we saw a face, we encountered a human being, and we saw there something that was deep and true, and we said, "Oh, I see." That, of course, would be an epiphany, wouldn’t it? For epiphany also comes from the Greek language, and the epi begins it as episode, but that’s the prefix which can be moved around a bit in terms of the context of the root word of the intention of the statement. An epiphany is manifestation; it is that moment of intuitive insight. It is that flash of insight. It is that "Aha" moment. It is that which we speak of when we say, "It dawned upon me. Suddenly it dawned upon me." We see something and we see deep down into the truth and the nature of things. What if Jesus was not sent from outside in to assume our human nature, but what if Jesus, in the intention of God, became that moment in our history when there was full-blown a human being whom to look upon would be to say, "My God!" and whom to look upon would lead one to say, "And there, by the grace of © Grand Valley State University �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   God, I ought to be. I must be." What if such a manifestation were not coming into the historical drama, but arising within the historical drama? (Even now that I say that, I can hear Karl Barth rolling over in his grave, so intent to deny that history could lead to the manifestation of anything divine. Nonetheless, down, Karl, listen to me.) What if the historical, biological, evolutionary track on which we find ourselves at that point, call it the fullness of time, if you will, but at that point, emerged in the humanity of Jesus who, according to the intentions of God and through the creative Spirit of God was that epiphany of what God is all about, what God is and what God is about? Then Jesus would not be simply an episode, sent, then, to do something, a grand transaction, leaving again, preparing for us a kind of salvation that would spring us loose from this veil of tears, this realm of darkness, promising to us peace with God and eventual home in heaven. But, what if Jesus came into the midst of history according to the purpose of God in order to show us what history was to be all about, what the intention of God was for our history? What if Jesus wasn’t just an episode? What if Jesus was that manifestation of what is true everywhere at all time, what God has been about from the beginning and what God will be about to the end? What if Jesus was the epiphany, a realization, an incarnation of God’s eternal intention? I think Paul and John were trying to say that, but let me be honest. Paul and John were episodic. Jesus was an episode for Paul and for John and I don’t try to make John and Paul into something else. Jesus came in from outside and left again, and in the Gospel of John, the 14th chapter, Jesus says, "I came from the father and I return to the father." John understood Jesus as an episode. Paul understood Jesus as an episode. Paul understood Jesus as an episode coming in to effect the salvation of the world which was going to end very soon. Now, I grant you that. What if we read them and if we understand them better than they understood themselves? What a presumptuous thing to say! But, what if we see what was operative in them? What were they saying? John starts his gospel by saying, "In the beginning was the word," in the beginning obviously referring us to Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." John is talking about the one true and eternal God, Creator of all. He is connecting the word, the intention, the idea of this Creator God with, in the 14th verse, this word, idea, intention becoming flesh, and he says we beheld him and behold, we saw in him the glory of God. He says no one has ever seen God, that Ultimate Mystery of things, but the son has revealed God from an eternal realm into the realm of our history, John episodic at that point, nonetheless understanding that Ultimate Mystery of God landed in our history and in our history became incarnate so that we could look upon the flesh of Jesus, look into the face of Jesus, and we could see the nature of God. In fact, this is what Paul says explicitly in the second letter to the Corinthians, the fourth chapter, the sixth verse, where the God who said, "Let light shine out of © Grand Valley State University �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   darkness." Whose God is it? Of course, it’s the Creator God Who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth and said, "Let there be light." The same God John is talking about Paul is talking about. They want to be very clear. We’re not talking about some little tribal deity over here; we’re talking about God! And this God Who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Fantastic claim, but again both of them suggesting that in the midst of the trajectory of history which has behind it that biological evolutionary development which has behind it all of those eons of cosmic development. At this point there arose in this process one whose very flesh became the incarnation of God and it is no wonder that, when the Church for several hundred years struggled to understand who Jesus was, what happened in Jesus, what in the world God was doing, the Church came finally to make a contradictory statement in the Council of Chalcedon, 451, but that’s where we get that famous phrase with which the Church has rested for all these centuries, "Jesus Christ, true God, true human." What they’re saying is, I see Jesus and I say, "Oh, God!" I see Jesus and I say, "There’s the human in the midst of this historical, biological, evolutionary continuum upon which we are traveling; there has been a moment in which there was a face that shined the light of the eternal God into our hearts as we beheld him." That, I think, is Jesus as epiphany who in his incarnation was telling us what is true about God and what is true about humanity and what is true about human history. In Jesus we get the clue as to the grain of the universe. When I see a preacher do as admittedly I myself have done in earlier years, boil it all down to a Jesus coming from outside in order to die for my sins in order that I might have heaven, I want to say to myself that’s really not terribly important. That’s awfully self-centered and frankly, simply irrelevant to what’s happening in my world. I don’t think Jesus would even recognize himself, for was Jesus about getting us to heaven, or was Jesus about changing the world? Was Jesus about some future age, or was Jesus about the here and now, the rough and tumble of history? Was not Jesus that non-violent resister of the world as it is in order to bring it to the intention of God, the God of justice and mercy? And I am so struck by it because our world is again in the convulsions of war. A couple of weeks ago I said to you if you were meeting with the President this morning, how would you vote - do we bomb or not? And last week it seemed as though that bombing which was the decision was simply violence eliciting greater violence. And now here we are on a third Lord’s Day and I really can’t gather you in worship and speak to you of eternal things without constantly having before my mind and putting before your mind what’s going on in the world because I think that’s what the Gospel is about; I think that’s what God is about; I think that’s what Jesus is about, and it would seem today, in spite of all the spin doctors and all of the critique that we have to do with the filtered news that we get in quotation marks, it would seem that there is a horror being perpetrated in our world. It would seem that there are some resemblances, not in numbers, but © Grand Valley State University �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   nonetheless in intention and in consequence to the Holocaust of the Second World War, and it would seem that in a world where we would follow Jesus who stands for the God of justice non-violently, that our world has not yet come to a point where non-violent protest will stop the slaughter, and so in this world which is still so much in darkness, so marked by brokenness, we are having to use violence on behalf of humanity. I say to myself it’s Easter Sunday in Orthodox country, it’s Easter Sunday in Serbia Yugoslavia, and I think about not only the orthodox church, but the Roman Catholic Church and all brands of Protestant church and I think for 2000 years we have made Jesus Christ into a salvation figure; we have made Christian faith into a salvation cult; we have made the Church into an institution of salvation, and we have done precious little to effect the things that Jesus was about. The darkness continues, and we are satisfied to have a Savior when that one who was the epiphany, the manifestation of the intention of God in our history was about the concrete stuff of history. We do our liturgy and we let our incense flow heavenward and repeat our creeds and we have, in my opinion, missed it so drastically that Easter can be celebrated in Serbia today with not much connection with ethnic cleansing that is going on over there. But, wasn’t Jesus simply the exemplification of the intention of God? Didn’t Jesus say to his disciples, "As the father has sent me, so send I you. Receive the Holy Spirit." Did Jesus ever say, "I am unique and have a monopoly on this?" Did not Jesus rather say, "As I have been, you are to be. Go forth, do this as I have done. Be what I have been." We in the evangelical Church have been so concerned about the uniqueness of Jesus. Tell me why. Why is it so important that Jesus be the only way? Why must Jesus be unique? Of course, if he is a salvation figure, if he’s someone from outside who came in to do this thing, I can see, I suppose, that you need to hedge him around and make him unique. But for God’s sake, he didn’t want to be unique. He wanted to be one of us in order that we might be one with him. I think what Jesus was about was for all of us, more and more to manifest that spirit, that fullness that dwelt in him in order that we might stand in solidarity with him, in order that we might make our world a different place. So, here we are in Europe again, in war. I was reminded of the book, A Man Called Intrepid, I read several years ago by William Stevenson about Sir William Stephenson, the Englishman who ran the secret war in the Second World War. He writes about November 5 of 1940, shortly after Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been elected to his third term, Roosevelt gathered with his neighbors in Hyde Park. His opponent that year was Wendell Wilke who had said that electing Roosevelt to a third term would mean, "dictatorship and war." Roosevelt had said, "I will not send our boys to fight a foreign war." But Roosevelt saw more than the American people. For two years he had been working with Churchill and the English, and then the English were able to break the Nazi code and in order to © Grand Valley State University �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 6   make that a valuable accomplishment, they couldn’t let the Nazis know that they had broken the code, and so now Hitler, irate, was ready to begin to bomb cities, non-military targets. November 14, 1940, Churchill learned through the breaking of the code, the decoding of the message that it was to be Coventry, England. If you go there you will find a grand contemporary cathedral on the ruins of the old, bombed out cathedral. Coventry was to be bombed. Did Churchill let them know so they could evacuate the city? That would have tipped off the Nazis that they had the code. And so, a sleepless night he tossed and turned and while Coventry was bombed, he knowing that they would be bombed, not able to let them know, lest they faltered in the larger picture. You see, this world of darkness where there is all this ambiguity, and FDR said to Sir William Stephenson shortly after that, "We are being forced more and more to play God." And I would say, "Exactly, exactly. We are called to play God!" God is not the God of the quick fix, dipping in here and there, fixing that, healing that, saving this one. Damning that one. God of infinite patience has come to full expression in humankind in a human face; we have looked into the face of Jesus and we have seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and Jesus said, "As I am in this world, you are to be." God is waiting for us to play God. We are making those hard decisions with particular judgment and not enough knowledge, fallible and flawed that we are, we are called to be that, the Church of Jesus Christ, the people of God in the midst of this world to break that cycle of vengeance and retaliation and hatred. What’s going on in the Balkans is the result of centuries of tribalism, us against them, nursing old wounds, blood feuds. We have to stop it. We have to address it. We have to deal with it gently, kindly, now firmly. But, we cannot sit by and allow evil to happen. It has happened with the knowledge of the Holy Father and the President of the United States during the Holocaust. And maybe, eventually, maybe more and more will come to a dawning of the truth if they see it, that which came to expression in Jesus, coming to expression in more and more who are not nearly so concerned about heaven as earth, about the next life as this life. In last night’s news there was a note about millions being raised in Israel for relief because they remember, you see. They remember when it was them. And there was the flash of 75 Israeli doctors at the Macedonian border ministering to Kosovars who are Muslims who, during the second World War, supported Hitler. You see, that’s what has to happen. There has to be a forgiving; there has to be resistance to violence; there has to be a refusal to do any harm; there has to be where possible that manifestation, that epiphany, that grace that came to expression in Jesus, and here and there, now and again when someone in solidarity with Jesus decides to heal and forgive and to embrace in order that the world may be changed. Heaven can wait. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/64dc013092819ee8444e5cb6b8d53b4c.mp3 97738b02ec3ff25b16f6666788c8d2b9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Eastertide II Series Varieties of Religious Experience Scripture Text John 1:1, 14, 17, II Corinthians 4:6 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19990411 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-04-11 Title A name given to the resource Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 11, 1999 entitled "Jesus: Episode or Epiphany?", as part of the series "Varieties of Religious Experience", on the occasion of Eastertide II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 1:1, 14, 17, II Corinthians 4:6. Cosmic Evolution Divine Intention Epiphany Incarnation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c9245356d84ed98ff9659fd6c979a504.pdf dd9730e1f7dc5a95b2797f7a468305b5 PDF Text Text The Quest From the series: Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question Text: Micah 4:5; Matthew 2:1-2 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany, January 10, 1999 Transcription of the spoken sermon Since worship had to be canceled because of the weather last week, this is the first time we gather in worship in 1999, and I wish you a Happy New Year. The calendar is not all that important; we are on the threshold of the turn of the century and of the millennium, but, that really is no big deal, if you really stop to think about it, for the calendar is a rather parochial matter. It’s a human product; we’ve produced it and it’s a western Christian calendar. If you were in China, I suppose it would be the year 6000 or something. If you were in Jerusalem, last year you would have celebrated the 3000th anniversary of the city and I think for the Jewish people it’s the year 5,600 and something or other. I didn’t know where to find all that information, but it’s close. The point is, the year 2000 is no big deal. If it really were a big deal, it would have happened four years ago because there is a mistake in the calendar from when it was first put together. Anyway, what I’m saying to you is don’t get excited about going into the year 2000. Relax. Have a party. And don’t believe any of the rubbish that’s around; just don’t believe it. There are a few advanced human beings who I understand use computers - they may have a problem for a while. But, outside of that technology, there’s going to be no big deal at all. But the calendar does have this advantage: it reminds us that our life is involved in a movement and there’s nothing we can do about it. We can dig in our heels, we can fret, we can try all sorts of things to freeze the moment and hold it back. We can sing the song, "Stop the World and Let Me Off," but it won’t do any good, because time marches on and our human story marches on. We are historical people marked by the movement of time. Our days and weeks and months and years go on and the calendar’s turning. The calendar on the wall is a sign of the fact that time moves, we move, inevitably. And so, the calendar is an opportunity for us at this time of the year to take stock and to look to the future. In the Church, the 6th of January is the Feast of Epiphany which means the manifestation, the celebration in the Church of its conviction that Light has come into the world, that the child that was born who we believe was the Word made flesh, whose name in the Gospel of Matthew was Emmanuel, a name hardly ever used beyond that, and yet perhaps the finest name of all, that in the flesh of the © Grand Valley State University   �The Quest Richard A. Rhem Page 2   child, Emmanuel, God with us, that is the heart of our faith and that’s the heart of Christmas. On the Feast of Epiphany we celebrate the fact that in the child, God became human flesh and we have Light in the world, Light in the world for our ongoing journey. For that is the nature of our human existence - we are on a journey. Within us, deep within us there is a quest. We don’t pause often enough to acknowledge the quest. We probably don’t think about it very often, and then those moments intrude themselves upon us when we ask the ultimate questions, and we ask about the mystery of our existence before the face of the Ultimate Mystery - Who are we? And Why are we here? From whence have we come; whither are we going; and what in the world is God doing? We are people who have within our depths a question and a quest. It is the very nature of our humanity, and the quest that is endemic to our humanity is the religious quest. The questions are religious questions; they’re questions about the Ultimate, about meaning, about purpose, and there is that within our human nature that senses that we are on the way, that we are not where we are going, and that what we have yet experienced lacks completion and fulfillment. When we stop to think about it, we know that that’s the very nature of being human, that we are people on the way. We have a past and today we are able to have a sense of that past as no generations before us, recognizing that whole cosmic story of billions of years that emerged into a story of life, and then life at some point emerging into selfconscious life, some creature in its animality, in a moment becoming aware of itself and of the other, and at that moment, the universe became conscious, and we, humankind, are the consciousness of the cosmos, and it is that which marks us as humans that we ask those ultimate questions, that we are able to go back and to trace that long, long progression, that we become aware of ourselves at this moment and that we contemplate a future into which we are moving, a future uncharted that has surprises that we have not yet dreamed of. That’s really the nature of being human. To be human, I believe, is to be on a quest. And to be on a quest is to be asking the religious questions. Something within us, some yearning, some longing for some clue as to what this is all about, who we are, and what in the world God is doing. A beautiful statement written by C. S. Lewis entitled, “The Signature of the Soul,” found in The Problem of Pain, says very well what I want to say about that mark of our humanity as having a question embedded in its depths. C. S. Lewis writes, There are times when I think we do not desire heaven, but more often I find myself wondering whether in our hearts and our heart of hearts we have ever desired anything else…Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling of that something which you were born desiring and which amid all the flux of other desiring and passion, day and night, year after year, from childhood to old age you have been looking for, watching for, listening for. © Grand Valley State University �The Quest Richard A. Rhem Page 3   You’ve never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it, tantalizing glimpses of it, promises never quite fulfilled. But, if it should ever really become manifest, if ever there came an echo of it that did not fade away but grew louder and swelled into the sound itself, you would know it. Beyond all doubt, you would say, "Here it is. This is that for which I was made." We cannot tell each other about it; it is the secret signature of the soul, the incommunicable, unappeasable want, the thing desired before we made any conscious choices which we shall still desire on our deathbeds. To lose this is to lose all. The signature of the soul is the quest for meaning, for completion, for fulfillment, for some sense, some clue as to the mystery of our lives before the face of Mystery. That’s the nature of our human existence, and maybe the turning of the calendar, if it does nothing more, reminds us that we are a people on the way, living always with that deep question, "What is it all about? Who am I? Whence have I come? Whither am I going? And what in the world is God doing?" Micah speaks of a vision of another world where they’ll turn their weapons into farming implements and the nations will learn war no more, where Israel will walk in the name of its God and the nations will walk in the name of their God, and everyone will be unafraid, sitting under his or her vine and fig tree. That peaceful, serene setting that must be at the depths of the longing within us when we realize that what is cannot be all there is, that there must be something more, some other world, some new age. But, it was not only the Hebrew prophets who had such a longing, who had a sense of quest, for it is the symbol of Epiphany that a star aroused Magi, those mysterious astrologers from the East, to seek out the birth of one whom they felt signaled in the stars was destined for royalty, and they made their way to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem and knelt before the child. The Church has, somewhat triumphalistically said, "You see, it was the beginning of the coming of all nations to the true God, to the true Light." Well, I would say rather, it is an indication of the universality of the longing of the quest for God, for truth, for reality. The journey of the Magi is simply symbolic in the way we tell the Christmas story of our conviction that we are on a quest for the living God, and the celebration of the fact that that God has caused the Light to dawn upon us, not to end our quest, but to whet our appetite, to dig more deeply into that quest, following the star, seeking to fill that hole in the soul that marks us as the restless ones who are ever on the move. On this first worshiping Sunday of the New Year, I’m really excited to announce the establishment of a new ministry at Christ Community. It is an adjunct ministry of The Center for Religion and Life. I have in my hands a brochure which you’ll all have in your hands before long. The Center for Religion and Life, which announces the coming in February and the first weekend of Lent, February © Grand Valley State University �The Quest Richard A. Rhem Page 4   19-21, the presence of John Dominic Crossan, who is, I think I can say without refutation, the world’s preeminent scholar in the research for the historical Jesus. John Dominic Crossan will inaugurate a lecture series in 1999 under the auspices of The Center for Religion and Life. He’ll be followed by Marcus Borg, the most popular writer and author in this whole historical Jesus quest. In the fall, we’ll have Amy-Jill Levine who is a Jewish scholar teaching New Testament at Vanderbilt University, and then perhaps the most controversial churchman in America today, Bishop John Shelby Spong coming to us, as the brochure says, to help us re-imagine Christian faith for the third millennium. This Center for Religion and Life has a logo, which is Q & Q, selected very deliberately, because today popularly you will see, "Q & A." What’s the question? This is the answer. And I think throughout the long history of the Church, Q & A would fit appropriately. What’s the question? We have the answer. Christ Community is going to inaugurate a Center for Religion and Life that will be marked not by Q & A, but by Q & Q, by Quest and Question, for we come to acknowledge, as I said a moment ago, that it is the very nature of our human existence that we are in movement, on a journey, and that within our depths there is a quest for meaning which is, I believe, the quest for God. We will honor that quest, seeking to help people clarify the questions, for to be human, to be honest is to live without absolute answers. Life is a mystery. Too often, for too long in the Church, we have promised too much. We have made premature closure on those Ultimate questions that drive our restlessness, and so we felt that it was time for a congregation to establish a Center where the quest can be honored and the questions sought to be clarified, the quest of our human existence, the questions that impinge upon our human existence, a Center where, as an adjunct to this total ministry, we can create a space, a forum, if you will, where those questions can be honestly pursued. Why? Because the Christian faith needs desperately to be translated in light of the explosion of modern knowledge. I am not being critical; I am stating a fact quite simply: The Church at large has never come to terms with the knowledge, the explosion of knowledge in the modern world. Why do it? Because our story comes out of an ancient world and an ancient framework which is not in any way to denigrate the truth that came to expression, simply to recognize that the structures within which the story was told are structures that have long since been put to rest while a whole new world has exploded, a world that needs to have the interpretation and the critique of the faith, but which also must critique the faith drawing from it new answers and new understandings and insights in order that faith and life may illumine each other. Why do it? Because the Gospel is good news, and it does need to be presented in such a fashion that it can connect with people of contemporary experience so that the Church doesn’t become a museum piece, lauding yesterday’s answers to today’s questions, but allowing the Gospel fresh expression through hard work, © Grand Valley State University �The Quest Richard A. Rhem Page 5   theological reflection, biblical study in order that we may find a way to speak good news into the future. Why Christ Community? Well, because we’ve been doing it for a long time here. You have been a wonderful congregation that has encouraged me to continue to think the faith, and Christ Community is a rather rare situation. Not many people with my passion and my interest go into the ministry or stay in the ministry. Not in the pastoral ministry. There are all kinds of places to go where one can think unfettered by the pastoral setting, but it has been who I am, but you have allowed me in this setting to continue to think and to think out loud on this stool, and we’ve always had a freedom here to think the faith, reflect on the faith, probe the edges. Why Christ Community? Because this is a most rare place where over a quarter of a century of theological reflection has been translated into preaching that has developed a community that is the laboratory by which the theology can be tested. You are the fruit of the theological reflection which has found expression in preaching, and there aren’t a lot of situations like this. But there’s another reason why Christ Community and that is that we have not only that tradition of free inquiry combining evangelical passion with intellectual integrity, but we also have a new burst of freedom and freshness. We, in our independent status, have no ecclesiastical pressures or obligations. We are free to think the faith as never before. I’ve had an interesting experience in the last year and I’ve mentioned it to you, I’m sure, in conversation, if we’ve talked about it. I’ve always felt I had a free pulpit here and you’ve been a wonderful congregation to allow me to indulge my habit, but I have today a freedom that I didn’t know I didn’t have, and that’s a fascinating experience. I have a freedom today I didn’t know I didn’t have. And so, while this is nothing new, really, we’re going to do it with a new intentionality and a new deliberateness and a new publicness. We’re going to do our best to create here an oasis where every question is honored, where there is no subject that is off limits, where in conversation, in community, we can think together in the presence of the mystery that is God. Why do it? It needs desperately to be done, and there aren’t many, either in academy or congregation, that are doing it. Why do it here? Because of the position of freedom that allows that kind of honest inquiry. Why do it now? I’m getting old. I don’t have long to go anymore. I have to get on it. If we’re ever going to do it, we’ve got to do it. I mean, if you want to do it with me, and I’d like to do it with you, so let’s do it together. Honoring the quest, clarifying the questions; breaking new ground, unafraid, because we really believe in the Good News, in the grace of God that has appeared in the Word made flesh who is the Light of the world, who beckons wise ones. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/37f08f1b5913669c88e7388e4ca19f47.mp3 f543154db5e7a11d12d3649f9b35eaed 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 Epiphany II Series Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question Scripture Text Micah 4:5, Matthew 2:1-2 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Gordon Kaufman.In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology, 1995. 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-0-19990110 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-01-10 Title A name given to the resource The Quest 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 January 10, 1999 entitled "The Quest", as part of the series "Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question", on the occasion of Epiphany II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Micah 4:5, Matthew 2:1-2. Epiphany Meaning Mystery of God Religious Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a022ac9792cba629241ab55b5e108b54.pdf f9112dcfa9b5a612f716e3d8a842ad49 PDF Text Text Insight, Courage and World Transformation Text: Acts 26:1-9; John 12:42 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Season of Epiphany, January 26, 1997 Transcription of the spoken sermon I have found in the season of Epiphany a theme that continues to circle around in my head and what I am going to say to you this morning, I've said before. I am going to reinforce that theme that in Epiphany we celebrate the fact that the Light has come. It's a wonderful season, the season of the Star, of brightness, of illumination. We celebrate the fact that God does not remain hidden, that God unveils God's self and we have the knowledge of God. The gift of God is that illumination of our minds and hearts so that we are not in darkness, but we live in light. The thing that has continued to get at me is that the Church always celebrates these seasons of the year, we celebrate that the Light has come, but we fail to act in light of the Light. The Light is not an end in itself. The Light has come in order that people illumined, given insight, might become world changers, world transformers. The thrust this season and of this message is that insight must be wedded to courage in order that the world might be transformed. It sounds like pulpit talk, grandiose, doesn't it? But, think about it for a moment. Is that not what the whole biblical story is about - God calling a people, Israel, in order to be light to the nations? Is not that what the Gospel is about - the light of Jesus Christ, the one who said, "I am the Light of the world," calling us to follow, to be light, to be salt to the world? Are we not called, we who follow in the way of Jesus and in the tradition of Israel, to bear witness to the kingdom of God and to be the concretization of that kingdom in the midst of history? We are called to be agents of change. We are called to be world transformers. Krister Stendahl used a phrase that I love: "We are called to be the menders of Creation." Isn't that a nice phrase? To mend Creation. God is about the mending of Creation, and God's people are called to be the agents in that process of mending, the healing of Creation, specifically that society might be humanized, that there might be more justice in the world, that there might be more compassion in the world, that there might be more peace in the world. That's so basic, very simple, isn't it? Fundamental. The people of God, as we have understood ourselves, in the tradition of Israel and in the Christian tradition, are © Grand Valley State University   �Insight, Courage, Transformation Richard A. Rhem Page 2   a people who are called to live in the Light, to walk in the Light, to be children of Light in order that the world might become a better place. World transformation. The Light hasn't come simply to give us information. The Light has come to give us insight in order that, with courage, we might engage in the changing of the world, the changing of society, the changing of human behavior, making the world a better place. The mending of Creation. My theme is this: That the insight must be wedded to courage in order that the insight might be effective in the concrete world of which we are a part. And the greatest hindrance to the coming of the kingdom of God is a failure of nerve. It is fear. I had noted that, last weekend at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Dr. William Sloan Coffin would speak. Coffin has been an activist minister of the Gospel for many, many years. He has been about many causes of social justice and world peace, but yesterday's Press had a little clip from him in which, typically, he called the Church to live in love and to live lovingly, but then this caught my eye: He said, "The great enemy of love is fear, and fear is the destructive force and it is the block to transformative action," and he said, "I'm afraid of scared people." The problem with the world is scared people. People who lack the courage to stand for the insight that God has given. I think that is clear from the scriptures and it is obvious in our own experience as a people in our own day. Certainly it was clear in the biblical story, the story as Luke told Paul's story, and as John told Jesus' story. Luke, in the Book of Acts, in those last chapters tells about Paul's return, after all of his missionary activity and the founding of the churches, to Jerusalem with that offering, and when he goes there, a very significant moment in the 21st chapter, the 20th verse: James and the leaders of the Christian Jesus Movement, the Jesus Jewish Christian Movement encounter Paul and they welcome him, saying, "Paul, there are thousands of followers of the Way here. There is a big population in Jerusalem of Jewish people following the way of Jesus, but there are those among them who are saying that when you get out in the hinterlands, you play fast and loose with Moses. You don't observe Torah; you are not an observant Jew out there. And you encourage other Jews to be lax in their observance. And so, Paul, can you straighten that out?" Paul says, "Certainly." Then they say, "Why don't you engage in the Rite of Purification? Go to the Temple, it's a seven-day process, say your prayers and shave your head and all that kind of thing." Paul says, "I'll be glad to," because Paul never claimed to be anything else but an observant Jew. And so, he does that but, while he's in the Temple, there's this © Grand Valley State University �Insight, Courage, Transformation Richard A. Rhem Page 3   group who is agitating. They stir up a mob and it doesn't take a mob long with a mob psychology to get rabid. They're ready to pounce on him, to tear him limb from limb. They want to kill him, and he's arrested by the Roman cohort there, and the arrest actually becomes a rescue. So, he's put in prison to guard his own life. But, before that, he speaks to the mob and he says, "Look, I am a faithful follower of the tradition. It is for the hope of Israel that I stand here." Well, they boo him down eventually, and then he speaks to the Roman tribune and finds out he's a Roman citizen. Now he's in the Roman legal process; he gives his defense to the first Governor, Felix, and then Festus and then finally we hear him talking before the King, Agrippa, and it's the same in every case as he gives his defense. As we read a moment ago, he says, "Look, King, I was a persecutor of the People of the Way. I was so diligent in my own Jewish faith that I imprisoned, I voted for the death of the followers of the Way, I persecuted these people. Certainly these accusations against me are false." And then he tells the king about how, on his way to Damascus, the light shone upon him, and he tells his conversion story and how he who persecuted the followers of the Way became the proclaimer of Jesus, as indeed God's anointed one. And then this phrase, one of my text this morning: "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." That's the point, dear friends. Paul was bathed in light; Paul had to undergo a radical transformation in his thinking. Paul had to do a 180° turn. Paul was absolutely broken, only to rise up and to go another way. He could say at the end of his life, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." He had been warned not to go to Jerusalem but he had to go to Jerusalem. They said, "They will bind you there," and he said, "I will go to Jerusalem even if I be bound. I am ready to die for the name of Jesus Christ." Paul wedded insight to courage, and he was not disobedient to that heavenly vision. I'm sure he died disappointed because he had hoped that from Jew and Gentile there would be created one new humanity. That's the phrase from his Letter to the Ephesians. He spoke about how that middle wall or partition was torn down and now there would be no barrier separating the human family. And you know his frustration. It comes out in his Letter to the Romans, when his own brothers and sisters in the faith did not see what he saw. He said, "I would myself be accursed if only they could see this." I think Paul dreamed of a day, not when the Jew would cease to be a Jew, but when the Jew in his following of Torah would see in Jesus that full manifestation of God and the day when the Gentile would not become a Jew, but would be embraced by that same grace of God. Paul envisioned one new humanity, embraced by God's grace, dwelling in the light, and he could see that it was not © Grand Valley State University �Insight, Courage, Transformation Richard A. Rhem Page 4   happening that way, and there was this terrible tension between his work out in the Gentile mission field and the Jesus Jewish contingent at home base in Jerusalem. But, think of what might have happened if Paul's dream could have been realized, for what ensued because it was not realized was the dominant Jewish party persecuting the people of the Way until the people of the Way became the dominant Christian establishment with tragically 2000 years of anti-semitic persecution. Think of the horror that has been visited upon the human family because there was not at that point created one new humanity. Paul was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Paul was ready to die for that truth in which he believed, but it didn't happen. There were not enough who would join him, not enough who caught the vision. And so, 2000 years later, does thinking have its implications? My goodness, people, out of that what happened 2000 years later, the horror of the Holocaust! I read just recently in the paper that the nation Germany is wrenched even now as they're trying to determine how to establish a Holocaust memorial in Germany. Ten million dollars, but how do you do it? How do you have a people live, constantly being reminded of that horror? You see, thinking has ramifications all down the line. If only there had been more who would have heeded Paul and stood with him, not to put everybody in a blender and have a homogenized humanity, but to have Jew and Gentile in Christ linked arm in arm, according to God's intention, bringing light to all nations, the light that is in Jesus Christ. There weren't enough that had nerve enough to stand. There weren't enough who wedded insight with courage in order to transform their world. Near the end of the first century, the Rabbinic Jewish party has gained the ascendency. The Jewish followers of Jesus are on the defensive now. Now in this Johannine community, John sees in his congregation one and then another and another leave; they're going out all over the place. The ascendent Rabbinic party is now denying the possibility of someone being in the synagogue and saying that Jesus is the Messiah. Now, you're up against it. "Do you believe Jesus is the Messiah?" "Oh, yes." "Well, if you confess it, you're out of here." Now you have to decide - will I openly confess it, or will I just be quiet and stay here, for after all, this is my spiritual home. That's the situation in which John tells the story of Jesus, and you always see those two levels in John's Gospel. He's telling the story of what happened in © Grand Valley State University �Insight, Courage, Transformation Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Jesus' day to address what's happening in his day, and so after giving the Book of Signs, the public ministry of Jesus comes to an end in the 12th chapter. The first half of the Gospel is over and it's as though the curtain drops, and John comes out in front of the curtain and speaks to the audience to say, "Now, let me explain this dilemma. You wonder - all of these things that Jesus did that I've just recorded and his own people have rejected him; they don't believe him. How can that be?" Well, John, out in front of the curtain now, with the audience, says, "On the one hand, God's in that somehow." To explain how that can be, John goes to the prophet Isaiah, the 6th chapter, in which Isaiah records his vision of God and his call. The sixth chapter has a strange twist: He said, Go and tell this people: You may listen and listen, but you will not understand. You may look and look again, but you will never know. This people's wits are dulled, their ears are deafened and their eyes blinded, so that they cannot see with their eyes nor listen with their ears nor understand with their wits, so that they may turn and be healed. Difficult words; how can we understand them? In any case, John is saying something similar. He is trying to say to the people this is not happening apart from God's overall operation in history. But then, lest it seem as though he is just saying, well, it's God fault, he goes on to the next paragraph to say, "But even many of the authorities believed but did not confess it for fear of the Pharisees, lest they be put out of the synagogue." Now, in Jesus' day, nobody was going to be put out of the synagogue, but in John's day the issue was you confess Jesus as the Messiah, you'll be put out of the synagogue. And what John is saying to his community of people was you must make up your mind, you've got to decide, and it just may be down deep finally it will be an issue of whether or not you have the courage of your conviction. Because he says in Jesus' own day there were religious authorities that believed, but for fear of the Pharisees they didn't confess it because they valued human glory more than the glory of God. I would translate that a little differently in our day. They valued their comfort and their security and their job, their position in society more than the imperative to speak the truth according to their conscience. John says to his community, "Will you, too, leave, through a failure of nerve? You do believe it. Just like in Jesus' own day there were those who did believe it. But the question is not what you believe in the depths of your heart. The question is the degree to which that which you believe in the depths of your heart will find expression in your life. It is the degree to which you will stand up and speak it, say it, take a stand, be counted. Because, you see, insight is given not as an end in © Grand Valley State University �Insight, Courage, Transformation Richard A. Rhem Page 6   itself, to be contemplated in silence. Insight is given to be wedded with courage in order that the end of it might be world transformation. We are to be about the mending of Creation, the humanization of society, the changing of attitudes, the changing of behavior, the changing of social structures. It is so difficult to do it in the political process. Come in this next hour and ask Sen. Stille how difficult it is in the political process. Politics is the art of compromise, but there has to be a place in society where the truth will not be compromised, and if it is not the Church, if it not the people of God, then where will the truth be spoken? If we believe it, we must have the courage to say it. If we believe it, we must have the courage to incarnate it. If we believe it, then we must be the living concretization of it. The light has come. Thank God! So, what? So that we may become agents of transformation. So that we may act on our insight. So that we may follow our conviction. So that we may be true to our faith, the thing that we really believe. The great block to human transformation is fear - fear of consequence, fear of cost, and it is costly. And the fear is not without justification. Finally each of us in our own life and we as a people together, have moment by moment to make those decisions. Because 2000 years ago there were those who knew it, but for fear refused to confess it, a Holocaust happens and the world is still wrenched. We have knowledge about the genders and the essential equality of the genders, and yet there continues to be a battering away at the equality of women. We live in a society where the armed forces at a school like Citadel, where there is still that damnable resistance to what we really know is true and right. We live in a society that will continue to experience gay-bashing and persecution, when we know and we have information and we have an experience such that we know that there is no shred of basis in reality for that kind of bigotry and prejudicial attitude. The tragedy is that, while it is very difficult to speak the truth in the political arena where one needs to be elected, in the Church there is a refusal to speak it, even an undergirding of the bigotry and the prejudice that has ruled far too long. My epiphany plea with you is that we will, before the face of God, think hard, think seriously, think responsibly, reflect, contemplate, discuss, dialogue, struggle and wrestle with humility and openness, but then have the courage to be all of that that would reflect what we really believe and end the conspiracy of silence and the compromise with all of that negativity that continues to lace the human family with tragedy. Dear friends, the Light has come. Be children of Light and let your light so shine that all people may glorify the Eternal God Who calls us to be the menders of Creation. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5cc30be310adfa5a7ad01cfe70e22ab7.mp3 833c7ac89f9b1537585be2f544bb31b1 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 Christian Unity Sunday, Epiphany IV Scripture Text Acts 26:1-9, John 12:42 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-0-19970126 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-01-26 Title A name given to the resource Insight, Courage and World Transformation 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 January 26, 1997 entitled "Insight, Courage and World Transformation", on the occasion of Christian Unity Sunday, Epiphany IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 26:1-9, John 12:42. Compassion Epiphany Justice Transforming the World https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2b648f9c8b4d7e595089e58f24973425.pdf 33904c27e10276e6c462b647910c0670 PDF Text Text Beyond Reason: Discovery in Worship and Mission Christian Unity Sunday Text: Isaiah 49:6b; John 1:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany, January 19, 1997 Transcription of the spoken sermon (On this Christian Unity Sunday, the choirs of the two parishes, St. Mary's Catholic Church and Christ Community Church, in Spring Lake, have joined together in Antonio Vivaldi's "Gloria," during the 10:00 am worship hour. The choirs have been singing together, on occasion, since 1973, and there exists a special affection between the two parishes.) (Scripture is read by Jim Penrice, a seminarian intern at St. Mary's, from Mundelein Seminary.) On behalf of our pastor and all of your sisters and brothers at St. Mary's parish, I bring you warm greetings on this cold morning. Somewhere in the scripture it says, "It is good to be here." And it certainly is good to be with you today to worship together as sisters and brothers in Christ. This is a reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah: Listen to me, O coast lands, and hearken, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand, he hid me. He made me a polished arrow. In his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified." But I said, "I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity, yet surely my right is with the Lord and my recompense with my God." And now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has become my strength. He says it is too light a thing that you should be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will give you as a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." Thus says the Lord, the redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the servant of rulers. Kings shall see and arise, princes, and they shall © Grand Valley State University   �Beyond Reason: Worship Richard A. Rhem Page 2   prostrate themselves because of the Lord who is faithful, because of the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you. I invite you to please stand for the proclamation of the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. This is a great experience for us; it is the Sunday designated by a large part of the Church as Christian Unity Sunday. It's a time in which we acknowledge that which is not true, but that which ought to be true. We acknowledge that we know better than we do, and, over the past 25 years of my second term here in this congregation, one of the great experiences for me has been the warm friendship between our neighboring parishes, St. Mary's and Christ Community. We have sung Christmas carols together; we have joined together in ecumenical services; the choirs have made presentations as this morning; we've had good fellowship together in our halls with hot chocolate and good things to eat - it's been enriching for me to experience the unity and the community between these two parishes, and I've heard the same thing from many of you. I've heard it also from the people of St. Mary's when we've had these occasions because, prior to that, we lived in the community together, perhaps we were neighbors, maybe we worked together, but on Sunday morning there was this kind of "Iron Curtain" that divided us and no one gave us permission to embrace one another as brothers and sisters in the faith. And so, it has been a beautiful experience for two neighboring parishes, one Roman Catholic, one Protestant, to recognize that the things that divide us are superficial and the things that make us one are fundamental, and this morning is another wonderful experience of that unity that we have in Jesus Christ. God knows that unity is imperative for our world. The Roman Catholic theologian from whom I have learned so much, Hans Küng, has said that there will be no peace among the nations until there is peace among the religions, and there will be no peace among the religions until there is peace among the churches. That says it succinctly and pointedly, and it is true. Wherever you look in the globe today, wherever there is trouble, potential violence, living on the edge of war, you will find at the root of the conflict religious fervor, or someone using religion to fuel the fires of discord and alienation. It is imperative that as people of faith we learn to live together and in order to live together, it is imperative that we come to experience that oneness that is ours because we are all the children of the one © Grand Valley State University �Beyond Reason: Worship Richard A. Rhem Page 3   eternal God, who in the beginning brought all things into being and created humankind in God's image with a heart that continues to yearn, to embrace all God's children. I believe that's a biblical truth. The passage from Isaiah is a very familiar passage; it's one of the servant songs in that section of Isaiah 40-55, a servant poem in which, to begin with, the servant seems to be Israel itself, and then moves to an individual who calls Israel to come to itself and to realize its purpose, because the song indicates that Israel was to be the place in which God was glorified on earth. God chose this people and in this people God would show God's glory. And so, the servant is to call Jacob back to God, to that prior claim to be that place where the light of God would dwell on earth. God chose Israel, not to the exclusion of the nations, but in order to bring light to the nations, and in this poem after the servant hears the call to bring Jacob back to God, the voice says, "But, that's not enough. That's too light a task. I will make you a light to the nations in order that my salvation may be known to the end of the earth." I believe that Israel at its best, at its moments of most profound understanding, saw itself to be the light of God to share with the nations in order that the world might experience God's saving grace. We in the Christian Church believe that that light came to sharp focus in Jesus. In the prologue to his Gospel, John writes of the Word, the word that in the 14th verse becomes flesh. In the meantime, that word speaks of a God Who is the source of life and light for the world. The Gospel writer points to John the Baptist and says John was not the light, but John came to bear witness to the light, and that light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world. Christmas was the coming in human flesh of that one who would say, "I am the light of the world." Jesus was not, in himself, the source of light. Jesus was not the exclusive light given to humankind. Jesus was the human flesh, was that supreme moment when the light that flows from God, that enlightens everyone, was coming into sharp focus. Jesus became the locus of the light, the light of God that enlightens all. I believe that is biblically true. But, if it's true, how can we realize it? How can we make it concrete in our world? What I want to say to you this morning is that, beyond reason, the truth is discovered in worship and mission. I say, beyond reason, because we will never come to the experience and the realization of unity through rational discussion. It is strange for me to say that, eh? I'm the incurable theologian. I am always thinking, thinking, thinking. When I write with great persuasion, when I speak with the tongues of angels, I think the whole world will understand. I can't figure out why everybody doesn't see it! But, alas, I learned to my despair, that wellreasoned argument doesn't do it. It must be beyond reason; it must be experienced. When it is experienced, it need not be discussed, debated or argued. © Grand Valley State University �Beyond Reason: Worship Richard A. Rhem Page 4   When it is experienced, it is known; it becomes a reality, and it is my claim this morning that the experience comes not as I wish it would come, by some finely fashioned sermon, some theological discussion, some erudite essay - no. It will come when it comes in worship and in mission. It will come when "Gloria in excelsis Deo" is sung magnificently by human voice, accompanied by instrument. It will come when we as a people are lifted into the presence of the living God, when we are lifted out of ourselves and there is that transcendent moment when we know ourselves caught up in wonder, love and praise. It is in worship, those moments of adoration, those experiences when we lose our head, when we open our heart, when our whole being pulsates, when our goosebumps have goosebumps, and we know beyond any argument when we see two choirs gathered together from two parishes from two great traditions singing one voice to the glory of the one God - don't we know in that moment that we are together the children of God who delight in the worship of that combined chorus? It is in worship, whether in corporate worship like this or in other moments when in different gatherings we may suddenly experience ourselves together. You know that Saturday nights are sacred. I seldom venture out of the house, but we did last evening for a special occasion - the birthday of the husband of the cochair of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue Committee, Sylvia Kaufman, and it was one of those decade-turning birthdays, a very festive evening, a wonderful party. Because Sylvia and Dick Kaufman are Jewish, there were Jewish friends and relatives. But because they have been in that community so long, there were Gentiles, as well, and people of all stripes. And because Sylvia is Chair of the Jewish-Christian Committee, there were members of the committee. There happened to be four clergy persons there, and in spite of that, it wasn't a bad evening! Sylvia said, "How about our resident clergy blessing the meal before we partake?" And so, we did - a Presbyterian, a ... (what am I?), a Lutheran, and a Jewish rabbi, and for a moment that assembly there gathered knew a transcendence that deepened the evening and we knew that we were one before the true God Who gives us bread. It is in worship that the superficial things that divide us are dissolved and we know ourselves truly to be one. And it is in mission, it is when we are not thinking the faith, but doing the faith. It is when our Parlour on Thanksgiving is filled with the aroma of roast turkey and there are people from various parishes around the community gathered together to roll up their sleeves and serve those who need a place on Thanksgiving, washing the dishes, making this a place of hospitality. It doesn't really matter what your brand is. Together there is a servant community of the people of Christ serving as an expression concretely of the compassion of God for all of those who would come. It comes in mission. This is the birthday of Martin Luther King. It was 29 years ago that he was cut down by an assassin's bullet. He was a prophet in our midst. We liked him not a little, not a lot. He did not, of course, receive the honor in his life which is typical for prophets. But, he had a dream and in the rich cadences of that black preacher, © Grand Valley State University �Beyond Reason: Worship Richard A. Rhem Page 5   this nation was sensitized and we recognized the horror of the racism that was encased in law, and his dream caught on and black and white together began to make those moves to dismantle the structure of racism which is still far from where it ought to be, but which has been moved immeasurably by one man who had a dream of the day when people would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the character of their soul. The dream was caught by black and white and young and old, and the landscape has changed, and we came together because we were doing what was right and when we were doing what was right, then we knew that there was a deeper unity that bound us together, that we were all the children of God. It is in worship and it is in mission that we come to experience the genuine unity of the human family. I got a call three or four weeks ago from a man named David or Daniel Fox. I had gotten a note to call this person. I didn't know who he was. There were some notes scribbled about what he wanted, but they didn't make any sense to me, and I've returned a few calls in the last few months that I wish I hadn't, and so I wasn't too eager to dial up this number, but I did. I found out that this was a gentleman who was a nephew of a chaplain in the Second World War who had been one of the four chaplains who had gone down with a troop ship. (Those of you who are older, like I am, will remember the story, perhaps.) He knew that I was a minister in the Reformed Church of America at the time and thought I might be able to give him some information about one of the chaplains, Clark Poling, who was a minister in the RCA I pointed him to the archives of the RCA and we chatted a bit about the story, which I did remember, but he reminded me that it was early in the Second World War, the USS Dorchester was torpedoed in the North Atlantic by a Nazi torpedo and they had not enough life jackets on board. There were four chaplains on board and those four chaplains took off their life preservers and handed them to the troops. And, as the troops were scrambling overside and into life boats, the chaplains stood on deck and they prayed for the troops, for their survival and their safety. The ship was mortally wounded and as it was slipping into that watery grave, the four chaplains stood on deck, linked arm in arm, praying for their people. One was a Methodist. One was a pastor in the Reformed Church. One was a Catholic priest, and one was a Jewish rabbi. What a picture. What an image. As they slipped under those icy waters and came into the presence of Light Eternal, do you suspect it mattered one whit that one was Jewish, one was Catholic and two were Protestant? Of course, it didn't. You know it didn't. The reason I know that you know it didn't, is that about five years ago I had an epiphany experience in this congregation. I was on my way to Brandeis University to a think tank on congregational affiliation for Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Do you remember? It happened to be Reformation Sunday and I told you where I was going and for what reason and I suggested that perhaps I should go to Brandeis and say to that group that what we really need to do, we who are © Grand Valley State University �Beyond Reason: Worship Richard A. Rhem Page 6   from Geneva, is go to Rome and pick up our brothers and sisters there and go to Constantinople, picking up more brothers and sisters, moving to Mecca and then to Jerusalem where we might all experience the truth - that we are all together the children of God. And you know what you did? It had never happened before. For the first time in my ministry, you applauded the sermon and you said to me "We've known it all along. When will you catch up with us?" You, the people, knew it. When I articulated it, you affirmed it, because you knew it. You knew it here and my confidence for the future lies in the fact that you know it and increasingly the people of God of whatever stripe will be saying to ecclesiastical leaders, church bureaucrats and bishops and all kinds of such animals, you will be saying, "Get out of the way!" because we're coming together, because in your heart, you know it's true. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9f2f012ad9ce38692adcd6676146dc99.mp3 6f1888b33127356521eb6787d5dea25b 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 Epiphany III Scripture Text Isaiah 49:6b, John 1:9 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-0-19970119 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-01-19 Title A name given to the resource Beyond Reason: Discovery in Worship and Mission 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 January 19, 1997 entitled "Beyond Reason: Discovery in Worship and Mission", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 49:6b, John 1:9. Community of Grace Epiphany Inclusive Pluralism https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/83ef58ff7fd401a2fcfd54c26e691194.pdf a6c401321cd204b372ff1c1e460f533f PDF Text Text Dare To Follow the Light Text: Isaiah 60:6-7; Ephesians 3:9; Matthew 2:2 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan January 5, 1997 Transcription of the spoken sermon Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ, the Light of which the prophet in Israel spoke, that Light of God which was Israel's treasure in order that they might be a beacon to the nations, Matthew now sees coming to manifestation in Jesus. There, in the face of Jesus, we see into the heart of God. And Paul with his experience, being knocked off his horse by that light from heaven, realizes that the mystery of God hid for the ages, now manifest, is that there is grace for the whole world. That really is the Epiphany story. We read it in Matthew's Gospel, and not only there but in the prophet, in Paul's understanding, the Light has come. "The Light has come; the Light has dawned upon you." The light has dawned upon us but we recognize immediately in that story of Jesus as Matthew tells it that, when the light comes, the darkness is threatened, and all hell breaks loose. This is the story of Herod, threatened by the announcement of this newborn king, who passes a decree that the innocents should be slaughtered in order to wipe out any pretender to the throne. Matthew is telling us immediately in this joyous announcement of the birth of Jesus that the world will not take kindly to the light, and that has been the story down through 2000 years, has it not? It has been the story forever. The Christian Gospel is the announcement of the Light of God. It is seen in continuity with that light that dawned on Israel, and now for 2000 years the Gospel has been proclaimed and the light of God has shined throughout the whole world. This morning I want to suggest to you that it is not a question of whether or not the Light has dawned. The question always before the Church, and the question before us this morning is whether or not we will dare to follow the Light. I want to suggest to you that Paul was a courageous person who made a radical break with that heavy, sturdy tradition in which he had been nurtured. When confronted by the Light, he recognized the call of God to take the Light to the nations. We take that for granted. We celebrate Epiphany as the dawning of the Light that had shone on Israel, which was now being manifest to the whole world, symbolized by the coming of the Magi. So, it's ho-hum; we take it for granted. © Grand Valley State University   �Dare to Follow the Light Richard A. Rhem Page 2   But, you couldn't have taken it for granted if you had lived at the time of the event itself. For Paul to realize, to sense a calling of God, to take the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles involved Paul going contrary to all of that that had been nurtured in him. Paul had to be a person of daring to say that the Gentiles can be reconciled to God by God's grace without first becoming Jews. Paul was a radical reformer, and there was great tension in that early Church. It was a long time before the question was settled as to whether or not there would be a separate Jesus Christian Movement or whether Paul could prevail within the Jewish community itself to see in Jesus this Light of God. But, Paul had the courage to act on his conviction and that at great cost. As he writes in this third chapter to the Ephesians, the secret, long hid with God, but now made manifest, is precisely that - that the grace of God is for the Gentiles so that Jew and Gentile will form one new humanity. In another place in this letter he speaks about that wall of separation being torn down. Paul had cut his eyeteeth on the idea of Jewish separation, that separation over against all others. But, Paul says no more wall, no more partition, no more separation. Now what God has said in Jesus Christ is that God is moved to embrace all. That took courage and Paul paid for it dearly, as many of his writings will indicate. My Epiphany message 1997 is this: Do we have the courage to follow the light? Our problem is not a lack of knowledge. I think the prophets and apostles and preachers for ages have recognized that the light has dawned. But there has been a failure of nerve to live out the implications of the light. It seems to me that here we are 2000 years down from the event of the gift of that one in whose face we've seen the light of the glory of God. What are the issues before us in the light of that light; what is God calling us to do and to be in our day in order to follow the light? It's one thing to dance in the light. It's another thing to behave and to act in light of the light. I want to suggest to you, because of the nature of our situation, that the stand we have taken as a congregation is the only responsible and reasonable way in which the Church of Jesus Christ can respond to the light and follow the light. Bill Moyers has been in the news a lot lately. His Genesis series is very, very popular, and he's done a lot of other things. I knew he was a Southern Baptist minister, but I was surprised that Southern Baptists invited him to address the Texas Conference, because the Southern Baptist Convention has been taken over in the last decade or decade and a half by very conservative, fundamentalist forces. But, Moyers addressed the Texas Southern Baptist Convention and he said to them in a little clip I found in the newspaper, that there is a "whole new religious reality out there" and you have to change from militant anger over the fact that the universe is not closed and life is not static. Well, it sounds like he really gave them both barrels, and he probably won't be invited back, but what he said is true and we all know it. There's a whole new religious reality out there and most of the Church wants to put its head in the sand as though it doesn't exist. © Grand Valley State University �Dare to Follow the Light Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Isaiah thought the end was imminent and the light was dawning. Five hundred years later, and Matthew thought the light had dawned and the end was imminent. And now it's 2000 years later still. Do you suppose that God in heaven is saying, "What in heaven's name are you people doing? Why don't you keep following the light? Why don't you keep working out the implications of the light?" Is it not evident to anybody with any sensitivity to our present global situation that world evangelization that has been the impulse of the Church all these years is an impulse that has hit a dead end? We do not see the evangelization of the world according to the Gospel of Christ. We see the resurgence of the great world religions. We live in a global community that must increasingly become a community of communities. We are able to communicate together in the world that has become a neighborhood; we are learning the insights and the sensitivities and the light that has dawned on others. Are we not being challenged to go into the arena and share our insight and our light that has been God's gift through Jesus Christ with others who share their gifts, as well? On the edge of the third millennium, should we not be facing the reality of global consciousness and working out the implications for our pluralistic world? Paul was confronted with a new situation a new door opened and Paul had the courage to go through that door. It is time for someone to recognize that the mystery is even deeper, grander, and brighter than even Paul understood, that God has a grander scheme, and that we have a treasure in Jesus Christ to bring to the table in a world that sits down and discusses the respective riches of the traditions, bringing together the Light that God has given. It's one thing to say the Light has dawned. It's another thing to have the courage to live out its implications, and it does take courage. Such courage is exercised only at considerable cost. That's the reason that the world is not transformed. It's not a lack of light; it's a lack of courage. I got a letter the other day from an old friend. Really a dear letter. Worried about me, he says after a bit, "What if you've been wrong? What if the faith you once held but have moved more and more away from is true?" He's a friend saying to me, "What if you're wrong?" Well, he says I hear you say I'm willing to take that chance. Finally, he says, "So, I invite you to take a fresh look, to ask again for God's light." I say, "Fine. Don't think I don't." I know that there is insight out there; there's a sense down deep in the core of many people that the kind of things I have said publicly are what any reasonable analysis would conclude, but it's costly and it takes courage to say it. That word has appeared in letter after letter from around the world. "Thank you for your courage." Do we have the courage to follow the light? How long will we bask in the Light that has dawned without doing something about it because, without the courage to act on the Light, the world will not be transformed. © Grand Valley State University �Dare to Follow the Light Richard A. Rhem Page 4   The issue that got us into controversy a year ago was the issue of sexual orientation and my recognition because of the growing light, knowledge, and experience, that sexual orientation is not a moral issue. I have in my hands a book which is brilliant. It's called Virtually Normal, written by Andrew Sullivan, who is the editor of "The New Republic." It is splendidly written and beautifully argued, and Andrew Sullivan, dealing with the whole matter of sexual orientation, himself being a gay man, speaks about various groups lined up on this issue - the prohibitionists, the liberationists, the conservatives, the liberals he comes to the liberals, and one would think that he, being a gay person, would affirm the liberal attempt to create space for the gay/lesbian community. He is appreciative of the legislation that seeks to rule out discrimination and that kind of thing, but he says finally the liberals who believe in freedom are denying their own most fundamental principles because this issue is not something that can finally be legislated and it cannot be fixed by law. Then speaking for himself, but I think speaking out of a profound experience and a brilliant insight, he says that the key to the healing and liberation of any person of homosexual orientation lies within themselves. He points to the civil rights movement of the 60s and he says perhaps the most enduring legacy of the civil rights movement was not its panoply of complicated and cumbersome laws, but the memory of the simple courage of those who stood up in the face of considerable danger for their dignity and equality. "What one remembers, what will never be erased from human consciousness was the gleam of integrity in the eyes of those who took it upon themselves to change their world, expecting no protection and no applause for doing so. It is courage that gets noticed and courage that changes the world." The pain of the homosexual experience requires that kind of catharsis to be healed. Nothing else can replace it. That is the case with Jerry Crane, the teacher in Byron Center who declared who he was in his faithful covenant relationship with another, who to be sure was hounded out of his teaching job and who had to endure two and three and four times as much press as I have, but who nevertheless as a dignified human being, as a man of class and culture, had the gleam in his eye because he was who he was and he stood there exposed in his full humanity. He died this week, but his courage will change the world. I'll tell you there are all kinds of us crouching in the bushes, and I'm not talking now about sexual orientation, I'm talking about the things, the core values by which we live - there are all kinds of us who believe things deep down that we've never had enough courage to stand up and speak for. And there's only one thing that really liberates the human soul; there's only one thing that brings us into the fullness of the human experience - it is when we are true to the light as it has dawned upon us. When the light has dawned upon us and we are true to it, we may find ourselves in Ramah, weeping for our children, not able to be comforted. But we will have been true, and when we will have been true, that will be enough. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/482a107479c0f0dee2a4cc8fab1ca231.mp3 3c84ed5ea3e120e9c0c42966d8e7c48f 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 Epiphany I Scripture Text Isaiah 60:6-7, Ephesians 3:9, Matthew 2:2 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-0-19970105 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-01-05 Title A name given to the resource Dare to Follow the Light 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 January 5, 1997 entitled "Dare to Follow the Light", on the occasion of Epiphany I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 60:6-7, Ephesians 3:9, Matthew 2:2. Epiphany Light of God Pluralism Universal Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/704dd72a3c8b59826df158d987e34105.mp3 14ed0863e3b4a8d4b28d578806269849 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6f44bafeb75978552f3dec09ae1c3f4b.pdf 56e6bcffb1e2bded072fa1dc2117c472 PDF Text Text Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? From the series: The Fundamentals a Century Later Genesis 1:26-27, 3:1-7; Luke 1:26-38 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan August 3, 2003 Transcription of the spoken sermon In today's Reading From the Present, a great preacher of a former generation, Carlyle Marney has described the consequence of that biblical story of the Fall in which he describes human nature. Incidentally, this is a generation ago, so the language is not inclusive, but I wouldn't want any of you women to think you're not included in this description. "Man is the most dangerous and savage of the beasts: His bite is poisonous; his hand is a club; his foot is a weapon; knives, clubs, spears are projectiles to bear his hostility. Nothing in nature is so well equipped for hating or hurting. Confuse him and he may lash out at everything. Crowd him and he kills, robs, destroys, for his crime rate increases in proportion to his crowding. Deprive him and he retaliates. Impoverish him and he bums villas in the night. Enslave him and he revolts. Pamper him and he may poison you. Hire him and he may hate both you and the work. Love him too possessively and he is never weaned. Deny him too early and he never learns to love. Put him in cities and all his animal nature comes out with perversions of every good thing. For greed, acquisitiveness, violence were so long his tools for jungle survival, that it is only by the hardest [effort] that these can be laid aside as weapons of his continued survival." We continue this morning a summer series on The Fundamentals a Century Later. Between 1910 and 1915, there were a large number of essays written by conservative, evangelical Christian scholars who were writing to reaffirm the old faith tradition, to affirm its fundamentals. They used the term positively, these fundamental affirmations of faith that they believed constituted the essence of the Christian gospel. And they wrote these essays in a concerted effort to forestall or to react against the rising impact of the liberal theology that was becoming regnant in the country. They felt that the Christian faith was under attack and under threat, and therefore, they attempted to give expression in their finest way possible to that old faith, and in doing so, they did a serious and responsible job. © Grand Valley State University   �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   They expressed the old faith in the old way from within a world view that was being discarded more and more with every succeeding year. Liberal theology had as its hallmark, according to Professor Gary Dorrien and I think correctly so, its rejection of an external authority, be that external authority a text or a tradition or an institution. It was the hallmark of the liberal theological tradition gaining ascendency that truth claims in theology, as in all other disciplines, must be measured by reason and experience, that there is no imposition from an external authority that can demand faith if it goes counter to the exercise of human reason in the light of human experience. And so, the liberal theological tradition grew as a way of doing theology. Schailer Mathews of the Chicago School in 1924 in his theological manifesto. The Faith of a Modernist, said "Liberal theology is not a creed, it is a method." He added that it is a method by which one thinks religiously, given the data. It is not the religious experience that provides the data for a world view, for a conception of reality. The movement of liberalism was willing to take the documentation of the scientist as to the nature of reality and then, being not a creed, but rather a way of thinking religiously, ask the question: Given reality as it is and as is coming to light more and more every day, given that reality, what does it mean to be religious? What does it mean to live with reverence and awe and gratitude and commitment and compassion? The fundamentals affirmed by the conservative scholars did not have the liberty of accepting the world as it was coming to light through the sciences, for they had a text, and this ancient text created the parameters within which they could think theology. For the conservative, traditional scholar has a deductive process whereby the givens are affirmed and the thinking happens within those given propositions. For the liberal theologian, theology moved from a deductive science which created dogmas out of the biblical text to an inductive process whereby the exercise of critical rationality in the light of human experience was taken into account and then the religious questions answered in light of that process. So, the real pivotal issue was a question of authority. Is there an external authority that defines the parameters of human possibility, of human thought? Or, is human thought free in the light of the data that is presented to it to discover how to be religious without any presuppositions up front? That was a watershed issue and the faith of a modernist was the faith of one who believed one could be Christian in the full light of all the data that was available from all the sciences over against those who came with an authoritarian scheme who had to try to express that old faith within that world view that was passing away. That really is my point this morning. A couple of weeks ago we dealt with that issue of authority, and this morning the point I want to make is that Christian faith or any religious faith needs always to be expressed within the framework of the reality that is understood generally in the culture of the time. That framework will continue to evolve and emerge, but © Grand Valley State University �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   always that translation process has to go on within the framework that is the generally accepted understanding of the reality of which we are a part. The world view behind the fundamentals is a world view of two realms: the supernatural realm and the natural realm, of a God Creator of another realm who calls into being over against God's self, a realm of nature called creation. It is that particular world view that is the biblical world view which is the world view in terms of which those old fundamentals were being affirmed. That old biblical world view is familiar to all of us, the creation stories to which I referred this morning, the Creator calling into being the whole cosmic reality, calling into being the human being, and then the Hebrew thinker in the tradition of Israel looking at all of that and saying, "How come a good God could create such a mess?" I read Carlyle Marney's description of the human being. Not bad. We human beings are so fragile. We're so mean-spirited. We're so contrary. We're so cussed. We taint everything we touch. We twist and we destroy out of the misery of our creaturehood. The Hebrew writer said certainly God couldn't be responsible for that. God is good. In fact, that first story of creation in the first chapter of Genesis ends and is punctuated with, "And God saw that it was good, and God looked and said that it was very good." In the second chapter, which is another story of creation, another myth, we have the focus on the human pair and here we have the text. Now, this human pair is created, as is all of creation, in perfection. But that perfection needs to be confirmed, and so it is put on trial, and you know the story. The human pair fails the test and we have come commonly to call that biblical myth the Story of the Fall. Not only is the human creature fallen, but creation is fallen. The weeds in your garden are the consequence of the bite of apple that Eve gave to Adam. Mosquitoes, as well. Everything wrong with the world is the consequence of that initial human disobedience, that original sin, and that original sin was not a local matter, but was perpetuated down through the human generations in an unbroken link so that the human race is spoken of as a fallen race, and a fallen world. The biblical understanding of things is this is a God-damned world, and we are a God-damned race, for in that disobedience, there is the forfeiture of life. There is the coming, our alienation and estrangement and enmity, and there is a great gulf between the Creator and the creation, and there is no possibility from the side of the creature to span that gulf. We are hopeless and we are helpless. We are lost and we are damned. Couldn't God just lighten up? No. No, again it is the biblical conception of God, God's holiness, God's righteousness. One of the prophets says that God's eyes are too holy to behold sin, and so forth. So, the whole biblical tradition has the human dilemma, that of being lost and without the possibility of being redeemed or saved. So, it is over. Except that God won't give up, and so God has a problem, but God will do something about that problem. © Grand Valley State University �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Now, we have a world view which has a realm of super-nature and a realm of nature, and in the realm of super-nature, the creator God exists in eternal infinite bliss. In the realm of nature is a condemned race, a human race, whose disobedience has impacted nature itself. And so, if there is going to be a solution, if God is not going to give up, then God must do something. How about if God would come into, identify with, be a part of the human race? How will God get in? Well, the way everybody else gets in - by birth. But, if God would get in by human birth, will not God then in flesh be tainted by that same fallenness which is common, universal to the human family? So, that won't work. One of the five cardinal points of the fundamentals was the virgin birth of Jesus, born of the virgin Mary and that has found its way into the Apostles Creed. It is obviously the story that Luke tells at the beginning of his gospel. The virgin birth of Jesus, not an accidental matter, but a well thought out solution to the problem of getting God from that other realm into identification with the human in the natural realm. So the angel comes to Mary and says, "You will conceive in your womb through the movement of the Holy Spirit so that the child born of you will be holy." That is the intention of that story of the virgin birth. It is a story that is an attempt to explain how the infinite and eternal God of absolute holiness could become human, identifying with our race in this natural realm in order that this one, as our Christian story goes, could live righteously out of that sinless nature and then offer up that sinless being to God on behalf of the fallen race. Now, you see, I would have been willing to die for you, too, but God would have said, "No dice. You have to die for your own sin; you can't die for anybody else." But, if Jesus is without sin, then Jesus can make a sin offering of himself, a life for lives. Paul is the one who really put this together. We will treat that more in depth next week, but in Romans 5, for example, he calls Jesus the second Adam, as in: through Adam, the first head of the race, all fell into condemnation, so through the second Adam, through Jesus, through Jesus' righteousness who was the consequence of the grace of God, the second Adam is received because of the righteousness of this one who got into the act through the miracle of the virgin birth. That is the story, and it was a serious story to deal with what was perceived to be a serious problem in order to be able to offer good news, or a gospel of the grace of God for salvation. That was reaffirmed one hundred years ago. I would guess it still may be the scheme of a large majority of the Christian church, and I would suggest that, while I understand the profundity of the creation myths, and I understand the intention of the virgin birth story – incidentally the Christian story is not the only one with a virgin birth. There are others in ancient cultures with other virgin-born heroes or heroines – I understand the intention of using that story in order to point to the uniqueness of Jesus and Jesus' potential for being the savior of the race. But I would suggest that, one hundred years ago, it was unfortunate that those who were concerned to reaffirm the Christian faith © Grand Valley State University �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   were so locked into a world view that was being more and more discarded, that they had to express the faith in that old conceptuality, that old world view. This was the strength of a liberal movement that could say, "Well, what's our world view today? What do you tell us, physicists? What do you tell us, cosmologists? What kind of reality is this?" And of course, as this was coming to expression, and it would come to expression more voluminously in this twentieth century than anything they knew back in the 1920s. But, this magnificent cosmic process of 15 billion years, all the starry heavens and the planetary systems and things that amaze me and boggle my mind and I cannot begin to bring in, but which cause me to stand in awe and in wonder, this cosmos of which we are a part in our understanding today is all there is. There is not a beyond; there is not an above and a below; there is not a supernatural realm and a natural realm. There is this amazing, expanding universe, and it is in this amazing, expanding universe, whose trail goes back 15 billion years, that we live and move and have our being, and it is in that cosmic process that I would learn to be religious, I would learn how to think religiously and live religiously. How beautifully the story of Jesus can be translated into that cosmic process that has come to light which our scientists portray for us in all of the wonders of nature, of this one uniform realm of which we are a part. The infinite ground and source of being coming to expression, not in some other realm, some other place. Rather than creation in perfection, fall, damnation or salvation, why not creation as a process of emergence? Why not the reality of which we are a part understood in its amazing emergence with its vast array of manifestations, of emanations? So,fifteen billion years ago, a big bang or whatever, and then billions of years of the cooling and the organizing, and then what? A few million years ago life, and then a lesser time ago than that, conscious life, and then human being, all a part of one amazing unfolding. And then 2000 years ago, a life, a Jew, Jesus of Nazareth whose life was of such a nature that they looked at him and said, "My God!" I called the sermon "Jesus: Episode or Epiphany?" In the old scheme of things, Jesus is an episode. Jesus is a divine interloper. Jesus represents the intervention of God into the natural realm from another realm, and there is incarnation and embodiment and exit. There is the coming in and the going out. It is an episode in order to effect the salvation of the race by one who is not in essence of us coming to join us, but leaving again from us. It is episode. It is a wonderful story. It is a story told in terms of an old world view. But, how much more powerful to see Jesus, not as an episode, but as an epiphany? As a moment of illumination, whose revelatory illuminosity in human flesh is the founding vision of this whole grand Christian tradition? It is not the only one; there are other luminous personalities who somehow or other embodied that divinity that gave expression to ongoing communities, but our story, our Christian story, emanates from Jesus, this one who emerged in a cosmic process in full humanity, and in whose full humanity we glimpsed divinity. © Grand Valley State University �Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Again, I think a major error along the way was to see this epiphany in Jesus and then to hedge Jesus in, to put a wall around him, to make him unique, once for all, rather than to see what was really happening. What was really happening was that there was that intuitive sense - there is God! God is in the human. The human is the finite location of the infinite mystery, the infinite mystery that is the source of all now has a face. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. No one has seen God. The only son, in the bosom of the father, he has made God known. The mystery of the infinite God manifest in the mystery of the finite human is the emerging cosmic story. Carlyle Marney says we're just fearful creatures still practicing our animal survival instincts; we twist and tear everything we touch, because we still live, we are still the prisoners, we are still in the shackles of a survival instinct that we learned in the slime pit and the jungle. Dear God, the process has emerged into the human. There has been an emanation. In Jesus there was a moment of epiphany and the likes of us said, "There it is. That's it." I understand what the story of the virgin birth was trying to say. It was trying to say precisely what I just said, that the divine has come into the human, and the divine can be seen in the human. But, it was in the mythical language of a world view that has been discarded, and I want to be able to believe in terms of the most profound understanding of this whole cosmic drama that is available to me, embracing the essence of that which is in that New Testament record: that the word became flesh, that the divine was embodied, that the divine intention was coming to expression in the human. Then I know that I need seek not a God beyond in some supernatural realm, for the only God available to me is the God I glimpse in your face. And if I see Jesus not as an episodic savior figure, but if I see him, indeed, as an exemplar of the embodiment of the divine intention, then I am called to live with that kind of grace, compassion, that kind of divinity. That is amazing, if only enough of us could catch it and begin the process of an alternative human possibility, well, who knows? Who knows? Who knows where it could go? If we don't kill ourselves first. References: The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, Volumes 1-12. Eds., A.C. Dixon, R.A. Torrey.The Bible Institute of Los Angeles, 1901-1915. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost VIII Series The Fundamentals a Century Later Scripture Text John 1:1, 14, 17, II Corinthians 4:6 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References A. C. Dixon, R. Torrey, editors, The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth,Vols. 1-12. The Bible Institute of Los Angeles,1910-1915. 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-0-20030803 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-08-03 Title A name given to the resource Jesus: Episode or Epiphany? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 August 3, 2003 entitled "Jesus: Episode or Epiphany?", as part of the series "The Fundamentals a Century Later", on the occasion of Pentecost VIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 1:1, 14, 17, II Corinthians 4:6. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Emergence Epiphany https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e135833ad88e1f62206874f07b80aaf9.mp3 894f7a71026c8ff47282e675fa4ee6a6 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2c01c39fd02c38e6204cade9dce08527.pdf 8b5abddc36a9f754c1290e759f949c87 PDF Text Text From Feast to Fast: Honoring the Human Epiphany V Scripture: Psalm 103:1-18; Matthew 11:2-19 Text: Psalm 103:14 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan February 10, 2002 Transcription of the spoken sermon Last week I, as I suppose many of you, watched the Super Bowl taking place in New Orleans. Because of 9-11, the game was moved back a week, consequently right into the center of Mardi Gras. And, as we have come to expect with television these days, it is a string of commercials interrupted occasionally by football. And then, even less frequently, there may be an interview of some interest, and with Mardi Gras being on in New Orleans, the capitol, and all of that in the midst of the Super Bowl celebration, one of the television journalists interviewed a local New Orleans person who talked about the celebration of Mardi Gras as he had experienced it growing up as a second or third or fourth generation New Orleans person. He made the point that it was a wonderful festival, a wonderful family time, that it was really a time for family and friends to enjoy each other and to celebrate together and he made the point that what the media camera catches about Mardi Gras is not really what it's all about. It is not, after all, he said, one big orgy. It is just a good, decent family celebration, and I'm sure that he is right, and I'm equally sure that the cameras will try to find whatever is at its naughtiest to bring us from New Orleans and the Mardi Gras celebration. But, as the interview was going on, I thought to myself, "Native of New Orleans who celebrated many Mardi Gras, I wonder if you really know the deep background of Mardi Gras." He gave no indication of knowing that place out of which it arose, or the reason for it arising, which is the fact that, in the wisdom of the ancient Church, there was a recognition that it is necessary to have a certain rhythm and balance in life, and so the Christian Year is structured such that one moves from feast to fast to feast to fast. (C. S. Lewis, in his Screwtape Letters, has the old Devil commiserating about God's wisdom and giving people that rhythm, feast to fast to feast to fast, where it is always the same, yet always new.) In the interview, I didn't see any acknowledgment of that background, really, in the ancient Church where, on the threshold for example of moving into the solemn and sobering period of Lent of forty days, license was given to have a grand party, to pull out all the stops and to celebrate. © Grand Valley State University �From Feast to Fast: Honoring the Human Richard A. Rhem Page 2 This morning we have a taste of it with some foot-tapping music and there are Paczkis, and you're invited to indulge to your heart's content, but in the real celebration of Mardi Gras, there is this full release of all that is a part of the human person, the human animal, the recognition that to honor the human is to give opportunity for the expression of the full gamut of that which constitutes us as human beings. So, Mardi Gras was a party that started out as an opportunity to let go and to release and to get it all out of your system as you moved into the somber time of Lent which was marked in the tradition of the Church by self denial, which we have come to mark more in terms of the cultivation of some added dimension of our spiritual experience, not necessarily repression or self-denial, but spiritual enrichment. Nonetheless, in the ancient practice of the Church, there was this emphasis on self-denial and prior to it, on the threshold of it, a grand party, and there was wisdom in that, because we are, after all, creatures who are composed of body and soul, soul and spirit, material ,physicality, sensuality, spirituality - all dwelling within our skin. But, of course, the Church has always also recognized the risk and has been squeamish about the expression of our humanity in such a fashion. I was reminded of this in a book I read while I was gone, Constantine's Sword, by James Carroll. You'll probably be hearing me quote this thing a time or two every week for the next ten weeks or so. It has to be one of the ten best books I've ever read. James Carroll was raised a very observant Roman Catholic. In his childhood and his adolescence, he had a very devout mother who led him on pilgrimages and exposed him to the finest and the richest of spiritual experience in the Catholic tradition, to the extent that he eventually became an ordained priest and even a member of the Jesuit Order. Eventually, James Carroll came to his own personal conviction that that was not what he was cut out for. He left the order. He is a writer, a journalist, married, with a son and a daughter. He continues, according to his own description of himself, as a faithful, if critical, Roman Catholic. The point of my story is this: the Church has always been squeamish about the expression of the human, particularly in its sensuality, its physicality, in its bodily expression, and James Carroll, wanting to bring his wife and his two children on a pilgrimage to Europe where he had grown up, where his father had been in the upper echelons of the military in Germany after the Second World War. They came eventually to St. Peter's itself, in Rome and, as they approached, the Vatican guard stopped them and would not let them enter because his little daughter, just a child, had her knees exposed, because she had a little mini-skirt on. James Carroll, who was raised in the very heart and center of the Church, deeply traditioned, priest and Jesuit, and all the rest, says in this book that he saw his little daughter humiliated at the doors of St. Peter's. Suddenly it rushed over him – everything of which he had experienced a failure of the Catholic Church, that © Grand Valley State University �From Feast to Fast: Honoring the Human Richard A. Rhem Page 3 failure being the denial of the human, that squeamishness before the full humanity and its expression. I could identify a little bit with him because I had been turned down at St. Peter's myself for wearing Bermuda shorts and, taking many people there over the years, I always warned them to bring a scarf and have their shoulders covered, and fully covered kneecaps. Nonetheless, what he experienced was a moment of insight. He credited his non-Catholic wife with being more adept at dealing with situations like this than himself. The wife took the little girl off to the side and kind of skinnied her little skirt down until it covered her knees, and then took her sweater and covered her bare midriff and they went through with flying colors. The story, of course, simply points to that which has marked so much of the Church, its moralism, its inability to deal with the flesh. Now, I started out by saying the Mardi Gras was particularly that opportunity to do that. But, on the other side of the coin, the Church has been so crimped and so cramped in the full expression of human being. When I read Carroll's narration, I was reminded of a story of my own which happened over thirty years ago down in Williamsburg, Virginia, looking at some of those old Colonial buildings and taking a tour of Williamsburg. We came to this building, a lovely building, an upstairs hall, lots of windows, nice wooden floor, and over in the corner there were some wine vats and then some chairs stacked up. The tour guide said, just matter-of-factly, that in this hall on Saturday evenings the community would gather for a dance and enjoy a glass of wine together in this space. And then, on Sunday morning, the chairs would be set up and the community would return for divine worship. As I heard that, there was an experience, a moment for me precisely like the moment for James Carroll at the door of St. Peter's. For at that advanced age of my life, wine had never touched my lips, nor had I ever danced one step or the two-step, or whatever they danced when I was growing up, out of religious and moral scruples. It wasn't just that I am clumsy, which I am, but I could not dance. It was one of the things I could not do. As I stood there that bright, summer morning in this hall flooded with light with its wine vats and its dance floor and the chairs that on Sunday were filled with worshipers, I had one of those "Aha" moments, one of those Epiphany moments when I realize that I was living a truncated existence, that there was a whole spectrum of life of which I was not a part, which was civil and decent and lovely and grand, and I had been so crimped that there was no balance in my life, no balance between Saturday night spent in an enjoyable fashion and Sunday morning spent in religious devotion. I didn't know those things could go together. And so, for me, it was also a moment of insight and I realized that there was something lacking in my own traditional experience and nurture, and frankly, in my ministry. This morning, I tell these stories simply to make the point, as we are on the threshold of another Lent, that it is in the honoring of the full spectrum of our © Grand Valley State University �From Feast to Fast: Honoring the Human Richard A. Rhem Page 4 humanity that we best honor God and best find our own human fulfillment, for we have in the Church not done a very good job of honoring that full spectrum. The Psalmist speaks so profoundly in this regard when he speaks of the love of God. Certainly there is sin and transgression, but he says, as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is God's love for those who fear him, and as far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions from us. And then he goes on in what I think is just so profound: "For God knows our frame; God remembers we are dust." And, of course, it is a reference to the Creation story where the Creator in the midst of a garden of delight, Eden, a garden of blessing, forms the human being out of the mud, the stuff, the earth, and then breathes in the breath of life so that that mud becomes a living being or a living soul. What the Jewish people have known and maintained in terms of balance so much better than we in the Christian Church is that the whole human being is made up of that physicality and spirituality, and that both must be honored and allowed to come to expression. What happened in the New Testament, and you can take a line from Paul to Augustine to John Calvin, and you have a terrible distortion of the human being. Paul hinting at original sin. It was Augustine who formulated the doctrine of original sin, and of course, it was trumped by Calvin, as well, in the Reformation period. But, to take the Creation story which in its Jewish format is a story about the Creator creating a creature who has physicality and spirituality, who is put to a test, who fails the test, but who is tested again and fails again and tested again and fails again. There are about four falls in those early chapters of Genesis. There is not a "Fall," as though there was an original couple that ate an ancient apple that marked forever the rest of the human race. To do that to the story is to miss the story and all of its profundity. But, that's what happened in the Christian Church so that, to be human became synonymous with being sinner, and so to be human was not something to be trumpeted, but rather almost something to be ashamed of, something that needed to be screwed down and restricted and repressed and, consequently, many of us have lived with a bad conscience about that shadow side, to use Jung's term, and have lived with the denial of much of our humanity that is simply a part of being a human being with physicality and spirituality. Mardi Gras at its best was the attempt to allow people to kick over the traces and have a ball, to be just a little bit naughty, if you will, but to enjoy themselves fully, fully cognizant of the fact that they were entering into a period when they were called to more sober reflection and the pursuit of spirituality. If we would honor the image of God within us, if we would allow humanity in its wholesomeness and healthy fullness to come to expression, then we'd have to recognize that rhythm from feast to fast, from party and celebration to serious intention and disciplined spiritual experience, and to do this is to allow the fully human to come to expression. © Grand Valley State University �From Feast to Fast: Honoring the Human Richard A. Rhem Page 5 It isn't easy. I think the Psalmist, as I said, expressed it as well as it could be expressed. God made us human. Why would God condemn what God created in the human that is physical and spiritual? Jesus ran into it. John, good old John, fire and brimstone preacher looking for the end, all torn up by all of the degeneracy around him, John who had introduced Jesus now has questions. There was too much joy in Galilee for John's liking. There were stories about too much joy connected with Jesus' ministry for John's liking. He sent his disciples to ask, "Are you the one, or was I mistaken? Aren't you the real item?" And Jesus gave him a very ambiguous response. He didn't defend himself, just didn't define himself except by his deeds. He said, "Go tell John what you see - the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame are walking, the prisoners are released." And then he said a very interesting thing, "Happy is the one who is not offended in me." There have been a lot of very sincere, devout, religious people who have been offended in other religious people who have had too much fun, who have enjoyed life to the fullest. And Jesus couldn't have affirmed John more than he did, but he said, "You know what, the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than great old John." And then he said to the people, acknowledging the fact that this is not an easy thing, "I don't know what to do with you, because it is like children in the marketplace saying, 'Hey, we wanted to play weddings and you didn't want to play weddings. You didn't want to be happy. So, we said, 'Well let's play funerals,' and you said, "We don't want to be sad, either.'" He said, "I don't know what to do with you. John comes neither eating or drinking and you say he has a demon. I come eating and drinking and I'm possessed." It is not easy. Happy is the person who is not offended in another person's joy and expression of their spirituality in a celebration. It is ironic that this morning between services one of my dear old friends came up to me and said, "I got a letter from a friend of mine telling me how awful is Christ Community and how terrible are you. You wouldn't believe it." I said, "Oh, yes, I would." Happy is the person who is not offended in the joy and the celebration as we seek to give expression to the fullness of our human nature, after all, in the image of God. Lent is coming, but in the meantime, have another Paczki. References: James Carroll. Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History. New York: Houghton Miflin Company, 2001. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title 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 Epiphany VI Scripture Text Psalm 103:14 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References James Carroll. Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20020210 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2002-02-10 Title A name given to the resource From Feast to Fast: Honoring the Human Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 February 10, 2002 entitled "From Feast to Fast: Honoring the Human", on the occasion of Epiphany VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 103:14. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Celebration of Life Epiphany https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b8f93deeb6c4a2e9f61e3a498a5f9a0b.mp3 b254c42ba391c7e2ece0d476d67fb48e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3180fc8932f33414f0e739203d9fa66a.pdf 323527025feab968f374db11c16919fa PDF Text Text The Best Is Yet To Be Epiphany Sunday Scripture: Isaiah 60:1-7; Revelation 21:1-4, 22-27; Matthew 2:1-12 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan January 6, 2002 Transcription of the spoken sermon On this Epiphany Sunday, I want to make a bold declaration that the best is yet to be, the best is yet to be in terms of the cosmic journey and the human story. Obviously, that is an affirmation of faith which is beyond verification, and yet, it is an expression of the trust that we have as a people of faith, as the people of God. It is possible in any given present moment to be paralyzed by the darkness. It is possible in this present situation in which we find ourselves as a nation to be paralyzed by the shock of September 11. In your insert I had printed a piece from The New York Times of October by David Kennedy, which, when I read it, I thought was good to give me perspective, and I thought it might give all of us perspective. It is a piece that I will not read, but simply refer to, for he makes the point that the nation was very jittery, very uncertain, full of fear and trepidation in the wake of that shock. And then he goes on to remind us that we have been there before, that the darkness has been there before, that the fear and the uncertainty have been there before. He points, first of all, to Pearl Harbor to remind us of those days, and yet, as I thought about that, I realized that one really has to be on Social Security in order to remember that. So, there are a couple of generations who would not be able to refer back to the anxiety, the angst of those days. But to be reminded that in those days there were German U-2 boats off our Atlantic coast sinking our shipping, that provocateurs were landed in Florida and New York, that on the West Coast they were so fearful of a Japanese invasion that they cut off radio signals, they moved the Rose Bowl from Pasadena to the Carolinas, and, with one of the dark blotches on our history, Japanese-Americans were incarcerated out of fear and suspicion. And then he goes on to remind us of those Civil War days and Revolutionary days, and the fact that there has been darkness before. There has been fear and uncertainty before, and he concludes with a positive statement about the resilience and the creativity of the people of this nation, and I thought on the first Sunday of a New Year, on Epiphany Sunday, it might be good to be reminded that the darkness has always been with us, but that the Epiphany © Grand Valley State University �The Best Is Yet To Be Richard A. Rhem Page 2 theme, the light has dawned upon you, the light has visited you, is a word that we might well meditate on and contemplate as we try to put our present experience in perspective; for there has been darkness and the announcement of the light is not a denial of the darkness, not a denial of the harshness, brutality, the violence and so much horror that has marked the human story. No, the announcement of the light is a statement in face of all of that, in spite of all of that. It is a statement of faith. It is an expression of hope, it is grounded in a deep trust. In John's Gospel, as he tells the Christmas story, we have those famous words of the word becoming flesh, and in that context he says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overcome it And so, this morning, I want to weave a little biblical thread, a little biblical tapestry for you which is witness to that constant confidence of the people of God in the light that has shined and will never be extinguished. In the Advent series I did not use the words of Isaiah 9:2, but we did read them in the late service on Christmas Eve and you will recognize them immediately: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." That was the eighth century Isaiah. He is also the one in the eleventh chapter who spoke about the shoot from the branch of David who would come to judge with justice and equity and who would bring about that state of things where the lion and the lamb would lie down together. And there was second Isaiah who picked up those themes. He is now in the exile situation in Babylon where the people of Judah had lost their faith and had tended to move toward the gods of the Babylonians, after all they were the victors. And that prophet began with the words made famous by Handel, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people,” says your God. “Say to the cities of Judah, 'Behold your God."' And he is the one who spoke about the return in all of the glory and brilliance and brightness of those passages. The people did return, but it wasn't all so bright and glorious, and so, third Isaiah, in the context of those first waves of refugees returned, had to encourage them again. He said, "Arise, shine, for your light has come. The glory of the Lord has shone upon you." He makes reference then to the nations coming to Jerusalem, the wealth of the nations being brought into the city, and the kings of the nations bringing their gifts, from which, of course, Matthew borrowed the picture in order to tell the story of Jesus, for after third Isaiah and his encouraging words, there was a period of drought and darkness, frankly. And then, Jesus is born and the impact of Jesus causes Gospels to be written and Matthew, in telling his story, goes back to Isaiah and uses that name from Isaiah, Emmanuel, God with us, and he borrows the picture of the kings bringing the wealth of the nations and he tells about the Magi who followed the star who came to adore and to offer their gifts. © Grand Valley State University �The Best Is Yet To Be Richard A. Rhem Page 3 That was written, you have to understand, after Good Friday. So, he was aware of the fact that the darkness had come on with its unnerving power in that darkest of all afternoons when the son of God was crucified. But it was post-Easter, you see, when those gospels were written, and the post-Easter church was convinced that the one who was crucified was not dead at all, for they experienced his presence and his power and his life throbbing within their life, and so, when they told his story, they told the story of the kings coming with their gifts and the star bright with light because they believed in that vision which they borrowed from third Isaiah and second Isaiah and first Isaiah - that hope of Israel that had come to expression in many ways and forms through many prophetic voices. Then, of course, the persecution set in and in that little Jewish Jesus movement, there was one John, who was exiled for his faith to the Isle of Patmos, and on the Lord's Day, in the Spirit, he received a vision, a vision of the new Jerusalem, and once again, speaking about Emmanuel, God with us, God with God's people, and borrowing from Isaiah 60, he speaks about the Holy City glorified, and the gates of the city always open, and the temple there, and no night there, for the Lord God was the light of the city, and the kings of the earth brought their wealth. So, you have a whole tapestry, a biblical tapestry from the Hebrew scriptures through the Gospels through that picture of the consummation of all things and, running through it all, is that wonderful assurance that the light has dawned and the darkness would never overcome the light. What do you think? Is it just wishful thinking? Every time a historical epic was entered into with hope and light was announced, it seemed to come to nothing. Oh, those prophetic voices gave hope to God's people, and that’s no little thing. People of God were encouraged and they were lifted in their spirit and they did go on. As a matter of fact, the dream never died, and that is not without its significance. But, I wonder - is it just wishful thinking? Is it what it ought to be, what the best of the human imagination wishes and imagines it could be, but finally the old world just keeps grinding on its way by power and might, greedily acquiring wealth and seeking preeminence? It is interesting, isn't it, that the dream was always dreamed by an insignificant ragtag remnant of people. Can you imagine the chutzpah, the audacity of that dream as it came to expression from Isaiah? Who were these people, anyway? They saw themselves as living in the navel of the earth. Goodness sakes, all of the nations were going to come, they were going to flow into Jerusalem. There's a prophetic theme we speak of as the exultation of Mt. Zion. Mt. Zion would be lifted up and all the nations would flow to her, and she would teach Torah. She would teach God's law and God's truth. And in that prophetic vision, as beautiful as it is, there is talk of righteousness and of justice and of peace. There is a portrait of human well-being, human community. But, it's always dreamed by those who have not a prayer of effecting it or implementing it, and old Isaiah in the 8th century was wrong. Second Isaiah was simply wrong. Third Isaiah was wrong, and Matthew was wrong, and the Revelation of John was wrong in terms of history having entered into some ultimate © Grand Valley State University �The Best Is Yet To Be Richard A. Rhem Page 4 point where the light would flood and scatter the darkness. We're two millennia beyond that. So, the dream has been alive for nearly three millennia, and it's always been dreamed by a rag-tag remnant of folk who may well be right, but have not the power to make it right. How could they keep dreaming it? Well, they believed in God. They believed in a God beyond the stars who at some point would intervene and would effect what had been promised. They believed in a sovereign Lord of history that would bring all things to its consummation. And, if I were to preach to you this morning the way I preached for many, many years, and the way I suppose these passages are preached in 99 and 44/100% of the Christian pulpits of the world, then what I would say to you is, "Wait. Hold on. Keep on hoping. Keep on praying for, though the times move on and the reality never comes to realization, nonetheless, trust God. It will be so. Let us pray." I can't do that anymore. I don't want to be just one more voice saying one more time all of those same old things and send you forth saying it was good to be there. Nice sermon. Because, you see, I don't believe that some God beyond the stars is going to come in and fix it for us. Is it just wishful thinking? Is there really nothing to it, then? No, I want to say to you this morning that I believe in the message of Epiphany more than ever I have in my life. I believe that Jesus is the light of the world more strongly than ever I have in my life. I've preached all these things in traditional fashion and believed them, but I never believed them strongly enough, because I never felt existentially gripped by the fact that, my God, Jesus is the light of the world. The difference now is that I come to see that, the light having dawned upon us, it is incumbent upon us to make the light come to its realization in human well-being. I realize now how true it is that the light has dawned upon us. We have seen the heart of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has mirrored God. Jesus Christ has mirrored a God crucified. Jesus Christ has mirrored a God who wins by losing. Jesus Christ has shown us the way. But, we have not followed him. We do not need more light. We really know, and one of the blessings of the tradition of which we are a part – rooted in the Hebrew prophets and the Greek philosophers and Roman law, Western civilization – one of the great blessings of this grand tradition is that we have come to see that which allows the human spirit to flower and to flourish, and we know that which constitutes human well-being. But the problem is that those who have dreamed the dream have never been able to implement it, because they've been the rag-tag remnant of humanity, the minority report always, a voice crying in the wilderness. How could the dream possibly keep alive? Well, as I said, they believed in God. But, more than that, the dream is true! It touches the deepest reaches of the human soul. It's true! We know it's true. The New Creation where there's not a child that will die in infancy and an old person die without the fulfillment of years, where people will plant gardens and eat the produce thereof © Grand Valley State University �The Best Is Yet To Be Richard A. Rhem Page 5 and build houses and be able to dwell in them, a land where they will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. We know that is true. If only a super power, if only a super power believed the dream. A super power, for example, that had amassed power and was willing to yield it up, had amassed immense military might and was willing to lay down its arms, had amassed vast economic resources and would use those to turn the earth into a garden. Then that dream would not be so fantastic. Then that dream would not be so unrealistic. Then it might be possible to effect the dream and to implement the vision. You see, the dream is true. The dream didn't tumble out of heaven somewhere. The dream was placed by the Creator Spirit in the depths of the human heart. The dream has lived on through all the darkness because, finally, that dream will never be defeated. Finally, that dream will continue to obtrude itself upon human consciousness, until finally somewhere, sometime, some people make it happen. And, in the meantime, to live in the light of that dream, in the meantime to have our own behavior affected by that dream, in the meantime to be the earners of that light and that life. Ah, one could grow cynical. One could despair. Suddenly the war on terror takes second place to the war on the economy, for the son learns from his father that it is the economy, stupid. And so, all of the engines of power will be turned on in order to regenerate this monster that we have created which is not our servant, but of which we are slaves. One could wonder if it can ever be. And yet, the dream won't die, and there have always been a minority of people who have believed that the best is yet to be. A people who have kept the dream alive, who refuse to quit, have refused to be silent. Maybe in the long run, if we really want to take the long-range view, maybe a million years from now, they will look back on us and say, "You know what? That was the childhood of our species." Maybe it takes millennia but, whatever it takes, we dare not deny the dream, for the light has dawned upon us and we are people of the light and to live in the light is to live even in the darkness humanely and to know the mantle of God's grace. Is it just wishful thinking? Or, is it time for us to do something about it? © 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 Epiphany Sunday Scripture Text Matthew 2:9, Revelation 21:24 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 An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20020106 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2002-01-06 Title A name given to the resource The Best Is Yet To Be Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 6, 2002 entitled "The Best Is Yet To Be", on the occasion of Epiphany Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Matthew 2:9, Revelation 21:24. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Jesus Light of the World https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3677632459837cde67b6aec68e4af13f.mp3 72cfe66f9e79d468659c45c320523d88 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/544fc4d429c74315a24e5147864d471b.pdf ab516aea6965835a714cee54383358b8 PDF Text Text Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Epiphany I Scripture: Acts 26:19-32; Matthew 2:1-12 Text: Acts 26:19; Matthew 2:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan January 7, 2001 Transcription of the spoken sermon It is the season of Epiphany and it has become a favorite time of mine. Epiphany is not really a season, although we have often spoken of it as a season here. Epiphany is a festival day, January 6, which of course, was yesterday. In the ancient Church tradition, we are now in that time which is not really a season in the church year. This is the first Sunday after Epiphany and next week will be the second Sunday after Epiphany, and if you want to be technically correct, on the Church calendar, we are in Ordinary days. But, for me, the Festival of Epiphany has become one of my favorite celebrations, I think because of the focus and the theme. The symbol, of course, is the star; the central idea is that of light, the light that has dawned upon us. The doctrinal or theological emphasis is on revelation. I like the word manifestation - God manifest in our midst, God present to us so that we become aware of that presence in the midst of our lives, in the midst of our world. Epiphany is from the Greek language and it means, literally, manifestation, and, of course, it reflects back on that season which is just concluded, the twelve days of Christmas and the celebration of Christmas itself, which is the celebration of the Incarnation, the embodiment of God in the midst of our human history, in the human flesh of Jesus. There is great wisdom in the celebration of the Christian Year. Over the years I have come to appreciate it more and more because it takes me back every year in that annual cycle beginning in the Advent waiting and then the celebration of the birth which is the embodiment of God in our midst. Then we move into those weeks between Epiphany and Lent in which the focus of the Church is on the life and the ministry of Jesus. If I followed the lectionary readings, which large portions of the Church use, every Sunday having assigned scripture passages, today's passage would be the baptism of Jesus, Jesus now on the threshold of his ministry. In these weeks between the celebration of Epiphany and the beginning of Lent, the focus is on Jesus and his life and his teaching and that which came to expression in him, what was experienced in his human journey in the midst of © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 2 our human history. So, it is a good season because it focuses our attention on that which is the center of our faith understanding, that which came to expression in Jesus, the manifestation of God in the life of Jesus Christ. In the older, traditional conception of things, the tradition of the Church, the orthodoxies of the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church, this idea of revelation is very much a past reference. Now, the Church, at its best, knew better, but for all practical purposes, if you have grown up in the Church, if you've listened to sermons world without end, then you know that the emphasis has been on that revelation of God that appeared in Israel and in Jesus, that is told in the words of scripture, so that revelation becomes in our minds, popularly, something that happened in the past of which we have a record, to which we continue to return. Now, the Church, at its best, for example, John Calvin at the time of the Reformation, understood that God continues to reveal God's self, and Karl Barth, in our own century, reached back to Calvin to speak of the three forms of the word: the word in flesh, Jesus, the center; the word in scripture, the word written which in Israel anticipated him and in the New Testament reflected back on him; and then, a third form of the word was the word preached. The Church at its best understood that there was an ongoing revealing of God, an ongoing manifestation of God's truth and light, even as the word was preached in the present, the very dynamic conception of preaching, the very high estimate of preaching. But, for all practical purposes once again, if you have just grown up in an ordinary way in an ordinary church, an ordinary Christian experience, you have probably tended to think about revelation as something that happened in the past. In fact, in the old conception of things, God sent God's son like the divine intruder from another world, another realm into our world, there to be experienced, only then to leave again and return to that place from which he came. That is an old cosmology. That is an old conception of the structure of reality. Let me give you another image. Try this out. I can remember as a kid my mother used to bake bread and I can remember taking the yeast and kneading it into that dough and putting it in a bowl, and putting a towel over it and then setting it on a chair in front of the register so, with the heat, the yeast could do its work and the dough would rise. Let me suggest to you what for me has become a fascinating and exciting new conception of God's manifestation, of God's revealing. Rather than seeing God as dipping into our history, coming in and leaving again, it seems to me what we know about the nature of reality, the nature of the whole cosmic process, the nature of the unfolding of history, that one might better see the manifestation of God as the working of the yeast in the dough, not a light from another realm, but that light that enlightens the totality of things, not from outside, but from within itself, so that manifestation is simply the coming to luminosity of that which is always present within, but here and there comes to © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 3 striking, startling manifestation, so that we look and we say, "Ah! I see! I See!" That is an epiphany experience. It is the sudden grasping or the calm, quiet coming to realization of that which is true, that which is true about the nature of reality, about the nature of God, about the nature of human existence. Epiphany is the celebration of the manifestation of God, and I want to suggest, not a God "out there" somewhere, but a God present with us. The incarnation, the experience of Christmas, the truth of Christmas,is the embodiment of God in the human. It is the presence of God with us, and, for Epiphany 2001, let me suggest to you that we open our eyes to the light that still shines. The word still in the title of the message has the message in one word - still, the light shines. Still, God is manifest, being manifest, present, progressive tense. That's my Epiphany message to you today, and that, for me, is a critical and crucial movement from where once I was and where most of the Church, frankly, still remains and, if there is one thing that I wish I could send you out of here with today, it is that new and fresh awareness of the still shining light and the ongoing manifestation of God in the midst of our human experience, in the midst of our world history, in the midst of the unfolding, cosmic drama of which we are a part of billions and billions of years, an amazing evolving and emerging. Still, the light shines. Still, God is being manifest to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Still, the Spirit illumines and gives us fresh insight and helps us to bring into perspective the explosion of knowledge all about us in the modern world, so that we live as people on the way, as people on a journey, with the confidence that as we move into the future, the light will shine as it shines now and has shined in our past. You see, that is the very nature of human existence. That is what it means to be people who are caught up in the stream of history. It is not that in the scripture we do not have ancient truth and insight. The scripture is a record of the witness of those who have said, "Aha! I see!" and they recorded that, and it continues to be instructive and informative to us. We still read the Hebrew prophets of the eighth century before the Common Era with great profit. We still go back to the Greek philosophers who address the ultimate questions of life with profundity. Someone has said that the whole of Western philosophy is nothing but a series of footnotes to Plato and Aristotle. We still go back to the Gospels and we study the life of Jesus and the teaching of Jesus, and we gain insight and understanding, wisdom. But, the eighth-century prophets of the Hebrews or even Jesus in the time of Caesar Augustus, or Augustine in the fifth century, or Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, or John Calvin in the 16th century, or the orthodox formulations of Reformed faith, for example, in the 17th century, simply could not give to us what we need today in order to live with understanding, with freedom and with joy because, within the movement of history, there are no absolutes. That is heresy in the Christian Church! Did you hear me? Within the stream of history, there are no absolutes. The Church has claimed all through the centuries that © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 4 this is absolute truth, that absolute truth dawned in Jesus, and I am saying to you, "No! The wonder of Epiphany is that, in the movement of history that defies absolutes and final answers, the light still shines!" It is not that we are without insight. It is not that we are without revelation. It is simply that, in the very nature of historical reality, it is absolutely essential that the light still shines so that our new circumstances are illumined by that same light that came to expression in special luminosity in Jesus, that same light that informed the Hebrew prophets and the Apostles. It is a present experience of the manifestation of God, or it is nothing. That is the nature of our human, historical existence. That is scary. Scary, because we so much want certitude. It is scary because life is frail and fragile, perilous and pocked with pitfalls, and it is so deeply human to want a final solution, an absolute truth, an unalterable prescription for life. And the Church has been happy to accommodate. The Church has exploited the fears of people. It has promised absolute truth and the final answer, but it is a false promise that cannot deliver. For all of the light that has shined through the ages and all of the light that has been concentrated in the face of Jesus Christ, history continues to evolve and new situations call for new application of that truth. You cannot go into the scripture and find the ending or the proposed ending of slavery, for example. It took centuries of the ferment of the Gospel to bring people finally to the conviction that a human being was an end in him or herself, not to be used, enslaved. Oh, the Church has struggled with the Bible, claiming it to be inerrant and infallible, and it is not. And how can it be, for example, when the Church struggles with the position of women in leadership? You can't solve that biblically because it is an ancient book out of an ancient culture with all kinds of different sensitivities and understanding. How can you settle the question of the ordination of women in the Church, for example, by reference to the Bible? Sexual orientation? Why, it's not even in the purview of the scripture. And yet, you hear time and again claims, biblical claims, about sexual orientation, about which the Bible knew nothing. All it knew about was actual sexual practice which could be destructive and abusive. How can you settle that issue by reference to the Bible? You can't. And, unfortunately, the Church has not faced up to that and been honest with the fact that light still shines, that knowledge still breaks forth, that history is movement, that new times demand new answers and new understandings and broader perspectives as the horizon spreads out before us. Scary. Because we'd like to have it clear, simple, and over with, not having to think about it anymore. It is scary. But, it is also liberating. Now, if I can once get that monkey off my back of one final, absolute revelation in the past, then I can engage in my historical journey with confidence and with joy. I can lean into the future knowing that, still, the light shines, that new knowledge brings new information and new perspective, and that the manifestation of God in the midst of this marvelous, fascinating, © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 5 mysterious cosmic journey of which we're a part continues to dawn upon us, and that is really my Epiphany message today. Still, the light shines. That is wonderful, good news. We just went through a beautiful Christmas season here. We have the remnants of it, so to speak, and someone was here on the 24th at all three services, in the morning that marvelous cantata and pageant, the thrilling music and the Christmas story, the quieter candlelight Eucharist service at 9:00 in the evening, and then the traditional Lessons and Carols, the late service. This person, one of the core volunteers of this place then came here on Wednesday (the church had been closed on Monday, Christmas Day and the day following), and this place which had been so regal in its splendor and had reverberated with marvelous music and the mystery of the celebration, now lay in shambles, candlewax all over the pews and the carpets, poinsettia leaves scattered throughout, shepherds’ costumes draped here and there, used candles lying every place, and she came into the office to say, "You know, I was at all three services on Sunday. What a place this is! Each one of the services so different; each one of them so moving, so beautifully executed, seemingly without effort and without a hitch. Then I come in and I see the shambles afterwards and I realize what it takes to do that. Nobody knows how many people put forth how much effort to make that possible," and I said, "Well, that's true. There are a few people that know, however." A few people also said to me, "What are you going to do next year," realizing that this is the last Christmas of John Gregory Bryson, who is so integral to all of that, and with stiff upper lip, I said, "Well, we're going to retire his number and then we're going to do just fine." We're going to do just fine, just as we are after I preach my last Epiphany service. This place is going to be just fine, because we live in the conviction that still the light shines and we don't come to an absolute place, a final word, a resting place that is frozen forever, but we are a people in movement and the thing about this place is that we have learned that, and we are free, and we believe that the best is yet to be, because still the light shines, giving new vision. I ran into my old compatriot, Gord VanHoeven, in Bill's Barber Shop this week, and the two of us got to reminiscing a bit. It's a sign of our age, I think, two old men talking about the past, getting almost sentimental if not senile, and we talked about Gord's 18 years here that he shared with me. We spoke about what a good place this is and has been. A year ago this month the Team gathered with a counselor to think about the transitions that are underway here. This congregation is in transition and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. One look at the hoary head and visage of your preacher is enough to indicate that there is going to be a change one of these days. As we gathered with the Team a year ago, we started to look at the whole pattern, and within the next three or four months everything unraveled © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 6 and changed. Ron Zoet couldn't get blood out of a turnip, so he thought he'd go after living blood with the American Red Cross. We all began to be pressed about what our timeline was. Peter discovered he was a year younger than he thought he was, found out the year he was really born. Colette decided it was better for her to concentrate on Worship Center and preaching and teaching, and Bob is, of course, in the midst of his internship for a Master's of Social Work, and how will that all work out? And Mr. Bryson, recognizing the many years of service, wanting to have a little more freedom, tells of his imminent departure. Well, in the midst of it all this summer, realizing how much continuity we had, what gifted and dedicated and loyal people we've had, recognizing that we are in this period of transition, one day I looked at Peter and Cynthia Moll with whom I have been working for The Center of Religion and Life, and I said, "Why don't you two come and run the church?" And in September they began and I realize in retrospect that was really the first step of transition, and the governance boards have stepped forward and have owned that process. On Friday of this week the Board of Trustees will go to the Center for Innovation. Don't you love that name? The Center for Innovation where there is a consultant for business and corporations who is going to sit with them and who has agreed as a gift to us to lead us through a discussion of the future. On the 10th of February, all the governance groups will meet with him in an all-day retreat as we look at the whole pattern and the whole picture. I tell you this because you ought to know what's going on in this congregation, the fact that we are in a period of transition. You want to ask me for a date, I'll say two years, five years, seven years, ten years. I don't know. I have no date set. I am determined I am going to make this bear dance one more time, whatever it takes. But, I share this with you because I can do it in an Epiphany celebration in the realization that, still, the light shines and that the future of this place is better than anything we have ever dreamed of, and it is because we have paid a price and struggled and wrestled and have emerged with a kind of freedom and joy that enables us, having faced up to so much that ties traditional Christianity in knots, freeing us to move into the future in creative ways of which we have not even conceived. You see, still the light shines, and we will shape the future rather than just lollygagging along, being shaped by what comes our way. Montgomery Wards is out of business. They tried to reorganize over the last couple of years, the CEO came on the television to say the soft retail market made it impossible. They have to close. I say, "Soft retail market! What you're telling me, sir, is that you were unable to negotiate a world of Wal-Marts and Lowe's and all the rest." The Church is no different. If we're all tied up with some absolute word that happened in the past, nailing us to the mores, insights, sensitivities and knowledge of an ancient culture, we are in trouble, indeed. But, if we have learned that still the light shines, giving vision, then we can believe that the future holds for us wonders, mysteries, and celebrations that we've not yet dreamed of. © Grand Valley State University �Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 7 This is no ordinary place. There are ordinary congregations all over the country. This is no ordinary place. You are here because you choose to be here. You are here because of what this place stands for, requires and affirms, and this remnant people, liberated and set free, has the conviction that the future is unfolding in marvelous ways. I can say with Paul, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his defense before a Roman governor and a Jewish king, he gave the account of his own story. Don't you realize that Paul saw a light that knocked him off his horse and turned him around 180 degrees? Don't you realize that Paul had to look at everything for which his life's passion was beating and say, "My God! I was wrong!" Don't you see that the quest of the Magi is the symbolic story of that yearning of the human heart for God, that yearning of the human heart for light and for truth, and in that beautiful Christmas story of those wise ones we have the symbol of that which lies deep within us, but we have come to realize that it is not a matter of getting some absolute word or light that dawned in the past, but it is the coming to ourselves of an inward conviction, a deep, deep human intuition so that I can say, "I believe!" That is what is different about this place, and that is why the future is good. Ah! What a place! What a future! What a possibility! God's final word has yet to be spoken. Still, the light shines. Plaster it on your refrigerator. Write it on your cupboards. Sing your children to sleep with it nights. Still, the light shines giving new vision! That's Epiphany and you can say, "Ah, I see! I See!” © 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 Epiphany I Scripture Text Acts 26:19, Matthew 2:9 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-0-20010107 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2001-01-07 Title A name given to the resource Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 7, 2001 entitled "Still the Light Shines Giving New Vision", on the occasion of Epiphany I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 26:19, Matthew 2:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Immanence Revelation of the Divine https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eb14e20af6a8cef7711e973074ba94bf.mp3 670b2213112097061098e1ba9c53560a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f08f31be8e7905ced97f8bf5e90e9509.pdf 5330b9961fc0aa05797382c44f9986a2 PDF Text Text The Root of Good Religion Text: Psalm 116:17 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 19, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon I suppose you can tell by the title of this message, “The Root of Good Religion,” that there must also be bad religion in the world, and when I determined to speak on the root of good religion and selected this wonderful Psalm 116, I wasn’t really thinking about the bad religion, but in my more specific preparations, The Grand Rapids Press came with the Religion Section in the Saturday Press, and the lead story was about a free thinkers group, a big colored picture accompanying it. This group, the Free Thinkers Association, has been meeting in Grand Rapids for about three years, and I found it a very interesting story. The Free Thought Association is affiliated with a group out of Madison, Wisconsin, from which all kinds of liberal diatribe arises. They say they are a community of agnostics, atheists, humanists, rationalists, and they discuss topics which interest them, intellectual questions, burning social issues, and so on. They meet a couple of times a month. That which binds them together in community, ironically, is their mutual flight from religion, and the thing that has marked them, has made them have something so important in common that they would become a community is the fact that they’ve all been wounded by religion in its institutional form, in its establishment forms. There are a number of people cited in this article, devout Catholic people in their background, a former Fundamentalist Baptist, a very devout Christian Reformed young man, a lapsed Episcopalian, and a Methodist, and so on. It’s a conglomeration and it pretty much covers the spectrum of established religion and they have come together because, in one way or another, all of them at some point in their life began to have questions for which their particular tradition had no answers. They began to receive some of the teaching of their respective traditions and it didn’t make sense to them and they determined that they didn’t believe it. Then, contrary to most of us, they had the audacity to verbalize their doubts and their questions and doing so, they found themselves really shunned, excluded, cut out, isolated because they had become a thorn in the flesh of their respective communities. They had become a threat, and they were not appreciated at all, and so there was alienation between them and their families and their faith communities. © Grand Valley State University   �The Root of Good Religion Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Well, that’s not so hard to figure out, and if you think about it for a moment, you can understand it because religion which is as universal as humankind arose very, very early in the dawning of human consciousness; for what is religion, after all, but that intuitive sense that there is something more, something that grounds our lives, that there is a source and a ground and a guide and goal of all that is. We live in the face of mystery and that mystery must have appeared very, very early in the human story. One becomes aware of one’s self, thereby one becomes human. One becomes aware of the other, of the human relationship. One experiences the miracle of birth and the mystery of death, and one simply, naturally begins to ask those ultimate questions - why is there something rather than nothing? From whence has it all come? Whither is it all tending? And what is the meaning and the purpose of it all? Those questions are as fundamental as human existence itself. And then someone has an epiphany experience. Someone sees something. Someone tells a story, a story of a revelation and around it grows the ritual and the cult and the sacred stories and the tradition. Very early in primitive stages there were tribal religions, that which was the tribe’s solution to the mystery, that which gave a sense of coherency to life, a statement of its purpose and its meaning, that to which one could cling for enlightenment, for security. And then, someone had another idea or someone’s experience didn’t connect with that explanation. That one becomes a threat to the tribal unity and sense of meaning, because that religious story and practice was rooted frequently, most often, in fear, not illegitimate fear, genuine fear, because life is perilous. We are vulnerable. We do live in the face of mystery and most of the major issues that impinge upon us are beyond our control and so one of the functions of religion has been to create that sense of security and community, giving meaning and purpose and cohesion to placate whatever gods may be, to put one in the right, to curry the favor of the mystery, whatever the mystery may be. And then, when one questions that solution, one becomes very threatening and the tribe or the tight knit community will bind together and will exclude, will condemn, will reject that one who has become a source of irritation, opening up those things that had long been settled. As I read the stories of some of these people, I could identify with that. But, when I read their definitions of reality - “only that which can be perceived with the natural senses or indirectly through the proper use of reason” - denying the possibility of revelation or faith, I knew that was too narrow - simple reductionism. I went to the computer and to their Website and read a recent lecture on quantum physics which was fascinating, but didn’t have a lot to say about the wonder of birth, of the mystery of death, or the existential reality of getting through every day. I didn’t look up an earlier lecture on the voucher question, but what I sensed about these people is they are serious and they have inquiring minds and they want to know and understand, but they have been © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �The Root of Good Religion Richard A. Rhem Page 3   wounded deeply by the whole enterprise of religion and so they have fled religion, becoming skeptics, rationalists. Of course, reading that in the wake of a Huston Smith visit where he was so eloquent about the necessity of getting beyond that adversarial relationship of those two great enterprises, science and religion, I thought to myself, “How sad that these people, having been so wounded, have now such a thinned gruel, a 2% milk kind of thing, almost water, a diet that cannot really satisfy the deepest instincts, nor do justice to those most profound intuitions of the human spirit.” I should invite them here, I think, because they could pursue their questions with no quarter asked, but we could share with them something more, for there is good religion. Good religion is rooted in the experience of grace and it issues in gratitude. I don’t know just what the Psalmist’s experience was, but he was in some kind of crisis and he says to the Lord, “You saved my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will take the cup of salvations.” In the Hebrew, the word is plural - the cup of salvations. I will take hold of the whole of life, as it were, the whole of life in which I have experienced the salving, the mending of my life in the midst of it all. I will take the cup of salvation and name the name of the Lord. I will embrace life, which certainly is not just one bowl of cherries, not one rainbow after another, life in all of its complexity. The Psalmist spoke of a deep crisis in his life and certainly, if we are honest with it, it is like the Apostle Paul in the eighth chapter of Romans who speaks of famine and nakedness and peril and sword, an ancient listing, but we could list our own, the vulnerabilities, the perils that jeopardize our existence every moment - all of that to which we are vulnerable. The diseases that stalk our steps and the sudden crisis that can wipe us out - all of that is part of life. If we were to deny any of that, then we would simply have our heads stuck in the sand. That’s an unrealistic kind of idea that will only be shattered on the rocks of human experience eventually because, finally, we all live fully life with all of its light and all of its shadow. But, somehow or other, the Psalmist had come in a concrete experience to feel that just intuitively now, I suppose, that that mystery that surrounds life is the mystery of grace, that it is a healing mystery. I love the illustration of Huston Smith of light and darkness. If you had two cubes divided by a wall, in one there was light, the other pitch dark, if you took the wall down, the light would invade the darkness. The darkness would not overcome the light. It is only an image, it is a symbol, it is a story, but it makes a beautiful point. The Psalmist somehow or other believed it; Paul believed it, and Paul said, “Since God is for us, who can be against us? Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Psalmist said, “I will take the cup of salvation and praise the name of the Lord. I will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving in the presence of all God’s people.” © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �The Root of Good Religion Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Good religion comes out of an experience of grace and it issues in gratitude. It goes way beyond that initial fear that might hold us prisoner for a while, it comes to a point of sensing, as Scott Peck said in The Road Less Traveled, that there is a grace beyond us that continues to come to us, and out of the experience of grace there is that within us deep down that will out, that will come to expression, that simply must be spoken or sung or the heart will burst. The Psalm begins so marvelously, “I love the Lord because ...” Let me suggest at the head of Thanksgiving week that you go home and in some moments of quiet, write those words, “I love the Lord because ...,” and then simply reflect on your life. The old hymn says “Count your many blessings, name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” If you would take a moment to do that, I think you would also begin to say, “This, yes, this is what is really central to my life. This is what is important to me. I love the Lord because ...” And out of that experience of grace, the issue is thanksgiving that simply must come to expression, because love needs a song, love needs an anthem, love needs to dance, or the soul would explode. The root of good religion is the taste of grace issuing in praise irrepressible. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XXIV Scripture Text Psalm 116:17 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-0-20001119 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-11-19 Title A name given to the resource The Root of Good Religion Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 November 19, 2000 entitled "The Root of Good Religion", on the occasion of Pentecost XXIV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 116:17. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Consciousness Epiphany Grace Nature of Religion https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7b7620556e1232522192a960710aee18.mp3 1f35ab8354264a48923ae7f1a7d2b45a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/deef5b30b46a24f2772556b0d257fe38.pdf 2cfaf9afa030f01f92e4dc61794e9c42 PDF Text Text Humility That Opens to Wonder Text: Exodus 4:13; I Corinthians 15:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 12, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon Well, I imagine that all week long you had conversations about the election which even six days later has failed to deliver for us in any certainty the President elect. It’s a very interesting period of time through which to live. The positive side of it, I suppose, is that we are talking about it together and one can also see some positive significance in the fact that maybe we are learning how important is the single vote, and perhaps we also are taking a look at the whole process, wondering about the Electoral College, for example. And certainly we can see a positive thing in the fact that, although we are at an impasse and stalemate and we don’t know just what is going to develop in the next few days, nonetheless, there isn’t any panic around. We have a confidence in that long tradition of Constitutional rule and the judicial process and, although however it comes out may not please everyone, nonetheless, I think basically we all believe that somehow or other decently and in order this matter will be resolved. But it also gives us added lengthened opportunity to reflect on the whole elective process, the political campaign that seems to get longer every time. It also gives us occasion to wonder about that point at which we find ourselves when the parties are bought and paid for, when the debate is reduced to sound bites, when the multitude of television ads becomes more shrill and frenzied, asserting an agenda bought and paid for and denigrating the other. Language fouled and conversation polluted. As a people we wonder, don’t we, if there isn’t a better way? You may think that Bruce and I consulted about his remarks this morning, but I assure you that we didn’t at all. I’m glad that he called us to revisit two weeks ago when Huston Smith was here. Last week being the beautiful All Saints Service, I didn’t really have occasion to do it, but I want to revisit that, along with what he said this morning, because I sensed such a sharp contrast in what we experienced in Huston Smith’s presence in our midst as over against the shrill frenzy of political rhetoric whose decibels go higher and higher. Here was a gentleman, a scholar, a man of great knowledge, great wisdom, and great grace who was with us in significant conversation, leading us in reflection on matters that are of deep importance to the well-being of society, the well-being of our lives and our future, and in his sermon, “Beholding the Glory,” suggesting to us the glimpses, the © Grand Valley State University   �Humility That Opens to Wonder Richard A. Rhem Page 2   intimation of transcendence that come to us in those thin places in our lives if we are able to see them. A friend knew that I was going to preach on humility this morning and called me with a quote from Huston Smith to the effect that humility is not low self-esteem, but it is, rather, the coming to recognize and distance oneself from one’s own separate ego, to be able to step back and recognize that one counts as one, but not more than one, and that in charity the other counts as one, as well. And in that humility that we saw embodied in him, we were able to think with him and see with him the glory, for I believe that humility opens to the possibility of wonder. Following the worship service, I had the wonderful privilege of sitting here between Huston Smith and his friend of many years and a relationship many years ago, Duncan Littlefair, and we experienced conversation between these two men, conversation that was lively, encountering, engaging, with different personalities, Duncan in his powerful determination to make distinctions that lead to clarity, Huston in marvelous candor, admitting that he always has a hard time choosing between dichotomies and his words “mealy-mouthed Huston.” I hope you didn’t miss the rarity of that encounter, a conversation between two prophetic figures with decades of experience, knowledge, and wisdom, differing personalities but engaging one another with civility and with candor and with grace and affection, to the end that truth might be glimpsed, not to make a point, not to win an argument, not to establish some absolute claim to the truth, but in the cause of truth in order that understanding might be furthered, conversation sacred, its holy, honest exchange where there is the loss of ego, the dissolving of self and the focus on truth to the end of understanding. My, that was a marvelous and all too rare experience, and we had just heard Huston pointing us to the way to behold the glory, pointing to those places where the layered reality becomes luminous in nature, in art, human relationship, and in the wisdom traditions. The advantage I had over you is that I had also just recently listened to a funeral meditation that Duncan had shared with me in which the transcendent one, the holy, the sacred could be glimpsed if only there are eyes to see it, in a blade of grass or a blossom or a bird or a leaf, or a sunset or a human relationship, and the wonder which is a consequence of the pointers of both of them being exactly the same. Huston said, “I use the word God.” Duncan said, “You don’t need to use God, but it’s okay if you do. It’s a philosophical concept.” It is a means of explaining, but the means of explaining is not the important thing. It is the reality, that reality to which it all points. Whatever we call it, whatever language we use, if there has been an emptying of the self, if there has been that vision of something beyond, then that awareness that brings wholeness and holiness to our being, however it is spoken of or expressed as we try to give expression to it, it seems to me that in both cases, the secret is humility. It is not an accident that the word human and humility and humor have a common root, the root of humus. You know what humus is - the little residue that worms leave after moving through the soil, it’s © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �Humility That Opens to Wonder Richard A. Rhem Page 3   vegetative decay; it’s that brown-blackish, rather unpleasant stuff. It is no accident that we are named human, for we are of the humus, we are of the soil, we are earthy and therefore, the most appropriate manifestation of the human is humility, and in order to come to an appreciation of the human, humor, because we are rooted in the soil, we are earthly, but we are more than that, as well. Because we know that we are earthly, we know that we are so rooted, so grounded, we know, as well, that we are more. We know that we are beckoned by the spirit to the experience of spirit, to the life of the spirit. Here we are, these ridiculous animals who know, who experience, who feel, who intuit, who have that sense of transcendence that calls them even while being rooted in the soil. They are anchored solidly. Humus. Human. Humility. And humor, one of the best antidotes to the egoism that shuts us off from wonder, being so filled with self, so self-assertive, so self-securing, so self-aggrandizing that we have no eyes to see nor ears to hear and our life is devoid of wonder and of joy, of grace and of peace. How do you come to it? Ah, that’s where preaching is stumped, for what does one say next? How does one come to it? Moses came to it, but was given a revelation an epiphany, a manifestation of the sacred and the holy that made his life holy, set apart to a great task because of a great vision that came after the brooding wilderness experience. Someone said in the scriptures it speaks of Moses 120 years old at his death, twenty years in Egypt as a prince learning to be somebody, forty years in the wilderness learning to be nobody, forty years learning what God could do with someone who had learned both lessons. No lack of self-esteem, but a brokenness, an honesty, an awareness, the simplicity of seeing truthfully and then acting in light of the wonder of the vision that comes when we’ve been emptied of the self. The Bible says that Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth, but he had a vision, a revelation. Paul, frenzied, passionate, defensive, threatened by this new movement with the name of Jesus, going about to destroy, to obstruct, to hold down, to stamp out, in a moment’s revelation, a vision, a light. How does it happen? I don’t know. It’s a grace; it’s a given. It’s not at our disposal, but it happens if we are serious, if we are engaged, if we can come to some honest estimate of ourselves, if we can let go. Moses had to let go of Egypt. Paul had to let go of all that which was sacred and holy to him that structured his whole life. Those security systems that we have built tightly around us - if only for a moment we could let go, if we could see through, there might be a bush that would burn or a light that would shine. It reminds me of the political campaign - noisy assertion, frenzied activity, absolutist claims, dogmatic assertions, control and manipulation. There is so little honest conversation that seeks not to make a point, but to open the truth more clearly. It is humility, it is that dying to myself, it is that recognition that I © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �Humility That Opens to Wonder Richard A. Rhem Page 4   am not God, that life has been given and is gift and if only for a moment I can step outside this frenzied drivenness of contemporary life, I can just pause long enough to look at the face of a child or a flower or a sunset and know that I am embraced in something marvelous and wonderful beyond my imagining - then my life will be bathed in wonder and there will be joy and peace. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XXIII Scripture Text Exodus 4:13, I Corinthians 15:9 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-0-20001112 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-11-12 Title A name given to the resource Humility That Opens to Wonder Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 November 12, 2000 entitled "Humility That Opens to Wonder", on the occasion of Pentecost XXIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Exodus 4:13, I Corinthians 15:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Humility Transcendence https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4cbaa1aa74bb0e10e45f309d4d993b60.mp3 8157d684f729cc063b4a7fa133a7ab2d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0cbbe6a3d86b44e18868513cedbeb6c8.pdf 0094c72fee3e0a90dc260c1c9870cdcc PDF Text Text Emmaus: Now You See Him; Now You Don’t Eastertide Luke 24:13-35 Text: Luke 24:31 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan April 30, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon My name is Cleopas, not that it matters a great deal, because I didn't have anything particularly outstanding about me or any reason to be noticed in the Gospel narrative of the appearance story that was read a moment ago, but I was chosen as the example, I suppose, of that which was the experience of so many. I went to the Passover celebration; I was a part of that larger movement that was following Jesus and hoped that something would happen in Jerusalem, hoping that, somehow or other, we didn't know how, but somehow or other, God would move upon that city, would move through that man in whom we had come to trust, believe, and in whom our hopes were placed. I was there when he entered the city with acclamation. I was there when he made his bold statement in the Temple. I was proud of him, the courage, the unflinching courage with which he made his claim and pointed us to the eternal God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I was there when they crucified my Lord. The next day, Saturday, was the Jewish Sabbath, of course, but the day after any kind of a trauma becomes a rather formal affair. One just sort of goes through the motions. Thank God there was that ordinary Sabbath day to be observed, something one could just simply plod through without thinking, without feeling, just to get through. But, Sunday dawned like your Monday, and I was beside myself. It's as though the whole world came crashing in around my ears. Oh, there were some rumors. Some women said they'd been to the tomb and that it was empty and they had seen the vision of angels, but no one gave it much credence. Around noon, I said to a friend of mine, "You know, I have to get out of here. I'm going to burst open if I don't get away from Jerusalem and all of the memories and all of the crushed hopes and dreams. I can't stand it; I have to get out of here. Let's go to Emmaus." He said, "Fine. I'll join you." Well, you know how it is; you think you can escape; you think you can get away, leave it all behind you, but you can't, and so we found ourselves on the road, © Grand Valley State University   �Emmaus: Now You See Him; Now You Don’t Richard A. Rhem Page 2   taking apart every aspect of the week, trying to figure out what went wrong, wondering where was God and questioning our own understanding. How could we have gotten so mixed up about who this was and what might have happened through him? It was strange as we – obviously, as deeply in depression as we were as we left the city limits – sensed a presence with us, and sure enough, a stranger came up alongside us and said, "What is this conversation you're having?" Well, I couldn't believe anybody didn't know what had just happened in Jerusalem. But, he said, "No, what things?" And so, I told him, "Jesus of Nazareth, a man mighty with God, a prophet whom we hoped would set Israel free, they killed him. He's dead. And it's over. And frankly, we're just running away." And then, you know, the strangest thing happened. The stranger began to give us a Bible lesson like I've never had in my life. Oh, all the things he mentioned were familiar; I knew them from a child, all those scripture passages to which he referred. But, the case he was making is that we had totally mis-read our own scriptures, that what had just happened, after all, was something that we might have known would happen inevitably if we had understood our own scriptures. He took us into the Torah of Moses and through the Psalms and the prophets, all very familiar to me, but I was hearing it again as for the first time. It was all very familiar to me, but I never understood it before; I never put it together before; I never had a clue before. I knew the Psalmist's cry, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” I knew the suffering servant's story of Isaiah 53, the Lamb led to the slaughter. I knew the one who without violence does not lift up his voice in the street, but who with gentleness will never break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick. I knew all of that, but I never put it together. I guess, as a matter of fact, I was more turned on by, for example, the fiery prophet Elijah. My own expectation, I suppose, was shaped by Malachi who was looking for one to come to judge, to bring fire from heaven. And all of that other stuff in there, it's all there, but somehow or other I never identified it with Jesus. I guess I'd have to say I never recognized who he was at all. It was probably my own agenda I was projecting on to him, thinking about sitting on thrones and judging Israel and being in the top spot for the new regime. It was a Bible lesson like I'll never forget. In retrospect, my friend and I talking about it later realized that while it was going on, our hearts were burning, our hearts were palpitating. There was a blood rushing through our system; something amazing was happening to us. We approached the village and the stranger was going to go on, but we encouraged him to stay with us and we came to the evening meal, and again, a rather strange thing happened - he who was our guest became our host. He took bread, blessed it and broke it and gave it to us, and we knew it was he. Our eyes were opened; we recognized him. It was Jesus. He was with us. He was alive! Just the moment we began to feel the excitement rise and the joy break over, he was gone. Vanished from our sight. Disappeared. No trace of him. © Grand Valley State University �Emmaus: Now You See Him; Now You Don’t Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Well, you can imagine we couldn't put all that together, but one thing was certain - even though the day was far spent, we headed right back to Jerusalem and you know what we found there? Well, he'd also appeared to Simon and so there was already a party underway and they were celebrating and we said to one another, "The Lord is risen. The Lord is risen, indeed." And then, there he was again! Strange. Well, that's my story. But, you understand, the version of it that you have in the evangelist's Luke's Gospel is a version of my story some fifty years later, wellhoned. If you read Luke or, for that matter, Matthew or Mark, you'd think it was all settled on Easter Sunday afternoon. Of course, that wasn't the way it was. It was my experience, but it was my experience condensed. It was my experience as example of the experience of that numberless crowd that had put their hopes on Jesus and found their dreams smashed and who eventually came, as I came, to experience him once again alive. Because what the evangelist wanted to do was, in concise a manner as possible, tell the good news, and so, it's all in there, but it's sort of squashed together, that disappointment, that disillusionment, that sadness of heart. Oh, my God, it was awful and it didn't evaporate in a day or a week or a month or, frankly, for a year. We pretty much scattered after that traumatic crucifixion, back to Galilee, into the Judean countryside, sad of heart, with crushed hopes and broken dreams, wondering if there was any meaning to anything, wondering if one could believe anything anymore, wondering if one ever could put one's trust in someone or something, wondering if the noblest ideas and ideals of the human family would amount to anything, ideals of freedom and love and justice, whether grace and mercy, whether any of that would make any difference in the long run. Of course, you don't have an experience as we had with Jesus, even through the trauma of the crucifixion, without continuing to reflect on it, to think about it, and that Bible lesson that he gave us, of course, points to the fact that that is exactly what we did. We went back to our scriptures and we scoured them for some clue as to what in the world we had just experienced, and we did find the Psalm, "My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me?" we did find the Lamb led to the slaughter, we did find all of those pointers that represent the graciousness of God in humility. As we did, we began to share with one another, and as we came together, we told Jesus stories and as we told Jesus stories and as we remembered, now and again, here and there, it was like he was really there. And, of course, for him in the days of his flesh, when he was with us, the meal was always the high point and everybody was welcome and he would take the bread and bless it and break it and give it to us. I remember the first time I gathered with a few friends as we had been talking about our hopes, our dreams, our disillusionments, and our sadness, and someone took the bread, it was like Jesus was there. It was as though his presence was as tangible as the presence of the © Grand Valley State University �Emmaus: Now You See Him; Now You Don’t Richard A. Rhem Page 4   one next to me, and we knew, in that community, breaking bread together, that he was alive. And so, as we began to understand with new eyes, as we looked at old, familiar scriptures and suddenly saw something we'd never seen before, hope began to rise in us and we began more and more to experience the wonder of that presence that was full of grace. And then, we came to the most amazing discovery of all and it was simply this - that Jesus wasn't about Jesus at all. Jesus was about God. That's why he never pointed to himself. That's why he never put himself forward. That's why he was marked by such humility, such gracefulness. That's why he was like one who refused to be the broker of the grace of God but, rather, said God is accessible to you all and grace is for you all. That's why he never set up shop and hung up his shingle because he wasn't about himself. He was about God. He was a God-presence. God was embodied somehow or other in that one, and when we were with him, we sensed the presence of God, and now the amazing thing was that he was dead and we experienced him alive, really just as before. We couldn't reach out and touch him as once we did, but he was there. Was it his spirit? Was it God's Spirit? I don't know. But, this I know - this we came to discover, that Jesus wasn't about Jesus. Jesus was about God and the fact that Jesus was no longer in the flesh was not at all any handicap for our experience of God as we experienced it when he was in the flesh. Can you sense what I am trying to say? I don't know how to say it any differently than that. If s like he wasn't there, but he was there. But, not being there, whatever we experienced when he was there, was the same, just as real. When we looked one another in the eye, when we held the one we loved, when we gathered in community, breaking bread, our eyes would be opened and we would know the presence of God. So, you see, I guess what I want to say to you is, maybe if you could, you would have liked to have been there. But, to have been there then in the days of his flesh would be no advantage to where you are now, because, as a matter of fact, he was the mediator of that mystery of life, that ultimate ground of all being, that creative spirit, that source of all, that guide of all, that goal of all. He simply was the presence of that One living God, whom death can never destroy, and he embodied forgiveness and love and justice and peace which all of the cruelty and violence and ignorance in the world can never put to death. So, you see, that's what the evangelists were trying to tell you when they honed the experience of the whole community over decades. They called it my story, Cleopas, and it was my story, but it wasn't really my story as though it happened just like that. Oh, there was real history there. That's why 2000 years later you're still struggling with it, but I have to admit that I am amazed and somewhat amused at how much you struggle to figure out what really happened. I want to tell you - we couldn't figure out what really happened. But, it was the presence. It was the God-presence. It was the embodiment of grace and community. It was © Grand Valley State University �Emmaus: Now You See Him; Now You Don’t Richard A. Rhem Page 5   the deep assurance that when the powers of darkness had done their worst, light burst forth and the last word was not sadness, but joy, not a broken heart, but a burning heart, not death, but life. © 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 Eastertide II Scripture Text Luke 24:31 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-0-20000430 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-04-30 Title A name given to the resource Emmaus: Now You See Him, Now You Don't Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 30, 2000 entitled "Emmaus: Now You See Him, Now You Don't", on the occasion of Eastertide II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 24:31. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Humility Jesus Presence of God https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dd8fdbe40a2288d2cc4cb412288f6a53.mp3 3c8f520f47563794f13ab5b753b6a045 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/715b241e4cee12390d72a3b7f9be25c1.pdf 55819d86b65ab3b4bc066a9c34bb5d58 PDF Text Text Light of the World From the series: A Millennial Vision Text: Isaiah 49:6; Matthew 2:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan January 9, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon Some weeks ago, as I was thinking about this morning, contemplating the beginning of a new year, the beginning of a new century, the beginning of a new millennium, I thought, "Dear God, I ought to have something profound to say," and nothing came. But, I did think long and hard about it, realizing that this is a rather significant time. The human calendar is a human calendar; it's a human construct. It doesn't have anything to do with the divine plan of anything, the cosmic reality. It's simply something that we've put together, but it's a handy item. It is a good instrument. It enables us to get the sense that life moves and that history unfolds and that there is development. And the calendar gives us a way to mark time, to mark the seasons of our lives. It gives us a chance to evaluate where we have been, the extent to which we've accomplished our dreams and our goals, and it gives us a fresh start, an opportunity to set again those goals that we might go after and to have a sense of that which is beckoning us. And so, while the calendar is a human construct, nonetheless, this is a significant time. There aren't many of our brothers and sisters in the human family who ever get to experience the turn of a millennium, and so I thought to myself, “What are the critical insights that we have gained, that we need to actualize, to implement? What are the important matters before the human family, before the Christian church, before the religions of the world, and how might we set for ourselves a vision for the third millennium?” And because this Sunday is also the celebration of Epiphany, I thought, “Why not think together about the light of the world?” It is the symbolism of the star that points to the light that led the Magi to the adoration of the Christ child in Matthew's story. The word Epiphany comes from the Greek language meaning manifestation, and in this congregation your children speak about Epiphany Eyes, that is, eyes that are able to see through, to see deeply. Epiphany has to do with seeing with insight. Epiphany Eyes are eyes that see, not was not there, but what was always there and not seen or understood, and the Festival of Epiphany is the celebration © Grand Valley State University   �Light of the World Richard A. Rhem Page 2   of the fact that it is the Christian Church's witness that in the birth of Jesus light came into the world. Matthew tells a delightful story of those Magi who saw a star rise in the east and followed it until it led them to Jerusalem where they consulted with Herod the King, and he with the religious leaders, as to what this bright star might be because such a heavenly body would often, in the eyes of the astrologers of that time, signify the birth of some royalty, some ruler of the world. And so, Matthew prefaces his story of the life and ministry of Jesus with this delightful story of the Magi who follow a star that leads them, finally, to the stable where they worship and where they praise God. Where did Matthew get the story? Well, interestingly, if you would read the 60th chapter of Isaiah, which would be a good Hebrew lesson for a day like this, you would find, “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn. A multitude of camels shall cover you and your camels of Midian and Ephah, and all those from Sheba shall come and they shall bring gold and frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” Of course, Matthew simply dipped into his Bible and he found there a promised one who would be thus worshiped and adored by kings who would bring gifts. And in order for Matthew to give expression to what he believes Jesus to be, what he believes to have happened in Jesus, out of his own biblical tradition he tells us a story. There probably was such a bright light around that time and there probably were conversations about what the brightness of that heavenly body should signify, but all of it is put together beautifully by Matthew who wants to say in Jesus, the child that was born, the light of God came into the world. John also, in the prologue to his Gospel, mentions light coming into his world. This was the light that enlightens everyone coming into the world. And in John's Gospel, he even has Jesus say, “I am the light of the world.” But, even in John's Gospel, it's obvious that John recognized that the light that is in Jesus was a light that pointed to a greater light beyond Jesus. Right? Follow me? Even in John's Gospel where we have such a bold declaration, “I am the light of the world,” even there it is obvious as you read that Gospel that John is aware that that human, historical manifestation of light was a beacon and a pointer to the true light that transcends all. In other words, even John did not absolutize the light that was in Jesus as a light synonymous with the Light of the world. Wilfred Cantrell Smith, who was one of our great scholars of this century, studied comparative religions, going back a thousand years. I find it rather interesting on this first century of the third millennium that he went back to the first century of the second millennium and he identified five leading exponents of five religious traditions. In his study of their work he says it was obvious, in the case of all five, that all five of them had experienced God. They had an intuition, they had an insight, they knew there was this Ultimate, this deep Mystery, and then each of © Grand Valley State University �Light of the World Richard A. Rhem Page 3   the five in their own way sought to express what they had experienced. The insight or the intuition was one thing. The expression was another. And so, this common experience of coming into the presence of that Absolute Mystery that is the ground of all being and the source of all life, this experience came to expression in five different traditions. Smith, in his book, Faith and Belief, said the first experience is faith. That is the experience of God. But, belief is the religious system that we create in order to stammeringly and stumblingly point to that ineffable experience of the One who was Light Inaccessible. And then Smith points out, interestingly, that each one of the five who gave particular expression to that common experience, each one of them was aware that when they had said what they could say, they had not said enough. Each one of them indicated in the very nature of that which they shared that they knew that there was more which was beyond their capacity to share. They could intuit it, they could experience it in the sense of being overwhelmed by a Presence, but when it came to giving expression, articulation, to put it into words and sentences and concepts and ideas, each one of them recognized that they were falling far short. They were not doing justice to the depth of the experience. To translate that into Christian terms, what that means is that Jesus for us is the light that reflects the Light, but the light that is in Jesus is not the absolute Light that is over all and beyond all. Epiphany is the time when we think about that Christian idea of revelation and for revelation to be revelation, something has to be revealed, something has to be communicated. And for something to be communicated, that communication has to be context-specific. For example, right now I am talking to you in English. Many of you would say, yawning, “It sounds like Greek to me,” but nonetheless, I speak English, I speak in ideas and concepts that we have in the interchange, in the intercourse of our lives. It's the only thing I can do. It wouldn't do me any good to speak Latin to you. We talk about these things that are common to our experience in a particular context because, being human, we are historical. That means we are limited to a time and to a place and we can only communicate with one another in the specificity, the particularity of our particular situation. Jesus was that particular word of the infinite and eternal God who came to expression in Jewish flesh in a child, in a Hebrew prophet, revealing that God beyond all religious concepts. Jesus is the light of the world for us because Jesus is our way to the experience that we have had of the Light of Lights. I like Paul's way of saying this better than Matthew and John, frankly. Paul said in the second letter to the Corinthians, the fourth chapter, 6th verse, “We have seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.” That's the big One. “We have seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In that historical, time-limited, race-limited, language-limited human flesh of Jesus, in the particularity of Jesus we have seen a glimpse. Now, of course, historically, what the Christian Church has done is to absolutize that historical manifestation as though that was all, the end all and the be all, as though that historical © Grand Valley State University �Light of the World Richard A. Rhem Page 4   manifestation was synonymous with the big One, and all you need is two different religious traditions to absolutize their own particular story and you have the seeds for conflict, and the possibility for violence. Nothing can fuel human conflict better than religion because it's right at the heart of our being, it's the thing we cherish most. The religious commitment of our lives gives us our sense of identity and, when you rattle that somehow, you create great conflict, great struggle. But, that's what we did. We took the particular manifestation that is ours, full of light and grace, and we said, “That is synonymous with the whole,” and, of course, to say that was to exclude all the rest. Wilfred Cantrell Smith said that a thousand years ago there were Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist thinkers who were perfectly content with the experience of God they had which came to expression in their particular traditions, but they didn't realize that they were parallel traditions because they weren't aware of one another in a human situation where there was not this global mobility and CNN everywhere, satellites in the sky, and all of that. But, we know different. We know. We can see the origin and the source of all of these religious traditions. We can watch the development. We can see their claims and understand the articulation of that experience of the Ultimate. As a millennial vision, I would hope and pray that increasingly the Christian Church would also recognize that its grasp, its glimpse of the Ultimate filtered through the face of Jesus is true! But, there's more. I did a little research last night because I remembered an experience I had that was one of those life-changing experiences. I had been fussing around with the breadth of the grace of God and I had been including more and more people from the narrow little beginning where I began. And then some of us, ten years ago, 1990, traveled to Europe and we made a stop in Paris and took a trip outside of Paris to that magnificent cathedral at Chartres. There's a guide there, an Englishman named Malcolm, who gives fantastic lectures on that cathedral. He's lived in the shadow of it for years. He took us around and for the first time I realized that the great cathedrals, the stained glass of the great cathedrals, were really the libraries of these communities. This was before the time of the printing press; it was before the time of near universal literacy. And those stained glass windows told the significant stories of the human story. Particularly in the cathedral, they told the biblical story so if you came into the nave and looked to the west you would see the story of Creation in stained glass. If you went on to the transept, you would see the development of Israel, and perhaps in the depths of the choir you might see the birth of Jesus, the Christmas story, and perhaps in another transept the Crucifixion and then the Resurrection. This was a marvelous way to inform the people of the story. They had no Bible in their hand. They could see the story. I thought to myself as I was in the cathedral, and I told you this ten years ago, October 14 1990, in “A Place to Stand in a World of Religions.” I told you this story how being in that cathedral I thought to myself, “What if, what if there were a people who only looked through the windows in the west wall of the nave? What if there was another group huddled in the transept, in the choir, or in © Grand Valley State University �Light of the World Richard A. Rhem Page 5   another transept, in another part of the nave, people who didn't move out of their locale, who only knew there was light streaming through a particular part of the story? The only part of the story they knew was Creation or Christmas or Easter, or whatever it may be. Would they not think, That's it! That's the story.' But it wouldn't be the story at all. It was a chapter of the story. It was a facet of the story.” And then I thought to myself, “What if they were not all Christian groups, but what if there was a Jewish window with the community of people seeing the light stream through and a Christian and a Muslim and a Buddhist and a Hindu? What if all of these respective groups were gathered before their windows where the story was told, their story? And what would be the common thing that would bind them together? Being unconscious of one another and without knowledge of anyone else's story, what would be the common thing? Well, it would be the light that streams through all the windows, that illuminates all the stories.” And it was then that I saw a paradigm of that Light of the world which is greater than the light of the world that dawned in Jesus. The light that dawned in Jesus is an authentic and true light of Light Inaccessible. But God is Light Inaccessible and in the mercy of God, Light Inaccessible became light focused in a human face. And that's my story. And it's a true story, and through that story I have experience of that Light Inaccessible. But, so do my brothers and sisters in other respective traditions. I thought that was a rather good paradigm, a good model, a good symbol, a good story I told you. In fact, it was so clear that everything went downhill from that point, because it made so much sense, it seemed so obvious, and one way or another I've been hammering away at that and once in a while I get weary. I get weary about being so concerned about the things that don't concern many people. It's tough to be "strange," to see ultimate importance in things most people yawn about. I must have grumbled about that a couple of months ago, mentioning that maybe I was growing tired of it and one of my astute listeners wrote to me and said that she had been thinking about that often of late, and then one night she saw on public television, perhaps some of you did, as well, a documentary on Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, these two war horses that led the women's suffrage movement, and she said, “I was overcome by a deep sadness when reminded that from the time of the convention in Seneca Falls when the whole idea was affirmed, accepted, when it seemed as though everyone would say "Yes" to women's suffrage, it was 72 years before the Constitution was finally amended and the suffrage actually happened,” and my correspondent says, “Susan B. Anthony gave virtually all of her adult life to that struggle, and Elizabeth gave much of hers, as well. What can one say but, ‘Why? Why does the right thing take so long?’” © Grand Valley State University �Light of the World Richard A. Rhem Page 6   So I am counseled by my correspondent when I grow weary, because Susan B. Anthony never even saw the passage of the amendment for which she had given her life. So I am counseled when I grow weary to remember the ladies. They stirred and stirred until they created a wave of women who filled the streets with banners and songs and, at the end of her life, Susan said, “With such women consecrating their lives, failure is impossible.” And then my correspondent writes, “People are listening. The waters are churning. Minds are opening. Thank you for making CCC an exciting place to be, something of an Imagination Station for all ages, and when you are tired, remember the ladies.” An Imagination Station for all ages -I love that. And it's happening, and it will happen, friends, because people are hungry all over. They're not hungry for all of the ecclesiastical structures and the baggage of institutional religion. But they're hungry just like the Magi were hungry and took off on a journey following a star. People are still and again looking to the stars, looking here and there and everywhere for some authentic word, something that resonates to the depths of our humanity. It will happen, this millennial vision of a world at peace. As the Catholic theologian, Hans Küng has said, “There'll be no peace among the nations until there is peace among the religions,” and I have a millennial vision of a time when all of the religions will respect each other and enrich each other and teach each other and live together, hand in hand, in the harmony that alone can reflect the Creator's purpose. It will happen. What happened on New Year's Eve? From the far South Sea Islands, around the globe, in our own living rooms and kitchens, as a human family we celebrated the turn of the millennium. Has there ever before been such an event celebrated by the whole human family around the whole globe, celebrating all together the movement from the second to the third millennium in such a world? Let us rejoice in that light that has come to us in Jesus Christ that points us to Light Inaccessible and join arms and hearts with all of those of good heart who, likewise, have experienced the eternal and in their own way and own manner bring praise and worship to the eternal 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 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 Epiphany Sunday Series A Millennial Vision Scripture Text Isaiah 49:6, Matthew 2:9 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-0-20000109 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-01-09 Title A name given to the resource Light of the World Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 9, 2000 entitled "Light of the World", as part of the series "A Millennial Vision", on the occasion of Epiphany Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 49:6, Matthew 2:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Global Peace Pluralism https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f7b24a3267fe81b3081209774c9801a9.pdf 00a003b87ef039bd3a3f6dffab422ac4 PDF Text Text Our Hearts Are Restless Until… Text: Acts 17:27; John 1:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany III, January 23, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon “Our hearts are restless until . . .” so goes the title of the message and it comes, of course, from the oft quoted statement of St. Augustine, whose claim was “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee.” I do believe that. The longer I am in the ministry, the more I am convinced of that. I remember coming into the ministry a rather scared and fearful and defensive person, wondering whether or not this enterprise into which I was entering had a future. Being very fearful for the faith, worrying about what seemed to be, at that time, the unraveling of the world. I was not a child of the 60s – the 50s, for goodness sake. Such was my narrow, cribbed understanding of things. Now, looking back over more than three decades of ministry, I know that Augustine was right because God has created the human person with a hole in the heart, with an empty space in the soul, which nothing can satisfy save resting in the grace of God. We may in restlessness struggle to stuff it full of all sorts of things—some destructive, some delightful, but finally all of us really need to know, want to know, long to know that God is, and that God is for us, and that grace is ours. Yes, Augustine was right. I am sure of that. “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee.” It seems as though we have come to a period in the human experience when maybe there is again a more general recognition of that. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, incarcerated for his attempt on the life of Hitler in the dark days of national socialism in the depths of the Second World War, wrote Letters and Papers From Prison, which is a marvelous spiritual testament. He spoke about “man come of age,” and he had the sense that God was being edged out of the world. We all speak out of our own context, and his context was so vivid in his experience, of course. He was reflecting the high point in human culture, in the German civilization of the day, the high point in so many respects—highly educated, the arts, culture, technology, scientific achievement. It was as though in Bonhoeffer’s perception the human perception and human society had come to the point where we could do without the hypothesis of God. The human person in charge, shaping and determining his or her own world, having the reins of one’s own © Grand Valley State University   �Our Hearts Are Restless… Richard A. Rhem Page 2   destiny in one’s hands. I am sure as Bonhoeffer traverses the celestial courts in the company of the Church Triumphant he must shake his head at this near end of the 20th century. For, less than half a century later, there are all kinds of evidence of belief on the part of the human person. Some of it is rather bizarre. But it is not at all true that the human person has come through stage after stage after stage to where finally superstition or belief or faith are no longer necessary or present. We are as believing for good or ill, as superstitious, as gullible for good or ill, as I guess any previous generation. There’s a positive side to that, and that is a new openness, a new recognition that, as Bonhoeffer was living at the end of a couple hundred years of constant development and achievement through the exercise of human reason, human rationale, he recognized the faithlessness of that—the assertion of human rationality and human autonomy, and he saw it almost as the end of the process. We can look back over the last decades and see that making the human mind the measure of all things has brought us up empty. We have come to see that it’s not seeing is believing but that, in that invisible world of spirit, it is rather believing is seeing that is the perceptive mode by which we gain insight and understanding. In this season of Epiphany we celebrate the fact that that which is not available at the disposal of our human investigation has been given to us as gift in the gracious God who unveils that heart of love at the center of things deep down. This is what Paul discovered. I find myself returning to this experience of Paul in Athens again and again. It fascinates me. He had such hutzpah. Here he was, this Jew, who was convinced that God spoken supremely in Jesus who was the Messiah. He goes to the very font of western culture and civilization, to the height of academic achievement, to Athens itself, and has the audacity when asked about his beliefs to say, “I saw an image. You are very religious, and I saw an image with an inscription to an unknown God. This unknown God whom you worship, I proclaim to you.” Is that boldness? Is that daring? Is that the passion of faith and conviction? I guess it is. Some of you were with me in Athens this past September as I stood at Mars Hills. I even have a photograph to prove it. We talked together about the experience of Paul in Athens. It disturbs me a little bit that Paul was disturbed when he came there having done the city tour, because he was at the center of the highest achievement of human culture and civilization. He was provoked. At least as Luke tells us the story, he was provoked because of the pantheon of gods and goddesses. I wanted to say, “Paul, don’t you have some appreciation for the marvel that is this cultural achievement? Don’t you have some sense of the glory that is Greece?” But then I remember that Paul was catching that culture and civilization as its fame was fading. He was seeing only the dying embers of what once had been the brilliant light, the most brilliant light of human achievement. Cultures have their © Grand Valley State University �Our Hearts Are Restless… Richard A. Rhem Page 3   dawn and their zenith and their fading away. So perhaps I can forgive Paul for not standing in awe on Mars Hill in the presence of the Parthenon, because what he saw in the marketplace in that time, 500 years after the Golden Age of Greece – what he saw there were the academic intellectual discussions that had become mere play, mere games. They weren’t serious any more. They lacked passion and conviction. They were just philosophical discussions, the way to spend an idle hour. They enjoyed this kind of thing. Luke tells us that they did nothing but discuss things and ideas all day long. Well, that can be a wonderful pursuit, but it can also be an empty pursuit, a superficial pursuit, a pursuit that has not the pulsing passion of life and conviction about it. That’s what Paul ran into. When he came to Athens he was at a hinge point in history. Five hundred years after its glory, it had degenerated into mind games. And he proclaimed Jesus, and he said, “The God whom you grope after—you’re very religious.” Paul didn’t say that was of no account. He didn’t denigrate it. He acknowledged the quest. He honored the yearning. And then he said, “Let me tell you about the one who is behind all of those representations that you have set out in your pantheon of gods and goddesses. Let me proclaim to you the one who is the font of life, the creator who gives us life and breath, the one in whom we live and move and have our being. This one I declare to you, this one who has become unveiled to us in Jesus, this man appointed by God to reveal, to redeem, to judge and to save.” Paul proclaimed Jesus as the light that gives insight into the heart of God, which is what John, of course, testified to in the marvelous prologue to his gospel—this one who is light and life coming from God who is the source of life and light—this one becoming flesh and dwelling among us so that we could behold him. “No one,” John says, “has ever seen God.” But this one, as a father’s only son, this one, has made God known. That’s what Paul believed. He had his own Epiphany experience. Paul never turned his back on his own tradition either, nor did he disparage Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and the Law. But he had come deeply rooted in all that, then to be uprooted suddenly in the brilliance of the light of the risen one who encountered him and called him to take this light of the knowledge of the Eternal God to the nations, this God whose heart was laid bare in the flesh of Jesus. So at that critical hinge point in history, Paul was able to let go, as it were, and not to cling to all of what had absolutely shaped him and formed him and about which he had conviction and passion. He was able to let go in order to respond to the heavenly vision. He said, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, believing in the Christ, reigning present in the Spirit.” He came to Athens, mighty Athens itself, in a time of its own decline to say, “Here’s light and here is life. Here’s the Eternal God whom you seek, the God whom you grope after; this insatiable hunger of the human heart, this inevitable yearning and groping satisfied through the God unveiled in Jesus Christ.” That’s the story of Epiphany © Grand Valley State University �Our Hearts Are Restless… Richard A. Rhem Page 4   and that’s the God in whom we believe. And our hearts are restless until we find our rest in that God. I used to wonder whether the enterprise into which I was entering as a young preacher had any future. With white-knuckled intensity, with great defensiveness and fear, overcompensating I suppose with bombast, I tried to hard sell the Gospel, not knowing that there’s a hole in the human heart. If only we can find access, because the human heart is hungry for God, and human beings are insatiably religious. We are learning again in our day that is not seen as believing, but that faith itself is a manner of perception, and in believing we see. But, even then, I can’t stop there, for the moment I believe and I see, I’ll begin to think again. And, when I begin to think again, I’ll find that my heart cannot long rest where my mind cannot follow. I was going to bed last night at midnight. I set the alarm and suddenly I got the note pad out and scratched something down. Nancy said, “Bingo.” I said, “Bingo, that’s it.” The heart cannot long rest where the mind cannot follow. If that resting place in God, which might happen in an overwhelming moment, cannot be tested by our experiences in full light of all that we know and understand, its foundation will not last. Therefore, for our day, just as Paul did for his day, as Martin Luther did for his day, at every hinge point in human history, what we need to do today, – also at the end of an age, perhaps at the twilight of western culture and civilization: twilight, not because of some inevitable historical determinism, but because conviction and passion dissipate, confusion reigns, and easy tolerance and lack of conviction may be at the end of this our western cultural experience – what we need to do is find a way to say, “Jesus Christ, today—for tomorrow.” I heard a very eloquent speaker recently who represents the very finest of evangelicalism, who gave a very accurate and articulate description of our contemporary situation—with its confusion, and its chaos, and with its crises. His call was to go back and to capture the clarity and conviction of the 16th century. I wanted to stand up and say, “No. You can never go back.” That which ignited passion and instilled conviction because it was the confession and profession of the moment in its context can never be simply dusted off and polished up and set in use again. What we need to do is to believe so deeply today in the grace of God that we’ll be able to let go, let go of all of that that has shaped us and formed us, not afraid but trusting in the Spirit who beckons us into the future, the Spirit whom Jesus said “would come and lead you into all truth.” Even John in that day recognized that there were things that they could not handle, but that would be revealed subsequently by the Spirit. Why should we believe that process ever stopped? Just as Paul had to let go in order to proclaim something grander and brighter than ever he knew, so we today have to be able to let go and to rest in that grace. © Grand Valley State University �Our Hearts Are Restless… Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Our hearts are restless and we rest in God, but resting there with freedom and joy to find the way to say to our neighbors, to those with whom we work, our family, our children and grandchildren, “Come, walk with us in the Light, which is the Life, which has come to us through the Eternal God who created all things and whose heart was laid bare in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Come walk with us, for you are hungry, and there’s food and drink in this One.” Said, maybe in a new way, in new shapes and forms— nonetheless, the same Light, the Light of the world, Jesus Christ, our Lord. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cc2cb999dcc27739ce795bb5e6cb3aef.mp3 5754253f0216b64e5e7faacce068f812 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 Epiphany III Scripture Text Acts 17:27, John 1:9 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-0-19940123 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-01-23 Title A name given to the resource Our Hearts Are Restless Until... Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 23, 1994 entitled "Our Hearts Are Restless Until...", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 17:27, John 1:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Grace of God Love at the core of reality Spiritual Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6860515fc67169272a5c339b7ab8aa85.pdf 0036cd5c6b0a7a441e19a5d847982bd3 PDF Text Text Seeing is Believing Text: Kings 6:17; John 14:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany II, January 16, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon “...O Lord, open his eyes and let him see.”    Kings  6:17   “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”    John  14:9     Popular folk wisdom says, "Seeing is believing." Is that your creed? Is that your philosophy? Well, I dare say it is. It's really the way all of us operate, almost inevitably. "Seeing is Believing." In other words, prove it to me, demonstrate it to me, give me verification. They say all of us operate that way because we are all the children of western civilization, of western culture. We are at the end of a couple of centuries of scientific investigation and research in which the scientific method has been perfected. It has yielded tremendous success, and given us understanding. It has given us insight into unraveling the technological mysteries of the universe. We are simply people, who through the very lens with which we see reality, live and act and breathe and think as empiricists (a school of philosophy named empiricism). Empiricism is simply a philosophy that says that knowledge, truth, is derived only from sensory experience - what I can touch, what I can taste, what I can hear, what I can see. Sensory experience is the access to truth and to knowledge. Everything that is not reducible to sensory experience is simply questionable. We are children of a philosophy that has trickled down to the average person and has become now our shared common wisdom. That is the way we operate. I don't want to deprecate that. Observe all the wonders of the modem world that we enjoy. Look at the technological advances. Look at how life has been transformed through the application of empirical research and that philosophy: "Seeing is Believing." There are those who observe the human scene who have said that we are at a hinge point in the human story. We are at the end of that modern age, which is characterized by the Enlightenment, by the Age of Reason. We are also at the end of this age characterized by the scientific method, and by all of the technological breakthroughs that we have witnessed in the last couple of centuries. We have entered a Post Modem Age. The signs of that are the spiritual questing, the evidence of the emptiness of soul and the yearning of the heart for something © Grand Valley State University   �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 2   more. The shadow side of the modem age, so splendid in its achievement, was the implication that truth and reality were measured by the human mind, and that human reason and human rationality decided the limits of what was true - and what was real. The great philosopher, the father of modem development of philosophy, Emanuel Kant, has a book entitled Religion Within the Limits of Human Reason. You cannot have religion within the limits of human reason. We know that now. We have come up empty and are hungry. Our souls are starved and whenever that happens there is a reaction. So we have New Age spirituality as it is called. Part of it is very serious, part of it bizarre. These are indications that there are people who are grasping at straws, groping for something beyond, something that breaks the paradigm of the human rational, verifiable reality. Two popular news magazines, Time Magazine and Newsweek Magazine, December 27,1993, both featured stories on angels. They featured stories about not only the historical and biblical conception of angels, but also how angels appear in Judaism and Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. People are searching, and in both articles there are moving accounts of human encounters with angels. One article relates angelical healing. Another article simply relates how the appearance of one's guardian angel removed the fear of death, which still followed two days later. And there were stories of people encountering a light that sent heat, an energy, through their body that transformed them and gave them peace. People are hungry. In our present contemporary scene we see "angel" stores opening for business. Publishers Weekly reported five hundred million copies of books on angels sold in the recent past, and that five out of ten are on the Best Seller List. We now see, not only angel stores, but angel newsletters, angel clubs, angel seminars, etc. Perhaps you remember John Westerhoff, who was here two years ago on the first Sunday in Lent. John, a Christian educator and scholar, was interviewed by authors the of the Time article. They asked him, "Why do some people see angels, and some people don't?" He said, "It takes faith to perceive an angel. If you don't believe, you won't see." You may say, "Hey, John, you just turned that whole thing on its head! But it isn't "Seeing is Believing". Maybe there is a whole dimension of reality where believing is seeing. That, of course, is the connection with this season of the year, this Epiphany season. An expert on angels will be here during the next hour at the Perspectives Class. I'm not an expert on angels, but we see here a marvelous contemporary instance of how there has been a shift in human consciousness. We are beginning to see that the demand to see in order to believe is shipwrecked when it comes to our longing for an encounter with God. We are beginning to see experiences of transience, that sense of something or someone beyond us who touches us in grace. Not "seeing is believing," but "believing is seeing." Epiphany is the season © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 3   of revelation. It is the season of the lifting of the curtain; the unveiling of manifestation, if only for a moment. Epiphany is the lighting up of the landscape of the mind in that moment in which one is transformed by the revelation; the revelation that we need eyes to see - Epiphany Eyes. Have you ever seen picture puzzles of lines and dots all over a page that look like somebody's doodle pad until you studied it long enough, or got it just at the right angle, when suddenly there is a human face or a tree, or a dog, or something else? There is a pattern there. It means something to you. You looked at it before and you saw nothing but lines and dots, and suddenly you look at it and you see an artistic pattern, a configuration of meaning. The difference is not in the page, the difference was in the perception. Epiphany Eyes enable you to see, - really see what is there. This season of the year we celebrate "The Word became flesh." This Word in flesh, whom we believe is Jesus, this One is the Light of the world. This One is the Light that enlightens. In the face of Jesus we see into the heart of God. But, for that to be so, we must know that in some cases "believing is seeing." Wasn't that an interesting Old Testament story? Did you remember it? The one about Elisha? Elisha, the prophet, was in trouble with the King of Syria because he continued to send intelligence reports to the King of Israel. He constantly kept the King of Israel out of the hands of the King of Syria, until the King of Syria wanted to do something about it. He sent his troops to apprehend Elisha. When Elisha's servant got up in the morning and saw the mountains surrounded with the enemy troops, he said, "My master, alas, what shall we do?" Elisha said, "Relax. Those who are for us are more than those who are against us." Then he prayed that marvelous Epiphany prayer. "O Lord, open thy servant’s eyes that he may see." The servant's eyes were opened and he saw the mountains ringed with chariots of fire. As in all of that Old Testament historical writing you have the historical core, richly embroidered with legendary material. What that story was saying was at the core of Israel's faith. This story makes clear that decisions are not made in Damascus or Babylon or in Persia, not even in Jerusalem. On that grand stage of world history there is an invisible player. Finally there are angels and spiritual powers, and there is a will of God and a purpose that is at work. Elisha was simply giving testimony to his conviction that the ultimate power does not lie in the hands of a Clinton or a Yeltsin, in Moscow or in Washington. In the corridors of power there is still an invisible presence of one who transcends all. There were chariots of fire surrounding God's people. What a beautiful image. This is what Jesus was explicating to Philip. Philip needed the Epiphany prayer. Philip just didn't get it. Philip was only the stooge for the rest of the disciples. If you read the Gospel of Mark, you will find that those disciples never got it. It is hard to find a bunch more dull than the disciples, particularly if you are reading Mark's account. They never got it. Philip says, "Oh, that would be nice, just show us the Father and we will be satisfied." Jesus said, "You just don't get it. I have been with you all this time and you still don't get it. If you have seen me, you've seen the Father." © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Reflecting on that, I was reminded of the distant past at Hope College while studying philosophy with G. Ivan Dykstra. For those of you Hope College lore, old D. Ivan used to pace up and down, giving these marvelous philosophical lectures. Once in a course on Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher/theologian, we were reading a little book called Philosophical Fragments, which talked about "disciples at second hand." Do you know what disciples at second hand are? You might say, "They are folks like you and me." Disciples at first hand would be Peter and James and John, who could reach out and touch Jesus, ate with him, walked with him. They told us about it. We hear about it. We are disciples at second hand. Right? Wrong. Wrong. Dead wrong. Kierkegaard said that the disciples that rubbed shoulders with him were disciples at second hand. They had no advantage over you and me. Read the Gospels and you will see he was right. You didn't bump into Jesus and say, "Oh, my God." There are all kinds of people who bumped into Jesus and saw nothing. The two who walked all the way to Emmaus brought Jesus into their house, and it was not until the breaking of bread that their eyes were opened and they saw him. In other words, it was a gift. It was the insight of faith. It was grace. "You've been with me so long, and you still don't know. You haven't seen. You don't understand. You just don't get it." Kierkegaard said, "You could have walked all day and not seen anything." The disciples present were disciples at second hand until the disciple had an Epiphany experience, which is as available to you and me today as it was to them then. What happened to them then must happen to us today, and what happens to us today had to happen to them then. It is not seeing that is believing, but it is believing that is seeing. It is the opening of the eyes, the mystery that is always there, but which we cannot perceive except we be graced with the eyes to see. I am a child of my culture. I am a child of this age. I operate in the whole rest of my life where "Seeing is Believing." Suddenly I come to this juncture, and verification won't do it, proofs are not available, and I have to acknowledge that it is believing that gives sight. I have bought that philosophy all my life. I hate that about the Gospel. I would love to be able to take somebody by the nap of the neck and rub his nose in it. I'd like to be able to prove it, to demonstrate it, to verify it. I would like the facts! This is so dangerous. How can I distinguish my responsible faith and my commitment from some lollygagging person out in la-la land and some fantastic imagery? I can't. How can I prove my faith? I can't. And I resist that. Believing is the only channel open to that dimension of reality that transcends the space and time world for which we are so well fitted. You can't verify it, and if you are waiting to see it in order to believe it, you'll come to grief. If today you believe it because somebody has proven it to you, you are in for trouble. I deal with this subject because it is Epiphany, but also because in popular culture today it is being dealt with. I told you about the Time Magazine and Newsweek articles on angels. I have here the book, The Five Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 5   John and the Gospel of Thomas), which comes out of The Jesus Seminar. If you were in my Wednesday night classes you would know I had a big book by John Dominic Crossan, the Catholic scholar. Crossan has done research into the historical Jesus. I also told you that books are coming off the press a mile a minute on this subject. In this New Quest for the Historical Jesus, Crossan tried to get through all the tradition and all the church baggage, to get down to the historical core. The Jesus Seminar, of which Crossan was a part, attempted to do the same. It began back in 1985, with scholars and clergy taking a second look at the sayings of Jesus. Finally they have published this translation of the Gospel in four colors. If they are certain Jesus said it, it is written in red; if they think Jesus said it, it is written in pink. If they think he didn't say it, it is written in grey, and if they know he didn't say it, it is written in black. (Laughter) The passage I read this morning, that beautiful passage from John 14, (just in case you wondered) is in black. I show you this book because I say to you, if your faith rests upon the results of historical criticism, you're in deep trouble. If you only believe because someone has been able to prove it to you, you are in trouble. It seems as though when the methods of historical research are honed, the skills and competence increase, scholars learn from the errors of previous quests and they get down to the bare bones facts. I was studying peacefully in my loft when Nancy, my wife, came to me and plopped this magazine down on my desk and said, "What do you think of that?" The article, “Jesus Plain and Simple,” talks about three currently published books. In one book John Dominic Crossan takes the huge thick book of research, which I just showed you, and reduces it to a more popular, albeit revolutionary, biography of Jesus. Nancy said, "In these couple of pages in Time (“Jesus Plain and Simple”), you have a stripped down variety of Jesus. I don't like it." This reminded me of another love of my life, my granddaughter, Stephanie. Some of you were here on Christmas Eve, when I told you how Stephanie came to her mother, Lynn, and said, "Tell me the truth, Mommy. Is Santa Claus real?" Now that's a moment when you can't just say, "Oh sure, Honey." This was a little girl at the edge of awakening, saying "Mommy, tell me the truth." So her mother told her. Stephie got angry. She said, "Well, I'm going to believe it anyway!" Later that night after Nancy had thrown the magazine on my desk she said to me, 'That stuff doesn't bother you at all, does it?" I said, "No, it doesn't bother me at all. I have known for a long time that my faith cannot rest on the uncertain consequences of historical research. I do not see in order to believe. But I believe, and then I see." I deal with this issue because it seems to me that I am accountable to you. You ought to be able to look to me to talk about these things with you. The Five Gospels has attracted quite a bit of press lately. I have here articles from The Milwaukee Journal, The Detroit Free Press, and The Grand Rapids Press. I could do as three pastors did in The Detroit Free Press and say that the Jesus © Grand Valley State University �Seeing is Believing Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Seminar scholars are enemies of God, they are undercutting religion, but I won't. They may be right. They may be wrong. But the Jesus Seminar scholars are responsible and they are serious, and they are carrying out their research and their gift and offering it to God and to us. By and large I believe that is the case. Or I could just sidestep the subject and hope it goes away, but some of you said to me at the door last week, "Did you read Time Magazine? Help!" What I choose to do is use this as an occasion to say to you, "Put your faith where it belongs. Recognize it as the gift of God, the God who graces you with a spirit, who illumines you when you sing, 'Open our eyes Lord. We would see Jesus.'" I share this with you because it becomes a marvelous occasion in which to say to you, "Don't seek proof and verification. We have done that too long. We have spoken about the revelation of God as though somehow or other that happened way back there. Then it was inspired and spoken, and now we have this revelation. We don't have a revelation. There isn't a revelation, there is only a God who reveals, here and now and continuously. This book (the Bible) is the consequence of Epiphany experiences, when those who rubbed elbows with Jesus and saw nothing had their eyes opened to see everything, and were able to witness, as the gospel writer John witnessed Jesus - as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This book is the consequence of those who had an Epiphany experience, and it was written down and told in order that it might become the occasion for you and me to have an Epiphany moment now. My faith rests not in the verifiable proof of historical research. It is the consequence of the illumination of my heart and mind through the Spirit of God in this present moment. That is where it rests. The scholars can continue to look at the foundations of the faith, and rightly they should, because we claim that the revelation has occurred in the midst of human history and in the arena of historical reality and, therefore, we will always have that with us. Responsible people ought always to be checking those things out. But when all is said and done, it is finally gift, grace, unveiling, here and now. Why do some see and others not see? I don't know. But I do know that there is a sure promise in the Word of God, "If with all your heart you truly seek me, you will also surely find me." And once I have been found, in the moment of finding I will know a rest that will enable me to be un-settled. I can be un-settled without losing ultimate trust and faith in the work that continues to go on because I know finally it is not only seeing - that it is believing. Believing has its own eyes to see a purpose and meaning that can give us the courage we need to seek God's way in our present moment. "Oh Lord, open thy servants’ eyes that they may see." © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/475b858a9601822da2ffd68eb21a0732.mp3 5368ef60a183733fe224279b5b3d8f09 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 Epiphany II Scripture Text II Kings 6:17, John 14:9 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-0-19940116 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-01-16 Title A name given to the resource Seeing is Believing Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 16, 1994 entitled "Seeing is Believing", on the occasion of Epiphany II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: II Kings 6:17, John 14:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Critical Thinking Epiphany Grace Historical Jesus Spiritual Dimension Spiritual Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/28187beb65add7f4f496ac917450398a.pdf df2feb784c43547071eaaddac8e65be3 PDF Text Text The Secret’s Out Text: Isaiah 49:6; Ephesians 3:6 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany I, January 9, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6 .. “The Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body... through the gospel." Ephesians 3:6 If someone says to you, "You Christian people really shouldn't celebrate the festival of Christmas because it's a pagan festival rooted in ancient paganism," you could say, "That's right. We know it," and just blow them off. Well, don't do that. Be gracious. Be matter-of-fact. On this Epiphany Sunday, or the Sunday after Epiphany, we do celebrate what once was the pagan Festival of Light. Originally, the birth of Jesus was celebrated on January 6. There is a long history that I won't go into this morning, but eventually with Constantine, the emperor in Rome, and the Roman calendar having the winter solstice at December 25 (that point at which the sun is farthest from the equator when it stops going away, and shortening the day when it is coming back and lengthening the day), the ancient world celebrated the Festival of Light. In order to have the birth of Jesus celebrated apart from the January 6 date, the ancient church began to celebrate Christmas on December 25. And then, after the twelve days of Christmas, comes a celebration of the visit of the magi on the 6th of January. We have concocted this calendar. It bears no semblance to reality. We don't know those dates, but in the ancient church and in the liturgical tradition of the church, what we have done is celebrate what we believe, in a series of festivals. We believe that "The word became flesh and dwelt among us." Mary had a baby and that child was visited by shepherds and by those from the East, called wise men or magi, and on this particular Sunday, the first Sunday after Epiphany, we remember that the one who was born was the Light of the world. Epiphany. The word means manifestation, and it is the celebration of revelation. It is the celebration of the unveiling of God when the light of God shined into human hearts. Epiphany is the season of revelation. From the visit of the magi, we have the symbol of the star. And from the star we have the symbol of light. © Grand Valley State University   �The Secret’s Out Richard A. Rhem Page 2   We celebrate at this time the fact that the light has come and shined into our minds and hearts. We become illumined so that we behold the mystery of God that mystery that otherwise would be cut off from us. In Christian theology or Christian doctrine we talk at the season of Epiphany about revelation because we do not believe that God is at our disposal. God is not at the end of some human syllogism in logic or some scientific investigation. God reveals God's self, and Epiphany from the Greek word meaning manifestation celebrates the fact that God has not left us in confusion or darkness, but God has made God's self known to us. That is what we celebrate. Epiphany is about revelation - the sudden brightness of the landscape of the mind or of a society or culture, when suddenly someone or people together say, "Oh, I see—Oh, we see." Colette and her teachers in our Worship Center have used the idea with the children in the phrase "Epiphany Eyes." Epiphany Eyes are eyes that see through or see something that was always there but not seen. It is a delight to hear a child talk about Epiphany Eyes. It is seeing—really seeing that which before was not seen at all. It is that sudden revelation—light dawns on one. One says, "Oh, I see. Suddenly, I understand." With Epiphany Eyes, however, we need to be careful that we don't identify the revelation with the eye, for truth is not in the eye of the beholder. The Epiphany Eye is the instrument that is gifted by God to illumine, to give understanding and knowledge. To be illumined by God is to be transformed by God. Salvation is all about coming to dwell in the light of God's presence and to experience that presence as reality. So we enter again into that season when we worship and adore the God who has made the divine reality present to us. Now we see. The Light has come. Israel at its best understood that it was called by God, gathered by God to be the instrument of light to the nations. In the original call to Abraham and Sarah, it was not a call to the exclusion of the rest; it was a particular call to a particular people on behalf of the rest. "In you all nations of the earth will be blessed." By and large, Israel forgot that. By and large, Israel did not live up to being a beacon light to the nations. But in the Hebrew Scriptures there are those universalistic notes. I read one of them a moment ago, Isaiah 49, one of the servant poems in that section of Isaiah's prophecy. The servant is called by God to bring light to the nations, so God says, "My salvation may be experienced to earth's farthermost bounds." There was that insight at that point at least in Israel's history through this prophet or writer that the light of God—the light that had dawned on Israel— was not to be put under a bushel, but was to be brought as a beacon to the nations so that all people might celebrate in the light of the God who had created all things. Most of the time Israel missed the point. Paul (or Saul as he was called then), for example, narrow minded religious fanatic—a real classic bigot, was on his way to Damascus to stamp out the followers of The Way, when the Light dawned upon him and cast him to the ground. He said, "Ah, I see. What would you have me do?" He became, in his own understanding of God's calling, an apostle to the Gentiles. Or to translate that © Grand Valley State University �The Secret’s Out Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Greek word equally well (I prefer it) an apostle to the nations, for Gentiles were simply all of those who weren't Jews. So, Paul understood himself as one called an apostle, a sent one, to the nations. In this third chapter of Ephesians, which is a fascinating passage really, Paul begins to say he is going to pray for the people of Ephesus. But after the first dozen words, he interrupts himself to begin to talk about this amazing thing. It takes him way down to verse fourteen to get back to where he started in verse one. In the meantime there is a big parenthesis about this light that has dawned. Paul, Jew, exclusivistic, an adversary of those who were other, threatened by Jesus, ready to stamp out those followers, had an Epiphany experience and become the apostle to the nations. In writing to a congregation, which he founded, he is still all thrilled about this amazing, mindboggling revelation. He says, "The mystery was made known to me by revelation." A little farther on he says, "In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind that has been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit, that the Gentiles have become fellow heirs—are the members of the same body, share in the promise of Christ through the Gospel." Then he goes on with another paragraph. "The boundless riches of Christ be made known through me to make everyone see what is the plan and the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things." He doesn't talk about God as redeemer, he talks about God as creator, because he is talking about the first principle, if you will; he's talking about the ground of all reality. He says, "The amazing thing that I have discovered is that the creator of the cosmos has shined light on all humankind." He said, "For generations this mystery was hidden. We didn't understand it. But now, through me, by revelation of the spirit through apostles and prophets— now we have a calling to announce to everyone: 'The Light has come, and that God is the God of all people." That simply amazed Paul. He was going his own way with intention and deliberateness and he got turned around in his tracks and came back 180°. The Church has understood that people, and therefore, the Christian movement has been a missionary movement. In the historic Christian missionary movement, this has translated as, "The Light has come and now salvation is available to all people, and if you will repent and believe and be baptized and become part of the Christian movement, then you become a Child of the Light. The historic Christian mission in the wake of this amazing revelation has understood its calling to be Light to the nations, as the servant in Isaiah's prophecy understood himself to be a Light to the nations - to bring Good News to the whole world. The Great Commission says, "Go into all the world and preach this Good News," and we have done it, proclaiming this as a possibility. We have done the Christian mission in a kind of "if/then" basis: If you will believe, if you will be baptized, if you will repent, if you will become one of us, if you will turn around, change your life, then you are a Child of the Light © Grand Valley State University �The Secret’s Out Richard A. Rhem Page 4   I wonder though if there is not another way to understand that revelation to Paul, that revelation that occurred through Jesus Christ, our Lord. I wonder if, rather than offering salvation as a possibility, if we might not offer it as a reality, as an accomplished fact. I wonder if the historic Christian mission had it right, in understanding that the Light must be proclaimed and shared, bringing people around into the Christian movement, or if the Christian movement might not have been that privileged people upon whom the Light dawned who were called to announce to all people that the Light indeed has come; that the Creator of the heavens and the earth is the God of all humankind. I wonder if we might not have gotten farther and made the world a more peaceful place, for we know that our world is torn apart by partisan, sectarian, religious commitment. We know today, a couple thousand years after Paul, that religion is perhaps the most dangerous force afoot in our world. I wonder (Sometimes I think I have had an Epiphany), rather than saying to all of those out there whose culture and religious background and training and conditioning prepared them not all to receive that Light as I have received it. I wonder if I would not do better simply to say to them, "Relax, the Light has come and it shines on you as well." It seems to me that that would be another way, legitimately, to understand the early writings of the New Testament. Paul had to struggle against his own day, against that Jewish opposition which saw itself as exclusively the people of God. When Paul wanted to say those people can experience the grace of God without becoming Jews, they said, "Oh no." Paul said, "Oh yes." Paul said, "For us it is through Moses, but for them they don't have to come through Moses. Don't lay on those people all of the structures and forms of our Judaism. Let them come to God by grace alone." Paul won the day at that time. I wonder if he were here in the year 1994, looking at the world situation, seeing the great religions of the world - Islam, Judaism, Christianity, the Eastern religions -I wonder if Paul might not have another Epiphany experience. I wonder if he might not say, "Oh, I see, it is bigger than ever I dreamed. God the creator of the heavens and the earth is the God of all people, and while for me I see the light of God in the face of Jesus supremely, I see that God honors the serious and sincere quests of all." I think that's what the story of the Magi was about. These were Persians. In tradition we call them "the three kings." They probably were astrologers, priestly types. They studied the stars. They found the revelation of God in the heavenly spheres. They saw a star one day. They had a yearning for God. They followed the star. They were led to Jesus. They brought gifts. Traditionally again, we have made them the first Christian converts, but as a matter of fact the story doesn't say a word about that. It says they brought their gifts and went back to their old country, no doubt rejoicing in the fact that the light of the star had led them to this significant moment, celebrating the fact that those who truly seek God will surely find God. Epiphany is about revelation, about suddenly saying, "Oh, I see." © Grand Valley State University �The Secret’s Out Richard A. Rhem Page 5   I received a letter from the Middle East Reformed Fellowship. This is a group that broadcasts the Gospel into the Middle East. It is a three-page letter that says that the communist threat is gone. Thank God, for forty years we had that enemy over against whom we could define ourselves. But this letter in rather frightening terms describes the new enemy. It is Islam. Now that the Soviet Union is unraveled, these people are free and they are distributing the Koran, they are rebuilding their mosques, and there is a revival of Islam. On the board are some of my colleagues in this appeal. This appeal says send us money so we can broadcast the Gospel because Islam is the enemy. There is a quote from the Wall Street Journal, which says the onslaught of the modern world has kept the Islamic people confused, humiliated, poor and intensely angry. They hate us with an energy and fury that is beyond reason. This appeal invites me to join the offensive. If I will send $50 for one year they will send me a bi-monthly report called "An Intelligence Report." Do you catch the military parlance? There's a holy war, folks. Christians are being called to holy war against this revival of Islam. The threat that they speak of is a people who have been humiliated, robbed of their human dignity, made fools of by the rest of the world, a people who are furious, full of anger, ready for violence. I understand that. I should think that they would be. So, what will I do? Preach the Gospel to them quickly, make them Christians so I can take away their anger and make the world safe? Or, if it is true that they are full of anger, if they are furious, if they are humiliated, if they have been robbed of their dignity, if the Islamic world is ready to rise up, might I not better go and embrace them, they who worship more devoutly than I do the God of Abraham? Might I not simply share with them the Light, that together we are children of the Light, and that the creator of all is the God of us all who would have us all be together in one human community. I want to tell you, when I read this stuff and this is the stuff with which I might once have identified, I'll be honest with you, when I read it I want to say, "How could I have ever believed that?" It's kind of an Epiphany experience. I see it so differently now. I see that in the Christmas miracle, God the Word that became flesh dwelt among us - Light came into the world. The message was that God loves the world, that God is for people, that God wants people to be in human community, and wherever there is that hunger and yearning for God there will be a star that will appear, or an angel that will sing. I want to stand in solidarity with all of my brothers and sisters however they see the Light, because I know the Light is a Light that shines far more brightly than my particular view of it. I know that Light transcends my understanding. I know that Light is the Light of God who is a God who would have that Light be for all nations. Epiphany is about the dawning of Light in the darkness of this world—not the aligning of people in adversarial camps, but the calling of people to a common worship of the one true God. Ah, friends, the Light has come, the news is so good it should set our feet to dancing and our tongues to singing. The wonderful thing © Grand Valley State University �The Secret’s Out Richard A. Rhem Page 6   about the Epiphany miracle is that not only was God manifest and the Word made flesh, but the Light continues to shine in the darkness, in your darkness, in that moment when there is deep yearning and longing within your soul. The promise is the Light has dawned and the Light will shine, and grace will touch your life, for God is with us. You see, for long ages, Paul said that mystery wasn't known, but now the secret’s out and it is a better secret than we've yet dared hope for. It is a dream of a God who holds the whole world in his hand and lifts up the light in his countenance on all those that lift their eyes in longing for the touch of grace. That's Good. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/530f3d103df12d60112ae2f4ebeb5a81.mp3 b7dad45d542d91e7cde34e8f9a3352d8 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 Epiphany I Scripture Text Isaiah 49:6, Ephesians 3:6 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19940109 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-01-09 Title A name given to the resource The Secret's Out Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 9, 1994 entitled "The Secret's Out", on the occasion of Epiphany I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 49:6, Ephesians 3:6. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Grace Inclusive Light Pluralism Revelation Transformation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d85789e244e1d853d811bba7a338c644.mp3 088316d95909dd822e525487a1c985db https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/be79f3944321cbedd9552dc892819a98.pdf 1bea416d9e4f826ed30a177be1f8b9df PDF Text Text God, For Whom Humankind is Groping Text: Acts 17:22-23 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany III, January 22, 1989 Transcription of the spoken sermon Men of Athens, I see that in everything that concerns religion you are uncommonly scrupulous. ... What you worship but do not know - this is what I now proclaim. Acts 17:22-23 The season is Epiphany, the word is manifestation, the light has dawned. Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world.” We've just celebrated that the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and John says, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth.” Jesus in human flesh. We look into the face of Jesus and we see into the heart of God, and the great truth of the season of Epiphany is the fact that the Light has come. The Light has dawned in our world of darkness; the Light is shining, and the darkness will never overcome it. Epiphany, a season of manifestation, and the good news is that, in the face of Jesus Christ, we have an insight into the very heart of God. That wonderful truth which we celebrate annually is celebrated in this season as a truth that is to be shared with the nations, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ that begins with the Incarnation of the Word concludes with the Resurrection and the Great Commission which says to the Church, “Go into all the world, to all nations, preaching the Gospel, telling the story of Jesus.” And Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” So, the Christian faith has always been a missionary faith. It has always been a people with a mission. It has always been the calling of the Church to share the good news because the Church believed that in Jesus Christ, in that particular and localized revelation of God, there was the manifestation of a worldwide mission and a universal purpose. In that little, narrow line of Israel's history, and in that event that is centered in Jesus, the Church always understood that what God was about was not simply Israel, and not simply events of that localized community gathered around Jesus, but what God was doing in Israel and in Jesus was something that had the world in mind, that the purpose of God was to bring Light to the nations. So, we have that particular story with its universal © Grand Valley State University   �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 2   impact and Epiphany is the season in which we celebrate the fact that Light has come into the world, and we hear that call to be Light to the nations. The whole New Testament is really the response of that early Christian community to its conviction that, in Jesus, the one True God, the Creator of the whole of Reality, had become clearly focused. Paul is converted, and Paul becomes the great Apostle to the Gentiles. The major bulk of the New Testament is simply the story of how Paul took this message of Jesus and the Resurrection and began to go to the world. In his heart there was a yearning to reach earth's farthest bounds. He wrote letters to the congregations that he founded, constituting a large portion of the New Testament, which is the story of the expansion of this Christian movement flowing out of the wake of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So, we stand in that great tradition that has found, in the face of Jesus, the heart of God, the good news that is to be trumpeted to all people everywhere. Today we find Paul in Athens. Now, if that isn't spectacular! Athens! I've been to Athens. It's still impressive. The very ruins of Athens speak of another age and another day. There are few places on earth that can compare with Athens. Maybe Rome, eventually, and certainly we would say Jerusalem. But, when you say Jerusalem and Rome and Athens, you've said about all there is to say about Western civilization. I am parochial in that I don't know much about the great Eastern civilizations, but I know that Athens was that place where in 500 B.C., in the Golden Age of Athens, there were philosophic discussions which still today are as relevant and meaningful as they were then. Someone has said that all of Western philosophy is but a series of footnotes to the dialogues of Socrates and the writings of Plato and Aristotle. It was an amazing phenomenon. And there's Paul in Athens, at the Areopagus, at the very center where the Council met and ruled the city. There's Paul, 500 years after the Golden Age of Pericles, Plato and Socrates but, nonetheless, Athens was still the place where they loved to discuss, to dialogue, to debate. You don't get a very positive picture from Paul in his account in the 17th chapter of Acts. With all of the magnificence of the temples and statues and the artwork, I'm disappointed with Paul, frankly. He looked at it all and got disgusted. I just wish he could have said, “Wow.” But, he was so fanatically concentrated on Jesus that he came to that city and he saw it all and he saw it as a manifestation of a human hunger for God, totally covered with darkness. And so, he went to the marketplace and up and down the streets and in the synagogue where a few Jews were gathered, and to everybody to whom he spoke, he spoke of Jesus. Finally they said, well, why don't you come right up to the Areopagus itself and we'll hear you out. Athens was always open, looking for a new idea. What a moment. What a moment. What an audacious person this Paul was! He is at the very center of civilization, of culture, of education, of enlightenment, and he's not intimidated! He's not even impressed. He's got something to tell Athens that Athens never dreamed of. © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 3   He begins to preach. Thank God he was sensitive in relating positively to his audience. He commended them. He said, “I see that in things religious you are uncommonly scrupulous. You folks are serious. Everywhere I see the manifestations of a religious quest or hunger.” Good preacher that he was, he had in his introduction something to hook them from which to move on into his message. He said, “I saw a statue with an inscription to the unknown God.” The Athenians were uncommonly scrupulous. Just in case there was a god they might have missed, so that he wouldn't be miffed, they raised a statue to the unknown god. Paul says (now, this is audacity), “This unknown god whom you worship, I proclaim!” Wow! Now, there's confidence, there's courage, there's certitude. Do you get the picture? This is Athens, folks. This is the Areopagus; this is the center of enlightenment, and here is this Apostle of Jesus daring to stand there and to say what you are searching for and don't know I proclaim. He went on to say he was talking about the One true God Who created the heavens and the earth, the One true God Who couldn't be visualized by something created with human hands, by human imagination; the God to Whom we can give nothing, but Who is the giver of all things; the God Who breathes life into all life, the source of all reality. This God, Paul says, “In whom we live and move and have our being,” quoting some stoic philosophical thought, “I proclaim.” Quoting one of their own poets, “We are God's offspring,” he preaches the God of Jesus. This God Who is the Fountainhead of all Reality, this God I proclaim to you. This God, Who is responsible for all that is and all life, this God has now at this critical moment in human history and in the whole cosmic drama, revealed Himself in the face of Jesus, and this God will now call all peoples to account. The time of ignorance, the times gone by, God in His forbearance, has overlooked, but He calls all people now to repent, that is, to change their mind and change their thinking, to open up to the truth. And He has demonstrated the certainty of it by raising Jesus from the dead. Paul, starting with the statue to the unknown god, moving to the Creator of the heavens and earth, ends up preaching Jesus and the Resurrection. There was quite a stir. There were those that mocked and laughed, but some believed. There was a little Christian community that was founded in Athens. Paul, convinced that the one true and Eternal God had now shown the light of the revelation of Himself in the face of Jesus, dared to go right into the lion’s den and proclaim Jesus and the Resurrection. That's really something. It is really a dramatic moment. I stand in awe of Paul. I would feel my own knees knocking. But, he did it, and what he did is still our calling to do, because it is our conviction that the Creator God has given life and light to the world in Jesus Christ, and this good news needs to be shared with people who are thrashing about in all sorts of human bondage, darkness, superstition, fear, and guilt. There is good news to tell; the Light has come. Jesus reflects the very heart of God, and God is good and God is full of grace, and God has a purpose to redeem the world. That's why the Church has always been a missionary enterprise, © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 4   because there is this marvelous message to proclaim. And God knows in our day, too, this message needs to be proclaimed. Our day of enlightenment, our day of advanced scientific understanding and amazing technological breakthrough is still searching for this word. The moon was out last night, and it shone in all of its brightness. The lake was absolutely silver, awash with light, the waves dancing in the moonlight. I looked out of my window and I saw that big silver thing hanging there and it looked like I could almost touch it. I thought, you know, had I been a part of NASA, I would have planted my rocket on my bluff and then shot straight for it. How did they figure out that you can't just go right to the moon? It blows my mind. I'm out of my realm. It seems like you could just keep steering your rocket right toward that moon, but I guess it doesn't work that way. This amazing, wonderful, fantastic world. This age of which we are a part has put a person on the moon. This world still needs to know about the God revealed in Jesus. I have made a great discovery that occasionally to the seminary, even to the seminary, comes a brilliant mind. I had one manifest himself to me, one of my students whose sermon I will now cite. Preaching on this text, he said, You may be saying right now, “What does this have to do with Acts 17:1628?” Well, to be honest, it has everything to do with how we read and understand, and then eventually proclaim, the message of the gospel. We still operate in a Newtonian world, an ordered world. But our children will grow up in a Quantum universe, where the underlying principle of reality is that of randomness and uncertainty. These principles are not wild, unproven theories. Breakthroughs in Quantum Physics have led to the development of semi-conductors for your computer, satellites for your cable system, and of course, the worldwide nuclear arsenal. What Acts 17:16-28 has to do with this is that Paul's speech places our view of God where it should be. We are not Stoics, or Epicureans, but modern Quantum theorists. Our worldview must be placed within the context of Acts 17. Paul speaks to us now as clearly as he did to the Athenians of the first century. God must be present in our lives as a firm reality amidst the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, the observer-determined reality, and a world teetering on the edge of destruction. Our physics has opened up our minds to the awesomeness of creation. In our theories we can either see a Cosmic Christ, or a cosmic emptiness. Paul says to the Areopagus, 'God ... is not served by human hands.' God is the bedrock of our existence. To Bertram Russell and countless other modern intellectuals, the universe only reveals an UNKNOWN GOD. The secular physicists search for God in their theories, hoping to find Him conforming to their preconceived ideas. The Athenians, likewise, sought after God, but in their endless philosophical debates. We, as modern Athenians, must see © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 5   God, not as some vague force, but as the fountainhead of all creation, the necessary being, the one independent being in all of the cosmos. We must, therefore, listen to Paul's words, not pretending to be first century Athenians, but remembering that we are twentieth century Quantums....’” And then he rewrites the text of the morning; he imagines a great seminar somewhere in some Hilton Hotel with sauna and indoor pool and all, a gathering of the world's greatest scientists and physicists, and he imagines old Paul coming on center stage and these are Paul's words to such a twentieth century gathering: “'Men of science, I perceive that in every way you are very important, very scientific. For I observed the objects you worship. I saw a telescope, a particle beam accelerator, a copy of your scriptures, The Scientific American. I also found a monument to the future and its potential achievements; it was made of the finest marble and I stood in awe of it.' The little man coughed and continued, 'Gentlemen and ladies, I will tell you the future. I will tell you what you seek for, what you hope to find. For, in this scripture I read of a theory called TOE, or the Theory of Everything. In it you state that God will be discovered as the source of this TOE. But I will proclaim to you that this God is here, today, among you. This God made the world and everything in it, and He needs none of you to explain or to discover Him. He made the world and set the courses of history in order that people like yourselves should yearn to seek after Him. You do seek after Him, but I will end your search. For we are His offspring, and we must realize that He is not like our theories or our art, but is Spirit. He is everywhere, but He is also here. His name is Jesus Christ.' At once there was a loud commotion, scientists were all grumbling at once and shifting in their chairs. They were saying that God was dead, and that Jesus was proved to be a hoax in the last AMA Journal, etc. Finally, the chairperson called for order and forced the man off the stage. They jeered and mocked the man, but some of the scientists followed him out.” Well, I sat enthralled with that sermon because that young man, whose name is F. Scott Petersen, was able to speak Jesus Christ in the context of contemporary Western civilization with all of the effectiveness of Paul in the Areopagus. Now, that's what preaching is and that's what the Christian mission is - to say to the world in all of its wonder and all of its fantastic potential and all of the marvel of this age of which we are a part, with all of the ingenuity in which we stand in awe, to the human mind, the imagination - to say to it all, “God is the fountainhead of Reality and can be known through Jesus Christ our Lord.” That's only one side of the contemporary scene. The other side is even stranger to me. The other side is the side of religion. Charles Colson, in his most recent book Kingdoms in Conflict, writes in the first chapter an imaginary scenario. The Christian Religious Right walked out of the Republican Convention in 1992 © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 6   because their needs were not being serviced. But in the succeeding years, the gulf was bridged, the wound was healed and a Christian Right candidate, a marvelous professor from Baylor University, a good Southern Baptist, was the candidate for the presidency and was elected. This gentleman no sooner took office than it was discovered by the CIA that the Likud Party in Israel, the conservative party, having been unable to find a coalition partner in order to form a government, finally had found in a radical Right minority group a willingness to join. The condition of this radical minority party was, however, that the temple of the Rock, the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim mosque, the most sacred shrine be bombed and taken over by Israeli troops, commandos specially trained. And this little party was also training priests who could institute the rituals of the Old Testament sacrifice because this little group believed that until the Temple Mount was reclaimed and the temple was rebuilt and the sacrifices restored, the Messiah wouldn't come! Well, the scenario, as Colson puts it together, has this president hearing this and thinking, “This is it! Russia will come from the north; the troops will meet in the valley of Armageddon, and I will be the president at this cosmic point in human history.” So, rather than acting like a president should act, and doing what a president has to do in order to forestall that kind of internal maneuvering within Israel itself, he waits and waffles until it actually happens. The commandos of this little minority party blow up the Dome of the Rock and then, of course, the chapter ends. Colson says, in the footnote, “I've made this up, but the statements that I've quoted I quote from public figures out of the press.” And I wouldn't even be so impressed by that opening shot of Colson had I not recently heard Martin Marty, the person par excellence with his finger on the culture and religious development and history of America, say recently, that World War III will erupt and be ignited by the fanaticism of religion in our world today. Colson says not since the Crusades have religious passions and prejudices posed such a worldwide threat. If not through a religious zealot or confused idealist whose finger is on the nuclear trigger, then certainly by destroying the tolerance and trust essential for maintaining peace and concord among people. Friends, this world is a world that can land a person on the moon, and has a space vehicle going out to Mars. This world in which we live is a world so fantastic that our forefathers would not have believed it. And it is a world that is so screwed up spiritually, that it is falling for every kind of superstitious myth and cult, and even satanic worship. This is a world where the great religions in a worldwide resurgence are standing toe to toe and where there is a fanaticism that has groups in all religions ready to go to war, whether Christian Fundamentalists, or Islam Fundamentalists, or some other. This world in which we live is a world that needs to know that the one God Whom all people are searching for and groping after has indeed come to us in Jesus Christ. Does it matter whether we tell the story? Does it matter whether or not we © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 7   share the good news? Is there anything incumbent upon us who stand in the great tradition of Light and Life? I would say there is. The world is at stake. We believe that, in the face of Jesus, we've seen into the heart of God, and we believe it's true. It doesn't mean that we believe that God has no concern for all of the rest of humankind. It doesn't mean that we should be so narrow and closed and dogmatic that we do not think that God has made God's self-known beyond the limits of Jesus Christ. It doesn't mean that we cannot have our own insights deepened and our viewpoint broadened as we enter into genuine dialogue and encounter with those who are also seriously groping after God in their own way. It doesn't mean that we will not be willing to enter into genuine dialogue, which means a willingness to change and to adopt and to adapt and to deepen and to broaden; all of that is true. But, it does mean that we have something very important to bring to the party. We have Jesus in whom we believe God has most fully revealed God's self. So, I wish somehow we could reclaim the fire and the passion and the fervency, the urgency and the certainty, the assurance of Paul in Athens. It is a different world, but that same kind of rootedness in Jesus we have. In confidence, not fear; with openness, not defensiveness, we can bring Jesus, the Light of the World, to the discussion, perhaps ourselves coming to see, in the dialogue, dimensions of Jesus we've never even seen before, therefore, being transformed ourselves, we will but share with this wonderful, crazy world, our conviction that God, the source of all, is the goal of all, and that in Jesus Christ our Lord, God is about reconciling all things to God's self. What a message! What a task! © 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 Epiphany III Scripture Text Acts 17:22-23 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-0-19890122 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989-01-22 Title A name given to the resource God, For Whom Humankind is Groping Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 22, 1989 entitled "God, For Whom Humankind is Groping", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 17:22-23. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Apostle Paul Epiphany God of Grace Interfaith Nature of God Religious Quest Revelation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/73bcbcff0c694e4a78d76b3685075f55.mp3 ea0ace3691c9cc1427f1a05b10d188ea https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7a10edce973ae95b1a87853834f0bf3c.pdf 2ae4a2b011edb36d54983b4229ea6326 PDF Text Text How Do You Respond When Truth Dawns on You? Text: Isaiah 49:6; Luke 2:32, 34-35 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany, January 18, 1987 Transcription of the spoken sermon …I will make you a light to the nations, to be my salvation to earth’s fartherest bounds. Isaiah 49:6 …a light that will be a revelation to the heathen… Luke 2:32 …This child is destined to be a sign which men reject…many in Israel will stand or fall because of him…the secret thoughts of many will be laid bare. Luke 2:3435 How do you respond when Truth dawns upon you? That is the question posed by the title of the message. The question needs some explaining. "When Truth dawns upon you," already says something about my understanding of how we come to a knowledge of Truth – insight into the deepest levels of Truth, the Truth about our identity and destiny, about the world and history, about God as a "given." It is given in a moment of unveiling when Truth shows itself. The deepest Truth is Truth of revelation. This is not to disparage or denigrate patient experimentation, exploration and research; it is only to affirm that the secret of deepest mysteries of life, of the world and God are not at the conclusion of a mathematical computation nor a logical syllogism; rather, in a flash of insight, the Truth shows itself. Thus, I ask about Truth dawning. I ask also about response to Truth; how do we respond to the Truth that shows itself, manifests itself? Do we yield to it, allowing ourselves to be changed by it? Do we resist it? Deny it? Close ourselves against it? The question arises in this season of Epiphany. God is manifest in our world; we have seen the light of revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. © Grand Valley State University   �How Do You Respond When Truth Dawns on You? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   The Prophet understood that God would bring the light of truth to the world. He understood that Israel had been the "place" of revelation and also that it was Israel's role to be the Servant of the Lord to bring light to the nations. The universalism present already in the call of Abraham would be effected – through the Servant of the Lord – Israel and, specifically, one who would arise from Israel. Reflect for a moment. Advent - Coming. The Lord's coming. The Prophet sensed the Kingdom was dawning in the release of the Exiles. Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. You who bring Zion good news, up with you to the mountaintop; …cry to the cities of Judah, your God is here. Last week we heard that beautiful word from Isaiah 42: Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. …He will not break a bruised reed, or snuff out a smouldering wick…I have formed you, and appointed you to be a light to all peoples, a beacon for the nations… The Old Testament Lesson repeats the Servant's calling — I will make you a light to the nations, to be my salvation to earth’s fartherest bound. Israel lived in expectation of One who would come, who would bring salvation to the nation and to the nations. Christmas - the birth of the Promised One - a Saviour; good news of a great joy to all people. The Light shines in the darkness for the Word becomes flesh, full of grace and Truth. Epiphany - unveiling, manifestation, revelation; Light has come into the world. Jesus said, "I am the Light of the world." Now, the question is how will we respond? The Gospels tell us that the presence of the Light elicits a double reaction: some receive the light with joy and find salvation; some resist the light and miss God's gracious gift. Already in the Nativity stories we are forewarned that the response to this child will be mixed. Matthew recorded that as we saw last week; the wise men stopped at Herod's Court to inquire where the child was born whose star they had seen. Herod's © Grand Valley State University �How Do You Respond When Truth Dawns on You? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   response was not joy that the Earth had received the gift of a child who would be a King. Rather, he searched for the child to destroy it and, failing to find it, slaughtered all male children two years old and under. Hostility already at the beginning! The Wise Men worshiped; Herod murdered. Luke gives us a shadow of foreboding at the beginning, as well. Old Simeon, a devout and trusting servant of God, was waiting for that dramatic movement through which God would redeem His people and bring light to the world. As the child was brought to the Temple, the Spirit nudged old Simeon. He took the child in his arms and uttered those familiar and beautiful words. Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace … for mine eyes have seen thy salvation … a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel. A beautiful response, indeed. Simeon had prayed and waited and one day, holding the child, the truth dawned on him. He embraced the child and embraced the Truth. But Simeon had more to say; he went on to say, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against … that the thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed. A sign spoken against, a sign of contradiction. This child would elicit a double response: some would fall, some rise. Epiphany is a season that reminds us that God is manifest in the world -that He came to us in Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrated so recently and whose passion and death we will be all too soon remembering. Epiphany is a bridge period in which we recognize the presence in our world of Truth and light and move from the joyful celebration of its dawning to the awful remembrance when we did our best to douse the light by killing the one in whom it dawned. It is that sobering reality that we confront in this message. We are always placed before the choice to walk in the light or to choose the darkness. I have a book on my desk entitled, Jesus, Inspiring and Disturbing Presence. We have been celebrating the inspiring side of the equation, the joy, the hope, the love that came to us in Jesus. But, there is the other side – the call to decision, the call to repentance, the call to die to self and follow Jesus in the life of service and sacrifice. © Grand Valley State University �How Do You Respond When Truth Dawns on You? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Jesus is not an interesting figure of the past; he is very much the present, living Lord. In the Atlantic Monthly of December, 1986, there is a lengthy essay entitled, "Who Do Men Say That I Am?" It is a superb summary of the understanding of Jesus through the centuries. David Tracy, theologian at the University of Chicago, is quoted as saying that more has been written about Jesus in the last twenty years than in the previous two thousand. "Jesus is very much a figure of discussion and controversy in our present world and the followers of Jesus to the extent that they are true to what came to expression in him will be at the center of controversy in the world." He is absolutely right. Our world is not through with Jesus. It is very easy for us to slip into a mode of thinking that Jesus is a figure of the past. Christmas with all of the beautiful pageantry, and all the sentimentality that arises in our hearts, sometimes veils from our eyes the reality of the living Jesus, the living Lord in our world today. And, as a matter of fact, Jesus Christ continues to be the linchpin of history, and the very center of our world. John said of him, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overcome it.” But the darkness has never ceased trying to overcome it. Matthew tipped us off in the very beginning, just like Luke. He told about the worship of the Magi. And in that he saw the coming of the Gentiles to the light of Christ, but in the course of that narrative, he recorded the stop in Herod’s Court, and Herod’s fear and paranoia and Herod’s slaughter of the innocent children. In an effort to wipe out this child whose birth was announced with a star. So, at the very beginning of the gospel, there were already foreshadowings of that which is to come. We are warned by both Matthew and Luke in the very nativity stories that this child will be a source of contradiction in the world: that there is something in Jesus that will cut against the grain of this world, that there is something in Jesus that will encounter us and confront us and judge us, that there is something in Jesus that will call us to die in order to be made new and to follow him as his disciple. It is not all sweetness and light! There is violence, there is darkness, there is the hostility against the light already in the gospel narrative of his birth. And so I ask you this morning, on this second Sunday of Epiphany, the light that shines in our world: How do you respond when truth dawns upon you? What difference does it make in your life that Jesus has come? What difference does it make in your living, that you claim to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? How are you different? What decisions do you make and what transformation has occurred because you follow Jesus? That’s the question of Epiphany. For it is one thing to celebrate the presence of the Light and it is another thing to ask ourselves how seriously we walk in the Light. Our world is not done with Jesus Christ. And, as those who claim him as Savior and have pledged to follow him as Lord, let me ask you. How do you respond when light dawns on you? Well, let me ask it this way. When is the last time you © Grand Valley State University �How Do You Respond When Truth Dawns on You? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   had a new thought? When is the last time you found yourself confronted with an insight that challenged a long-held conviction? How long has it been since in the presence of Jesus Christ or contemplating who he is and what his word says, that you have changed an opinion, that you have altered an attitude, that you have found your lifestyle modified by the fact that the light has dawned upon us? Our world is not yet done with Jesus Christ. And it is one thing to believe in Him; it is another to follow Him! It is one thing to have a kind of intellectual assent to the fact that he lived and died and maybe rose again. It is another thing to have him be the pattern of our living and to pattern our living in the light of who he was and what he calls us to be. Our world is not yet done with Jesus Christ. He is still the center and he is still full of controversy and he is still full of contradiction. If we have not found our lives contradicted by Jesus, we can be sure that we have not heard the gospel. We have a way in this twentieth century, in this affluent America, in this Christian church, we have a way of domesticating the gospel, of taking the sharpness off the corners, and of trivializing the message. We forget the radicality of the things that Jesus stood for. It is not easy to be a twentieth-century American and to follow Jesus. Much easier, I believe, to have been a peasant in Palestine, much easier to follow Jesus if one is disinvested, disenfranchised, if one is oppressed, if one has no vested interest in anything, if one has no place to go but up. Then it is not hard to forsake everything and follow Jesus. But how does one follow Jesus when one is a member of western civilization, of American culture, of the most affluent society the world has ever known? The most educated, the most sophisticated, the most resourceful, technically and scientifically most advanced? What does one do in a society like this when one is called to follow Jesus? What does one do when one is confronted by Jesus and contradicted by Jesus, when that contradiction and confrontation run against the grain of everything that is American value, that is western value, that is Christian value. The moment there is a nation, it becomes institutional. The moment there’s a church, it becomes institutional. The moment there is any kind of structuring in society, we get institutionalization and as soon as there is institutionalization we all have our vested interests and in maintaining the status quo. It’s true of our government. And we ought not be too hard on our leaders. They are people just like us. And what are they trying to do? They’re trying to do the same thing that Herod was trying to do. In the Pentagon and the Reagan Administration: messing around with Iran and Iraq, meddling around in South America, fiddling around in South Africa – what are we trying to do? We are trying to maintain the balance of power; we are trying to preserve the edge of power; we are trying to preserve the place of preeminence. And after all, isn’t that why we elect our officials: in order to keep the American way of life, in order to keep the economy booming, in order to keep the military strong enough so that we’ll be invulnerable to attack? What do we expect of our leaders if not that? Do we not charge our President with the necessity of enforcing the Constitution? © Grand Valley State University �How Do You Respond When Truth Dawns on You? Richard A. Rhem Page 6   And it’s not only in the state; it’s in the church as well. As soon as the church becomes an institution, then we are more concerned about the perpetuation and the preservation of the institution than we are the questions of truth or obedience. And that comes right down to the local level and comes right down to the local congregation and it comes right down to Christ Community Church. And do we make our response in terms of what is a responsible obedience to following Jesus or do we make our decision in terms of what is good and enhancing for the institution? And it comes, of course, right down into our personal lives. Not so much what we believe, but the extent to which our belief alters the way we live. There is a structure of belief which we all have and profess and then there is an operational level of belief – that upon which we function. And we function most of the time in terms of self-interest, in terms of vested interest. In terms of our own wellbeing and our own welfare. And that’s human and that’s natural, but every once in a while we need to step back and say, Jesus: sign of contradiction. Jesus: sign spoken against. Jesus, what does it mean to follow you today in America in 1987, in Grand Haven in Spring Lake, in comfortable western Michigan, where nature smiles for seven miles. What does it mean, Jesus, what difference does it make because I belong to you? In all of my relationships, all of my business, all of my pleasure, light has dawned upon the world. How do we respond to the fact that Light has dawned? The world is not done with Jesus. More has been written in the last 20 years than in the previous 2000. Jesus is still very much living Lord and he proclaimed a kingdom and has a salvation to bring to earth’s fartherest bounds. The church is not to be some little backwater ghetto. It is not simply to be a cozy little community of people who are weak and who still need God in order to get by. The church is that revolutionary group gathered around that revolutionary person whose radicality in the midst of human society got him crucified. Tomorrow Martin Luther King’s birthday was celebrated. I repent that while he was leading the civil rights movement, I did not pray for him. I think I was rather irritated by him. When he spoke out against the VietnamWar, when it was unpatriotic to do so, I’m sorry I was not prophetic enough to understand and to lend my voice. And when I read his sermons and speeches I know that they were inspired by Jesus, who was always against the oppressor and always to set the oppressed free. Last year the Catholic bishops came out with a paper on nuclear disarmament. You may agree or you may disagree with their conclusions, if you follow Jesus, you can not question that church leaders – all Christians – have an imperative to address themselves to an issue which has brought the whole human race, for which God intends salvation, into jeopardy. This year the bishops come out with a paper on economic policy. You may think they’re wild; you may think they’re in left field; you may question their conclusions, but you may not question that the church of Jesus Christ and those who lead in Jesus’ name have a right and a responsibility to address the economy in order to ensure that there is some measure of justice in this world. Jesus was revolutionary – not in terms of the zealots who wanted © Grand Valley State University �How Do You Respond When Truth Dawns on You? Richard A. Rhem Page 7   simply to throw off the Roman yoke, and who would have come in with their own regime which would have been just as oppressive – but Jesus was revolutionary in that he stood against everything that seems to drive the human spirit. Jesus was the one who said if you want to live then you must die. Jesus was the one who said love your enemies, pray for your enemies, pray for those who despitefully use you. Funny man, funny man! Strange person! He is like a knot that will not be dissolved in the middle of the human family. And those who follow him may not be simply a comfortable community who use God for their own tranquility. Those who follow Jesus are called to be a community of people who are as radical and as revolutionary, who can never adopt any political platform, who can never be at ease with any creed or confession, who can never give absolute loyalty to any state or to any church because they are a people who will give ultimate allegiance to God alone, following Jesus. No matter what the price. Can you remember the last time in the presence of Jesus you ever changed your mind? Has a prejudice ever melted away? Has an opinion ever been altered? Has a conviction ever been changed because you held it up in the light of his face and felt judged and repented and experienced the liberation, the freedom that is the consequence of the Truth? I’m afraid for most of us our religion is a cultural matter. For most of us God is one to be used and religion is for comfort. I have a book on my desk that says, Jesus: Inspiring and Disturbing Presence. Oh, inspiring to be sure, inspiring to be sure – and disturbing. Because to follow him, to be faced with a decision and to ask what would Jesus do, is a very radical thing to do. I don’t do it very well. I repent and pray that I may follow him. Let us pray. Lord Jesus you said you came into the world not to condemn the world but that the world through you might be saved. Then the gospel record goes on to say that this is the condemnation: that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light. God forgive us. And enable us by your grace to rise up and follow the light where ever it may lead, following in the master’s steps, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we pray. 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 Epiphany II Scripture Text Isaiah 49:6, Luke 2:32, 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-0-19870118 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-01-18 Title A name given to the resource How Do You Respond When Truth Dawns On You? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 18, 1987 entitled "How Do You Respond When Truth Dawns On You?", on the occasion of Epiphany II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 49:6, Luke 2:32, 34-35. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Followers of Jesus Light Radical Truth of Jesus Revelation Servant of the Lord Universal Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/48c9b87092b10fb0b98a3d392794e487.mp3 a7b777306adc129b2acf796f5e9e20b3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/61d9566a92d26dcdda169fd526207471.pdf a3e149ca05cd1d65c16576bff78decac PDF Text Text Living With Wonder From the sermon series: Lifelines Text: Isaiah 6: 1 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany IV, February 3, 1985 Transcription of the spoken sermon …I saw the Lord…high and exalted. Isaiah 6: 1 Viewing the Robert Kennedy story on television this past week I was reminded of the tumultuous events of the last quarter century. What drama and high tension have punctuated the flow of the years of recent decades. I remember vividly where I was the day John F. Kennedy was shot. Seeing familiar scenes flashed on the TV screen again this past week still sent a chill through me. The vast majority of our days flow without special significance and they are lost in the mists of the past. But not all days, not all events. Some days, some moments change us forever; they leave their imprint upon us and we can never be the same again. Isaiah knew that. He shared such an experience. Isaiah wrote, In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted ... It was not necessarily the occasion of the King's death, although that is possible. Perhaps it was the annual enthronement festival. At least it was a great worship celebration, a state occasion in the setting of the Temple with, no doubt, the pageantry of priesthood, altar and incense. Whatever was the particular focus of the worship that day, for Isaiah, it was a moment of revelation, of the breaking through of the hidden majesty of God, the penetration of his whole being with the vision of the glory of God and he was transformed; his whole life was grasped, shaped and given its destiny. In chaste and restrained fashion he describes the vision: © Grand Valley State University   �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 2   ...the skirt of his robe filled the temple. About him were attendant seraphim ... calling to one another, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.’ As he was transfixed by the scene, The threshold shook to its foundations, while the house was filled with smoke. Such was the vision of the glory of God. In reaction to the vision of God's holiness, the prophet was overwhelmed and sensed his unworthiness, his uncleanness in the presence of the Lord and he cried, Woe is me! I am lost. He knew immediately that there was a great gulf between the creature and the Creator. Such a vision would be his undoing, for he cries, I have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. But the gracious God revealed Himself not to destroy His servant; rather the ministering seraph took a glowing coal from off the altar and touched his lips, signifying his cleansing and the removal of his sins. Then it was that he heard the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for me?" To which Isaiah answered, "Here am I; send me." And the word of the Lord was, "Go and tell..." And Isaiah became one of the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, speaking the word of God to the People of God. This passage is obviously about the making of a prophet, about the vision of God and the prophetic call. In this message, however, I want to use the passage for another purpose, which, although not its primary teaching, is yet certainly a valid use. Let us consider the experience recorded here as an instance of the encounter with God in the celebration of worship. Worship is our focus. And even though Isaiah's experience was very personal, as all moments of divine revelation must be, yet its occasion was the corporate worship of God's people. It is corporate worship about which I invite you to think with me. Corporate worship is a lifeline; it provides the occasion in which Eternity breaks into our time, heaven touches earth, God reveals His glory, Grace and forgiveness are realized, the call of God is heard, and our response is offered. © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 3   Worship provides the setting in which we are lifted out of ourselves, beyond the limits of the ordinary, in which we have the experience of transcendence and we are enabled to live with wonder. Living with wonder — That is the enrichment that worship affords. Moving from the experience of worship into the ordinary and the mundane to pick up our duties and exercise our vocations, all is transformed. A glow radiates over all of life. We move through the world as through a magnificent vaulted cathedral, conscious of the vertical dimension of life by which the horizontal plane of our lives has been intersected and transformed. Archbishop William Temple wrote: To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God; to feed the mind with the truth of God; to purge the imagination by the beauty of God; to open the heart to the love of God; to devote the will to the purpose of God. Those statements seem to flow directly from the experience Isaiah recorded for us. Worship is a lifeline because it is the highest action of the human person whereby true humanity is realized through the vision, grace and call of God. Worship is a spiritual discipline. It is means by which we are shaped into the persons God has called us to be. That shaping, that forming of persons, of a people, is accomplished most notably through the experience of corporate worship. In this message I recommend to you the great importance and value of regular corporate worship. I do so not to make it a legalistic requirement, the socalled "Sunday obligation." I do so because I believe the regular, corporate worship of the people of God gives structure and rhythm to life. I recommend regular, corporate worship to you as a spiritual discipline, indeed, a lifeline, because I believe it is so vitally important to have a regular weekly appointment in which you can be unlocked from the world's grip, freed from the grip of value systems and ideologies that would mold you into a sub-human existence, lifted above the economic struggle for survival, the competitive struggle that creates tension with values of mercy and compassion, the perils of a consumer culture that pummels you with eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die – like a dog, a culture that would convince us that this is all there is. No people can know spiritual formation, the shaping of life and value by the Word of God without a regular appointment with the occasion and the setting in which our lives may be encountered, confronted, judged, graced, healed and sent forth again to be the people of God in the world. Living with wonder. © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 4   That could be a definition of being human. It speaks of living with the awareness of God, with the awareness that there is something more, a transcendent dimension; with a sense of grace that overcomes brokenness and failure; with a sense of vocation, calling, that gives life meaning and purpose. A sense of wonder. Living with wonder would enable others to sense through our language and behavior a life lived in openness and awesomeness before the world of things and peoples. As a friend and colleague described it, In an over-rational and over-explained world our overweened arrogance of knowledge teaches us that wonder is a temporary state of curiosity caused by an ignorance of adequate explanation. To realize that this universe, the one in outer space as well as inner space, holds mystery beyond imagination. Dag Hammarskjold was a celebrant of that mystery. He said in his diary, “God does not die on the day we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason. (Howard Moody) Isaiah's life was transformed in that moment of vision which occurred in the context of corporate worship. Every time we gather together here we place ourselves in the posture and setting where lightning may strike. Reflect with me about the act of corporate worship. Obviously one could bring a whole series of messages on the subject of the corporate worship of God and I cannot begin to cover the subject in this one message. My focus is very limited and specific: I am setting before you the great importance of a regular corporate worship as a spiritual discipline by which your life might be characterized by a sense of wonder. In choosing this narrow focus I create for myself inevitable problems. First, I can point to the vision of God which transforms human existence but I cannot guarantee that that will "happen" every time we gather for everyone, or even for anyone. God reveals Himself. God gives Himself. God is sovereign in His own unveiling. The same thing stated negatively - God cannot be manipulated by liturgical acts, incantations, sacramental actions. God is God. He is not at our disposal. He is not a genie to be "rubbed," moved by a magical formula or coerced into action by ritual of priest or people. I face a second problem: To speak of the vision of God is not the same thing as experiencing the vision of God. To speak about worship is not worship. Speaking as I am now, tied to a biblical text over which we have prayed and to which we © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 5   give attention is an essential action of corporate worship. In speaking as I am, I speak out of prayerful preparation with confidence in the promise of God to speak through my words. Yet here, too, God remains God; God remains free. In our Reformation tradition we have highly valued the sermon. We speak of the Word made flesh, the Word written and the Word preached and we call them all the Word of God. Nonetheless, apart from the present action of the Living God, the Word written remains a dead letter and the Word preached but human stammering. In other words, in corporate worship all of the forms, liturgical acts, gestures, sacramental actions are human structures that provide the framework in which the "happening" may occur. To use an analogy, the structure of the service and the actions in which we engage are like the train tracks. Whether the locomotive moves down those tracks is not in our power to determine. There is a third problem I face related to the one just mentioned: I can only describe that to which I refer rationally; yet what I am seeking to describe is beyond reason. Obviously as I speak to you I must attempt to be clear, to make sense. I work hard to make the message understandable. It must therefore be reasonable, able to be grasped by the reason. It must be logical so that its meaning can be grasped. But when I speak of the vision of God, of the inbreaking of God, of a “lightning strike” of revelation, I am speaking of an action of God, the experience of which is ineffable. The definition of “ineffable” is that which “cannot be expressed in words; unspeakable, unutterable, inexpressible.” Do you sense my dilemma? I am speaking about what is unspeakable, attempting to express what is inexpressible, trying to utter the unutterable. The best I can do is to point you by means of speech in logical thought, to a Reality which can only be experienced. In a classic study of the experience of God, which is beyond reason's ability to grasp or describe, The Idea of the Holy, by Rudolf Otto, the author states: This book, recognizing the profound import of the non-rational for metaphysics, makes a serious attempt to analyze all the more exactly the feeling which remains where the concept fails, and to introduce a terminology which is not any the more loose or indeterminate for having necessarily to make use of symbols. (Forward) To speak thus of "feeling" certainly is not to reduce religious experience to a purely human phenomenon. The translator of Otto's book writes in the preface: It is possible to devote our attention to religious “experience” in a sense which would almost leave out of account the object of which it is an experience. We may so concentrate upon the “feeling,” that the objective © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 6   cause of it may fall altogether out of sight. Is religious experience essentially just a state of mind, a feeling, whether of oppression or of exaltation, a sense of “sin” or an assurance of “salvation;” or is it not rather our apprehension of “the divine,” meaning by that term at least something independent of the mental and emotional state of the moment of experience? (p. XIIf.) In reference to Otto's purpose, the translator affirms: He is concerned to examine the nature of those elements in the religious experience which lie outside and beyond the scope of reason - which cannot be comprised in ethical or "rational" conceptions, but which none the less as "feelings" cannot be disregarded by an honest inquiry. And his argument shows in the first place that in all the forms which religious experience may assume and has assumed, so far as these can be reinterpreted ... certain basic "moments" of feeling ... are always found to recur. Speaking directly to our point, he continues, Here we are shown that the religious "feeling" properly involves a unique kind of apprehension, sui generis, not to be reduced to ordinary intellectual concepts, and yet - and this is the paradox of the matter - itself a genuine "knowing," the growing awareness of an object, deity. ... a response, so to speak, to the impact upon the human mind of the divine," as it reveals itself whether obscurely or clearly. The primary fact is the confrontation of the human mind with a Something, whose character is only gradually learned, but which is from the first felt as a transcendent present. "The beyond," even where it is also felt as "the within" man. (XIV F.) When I speak of the problem of expressing what is essentially inexpressible, I am speaking of what Otto describes in his study. The translator states it thus: The "feeling" element in religion involves, then, a genuine "knowing" or awareness, though, in contrast to that knowing which can express itself in concepts, it may be termed "non-rational." The feeling of the "uncanny," the thrill of awe or reverence, the sense of dependence, of impotence, or of nothingness, or again the feelings of religious rapture and exaltation, - all these are attempted designations of the mental states which attend the awareness of certain aspects of "the divine." (p. XV) It is to the "feeling" that remains when the concept fails that I point you. I can only point to the experience. Isaiah described such an experience in the imagery of the Temple service. There in the midst of some festival celebration God broke through to him. © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 7   It was a life-transforming moment. For the rest of his days he was shaped by that vision. Few of us will ever have such a vivid, dramatic encounter. But it is the contention of this message that it is in the setting of corporate worship that we put ourselves in the way of such an experience. It is here in the sanctuary that we are most likely to be encountered and that we have the greatest potential for apprehending the divine vision. If we would live with wonder then we can do no better than place ourselves in the presence of God with spirits open to the lightning strike of His glory. Rudolf Otto coins the word "numinous" to describe ... The specific non-rational religious apprehension and its object, at all its levels, from the first dim stirrings where religion can hardly yet be said to exist to the most exalted forms of spiritual experience. (p. XVII) But he maintains that we cannot dispense with the knowledge that comes through human reason and moral experience. He insists, writes Harvey, that for him the supremacy of Christianity over all other religions lies in the unique degree in which ... in Christianity the numinous elements, such as the sense of awe and reverence before the infinite mystery and infinite majesty, are yet combined and made one with the rational elements, assuring us that God is an all-righteous, all-provident, and all-loving Person, with whom a man may enter into the most intimate relationship. (p. XVII) Thus it is Otto's contention that religion ... is a real knowledge of, and real personal communion with, a Being Whose nature is yet above knowledge and transcends personality. This apparent contradiction cannot be evaded by concentrating upon an aspect of it and ignoring the other, without doing a real injury to religion. It must be faced directly in the experience of worship, and there, and only there, it ceases to be a contradiction and becomes a harmony. (p. XVII) God is the object of worship. We attempt to speak of God. The description of God is spoken of as the attributes of God and Otto writes, ... all these attributes constitute clear and definite concepts; they can be grasped by the intellect; they can be analyzed by thought; they even admit of definition. An object that can thus be thought conceptually may be termed rational. The nature of deity described in the attributes above mentioned is, then, a rational nature; and a religion which recognizes and maintains such a view of God is in so far a "rational" religion. Only on such terms is Belief possible in contrast to mere feeling. (p. 1) © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 8   However, too much religion, including our Reformed tradition, has stopped there. As Otto says, ... so far are these "rational" attributes from exhausting the idea of deity that they in fact imply a non-rational or supra-rational Subject of which they are predicates. ... That is to say, we have to predicate them of a subject which they qualify, but which in its deeper essence is not, nor indeed can be, comprehended in them; which rather requires comprehension of a quite different kind. (p. 2) Otto points to the failing of Christian orthodoxy in that it found in the construction of dogma and doctrine no way to do justice to the non-rational aspect of its subject. So far from keeping the non-rational element in religion alive in the heart of the religious experience, orthodox Christianity manifestly failed to recognize its value, and by this failure gave to the idea of God the one-sidedly intellectualistic and rationalistic interpretation. (p. 3) So much for the problems I encounter as I point you to the discipline of corporate worship as the place and occasion for an encounter with the living God from which one derives the sense of wonder that transforms all of life. Recognizing that I can point to the vision of God but cannot guarantee that to speak about worship is not the same as worshiping, and that I must describe the worship experience rationally, but that it is an experience beyond reason, let me nonetheless say something about the experience of corporate worship. The first statement I would make is that our worship is response to God. He has taken the initiative; He has woven the truth of His being into the fabric of our being and no matter how much we deface His image in our souls, yet we can never fully divest ourselves of the trace of His imprint. This is where we part company with those following the German philosopher/theologian Feuerbach, such as Marx and Freud and company, who insist that religion is of human creation, prompted by human need and thus must be understood not as response to the revelation of God, but as a purely human action fashioning God out of human projections. We speak of the "feeling" that remains when the concept fails; we speak of that which shatters our reason and breaks the bounds of our rational thinking, but we insist that is a reflex action a response, a re-action. God reveals Himself; our worship is response. Thus worship is something the People do Godward; it is human action offered to God Who is the object of our worship. Therefore, while worship should be edifying and instructive, edification and instruction are not in themselves worship. Therefore, worship ought never to be boring, but neither is its purpose entertainment, simply holding the people's attention. Worship is the offering of praise and adoration to God Who has made © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 9   Himself known to us so that we cannot but respond by acknowledging His worthship. Secondly, the corporate worship of God occurs in a carefully choreographed, dramatic pageant. Such a statement will certainly not be accepted by all without objection. Let me quickly admit that there is a large variety of acceptable modes of worship. Where God's people gather, God's truth is declared and God's Spirit is present, there the worship of God occurs. Let me acknowledge further that various modes and media of worship touch different persons. There must be no stereotyping of personality type that alone can worship truly, and worship depends not on one's theological understanding, liturgical training or aesthetic sense. Granting that I must insist that the worship of God demands of us the highest attention, the most strenuous care for detail, and the utilization of our best gifts all devoted to excellence of form and content in the experience of worship, I have acknowledged the legitimacy of variety in modes of worship: the silence of the plain Quaker Meeting House, the fervor of the Charismatic Pentecostals, the solemn dignity of Evensong in the setting of Cathedral magnificence. Yet, let me put in a word for the mode of worship created in this place week by week. I spoke of a carefully choreographed, dramatic pageant. The word pageant has several definitions. The most obvious is "a scene acted on a stage." Another definition is "a spectacle arranged for effect." And "pageantry" is defined as "splendid display; pomp." "Pomp" is defined as "splendid display or celebration; splendour, magnificence. " In the definitions of pageantry and pomp there is also another meaning of empty display or ostentation. That is interesting because it indicates what a fine line there is between truth and its counterfeit. That is why religious ritual and ceremony have so frequently through the centuries become empty, lifeless display without substance, without soul. Hollow forms have been the curse of the Church, foisted on her by ministers and priests without passion and faith, by religious leaders grown callous through familiarity with holy things. Acknowledging all of that, I must still contend that the celebration of worship of the People of God at its highest and best is the full-spectrum pageant in which is utilized the arts which appeal to the aesthetic sense: music that moves one in the depths; movement that expresses what leaves the tongue dumb; color and symbol creating a feast for the eye; the word of truth that engages the mind and triggers the emotion that triggers the will; candles and crosses and colors of vestments; incense and smoke rising heavenward; © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page10   the roar of the mighty organ; the chill of an obligate; the simplicity of a gesture - breaking bread, pouring wine, making the sign of the cross on a forehead with baptismal water; The word of assurance -"Your sins are forgiven; go in peace." Choir and congregation in one mighty voice, singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Alleluia! Go back to the definition of pageant: "A spectacle arranged for effect." That is it, you see: arranged for effect. What effect? The vision of God, surely! The vision of God, high and lifted up! I cannot in calm rational discourse affect the vision; I can only point to it, speak about it, draw out the implications of it. Sweet reason does not remove the veil from the face of the living God. Reason reaches its limit; rational discourse comes to its bounding and still beyond reigns the living God. He must come to us. He must penetrate our space and time. But if I can choreograph a pageant full of sound and sight which engages not only the head but the heart and soul, then at least I have set the stage - created the setting, arranged the spectacle where the effect might, if God be gracious, happen. In such a setting I just may catch a glimpse of His glory; there may well be a moment in which there is a rift in the sky and in that moment my life may well be transformed, become radiant with light and full of glory. Then I will have come to know God Who is beyond knowledge, and to possess a joy which is unspeakable. Then my life will be full of wonder, and I will walk beneath the blue sky of the heavens as though it were a great vaulted cathedral and my every day will be vibrant with praise. Finally, in such an experience of worship all of life is lifted into the presence of God, cleansed and claimed and sent forth to serve. It is here in worship that one is most likely to hear the Voice, "Who will go for me?" "Whom shall I send?" It is while one is lost in wonder, love and praise that one is most open to respond, "Here am I, send me." That, of course, is why this service always culminates in the offering. Where a People has caught a glimpse of the glory of God and heard the call of God, response is inevitable. Some action is called for, some gesture must be made. That is why the organ builds to mighty crescendo, the people rise, the gifts come forward and together we sing, "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow." © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page11   How could we remain seated, passive, uninvolved? Such is the wonder of worship. From such worship flows life full of wonder. Living with wonder is living with heaven on earth. Reference: Rudolf Otto. The Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey. Oxford University Press, 1958. © 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 Epiphany III Series LifeLines Scripture Text Isaiah 6:1 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Rudolf Otto. The Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey, 1958. 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-0-19850203 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-02-03 Title A name given to the resource Living with Wonder Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 February 3, 1985 entitled "Living with Wonder", as part of the series "LifeLines", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 6:1. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Presence Prophet Isaiah Sacred Transcendence Wonder Worship https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/30efd72a365ac1ef2f695ed2119482b5.mp3 3d215c3b370b35f117dc19a602431d1f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/69bf57baa7f46260026bf9181618c0e1.pdf e25215b622cdfb94575ac450564b7894 PDF Text Text Living From Commitment From the sermon series: Lifelines Text: Luke 14: 27, 33 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany II, January 20, 1985 Transcription of the spoken sermon Noone who does not carry his cross and come with me can be a disciple of mine…none of you can be a disciple of mine without parting with all his possessions. Luke 14: 27, 33 To commit is to entrust oneself to another. In the Christian Faith it is to entrust one's life to God through Jesus Christ. It is to turn over the controls of one's life to Christ, to yield to His Lordship, to recognize Him as one's sovereign, one's King. The Christian Life is a life lived out of commitment to Jesus Christ. That commitment involves the whole of life; every area of life is affected - human relationships, vocational decisions, attitudes, political and economic decisions. In the Christian understanding of things, one's spiritual commitment is not one dimension of life among others, but the primary decision of life which shapes all others. It is also the Christian understanding of human existence that yielding one's life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is not to lose one's life, but rather to come into the fullest possible realization of being, of a truly, fully human existence. I begin with this message a series entitled, "Lifelines." It will be my purpose to show that the total commitment of oneself to Jesus Christ and the consequences of that commitment, or the living out of that commitment lead to life in its fullness. Commitment to Christ and the disciplines of Christian living are Lifelines. In this series we will focus on several facets of the Christian life in order to find the path to the abundant life Jesus came to bring and which He makes available to us. Before we examine some of the disciplines of life, however, let us begin with the recognition that the call of Jesus to follow Him involves us in a costly choice: He calls us to radical commitment. Radical is a word deliberately chosen. It comes © Grand Valley State University   �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 2   from radix, root. The call to follow Jesus reaches to the very root of our existence. His claim and call are uncompromising. His claim and call are serious. He would shape us from the core of our being so that the attitude and actions of our daily lives are the fruit of that one primary and fundamental commitment to be His disciple. The choice of texts presented a problem only because there are so many possibilities. The Gospels carry the theme repeated in various contexts. I point you to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 14. The paragraph beginning with verse 25 begins, Once, when great crowds were accompanying him… No one could accuse Jesus of inviting followers on false pretenses. He always laid it on the line. Obviously He was not running for election. He was not astute at winning friends and influencing people. There was nothing manipulative in His manner. He was a person consumed with God and the Kingdom of God He came to inaugurate. In the vivid language of the East, He put it this way when the crowd swelled and He feared there were many following without really understanding what was at stake. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be a disciple of mine. No one who does not carry his cross and come with me can be a disciple of mine. …none of you can be a disciple of mine without parting with all his possessions. Luke 14: 25-33 The sharpness of the saying jars us and that is precisely its purpose. To hate means literally to love less and the counsel is obviously not hatred in intimate human relationships which are sacred but simply to say there is no relationship or claim upon the disciple of Jesus which takes precedence over the claim of Jesus on our lives. The renunciation of possessions was a familiar model for conversion in the world of Jesus. The gentile who converted to the God of Israel was called to such a oncefor-all act of renunciation, which entailed a break with one's social relationships. Edward Schillebeeckx, in his book, Jesus, points out that this pattern was taken over from late Judaism. Being converted meant in practice surrendering all one's possessions, becoming odious, having to leave father and mother, etc., and all one's worldly goods. The radical break with the past was called for by Jesus in light of the coming rule of God. The narrative of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus illustrates that this young man was not ready for radical conversion because he was unwilling to renounce all and give to the poor. The actual surrender of all material goods was the sign of a true conversion. As for the call to cross bearing, that was a familiar sight in the Palestine of Jesus' day. Crucifixion was the fate of the Zealots who were always plotting against the © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Roman occupiers. Once again here, cross bearing was a sign of the willingness to lay down one's life and Jesus' own death on the cross became the concrete illustration of the cost of discipleship. Cross bearing was the willing assumption of the suffering involved in following Jesus and aligning oneself with the cause of the Kingdom of God. It is voluntary. It is not a burden thrust on one about which one can do nothing; it is an active assumption of the consequences of following Jesus. All of the imagery of this paragraph and the others liberally sprinkled throughout the Gospels speak of death, the dying to self. In his book, Alive in Christ, Maxie Dunnam tells of a friend, Brother Sam, a Benedictine monk who shared with him the service in which he took his solemn vows and made his life commitment to the Benedictine community and the monastic life. On that occasion he prostrated himself before the altar of the chapel in the very spot where his coffin will be set when he dies. Covered in a funeral pall, the death bell that tolls at the earthly parting of a brother sounded the solemn gongs of death. There was silence - the silence of death. The silence of the gathered community was broken by the singing of the Colossian words, "For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. " (Col. 3:3). After that powerful word, there was more silence as Brother Sam reflected on his solemn vow. Then the community broke into song with the words of Psalm 118, which is always a part of the Easter liturgy in the Benedictine community: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the words of the Lord. " (Psalm 118:17 King James Version). After this resurrection proclamation, the deacon shouted the works from Ephesians: "Awake, O Sleepers, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light." (Eph. 5:14). Then the bells of the Abbey rang loudly and joyfully. Brother Sam rose, the funeral pall fell off, and the robe of the Benedictine Order was placed on him. He received the kiss of peace and was welcomed into the community to live a life "hid in Christ." (p. 27F) That is a beautiful ritual, a vivid image of the call to discipleship, not just to monastic orders. Jesus calls us to life through death, the death of self, selfcontrol, self-life. That this is the call of Jesus and that His claim on our lives is absolute there can be little argument. But granting that, how do we live that out in our world in our day? What does it mean to follow Jesus today? We have just been reminded of one of our own generation who put his life on the line and paid the supreme price for his discipleship. Martin Luther King said shortly before he fell from an assassin's bullet: © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my funeral. ...I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long... Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize... Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards... I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody... Say that I was a drum major for justice, say that I was a drum major for peace. That I was a drum major for righteousness, and all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia. February 4, 1968 And he did. Would anyone say he was a failure? About three years ago Archbishop Romero was likewise gunned down while saying Mass in EL Salvador. He was killed because his call to discipleship led him to take up the cause of the poor and oppressed in that troubled nation. The moving film, "Gandhi," has reminded us again recently of that great spiritual leader who changed the face of India and he too took an assassin's bullet. Around the world today many languish in prisons because they have espoused unpopular causes in situations of tyranny. Our world is no stranger to the violent death that pursues those that seek to bring justice and righteousness to bear on the concrete conditions of humankind. But what of ordinary mortals like you and me living in the safety and security of Western Michigan? What does it mean for us to live from commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord? Sometimes I fear we put discipleship out of reach when we speak of King and Gandhi and of course, Jesus, who remains the preeminent model. One hardly knows where to begin and certainly there are many more things to say than can be dealt with in the compass of this message. Yet we can say some, things. First, the call to commitment is the call of the gracious God revealed in Jesus Christ. There are not two Gods. The God of grace Who in Jesus has touched our world is the only true God and His heart is love and His movement toward us is gracious. In the face of Jesus we have seen into the heart of God. © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 5   This is the God of tender compassion Whose love will not give up on His people, Whose judgment is the other side of His love with the intention of calling His people to their senses and to return unto Him. The call to commitment is issued by Jesus Whose heart was moved with compassion because the people were restless, harassed, like sheep without a shepherd; Jesus Who said, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." The call comes from one Who dealt tenderly with the weak and embraced the sinner, offering unconditional acceptance and a continuing positive regard for persons. It must be obvious then that total commitment is not the call of a despotic sadist who enjoys seeing people on the rack. A second thing that comes to mind is that the call to commitment issued by Jesus is not properly responded to by a heavy religiosity. Any cursory reading of the Gospels will detect a strong strain of anger in Jesus, anger directed toward the most religious groups of the day. His anger was not a disapproval of religious practice as such but against religious practice as a way of self-righteousness, selfjustification before God, religious practice that was outward conformity to structured ritual and ceremony without corresponding inwardness, religious practice that fulfilled institutional demands but was exercised apart from the more important matters of love, justice and mercy. A third observation I would make is that the call to commitment transcends institutional structures. Perhaps I can put it simply this way: Jesus calls persons to life in God, not simply to join the Church. By now you know me well enough to know that I consider the institutional form of the Church as a necessary evil. Spirit needs form and apart from the institutionalization of the Gospel in the community with creeds and rituals and forms of organization, the Gospel would not have reached us. All organized religion involves a set of rites, an ethical code and a body of doctrine. The institutional Church - just like the Judaism of Jesus' day, consists of rituals, ethics and doctrines and these structures become the vehicle by which religious reality is mediated from one generation to the next. By these institutional forms – rituals for worship, rules for conduct, articles of faith for understanding – a religious system is shaped which is the carrier, the mediator, of religious belief and practice. But when Jesus called to commitment he was calling persons to something more than institutional loyalty. In fact, it was the perception that He was a very great threat to the institution that got Him crucified. There was fear for the Law and the Temple. He dared point beyond Law and Temple to the God toward Whom both Law and Temple pointed, thus relativizing Law and Temple in the face of the absolute demand of God. Keeping the Law was not an end in itself; rather the Law was God's gift to Israel that they might find fullness of life. The Temple was not an end in itself; rather it © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 6   was the place where altar and sacrifice and Priesthood were present to mediate the presence of God to the worshiper and bring him beyond the outward forms into the gracious presence of his God. That would suggest a fourth comment: The institutional forms of religious faith and practice fulfill a necessary function in providing the structures by which we find our life's fulfillment in the worship and service of God. Here I am not saying anything not already mentioned, but I say this explicitly lest I be understood to be cavalier about institutionalized religion. How could I be? My whole life is spent in the cause of institutional religion because I see in it the only means by which the Truth of God may be conveyed and the worship and service of God cultivated, through which God is glorified and His people led into the fullness of life. There are rare souls that seem to be able to go it alone, to find the ecstasy of mystical contemplation of God in splendid isolation, but such is not possible for many. And even those who find the vision of God in the solitude of contemplation did not learn of God in a vacuum. The institution is necessary; its forms and structures are the vehicle upon which the Truth of God is conveyed. They are the signs pointing beyond themselves to the mystery of God and apart from them the vision would soon die. The institution also provides the social structure within which we are aided in the spiritual quest. We are social beings. We do not live as isolated atoms in the Universe. We are bound together in the bundle of life. We were created for community and we need the support and encouragement of one another. Personal devotion is essential; contemplation in solitude is essential. But such cannot take the place of corporate worship when as one body we are caught up into the presence of God and lose ourselves in the wonder of worship. The purpose of religious structures then is to mediate the knowledge and experience of God. If we did not have them we would have no access to God but if, having them, we never rise beyond them, we will never experience the mystery of God. Charles Davis says it well: Religion is the drive toward transcendence, the thrust of man out of and beyond himself, out of and beyond the limited order under which he lives, in an attempt to open himself to the totality of existence and reach unlimited reality and ultimate value. This drive cannot be confined to the observance of a moral code, settling questions of right and wrong within a limited frame of reference. The person who is merely moral knows nothing of the heights and depths of human experience and existence. Even a religious system set up to mediate the drive toward transcendence cannot contain it. It never fits exactly and at its best is inadequate © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 7   precisely because it is in itself limited and relative, not transcendent and absolute. (The Temptations of Religion, p. 73) Again, David writes, For religion the relativity of any human order of truth and value indicates its mediating function. Its purpose is to become transparent, to lead beyond itself and mediate a transcendent experience. Summarizing what we have said: 1. The call to commitment is the call of the gracious God revealed in Jesus Christ. 2. The call to commitment issued by Jesus is not properly responded to by a heavy religiosity. 3. The call to commitment transcends institutional structure. 4. The institutional forms of religious faith and practice fulfill a necessary function in providing the structures by which we find our life's fulfillment in the worship and service of God. If the above statements are true, then it must be evident that the call to commitment is a serious call to find the highest possible human fulfillment in a life whose first priority is the worship and service of God. God has made us for Himself. There is a hunger in the human heart for God. The universality of religion would seem to demonstrate that. To be sure that claim has been disputed and it does seem in our day there are many who live "onedimensional" lives with no transcendent reference, no worship, no sense of mystery beyond the human and the mundane. Yet our day would also seem to witness to that hunger for transcendence. We speak of the younger generation "turning East." With the lessening of influence of the traditional Church we have seen a rise of the cults and bizarre expression of religious devotion. Ernest Becker, the noted scholar in the field of psychoanalysis finds in the human being a longing for the heroic. He sees a universal fear of death but not the fear of extinction so much as extinction without meaning. We want our lives to be significant, to mean something, to find ourselves caught up in something bigger than ourselves. Although he does not profess to be a Christian thinker, he finds great truth in Kierkegaard who found in the Gospel's call to total commitment that which lifted the person out of himself and satisfied his longing for meaning, (cf. The Denial of Death). © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 8   God calls us to Himself not that He may be enhanced in His Sovereign Rule, but because God is love and love would bestow the best and highest gift on the creature made after His own image. The truth of Jesus' words has been proven over and over throughout the centuries. To grasp on to one's life is to lose it; to lose one's life in the service of Jesus and the Gospel is to find it. Thus the call to commitment is an invitation to experience Life at its highest. It is the call of the gracious God in Jesus Christ to experience abundant life. If that is true, then it must be evident that the successful living out of one's commitment is always threatened from two directions: a. From the danger of absolutizing the institution and its form and structure; b. From the danger of abandoning the institution or giving it only slight regard. The first danger is succumbed to by the religious. Jesus' greatest foes were the highly religious: those who absolutized the established form of Jewish faith, who made idols of Temple and Law and ritual. One can see this so very prevalent in our own day with the upsurge of visibility and volubility of the religious Right. Fundamentalism has become militant in our country as illustrated by the conflict over Creationism and Evolutionism. One can see it also in the mean-spirited militancy that crusades against abortion and the rights of homosexuals. There is little civility in the debate on issues in which there can certainly be differences of opinion. In great emotional display evidencing deep-seated anger, we see people demonstrate for God and Truth as though they had some corner on the truth. What they have done is absolutize their position, which is limited and relative because it is a human perspective on divine truth, not that truth itself. One can see the danger of absolutizing the institution where people are controlled and manipulated by religious leaders. Often the implication is if you do not follow my leading or support my program, or serve in my institution, you can have no part in the Kingdom. But there is danger on the other side, as well. Too many have "progressed" to where they recognize that God and the institutional forms structured to give access to Him are not synonymous and have thus simply written off the institution and the practice of religious life. One theologian of sorts writes that he doesn't need the institution or the symbols anymore. Growing up as a Scottish Presbyterian, it was all so deeply ingrained “that he can go on without it.” Fine. But who will tell his children and provide the © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 9   experience in which they might be overwhelmed with the mystery of God? Who will pass the torch of faith and maintain the community of faith for the generations yet unborn? For many years now at Christ Community I have chosen the difficult path of teaching you that our creedal statements are not the last word, our way of worship is not the only form of true worship, our grasp of the Christian life must always be open to examination. Our institutional life and structure is not absolute; our program as a congregation is not synonymous with God's perfect will. Yet I have called you to commitment to Christ and the Church and its life here, recognizing we have blinders, we are flawed, and we stand always in need of correction and further insight. What "sells" today is to reduce complex issues to simple formulas, claiming they are absolute, beating the drums, whipping up the emotions and leading a crusade. Such has not been my style nor the posture of this congregation. We have sought rather to be both Civil and Committed. Is it possible to recognize the relativity of our grasp of God's Truth and of the structures of our life and worship and yet be totally committed to God through Christ in the life and mission of the Church? I believe it is. I would hope that I might myself be "Exhibit A." I believe in what we are about here. I commit myself unreservedly to it, even though I recognize the flawed nature of all we do and are. This is the kind of commitment to which I call you. Spirit needs form. Faith needs structure. The Gospel of Christ will be perpetuated from one generation to another only if we maintain the community of faith, flawed though its every expression is, relative though its grasp of Truth may be, partial though its obedience always is. The cause of the Kingdom of God is carried on in the world by people like us for whom God is a priority, who, having found Him gracious, find the fullest experience of being human in the worship and service of His Name. We have striven never to come off as laying on you heavy duty and obligation. Rather, we have sought to lead you into the joy of losing yourself in the service of God. The Gospel paradox is true - greedily grasp your life to yourself and lose it; give your life away for Jesus' sake and find it. You don't have to do anything. God loves you anyway. But in failing to find yourself, your gifts and energies in the employ of God, you lose out on the deepest joy of being human. © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page10   God's claim on you is absolute; Jesus' call to commitment is total, because God being the fountain of love would give Himself to you as you offer yourself to Him in response to His redeeming grace. Thus I set before you the key lifeline: Commitment. Living from commitment is to live fully, richly, deeply. It is the abundant life. © 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 Epiphany I Series LifeLines Scripture Text Luke 14: 27, 33 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-0-19850120 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-01-20 Title A name given to the resource Living from Commitment Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 20, 1985 entitled "Living from Commitment", as part of the series "LifeLines", on the occasion of Epiphany I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 14: 27, 33. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Community of Faith Epiphany Followers of Jesus Institutional Religion Nature of Religion Spiritual Quest Transcendence Worship https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/78f0f822976704e5796fd4b388650f25.mp3 786bf1c4964087c952d2b9eb0dfc8698 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f86f0959d5e11c2580c47b15f1ed20e0.pdf 12c2bedea336d56a751e4e3cdd4defe8 PDF Text Text Follow the Star: Trust the Vision Text: Matthew 2: 9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany, January 6, 1985 Transcription of the spoken sermon ...The star which they had seen at its rising went ahead of them... Matthew 2:9 Today is the Festival of Epiphany. In the calendar of the Ancient Church this is a special Feast Day with which a new Season is inaugurated, the Season of Epiphany. We have celebrated the twelve days of Christmas. Christmastide moves today into Epiphany, the Season that extends to Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Season of Lent. The theme of this Season is the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. Epiphany, the word, comes to us from the Greek; it means "manifestation." In this Season we celebrate the universality of the Gospel. Jesus was born of the House and lineage of David. The Angelic messenger to the shepherds said there was good news, great joy coming to the whole people, but in that context that probably was a reference to the whole House of Israel. We must go to Matthew for the Epiphany theme. He tells the romantic tale of the visit of the Magi who saw the rising of a star in their Eastern land and journeyed West to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem where they found the child Jesus, bowed down in adoration and offered him precious gifts. In that search for the newborn king, their adoration, worship and offering, the Magi have become the symbol of the coming of the nations to the true God, to light and truth, to salvation. In the coming of Jesus, God brought the light of the knowledge of Himself to all nations, thus fulfilling the promise to Abraham that in him all peoples of the earth would be blessed. Let this narrative recorded by Matthew be the focus of our reflection as we recognize in Jesus the revelation of God Who calls us to live by the vision that revelation provides. To begin with, let us look at the story. We are told by Matthew of astrologers from the East who arrived in Jerusalem asking, "Where is the child who is born to be © Grand Valley State University   �Follow the Star: Trust the Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 2   king of the Jews?" They came according to the Gospel because they had observed "the rising of his star." Who were they, these astrologers? We sing of "three kings." They are referred to as "the Magi" in Christmas lore. Actually there is nothing in the record that speaks of their being kings and neither is there any reference to number. There is much popular mythology and legend that has sprung up around the story of the Nativity and later generations have embroidered it liberally. While we cannot be certain about these Eastern visitors, there is relative agreement that they were members of a priestly caste who engaged in occult arts and the name "Magi" refers to a broad range of persons involved in astrology (astronomy), fortune-telling, priestly augury and magicians. The "Magi" of Matthew were astrologers. We know that the ancient East had gained a great deal of knowledge of astronomy and there was a widespread conviction that human destiny was determined by the star under which one was born as well as the movement of the heavenly bodies. These Magi in Matthew's narrative represent the best of pagan lore and religious perceptivity which has come to seek Jesus through a revelation in nature. (Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, p. 168) They came from East of Palestine. Three locations are proposed as their point of origin: Parthia, or Persia, Babylon, or Arabia, or the Syrian Desert. There are arguments in favor of each location but it is not important for us to pursue the matter. It is enough to know that the ancient East was known for its astronomical investigation and for priestly castes that studied the stars and ancient writings. There was a common belief that great events and the birth and death of great rulers were signaled in the heavens. Thus, whatever historical core lies behind the story of the visit of the Magi, it was not extraordinary that such astrologers should make such a journey and join in such a quest. As to the star itself, what can we say? We have the story in its simple beauty. What the story is meant to convey we shall come to shortly. Perhaps it is best simply to leave the story as it is. Yet questions come to mind. Raymond Brown in his marvelous study of the nativity narratives writes of the "intrinsic unlikelihoods" of the story. A star that rose in the East, appeared over Jerusalem, turned South to Bethlehem, and then came to rest over a house would have constituted a celestial phenomenon unparalleled in astronomical history; yet it received no notice in the records of the times. (The Birth of the Messiah, p. 188) On the other hand, there were some unusual astronomical phenomena which occurred around the time of the birth of Jesus, which best estimates place in 6 B.C. Speculation suggests the heavenly light may have been a supernova or "new © Grand Valley State University �Follow the Star: Trust the Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 3   star." It may have been a comet or it may have been a planetary conjunction. Brown explains the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter and Saturn are the slowest of the visible planets in their orbit around the sun: for Jupiter there is an orbit every twelve years; for Saturn, every thirty years. In the course of these orbits the two planets pass each other every twenty years; and in so passing, even though they may be considerably north or south of each other, they are said to be in conjunction. A much rarer occurrence is when a third planet, Mars, passes during or shortly after the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, so that the three planets are close together. Kepler saw this occur in October 1604. He calculated that it happens every 805 years and that it had happened in 7-6 B.C. ... From calculations we know that the three high points of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn were in May/June, September/October, and December of 7 B.C. - a rare triple conjunction. ... - and that Mars passed early the next year. This "great conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn took place in the zodiacal constellation of Pisces. ... Pisces is a constellation sometimes associated with the last days and with the Hebrews, while Jupiter (an object of particular interest among Parthian astrologers) was associated with the world ruler and Saturn was identified as the star of the Ammonites of the Syria-Palestine region. The claim has been made that this conjunction might lead Parthian astrologers to predict that there would appear in Palestine among the Hebrews a world ruler of the last days. (p. 173) This is all very speculative as Brown asserts; yet it is fascinating and it does immerse the story of the Magi's visit with mystery and wonder. As already indicated, we cannot strip off the legendary aspects of the nativity narrative and get down to the “facts.” Scripture is not a book of “facts” in that sense. The Word was made flesh. That is fact – historical truth. Jesus was born at a particular time and place. He grew and entered upon his ministry, was crucified and raised from the dead, ascending to the Father where he reigns and from whence he will appear a second time. The Apostles and the Early Christian community were certain of the risen Christ who was the same as Jesus of Nazareth. As they witnessed to God's revelation in him they told the story of his birth and his life, death and resurrection. That is what we have in our Gospels of which Matthew is one. As this Gospel was composed, there was a specific purpose in its composition. Matthew included a nativity narrative and that narrative included the story of the Magi. Why? What was Matthew telling us with this story? © Grand Valley State University �Follow the Star: Trust the Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 4   It is the consensus of biblical scholarship today that this Gospel called Matthew was written in Syria by an unknown Greek-speaking Jewish Christian living in the 80's in a mixed community with converts of both Jewish and Gentile descent. The writer was concerned to instruct the community of mixed background. Matthew interprets what he sees happening in the first century Church. As Brown writes, A Christian community, at first Jewish, had seen an increasing number of Gentiles come to believe; and with the rejection of Christians by the Synagogue, it now seemed as if the Kingdom were being taken away and given to a "nation" that would bear fruit (21:43). In this situation of a mixed community with dominance now shifting over to the Gentile side, Matthew is concerned to show that Jesus has always had meaning for both Jew and Gentile. (p. 47) Thus asserts Brown, In the person of the Magi, Matthew was anticipating the Gentile Christians of his own community. Although these had as their birthright only the revelation of God in nature, they had been attracted to Jesus; and when instructed in the Scriptures of the Jews, they had come to believe in and pay homage to the Messiah. (p. 199) This is the meaning of Epiphany and the message of this Season. God's calling of Abraham was the calling of one to reach the many. God's long and patient dealing with Israel in the Old Covenant was in order to bring finally to the world the Saviour of all. Matthew tells us of Magi from the East who followed the star and trusted the vision of the birth of one who would rule the world with righteousness. On this Epiphany Sunday, then, let us recognize that I. God has revealed Himself. This is a foundational truth of our faith. Having just come through the Christmas Season again, we have celebrated that divine visitation of our planet by the Eternal God in the flesh of Jesus. We have heard those great New Testament affirmations again — the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory... John 1:14 We have seen the light of revelation - the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. II Corinthians 5:6 ...in this the final age he (God) has spoken to us in the Son ... who is the effulgence of God's splendor and the stamp of God's very being…Hebrews 1:2 © Grand Valley State University �Follow the Star: Trust the Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 5   What these writers affirm in theological reflection Matthew tells us in a story, the story of a star and of those hungry for God who traveled mile after weary mile until they found the child born to be a king. Matthew was pointing to a sign in Nature which triggered the longing of the human heart for a knowledge of God. And the point he was making was that the sign was given for all the world to see. The Magi are used by him as signs of that universal revelation of God to all humankind. Paul speaks of God's revelation in the natural order. For all that may be known of God by men lies plain before their eyes; indeed God himself has disclosed it to them. His invisible attributes, that is to say his everlasting power and deity, have been visible, ever since the world began, to the eye of reason, in the things he has made. Romans 1:19, 20 Paul goes on in that passage to show how that knowledge has been suppressed by mankind. Nonetheless the revelation is there had we eyes to see it. Bringing the Magi to Herod's court where they learned of Micah's prophecy of the Messiah's birth in Bethlehem was Matthew's way of saying that the revelation of God in Nature is not sufficient to bring one to a knowledge of the grace of God. Yet the truth remains; God has revealed himself and in Jesus that revelation came to all humankind. God has revealed himself. That is our bedrock conviction. That is the heart of Christmas and the truth of Epiphany. II. Those who seek him will surely find him. In the visit of the Magi Matthew finds the sign of the coming of people of every tribe and nation. That was a giant breakthrough in the thinking of the Jewish Christian community. The struggle of the Early Church on the question of the Gentile converts to Jesus is recorded in the Book of Acts. Matthew is saying that what was happening in that early community was right on schedule and according to plan. God so loved the world that whosoever ... There was an exclusiveness in the Old Testament. Yet had not the prophet Jeremiah written centuries before, When you seek me, you shall find me; if you search for me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord. Jeremiah 29:13 In the Magi we have representatives of those who hunger for God and whose hunger is satisfied. They were seekers and searchers after God. They had no doubt studied ancient writings. They may very well have known of the ancient © Grand Valley State University �Follow the Star: Trust the Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 6   prophecy of Balaam recorded in Numbers 24:17 about the star that would rise out of Jacob. They were men open to revelation, seeking the truth. We might say that these were early examples of the human hunger for transcendence. They were seeking something more beyond the limits of space and time. They lived in a world filled with mystery. They believed that beyond the world there was One Who wrote in the stars. They believed that behind the appearance of Reality there was One Who made the planets do His bidding. They followed the star and trusted the vision. They acted on their faith and they found the Saviour. Those who seek Him will surely find Him. III. Those who find Him worship Him. This, too, is clearly Matthew's intent in portraying the Magi in Eastern magnificence bowing before the child offering their treasures. The universality of God's revelation and the universality of the yearning in the human heart are matched by the universality of the response of those who see the glory of the Father in the face of the Son. This is something we take for granted perhaps, but it was an amazing discovery to those who had been brought up in the exclusiveness of Judaism, who had been taught that the non-Jew was something less than human. Certainly there had been those strains of universalism - in Abraham's call and in the prophetic vision of the exaltation of Mount Zion and the flowing of the nations to Jerusalem. But it was nonetheless a truth hardly conceivable and thus one of the major stumbling blocks in the world evangelization which happened in Paul's ministry - that God was making of Jew and Greek one new humanity - united in the worship of God through Jesus Christ. In these Eastern visitors Matthew saw the sign of the world coming to the Saviour who would be the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. Do you sense what a compelling vision that was? In the midst of an occupied people in a tiny piece of the earth's surface, in the poverty and humility of a peasant family was born a child - a child, Matthew declares, who is the light of the revelation of the glory of God for all people of all time. That is the stupendous claim of the Christian Gospel. In the worship of the Magi Matthew witnesses to the universal truth of the Gospel that Jesus Christ is the light of the world, the Saviour of all, who draws all people to him. Those who find him worship him, for those who find him find God. © Grand Valley State University �Follow the Star: Trust the Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 7   We have just celebrated another Christmas. We stand on the threshold of a new year. What has the celebration done for us? In what mind and spirit do we enter this new year? The lessons of the Magi visit are simple and clear: God has revealed Himself; those who seek Him find Him; those who find Him worship Him. Will the truth so recently celebrated be connected to the restless longing of our hearts and will we respond to the revelation of God's glory with adoring worship and committed life? It does not follow automatically. It is possible to be so caught up in trivial pursuits and penultimate matters that we never see the star nor follow the Saviour. The Magi came to Jerusalem where Herod was King and their question posed to him, not the possibility of the advent of the Saviour of the world, but rather a threat to his throne, his rule and authority. On December 28 the Church celebrated the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the remembrance of Herod's decree that all male children two years old and under should be slain. Such a ruthless deed can hardly be conceived of. Yet that is precisely the bestiality of which human pride and blind ambition is capable. George Schultz leads the American delegate to Geneva where he will engage the Russian delegates in arms talks. There will be posturing and maneuvering but the bottom line will be to come out in the position of power because our world lives under the delusion that security resides in power and the greater nuclear arsenal when, as a matter of fact, those very arsenals on either side of the great ideological divide have made the world more insecure than at any time in its history. And to what lengths will either side not go if threatened? Is there any stopping point in this international madness? Perhaps only Herod's desperate conspiracy to rid the world of God's Messiah can be compared with our present age marching to its doom. Not truth, mercy and compassion, but power; that is our madness. The Magi came to Jerusalem and the Scribes and chief priests, the servants of God, His representatives among the people were able to answer the question when the Messiah was to be born, but we hear nothing of their own pilgrimage to find him. But before we are too hard on them, let us remind ourselves that we just celebrated the coming of God in our time and space and, yet, has not perhaps our very familiarity with that amazing story left us dull and untouched? If God has come to us, revealed His grace to us, placed His claim upon us, what sort of people then ought we to be? © Grand Valley State University �Follow the Star: Trust the Vision Richard A. Rhem Page 8   Need I expand on that question? Does not the question itself convict us of the apathy and spiritual deadness of our lives? But the Season is Epiphany, the sign is a star, the truth - God revealed in Jesus, and all who hunger and yearn and long for God will find Him and finding Him, worship and in worship find their true selves. And those that find God in the face of Jesus will be a people of hope, knowing that God has entered our past to give us a sign of our future - a future determined not by human possibility but by the grace and power of God Who will create new heaven and a new earth. His People are a people of hope living in the present in light of the future, which God has prepared for those that love Him. We have celebrated Christmas. Now it is ours to live out in all our ordinary days, following the star, trusting the vision. Reference: Raymond E. Brown. The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Anchor Bible Reference Library, Doubleday, 1993. © 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 Epiphany Sunday Scripture Text Matthew 2:9 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Raymond Brown. The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives_,1993 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-0-19850106 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-01-06 Title A name given to the resource Follow the Star: Trust the Vision Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> 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 January 6, 1985 entitled "Follow the Star: Trust the Vision", on the occasion of Epiphany Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Matthew 2:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Hope Inclusive Magi Mystery Nativity Revelation Spiritual Quest