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Paul: Civil War; The Human Dilemma
From the series: Varieties of Religious Experience
Text: Acts 8:1, 8:3, 9:14; Romans 7:19, 24-25
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
April 18,1999
Transcription of the spoken sermon
In 1902, William James, considered by many to be America’s foremost
philosopher who had moved into the field of psychology, delivered the Gifford
Lectures in Edinburgh, Scotland, one of the most prestigious lecture series still in
the world today, and he entitled his lectures, "The Varieties of Religious
Experience." His lectures have become a classic, The Varieties of Religious
Experience, a very fine read if you ever see it on the book shelf. I read those this
week, because in Eastertide I want to be thinking about some of the different
responses to Jesus Christ, to his death and resurrection and the expectation of his
coming. People are different, and our religious response varies from individual to
individual, and I was somewhat interested in what William James had to say
about Paul, for example.
Paul’s story is familiar to us. I didn’t read the account in Acts, but we know that
he was a Pharisee, the strictest sort of observant Jew, who were very fine people,
but who get bad press in the New Testament because of the antagonism. Paul was
also so committed to the Jewish faith and its propagation that he saw the Jesus
Jewish movement as a threat, so he was on his way to stamp it out, on the way to
Damascus, for example. He was knocked off his horse with a bright light and a
voice said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" Going into Damascus,
received with fear and trembling by the little community of Jewish Jesus people
there, he receives baptism and he becomes the great Apostle, St. Paul.
St. Paul is one of the significant figures in the whole of our western history and
has had a tremendous shaping affect on our understanding of the Christian
gospel. Paul did see something. Paul was a radical in that he went to the root and
he had a vision, an understanding of the gospel of God in Jesus Christ which has
shaped the whole Christian tradition, subsequently. There are those who say
Jesus was not the founder of Christianity, but Paul was, and one can make a case
for that, actually.
Paul saw something and he spent the rest of his life telling the story of Jesus,
proclaiming faith in Jesus Christ, establishing churches, and so forth, and we
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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speak about that Damascus Road experience as Paul’s conversion. But, that really
isn’t right, for Paul wasn’t converted. Paul never thought of himself as anything
but a Jew. Paul never served or worshiped any God but the God of Israel. What
happened to Paul in that Damascus Road experience was not so much a
conversion as a calling, and it was in that experience that he felt called to take the
news of Jesus to the Gentile world, because what Paul believed, what he saw,
what so startled him was the fact that Jesus Christ was the means by which God
was overcoming that ancient separation of the Jew and all the rest of the people.
Jew - Gentile. If you weren’t a Jew, you were a Gentile. In his Letter to the
Ephesians, he uses the term, "That middle wall of partition" that separated the
Jew from all the rest. In Jesus Christ, Paul was convinced that that wall was taken
down and the grand vision that Paul had was this sense that, in Jesus Christ,
what God was doing was creating one new humanity. That great gulf was being
bridged, and Paul had as his passion to be the instrument by which that Gentile
world would come to God through Jesus Christ and, in that, be united with Israel,
with the Jew, and there would no longer be that great separation, but one
community of the people of God. He began to see that he was the instrument of
the bringing in of the Gentile, and the bringing in of the Gentile was literally
bringing into the covenant of grace, bringing into the aegis of the God of Israel.
That’s really what was happening. There were congregations that he founded all
over the place and they were composed of Gentile converts and Jewish
Christians, or we can say Jesus Jews. And in any community where he went, that
was the makeup and in such a makeup there was the beginning of the realization
of his great hope and his vision, but also there was great tension. Paul had no
argument, really, with the Jew. Paul remained a Jew. Paul was an observant Jew
when he was with Jews, according to his own word.
Let’s just say, for example, that this half of the house are Jewish Christians, Jews
who have come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. This half of the house,
Gentiles. Any kind of a mix of religious experience was pagan, whatever you want
to call it. Now, Paul, when he’s with this crowd, is kosher. When he’s with the
other crowd, he has ham on buns. And he does that with good conscience,
because he realizes that all of those religious rituals and ordinances and
regulations are finally inconsequential. He has had an experience of God in Jesus
Christ that transcends all of his religious observance. But, he doesn’t derogate it;
he’s not negative about it, and he continues, in order to win the Jew, to be a Jew
when he’s with Jews, and to win the Gentiles, to be a Gentile when he’s with the
Gentiles.
Problem: As long as you stay on your side of the house and you stay on your side
of the house, no problem. But, what happens when we have a banquet, a potluck,
and the Gentile Christians say, "Ach, we’ll cook this time?" Menu? Ham. What are
you going to do? You’re observant Jews, even though you believe in Jesus as the
Messiah. Now there’s a little kink in the community, and we can laugh about it,
© Grand Valley State University
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but it was a serious problem. We know that it was so serious that Peter and Paul
had a confrontation in Galatia, and those good Jewish people who came to
believe that Jesus was the Messiah continued to think of themselves as Jewish,
they continued to follow Torah, they observed Sabbath, they observed the dietary
laws, they practiced circumcision. Nothing really changed so much, except that
they saw in Jesus God’s onward movement, Jesus the Messiah who eventually
will come and finish it all. But, over here, there is no knowledge of that
background, no sensitivity to that background, and now you’re trying to forge one
new community, a people with that kind of diversity, and there was tension.
Paul had been a happy Jew. Sometimes we think of Paul as having this bad
conscience and burden of sin, but that’s not Paul. If you read Paul through Martin
Luther and St. Augustine, then you get the bad conscience and the heavy burden
of sin and heavy guilt and all that. Augustine with his profligate life, never got
over it, and screwed us up in the West in our understanding of sexuality ever
since. And Luther with his tormented soul, learning from Augustine. Tormented
soul: "How can I find a gracious God?" Both of them went back to Paul, and we
read Paul through Luther, through Augustine. But, that wasn’t Paul.
You read in Philippians, the third chapter, Paul’s autobiographical notes, he says
in regard to the law, "I was blameless," and as Krister Stendahl says in his
discussion of Paul, Paul had a robust conscience. Paul didn’t go mealy-mouthing
around, groveling in the dust. Paul had a very good sense of who he was and what
he had been as a Jew, and he is not really responsible for what has been done to
him and the interpretation through Augustine and Luther and into
Protestantism, especially Reformed Protestantism. Paul, himself, Krister
Stendahl says, according to his character and his academic achievements, was a
very happy Jew. But, he had seen something more, and what he had seen is that it
was possible to transcend his highly respected Judaism into a more spiritual,
transforming relationship with God, and his concern was to get these two groups
together. He knew that in order to get them together, that this group could not go
over here and become Jewish. He fought that to the death. And he knew that
these people couldn’t simply come over here and give up their Judaism, but he
knew both of them could find a meeting place in the grace of God in Jesus Christ
by faith, not by religious observance.
Now, you may ask, "If Paul wasn’t one of these guys groveling in the dust, what
about chapter seven of Romans that you read?"
Well, let me tell you about chapter seven of Romans. You have to read it in the
context. To whom is Paul speaking? Paul is speaking to Jewish Christians. If you
read the beginning of the chapter, he’s speaking to those who know about Torah
and all that stuff. And so, he wants to show them that the Torah way won’t finally
get the job done. He’s come to see that, and he wants them to see that so that they
can let go of it, so that they can move here. And so, he gives them a little
commentary on Genesis, chapter three, verses 7-12 of the seventh of Romans. He
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Richard A. Rhem
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says, "You remember the story - in the beginning when God formed a garden,
created Adam and Eve and said to them, ‘Now look, there is orchard after orchard
after orchard. You can eat any of the fruit. But, there’s one tree in the middle.
Don’t touch it.’" Paul says, "What happened? They touched it."
I mean, what happens to you when I say, "No?" You say, "Yes." Or, when I say,
"Yes," you say, "No."
Paul said, "I’ve discovered there is something in the human being that is contrary
and you say you can’t have it, covetousness begins to generate, and I want it."
And so, Paul says there is nothing wrong with the command, nothing wrong with
the Law. But the Law exacerbated the human situation.
The old serpent, the liar, comes and says to Eve, "What did God say?"
Eve says, "Well, God said we could have a lot of stuff."
"Oh, but not that one, eh? You know why? Because God knows that the moment
you eat that fruit, the moment you go against the command, your eyes will be
opened and you will be like God, and you will have the knowledge of good and
evil."
For once, the old liar wasn’t lying, because that’s just what happened. She took
the fruit, she shared it with Adam, and their eyes were opened, and they looked at
each other and knew that they were naked, which is not a statement about having
no clothes on, but is a statement about their real condition. They took the fruit
and awareness dawned on them. They took the fruit and they became like God,
knowing the difference between good and evil, they gained a moral sense. They
came to consciousness and awareness and their mind blew.
That is a parable. It is a profound parable, and Paul says, "That’s what the Law
does. It exacerbates that in the human person which is contrary and it excites the
opposite response."
Well, we call that the Fall. I think it’s Milton in his Paradise Lost who speaks
about the paradox about the fortunate Fall. Now, tell me, if you were Eve and you
had it to do all over again, what would you do, knowing what you know? Would
you live in blissful ignorance, unconscious, unaware, like the rest of the animals
that Adam named? Or, would you also, knowing the consequence, take the fruit
and have your eyes opened and come to awareness and find in the wake of that all
of the hell on earth, from Kosovo to the Holocaust to broken promises and the
tragedy that stalks our steps? What would you do?
Garden of Eden? Garden of Eden in Paradise? Unaware so that, well, excuse my
language, like a dog you could urinate, defecate or copulate at ease, any time, any
place, with total unawareness. Do you ever look at a dog and envy the dog? That
© Grand Valley State University
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beautiful innocence, unaware. Or, would you, too, bite the apple and pay the price
of human being?
Now, Paul paints that picture in order to say to Jewish Christians who are
following Torah, "Look where following religious observances finally leads.
Legalism, moralism, obligation, dotting the i, crossing the t, can keep you hedged
in, but it will never transform you inwardly so you are sprung free to soar with
the Spirit." He was trying to say to the Jewish Christian community there is
another way than Torah. He says, "Look, Torah? It is good and righteous and
holy. It is of God. With my mind, I affirm it. Everything that it entails, I affirm
with my mind. But, this mental, spiritual part of us," Paul says, "is housed in a
body and because it’s housed in a body with all of the drives and all of the
coercions and all of the temptations and all of the seductions, there’s a civil war
going on within the human being. With the law of my mind, I serve God. With the
law of my flesh, I serve sin." Paul says flesh battles against spirit and the spirit
battles against flesh, and I don’t understand my own actions. The good that I
would, I don’t do, and the evil I would not do, I do, oh wretch that I am. Who will
deliver me from this body of death?
Can any of you identify with that? Don’t tell me. Don’t raise your hands. I
wouldn’t want your spouse to know. Can you identify with that? Is that not the
human dilemma? Are we not the battleground? Are we not caught up in a civil
war between that which we affirm in our spiritual selves and that which we
actually live out in this body of death?
Paul was trying to say to the Jewish Christian community which was still
observing Torah that that’s not the answer, and we could get you all together if
you could see what I see, if you could see that there is the possibility for a
freedom in the spirit of Jesus Christ. The eighth chapter of Romans is that
marvelous chapter on life in the Spirit and it is Paul’s answer to that civil war that
he finds within himself.
I read William James and found him fascinating. Paul is Paul. Augustine was
Augustine; Luther was Luther; John Bunyan of Pilgrim’s Progress, with the load
on his back, was John Bunyan - we all respond differently. We all come with a
different set of hormones and genes and backgrounds, environments, but
William James did say there were two distinct kinds of people: there were the
healthy-minded and the sick soul. The healthy-minded, the sunny personality,
like a Walt Whitman who revels in this life, revels in the world, revels in the grass
and the flowers and the trees, who never seems to have a cloud in the sky. And
then there are the Augustines and the Luthers, such like, that seem tormented
always with this sense of failure, of condemnation, the burden of guilt they never
seem to get rid of. There are different people and religions can exacerbate it or
reinforce one or the other.
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But, William James says, in regard to the healthy-minded like a Whitman, there
is finally a superficiality there because, he says, it won’t do for one to just whistle
a happy tune. It will not do for one to whistle in the dark, to deny the darkness.
We are not isolated individuals. We cannot be cognizant of what’s going on in
Kosovo without our being caught up with it, and if we think long enough and
deeply enough into our own hearts and look around us, we know that there is a
certain tragedy that is a part of the human scene. There is suffering; there is
misery; and finally we die, and anybody who thinks long and hard about that,
knows that it is not enough simply to whistle under a sunny, blue sky as though
that’s all there is.
There’s more to it than that, and Paul knew that that "more to it" was the very
kind of nature that we have, this human nature that can affirm the law of God
with the mind and get all caught up in selfishness and greed and hostility and
hatred and anger and create a Kosovo or a Holocaust and the impossible
darkness that is a part of our human scene. So, William James, very sensitively
dealing with these things, says, "Healthy-mindedness has its limits." And while
he would not advocate that we all become examples of the sick soul person,
nonetheless, we do recognize that also within us there is raging a civil war which
sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, and I suspect that Paul, who had this
vision of one grand humanity, and the possibility of it by seeing this salvation by
faith in the grace of God, may have overplayed his hand.
If you read the eighth chapter of Romans, it will give you goose bumps. There are
marvelous passages there, but I’m not sure that one moves chronologically from
Romans seven to Romans eight and ever gets rid of Romans seven. I think to our
dying day we will live as divided personalities. I think to our dying day we will
struggle with this body of death which will not cooperate with the nobility and the
magnificence that this mind can envision, and our soaring with the Spirit of God
in the heights will never pull us free fully from our anchorage in the mud and the
physicality of this body that is the house and the ground of the Spirit.
Paul may have promised more than any of us will ever realize, but he did see that
it is not in religious observance, it is not in the fulfillment of heavy obligation, it is
not in prescribing to legalism or moralism, but it is in catching a glimpse of grace
that there lies the possibility for some freedom from the struggle. He did
understand that what we all need to hear is that we are accepted.
This is the point at which traditionally and still too often in the Church the
minister takes the occasion to exacerbate the load of guilt and the sense of failure
of the people. This is the point in this message when this preacher would like to
say to you, "Drop your guilt. Let it go. It doesn’t help. There’s nothing positive
about it. It will do you no good, except keep you bound at a point at which you
will not know the freedom of grace."
© Grand Valley State University
�Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
We’ll never shed this shell as long as we live. We’re never going to get beyond the
human dilemma. But, it’s a human dilemma. It’s a human possibility, and it’s a
humanity embraced by God, Who, after all, as the Psalmist says, "Knows our
frame and remembers that we are dust," making us thus. Maybe the finest
statement of what I am trying to say was written by Paul Tillich:
It strikes us when our disgust of our own being, our indifference, our
weakness, our hostility and our lack of direction and composure have
become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed for
perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within
us, as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.
Sometimes, at that moment, a wave of light breaks into our darkness and
it is as though a voice were saying, "You are accepted. You are accepted."
Accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do
not know. Do not ask for the name now. Perhaps you’ll find it later. Do not
try to do anything now. Perhaps you will do much later. Do not seek for
anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept
the fact that you are accepted and, if that happens, you have experienced
grace.
© Grand Valley State University
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e8ab868094ec9b7909183b74d5e4190e
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Interfaith worship
Sermons
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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1981-2014
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Event
Eastertide III
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Varieties of Religious Experience
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Acts 8:1, ,9:14, Romans 7:19, 24-25
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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1999-04-18
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Paul: Civil War; The Human Dilemma
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 18, 1999 entitled "Paul: Civil War; The Human Dilemma", as part of the series "Varieties of Religious Experience", on the occasion of Eastertide III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 8:1, ,9:14, Romans 7:19, 24-25.
Forgiveness
Grace
Inclusive
Transcendence
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Text
“Father, forgive them…”
From the series: A True Story: The Gospel and Forgiveness
Text: Luke 23:34
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
March 24, 1999
Transcription of the spoken sermon
"A True Story: The Gospel and Forgiveness," has been our Lenten theme this
season. The story is the story written by Simon Wiesenthal reflecting his own
experience in the Nazi concentration camp, being pulled aside at one point and
taken into the room of a dying Nazi officer who poured out his confession, his
terrible atrocity that he had perpetrated as one of the SS troops, burning alive a
village of Jews, a horrible story, pleading to this one token Jew, as it were, to
forgive him. Wiesenthal listened to the story, sat almost paralyzed, then he rose
and left without saying a word, and the little book, The Sunflower, that he writes,
concludes with the question, not an answer, but with the question, "What would
you have done?"
That’s where we began a few weeks ago and tonight we bring our reflections on
that question to a conclusion. Probably not to a conclusion in terms of being
finished with it, but at least for these Wednesday night considerations.
The matter of forgiveness is much more complex than I had ever been aware,
which may sound very strange because it would seem that being in the ministry
almost 40 years now, would not forgiveness be the stuff that I have dealt with
every day? In thought and reflection and in relationships, preaching and
teaching, forgiveness - it seems like it is the most obvious commodity with which
we in the church have to do. And yet, I think that in these weeks I have thought
about it at a level at which I have never thought about it before, and it’s a much
more complex matter than I ever realized. That’s why I began with the question a
few weeks ago, "Is it possible, is it moral?"
The Jewish traditions say I cannot forgive you for something that you’ve done to
another. I can only forgive you for what you’ve done to me. It is very easy for us,
with our Gospel of grace, to move into cheap grace and cheap grace would fail to
take seriously the plight of the victim. It would devalue the victim and tend
simply to shove everything under the rug. It’s very easy to do that. We have seen
that actions and attitudes do have their consequences.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Forgiveness does not rule out the consequence of what we have done. There is a
harvest at the end of our days and, in the meantime, as well. And yet, forgiveness
certainly must be possible, for we are in a dead-end situation of unrelieved
darkness, but it is a complex matter, and I wonder if the fact that I hadn’t really
ever wrestled with the nature of forgiveness or what was involved or its
possibility is not because I was raised, as I suppose most of you were, with a very
traditional idea of the atoning death of Jesus Christ as the place where
forgiveness was procured for us. Are you with me? God is holy; we have sinned.
We cannot do anything about our situation, for we daily increase our debt. Does
that sound like catechism? And consequently, if anything were to be done for us
to deliver us from the weight of our sin, it would have to be by another. God
provided another. Jesus came to die for our sins. He bore our sins away, thereby
making possible forgiveness. That’s the way you learned it, isn’t it?
And there’s something powerful about that image and when I speak about it
tonight, I don’t want you to hear caricature. I hope I won’t caricature nor ridicule.
I simply want you to know that, as I’m thinking about that and it’s not just in this
Lenten season but in these more recent years, I’ve come to recognize that that
image falls short, and I think it falls short here - that atoning death of Jesus that
took away our sin and created the possibility for God to forgive us in the
traditional understanding, that was a transaction that happened apart from us.
Martin Luther was so strong at that point. It happened apart from us, on our
behalf, and it had a very objective element about it. There was a debt to be
settled, a score to be settled, and to use the phrase of another Lutheran writer,
Jesus took the rap for us, and that happens in the evangelical and orthodox
presentation of atonement theory, that happens apart from us.
There’s an old hymn, "‘Tis done, ‘tis done, the great transaction’s done," and that
imagery has been repeated in the old hymns and in our liturgies. The Reformed
Church liturgy of many, many years had this statement, "He was forsaken by God
that we need never be forsaken."
"Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white
as snow."
"There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins and sinners
plunged beneath that flood loose all their guilty stains."
Something happened between God and Jesus objectively, out there, on my behalf,
quite apart from any engagement by me. That’s a rather powerful imagery and
one can see what was going on. Our debt, our sins transferred to another who
suffered the wrath of God on our behalf in order that we might be set free,
forgiven.
Now, I’m suggesting that I never really wrestled with forgiveness that much
because that was all so matter-of-fact and taken for granted, and so what’s the big
deal? Well, that’s not quite fair, because it was a big deal. Some of us might have
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
sung some of those old hymns with tears in our eyes. There was a deep emotional
engagement with that idea because there was this gracious act of God in that God
supplied the one who took the rap for us.
But, think about it for a moment: In that conception of things, there is no
forgiveness. That is not forgiveness. God got God’s pound of flesh. Someone took
the rap for us. The penalty due was meted out. God didn’t forgive anything, which
means that even God is subject to a moral absolute. Even God couldn’t simply
say, "I forgive you." God had to arrange this elaborate structure of substitutionary
atonement because the absolute, the moral absolute, the law is even above God,
and it will be satisfied by God. And so, if God would embrace us and take us
home, God has some dealing to do.
But, once again, this is quite apart from anything really happening in my being.
Do you hear me? You could learn this stuff in the catechism. You might on
occasion even be moved at the thought that there was a love of God that provided
that elaborate institution by which God could now embrace us, but God had a
problem and God had to deal with it and so, as a matter of fact, there was no
forgiveness. God can’t forgive, obviously. I think that that old, traditional imagery
which we took for granted, had been spoon-fed from childhood up, showed us the
formula by which to receive our reprieve without it ever necessarily touching us
or changing us.
Now, I want to suggest that that image of God has been called in question here,
that image of God sitting on a super throne, that moral governor of the universe
out there, apart from us, setting up these respective transactions. Haven’t we
been more inclined to seek God as an Ultimate Mystery flowing out into the
whole cosmic drama, this 15 billion year adventure on which we are, beginning
with whatever Big Bang was with the coalescing of matter, the emergence of
inanimate matter, then animate matter, life, and then conscious life, and then
human being, and then human history, human culture, that trajectory on which
we are ourselves as we speak? And if God is that Ultimate Mystery Whose Spirit
is the enlivening, energizing, creative force moving through all that is, pushing,
nudging, driving toward human humanity, humanization, then it is not as though
some governor outside created us perfect, we falling, therefore taking upon
ourselves the guilt for violating the law of the universe that even was above the
governor, and that whole thing had to be somehow figured, but rather, we are in
an emerging mode and we are still so much animal struggling for survival,
clawing our way from the jungle, emerging out of the slime, moving toward
human community, here and there, now and again it breaks forth, but it’s
constantly driven back. We find ourselves moving in a humane fashion, only to
find all of the old stuff in us rising up now and again.
And it seems to me that the God of this process is not about satisfying some
moral absolute that even holds God hostage, who needs some sacrifice, some
satisfaction, but rather, a God who keeps pushing us, pushing us along, waiting
© Grand Valley State University
�Father, forgive them…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
for us patiently, a God who is not into punishment, not into retribution, for what
is punishment, what is retribution in terms of where this thing is going? We bring
upon ourselves our punishment. Certainly in the ordering of society it is
necessary for law and order and all of that. That’s another whole complex thing.
But, I’m thinking about the soul of the universe now. I’m thinking about where
it’s all going; I’m thinking about that creative Spirit that’s pushing toward
ultimate world community, ultimate humane existence, ultimate humanization
and whatever other levels of being there may be beyond us.
It seems to me that our new image of God might suggest, as the Psalmist
suggests, that with that God there is forgiveness, not having to satisfy some
external moral absolute out here, but with that God there is forgiveness and the
image even more powerful of Jesus of the prodigal son who comes home, not to
receive recrimination and condemnation and retribution, but the embrace of the
father. And I come, finally, to my test. There’s Jesus dying who says, "Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do." The most powerful, evocative
emblem of the whole life and work of Jesus is in those words. "Father, forgive
them." Just simply forgive them. Let it go, please. Because they don’t know what
they are doing.
Oh, they knew what they were doing; they knew good and well what they were
doing. They knew as well what they were doing as Slobodan Milosevic knows
what he’s doing, and our Administration and our Defense Department and our
military know what they’re doing in these hours. They knew what they were doing
in the short run. They were maintaining power and position and prestige and the
status quo and business as usual and conventional wisdom. They knew what they
were doing, in the short run.
They didn’t know what they were doing in terms of this 15 billion year process
that we’ve come to understand. They didn’t know what they were doing in terms
of God’s intention and purpose, moving toward fuller humanization. They didn’t
understand. They were blocking, they were hindering, they were throwing up
barriers against where the Spirit would go with this whole thing of which we are a
part. So, Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, because they don’t understand."
Now, there he is, true God, true human. There you see it. There you see the heart
of the Divine. There you see the intention of the human. And it seems to me that
when we are encountered with that kind of spirit reflective of the divine Spirit,
but incarnate in the human, our defenses are defeated. What happens when you
are as guilty as hell and you face the one you have offended and you’re all ready to
marshal your arguments, make your denials, line up your excuses, rationalize
your behavior, and you meet grace and forgiveness. All of that which you have
gotten ready with which to carry on a defense of your life project melts, and you
begin to weep and there is a contrition that cannot be contrived that rushes to the
surface, and you say, "Oh, my God." Then there’s a moment of self-awareness, a
© Grand Valley State University
�Father, forgive them…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
moment of honesty. There is then in the presence of such grace the capacity to
own my story as my story, and then I’m forgiven.
References:
Simon Wiesenthal. The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of
Forgiveness. Shocken, revised, expanded edition, 1998.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3772345027dd2f3e5dc99e5b032d623a.mp3
7f756cd38c93d8f4bba1b09847cd4738
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Event
Midweek Lent
Series
A True Story, The Gospel and Forgiveness
Scripture Text
Luke 23:34
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19990324
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1999-03-24
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Father, forgive them...
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Text
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audio/mp3
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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 24, 1999 entitled "Father, forgive them...", as part of the series "A True Story, The Gospel and Forgiveness", on the occasion of Midweek Lent, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 23:34.
Forgiveness
Grace
Lent
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/139f4481f621ddf12e571e8dcb6eb02a.pdf
380923680575ca04bb2aa81a0d07174a
PDF Text
Text
Brazen to the End
From the series: A True Story, the Gospel and Forgiveness
Text: Luke 23:39
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Lent, March 10, 1999
Transcription of the spoken sermon
"A True Story, The Gospel and Forgiveness." That’s the overall theme of our
reflections during this Lenten season, midweek, and we have raised the question
about the possibility of forgiveness and whether or not it’s even moral, and we
have seen that attitudes and actions do have their consequences, quite apart from
whether or not forgiveness is possible and moral. This evening the meditation is
entitled, "Brazen to the End," and I was going to deal with the one criminal
crucified with Jesus who was brazen to the end, to be followed next week by the
other criminal who pled for mercy in his dying hour. But, next week we’ll have a
special opportunity to hear The Rev. Dr. Mel White, our evening preacher in a
Lenten service of this format, but with a special theme and emphasis. So, I’m
going to have to lump the two criminals together and retitle the meditation.
Perhaps I could say "Broken or Brazen at the End." That’s pretty good, eh? You
get the whole thing and I only have half the work, you see. "Broken or Brazen at
the End."
Last Lenten season on a Sunday morning I made history; it was the first time
from a Christian pulpit that a rebellious criminal got any good press. I suggested
that there was something heroic about his "No" all the way to the end. (We only
lost one family. No sense of humor, I guess.) Well, obviously, Luke sets us up and
his intention is clear. He has that magnificent word of Jesus, "Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do," which will be the text for two weeks from
tonight. And then he has the two criminals, the one brazen to the end, railing at
Jesus with his last breath, with no intention or indication that there was anything
like repentance or second thoughts going on in his life.
And then the other criminal, of course, pleading with Jesus to remember him,
acknowledging that what he was receiving was the just dessert of his deeds but
pleading for mercy, nonetheless, which mercy was granted him by the promise of
Jesus. And, of course, the Gospel intention of Luke was to show the magnificent
grace of Jesus and to show two opposite reactions, one a brazen attitude all the
way to the last breath, the other a brokenness that opened oneself up for mercy.
© Grand Valley State University
�Brazen to the End
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
If I were to deal only with the one this evening, I would simply have pointed out
the fact that one can only receive forgiveness when one is open to being forgiven.
I can forgive you for something you do to me, in spite of your desire for it or your
openness to it or any response to it. Of course, I can do that. And it will, as a
matter of fact, be good for me to do that, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually.
But, I can’t effect in you the benefit of being forgiven if you are not open to it, and
the reason a year ago I tried to look at the rebellious criminal from a little
different angle was the fact that we are so quick to look at that snapshot from the
cross and to say the one was bad and damned in his rebelliousness, the other was
bad, forgiven in his plea for mercy, and premature closure says that’s all there is
to it. But, that’s not all there is to it, really.
The story that has triggered this series is The Sunflower, the account by Simon
Wiesenthal of his experience as a prisoner in the death camps of the Nazis, who is
pulled aside by a nurse to come to the bedside of a dying SS officer who pours out
his awful tale of the horrendous things of which he has been a part and for which
he accepts responsibility, needing to confess and, pouring out this story in the
presence of a Jew because the Jewish people were the object of the terror and the
violence of which he was a part. The story ended with Wiesenthal’s question,
"Should I have forgiven him?" Actually, he listened to the story and he left
without saying a word. No word of human compassion or pity, and certainly no
word of forgiveness. He just left the room. I think the very fact that he tells the
story is perhaps indicative of the fact that he needed to do what that Nazi needed
to do. He needed to tell his own story because he has never rested quite easily
with the fact that he left a dying man pleading for some word of compassion or
forgiveness without saying a word.
But there are many respondents to the story, which Wiesenthal leaves with the
question asking each of us, "What would you have done?" Most of the
respondents did as one particular British journalist did, saying,
I cannot answer the question, what I would have done. I don’t think any of
us knows what we would have done, given that circumstance, given the
depths of the suffering of those prisoners in that situation. I don’t think
any of us knows what we would have done. So, I’m not going to judge that.
But let me deal with it in terms of the question, What should I have done?
This is one of the respondents who very clearly says there should have been
offered some word of compassion, some word of grace, and he, as a matter of fact,
points to this Gospel paragraph that we read where Jesus says, "Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do."
When you read Wiesenthal’s story and when you see all the respondents who
struggle over that question, "What would I have done?" or "What should I have
done?" you realize the complexity of this matter of forgiveness in human
relationships and, of course, ultimately, forgiveness in terms of God and the
© Grand Valley State University
�Brazen to the End
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Ultimate, the Absolute. We realize that it is just not as simple as we are wont to
make it. Forgiveness is such common fare; we talk about it all the time; we use it
in our liturgies and in our sermons, and yet, the more I think about forgiveness,
the more I recognize what a complex matter that is, for forgiveness must affect
something in the one forgiven.
The reason that I say a good word about the criminal who never repented is that
he was one of those, like a Simon Wiesenthal. Barabbas, the person mentioned in
one of the other Gospels whom Pilate wanted to release, is called an
insurrectionist, and the Romans didn’t crucify petty thieves. You can bet that all
of the crosses that lined the hillsides out of Jerusalem were political terrorists,
rebels, revolutionaries, threats to the peace and order of the State, and we know
that Jesus made his protest against the way the world was with non-violence, but
we know, as well, that there were zealots, there were guerilla bands, there were
revolutionaries roaming the countryside, and who of us can say where we would
have been in a case like that? Where there is the heel of the oppressor on the neck
of a people. We, ourselves, American people, are the beneficiaries of those who
rebelled and revolted against that which they considered unjust which was
nothing compared to what was going on in first century Palestine.
So, once again, the reason that I’m just not ready to damn that brazen thief is
that, like with Wiesenthal, I don’t know what he was suffering. I don’t know what
he went through. I think it’s possible for a human being to be so damaged and so
wounded that he can never, never emotionally yield his hatred and his violence.
It’s just too easy for me just to say, "Well, then he’s damned to hell."
But, to die that way is a terrible way to die, and Luke was obviously setting up the
other criminal as a model modeled after Jesus. What I am experiencing and
suffering I have earned, nevertheless, I plea for mercy, for forgiveness. And
what’s going on in these two cases? What is not going on in the brazen one is that
coming to self-awareness that sets him free from his anger and his hatred and his
woundedness. That’s what’s going on. And what’s going on in the other one is
that same self-awareness that overtook that young German SS officer who said,
"My God, what have I done?", whose repentance was deep and genuine. To come
to that awareness, a certain integrity of being, an owning of one’s life and one’s
story, is the prerequisite for receiving the benefit and the blessing of forgiveness.
So, is that it, then? In spite of the fact that we handle gently the brazen one
because we don’t know how wounded he may have been, and affirm the other one
because his awareness came before his last breath, is that all there is, then?
It was thinking about that that got me thinking years ago, back in the mid-80s,
about the ancient Church’s teaching of purgatory, the fact that none of us at the
end of our life, in spite of whether or not we may have perceived the word of
forgiveness, is ready for the presence of God. That for the best of us as well as the
worst of us, there is a good deal of cleaning up that must be necessary, a good
© Grand Valley State University
�Brazen to the End
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
deal more of self-awareness and consequently of repentance and transformation.
It was at that point that I began to see the wisdom of the ancient Church’s
teaching on purgatory and then I came across this marvelous paragraph from
C.S. Lewis in his Letters to Malcolm, who says,
Our souls demand purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if
God said to us, "It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags
drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will
upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the
joy!"
Should we not reply, "With submission, Sir, and if there is no objection, I’d
rather be cleaned first."
"It may hurt, you know."
"Even so, Sir."
I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering,
partly from tradition, partly because most real good that has been done to
me in this life has involved it, but I don’t think suffering is the purpose of
the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much
better than I will suffer less than I or more, no nonsense about merit. The
treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much.
My favorite image on this matter comes from the dentist chair. I hope that
when the tooth of life is drawn and I am coming ‘round, a voice will say,
"Rinse out your mouth with this." This will be purgatory.
And so, you see, I think it’s much too simple and superficial to have us live our
respective lives, some a little better, some a little worse, but like C. S. Lewis said,
no nonsense about merit. But, it’s too simple and too superficial to say that at the
end of it all one says, "Forgive me," or one continues to say "No" and to have that
be the eternal issue of our being. I heard tell some time ago of an old fellow whose
funeral was conducted and the family was so delighted by the fact that two days
before he died he was led to the Lord by a nurse. Well, that can be wonderful.
But, I mean, the family was so happy about the fact that the old man escaped the
fires of hell and was entered into the pearly gates because two days before his
death he finally said, "Yes."
Does that really make sense? Does that really resonate with you? It doesn’t with
me, frankly. Much more, our lives are being lived out as a tale that is told and
we’ll come, sooner or later, before the face of God, and some of us sooner and
some of us later may find all of the stuff of our lives that’s so sour, causing such
dysfunction and distortion, finally draining away, and then, then maybe that
moment of awareness will come. And is not salvation finally simply awareness,
honesty and integrity before the face of God? Isn’t that all God intends in the
creation of complex creatures like us?
© Grand Valley State University
�Brazen to the End
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
Christopher Hollis, the journalist who responded to the Wiesenthal story, told of
an old medieval legend in which the disciples re-gathered around a table in
heaven with Jesus to re-celebrate the Last Supper, and there was a vacant chair
until the door opened and Judas entered and Jesus rose and kissed him and said,
"We’ve been waiting for you."
I don’t think God will quit until the last child has come to the table.
References:
C. S. Lewis. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Harcourt, Inc., 1964.
Simon Wiesenthal. The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of
Forgiveness. Shocken: revised expanded edition, 1998.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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dd17db0daffdffa559e8e6d94d11c1c4
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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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
Midweek Lent
Series
A True Story, The Gospel and Forgiveness
Scripture Text
Luke 23:39
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, 1964
Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, 1998
Dublin Core
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KII-01_RA-0-19990310
Date
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1999-03-10
Title
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Brazen to the End
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 10, 1999 entitled "Brazen to the End", as part of the series "A True Story, The Gospel and Forgiveness", on the occasion of Midweek Lent, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 23:39.
Forgiveness
Lent
Purgatory
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9c086c421e5f9e87626dc5c7691c1dd1.pdf
c85cd24fb92675ec31ff53b6b1f4469d
PDF Text
Text
Forgiveness: Possible? Moral?
Midweek Lenten Worship
Text: Luke 7:36-50
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
February 24, 1999
Transcription of the spoken sermon
The theme stated in the bulletin, "Forgiveness: Possible? Moral?" is really the
theme of the evening, but there is an overall theme for this Lenten series which I
failed to get printed. It’s called "A True Story: The Gospel and Forgiveness," for I
want us to think on these Lenten meditations about the possibility of forgiveness,
the nature of forgiveness, and the qualities of forgiveness, and what it is that we
understand about forgiveness.
The story is a story called The Sunflower, by Simon Wiesenthal. It is recorded in
this little book, which I was given sometime within the course of the last year. His
name may be familiar to you; he is the Jew who has founded a center located in
Vienna with a branch in Los Angeles. It is a documentation center and Simon
Wiesenthal is one who survived the concentration camps and has given himself to
the pursuit of all of those Nazi war criminals who have managed to escape
punishment. He has given his whole life to their pursuit; he has dogged their
steps. Not so many years ago he was able to track down Adolph Eichmann, you
may remember. Some call him a dangerous fanatic, and yet, Simon Wiesenthal is
a man who, having gone through what he went through, is convinced that the
Holocaust, that story, must be told. He wrote in The New York Times that the
schools will be silent, the churches will wipe out the Holocaust with forgiveness,
and parents will be in denial trying to evade and avoid the raw terror of what
happened fifty some years ago. The Sunflower is his story.
Simon Wiesenthal lost 89 of his relatives; he saw his aged mother crammed into
a boxcar on her way to the death camp. His wife’s mother was shot in the
staircase of her own home. He, himself, miraculously escaped death a dozen
times. He is a man who has two engineering degrees, and was a successful
architect living in Poland, a land where there had been a long history of antiSemitism. He finally was arrested in October of 1943. He made his way through
various camps for the next nearly two years, finally to be liberated by the
American troops in May of 1945. He tells his story in The Sunflower.
© Grand Valley State University
�Forgiveness, Possible, Moral?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
I won’t go into the sunflower symbolism; can’t possibly give you a sense of this
story in a few moments this evening, but the heart of the story is his recounting of
an encounter with a dying Nazi SS officer. He was a prisoner in a death camp; he
was in a detail that was dispatched to a makeshift hospital and, arriving there, a
nurse led him into the room of this dying SS officer whose head was totally
bandaged and who was obviously in his last moments, and the SS officer poured
out his story to Simon Wiesenthal. This is a young German SS officer, 22 years
old, knowing that he is about to die, but recounting the horrors of what he had
done, the most vivid instance that of herding two to three hundred Jewish people
in the village into a three-story house in which they had to carry cans of gasoline
into which were lobbed grenades with the obvious result - explosions and fire,
and with the SS officers around the house with their machine guns at the ready to
gun down anyone who would try to jump or escape in any way. This SS officer
saw a father with a little child in his arms, dark hair and dark eyes. The father put
his hand over the child’s eyes and they leaped from the second story window,
followed by the mother, and whether or not they died on impact or were dead
because of the machine gun, he doesn’t know, and he went on to describe other
horrors of which he was a part, but that particular scene he could not erase from
his mind.
Wiesenthal, near death himself in the death camp and his work detail, sat frozen
on the SS officer’s bed. He wanted to run, but the officer held him firmly and said
that Wiesenthal had to listen to it all. And then the SS officer, after completing
his tale, said,
"When I was still a boy I believed with my mind and soul in God
and in the commandments of the Church. Then everything was
easier. If I still had that faith, I am sure death would not be so hard.
"I cannot die ... without coming clean. This must be my confession,
but what sort of confession is this? A letter without an answer ..."
No doubt he was referring to my silence. But what could I say? Here was a
dying man - a murderer who did not want to be a murderer, but who had
been made into a murderer by a murderous ideology. He was confessing
his crime to a man who perhaps tomorrow must die at the hands of these
same murderers. In his confession there was true repentance, even though
he did not admit it in so many words. Nor was it necessary, for the way he
spoke and the fact that he spoke to me was a proof of his repentance...
He sat up and put his hands together as if to pray.
"I want to die in peace, and so I need ..."
I saw that he could not get the words past his lips, but I was in no mood to
help him. I kept silent.
© Grand Valley State University
�Forgiveness, Possible, Moral?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
I know that what I have told you is terrible. In the long nights while
I have been waiting for death time and again I have longed to talk
about it to a Jew and beg forgiveness from him, only I didn’t know
whether there were any Jews left...
I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you, but
without your answer, I cannot die in peace."
Now there was an uncanny silence in the room. I looked through the
window. The front of the buildings opposite was flooded with sunlight. The
sun was high in the heavens. There was only a small triangular shadow in
the courtyard.
What a contrast between the glorious sunshine outside and the shadow of
this bestial age here in the death chamber. Here lay a man in bed who
wished to die in peace, but he could not because the memory of his terrible
crime gave him no rest. And by him sat a man also doomed to die - but
who did not want to die because he yearned to see the end of all the horror
that blighted the world.
Two men who had never known each other had been brought together by a
few hours by fate. One asks the other for help. But the other was himself
helpless and able to do nothing for him.
I stood up and looked in his direction, at his folded hands... At last I made
up my mind and without a word I left the room.
The account is relatively brief, only ninety-nine pages. These are the last couple of
paragraphs that Wiesenthal writes:
Was my silence at the bedside of the dying Nazi right or wrong? This is a
profound moral question that challenges the conscience of the reader of
this episode just as much as it once challenged my heart and my mind.
There are those who can appreciate my dilemma and so endorse my
attitude. And there are others who will be ready to condemn me for
refusing to ease the last moments of a repentant murderer.
The crux of the matter is, of course, the question of forgiveness. Forgetting
is something that time alone takes care of. But, forgiveness is an act of
volition and only the sufferer is qualified to make the decision.
You who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally
change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question, "What would
I have done?"
The last half of the book is a series of brief responses from some twenty
philosophers, theologians, priests, rabbis, giving the response to his question,
© Grand Valley State University
�Forgiveness, Possible, Moral?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
"What would you have done?" and the book ends without an answer, it remains a
question. It’s a question that I would like to leave with you tonight. It’s a question
that I would like to have us continue to reflect on in this Lenten season.
A dying man in anguish pitifully asks forgiveness from another human being, in
this case, a Jew on behalf of the Jews. He listens to the whole story, but then he
leaves in silence. What would you have done?
All of the respondents, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, are very subdued in their
response because we are so far from that situation that I don’t think there is
anybody that would presume to put themselves in his place and answer for him. I
don’t think that it is possible for us to begin to take in the horror of those years.
Nonetheless, a step removed from the concrete situation in which Wiesenthall
found himself, the moral question is there and that’s why I raise the question
tonight. Forgiveness: Is it possible? Is it moral?
I have learned in the Jewish tradition that there is a very strong tradition that no
one can forgive another for a crime against a third person. I could not forgive you
for something you did to another, that it is only the person sinned against that
can offer forgiveness. And, as I have reflected on that particular thing, I’m also
aware that in the Christian tradition and in a church like Christ Community
which has been marked by grace, there is always the danger of "cheap grace."
Sometime in the last year or so there was one of these awful school shootings, I
think in Arkansas, and the newspaper showed signs of neighbors and young
people having the name of the young man that perpetrated that tragedy saying,
whatever his name was, "(Jim), we forgive you." There is a Jewish commentator,
writer, journalist, Dennis Prager, who wrote a very sharp article on the
dummying down of Christianity, saying that such offering of forgiveness before
there was any admission of guilt or any indication of repentance was the
dummying down of Christianity and an abuse. That’s "cheap grace."
The attitude of "Oh, it doesn’t matter," thinking now not about that Holocaust
situation, but thinking more in general, those who say something doesn’t really
matter, offering easy absolution are not dealing with the reality of evil and the
necessity of repentance and reformation in human life. Forgiveness can be
bandied about easily if we don’t take seriously the extent to which we injure one
another. Forgiveness ought not to come easily.
And yet, forgiveness is rooted in our image of God, our sense of God. Forgiveness
was imaged in the God of Israel. The Psalmist said, "Oh, Lord, if you should mark
iniquity, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness." And that
forgiveness of the God of Israel was reflected in the ministry of Jesus. The woman
who came to him off the street, a woman of the night, into the Pharisee’s house,
to whom he extends forgiveness, seeing in the love of her life a kind of human
transformation that is affected by the touch of grace.
© Grand Valley State University
�Forgiveness, Possible, Moral?
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
My favorite novel, drama, musical, "Les Miserables," has Jean Valjean fleeing the
police inspector, taking refuge in the convent, robbing in the middle of the night
the silver of the priest, only to be apprehended and brought back to the priest by
the gendarmes, and the priest saying, "I gave it to him." And then looking Jean
Valjean in the eye, saying, "I exorcize the evil of your heart. Go out a new man."
And the story is of the transformation of the human being.
Forgiveness. What darkness there would be if, when one comes to that point of
self-knowledge and the honest confronting of oneself and lays it bare, that one
would meet only with silence. Doesn’t it give you a chill to think of that? Not in
any sense to take away from Wiesenthal or to judge him, and to recognize that
perhaps he had no right to offer forgiveness to the SS officer for crimes against
those who had suffered. Nonetheless, as one commentator suggested, maybe just
some word of recognition and understanding short of the offer of absolution. And
yet, as we will think in these Lenten weeks, it is God who forgives, but that
remains abstract until we forgive one another, not lightly, not nonchalantly, but
seriously in the light of honest repentance which is a change of mind and a
raising of consciousness or a coming to oneself. Then the Gospel says that for
such a one there is forgiveness, forgiveness because that’s the way God is,
ultimately, ultimately, full of grace.
References:
Simon Wiesenthal. The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of
Forgiveness. Shocken; revised expanded edition, 1998.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/712f57623b2683c126167329b9299a9a.mp3
25c97ec529099e6e194699fb5e07fe43
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Event
Midweek Lent
Scripture Text
Luke 7:36-50
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19990224
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1999-02-24
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Forgiveness: Possible? Moral?
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 24, 1999 entitled "Forgiveness: Possible? Moral?", on the occasion of Midweek Lent, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 7:36-50.
Forgiveness
Grace
Lent
Nature of God
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dc40fffac91f8594073fdf4bfafa1cff.pdf
5253038d028786cd2f53ec810c1efb2c
PDF Text
Text
Freedom
From the series: The Human Face of God
Text: Luke 23:34
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Palm Sunday, April 5, 1998
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Luke tells us that when Jesus came to the crest of Olivet and beheld the city, he
wept over it. He had set his face firmly to go to Jerusalem because, once he was
sure that he was claimed and called, and once he had a sense of his mission and
the vision clarified, he knew that finally it would be to Jerusalem that he must go.
And we find him now on the threshold of that entrance into the city where he will
confront them with an alternative vision, with an alternative possibility for the
structuring of the world, and as he stands there, he weeps, because, really, he
knows that that vision will be rejected and he will be crucified and his concern, I
think, was not in that moment that he would be crucified, but that Jerusalem
would reel on its way to terrible destruction, because it was a blindness of the
people, the blindness of the structures of society, structures of religion and
imperial power that would eventuate in that awful decimation of the city that
indeed did happen about three decades later.
Jesus wept. He came into the city as a peaceable king. Luke began the story of
Jesus, the birth, with the angels’ chorus, "Peace on earth, good will to those in
whom God is pleased." Luke makes Jesus’ entry into the city at this point the
coming of the peaceable king. In Luke there is no waving of the palm branches,
because the waving of the palm branches had nationalistic overtones. In Luke,
there’s no huge multitude; it is the disciples who praise God and hail him as
Messiah. Luke throughout pictures Jesus as the one who brings peace, who
pleads for a peaceable way, who stands now overlooking the city weeping,
lamenting, saying, "If only you knew the things that make for peace; but, you’ve
missed God’s moment," and consequently Jesus wept for that which would
transpire inevitably because he knew that the salvation of the world would come
about in one way only, the way of grace, of love, of reconciliation, and he could
see that that alternative possibility, call it the kingdom of God or the realm of God
or the way the world would be if God were running the world - that alternative
vision, he knew, would once again be rejected. And so, Jesus would be crucified.
Jerusalem would be destroyed. But the tragedy was Jerusalem.
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
Jesus was not a tragic figure, and what I want to focus on for a few moments this
morning is the magnificent freedom of Jesus. It is the freedom that is the
consequence of one being so secure in the sense of one’s calling, being so certain
that the will of God has bound him to a certain path, that he must proceed, but he
proceeds out of the inner core of his being so that the expression of his life is the
expression of who he really is, and that is freedom. It is to live one’s life in accord
with ones deepest instincts and core values, to live one’s life according to what
one really believes and knows to be right by the grace of God. That is freedom.
And Jesus, as he stands over Jerusalem contemplates its tragedy. He will be
crucified, but he’s free. He was free because he knew that what he knew was right.
He was free because he knew there is salvation and wholeness in no other way
than the way of reconciliation and peace. He was free because he knew that he
must be about the mending of creation, about healing and transformation, and
having that clear and being totally faithful to that vision, he moves now toward
the city with a certain freedom. Not without struggle. And his struggle is not over
yet. Nonetheless, he knows that he is acting not out of a compulsion, an external
pressure; he is acting not out of fear; he is acting not out of compromise or
cowardice; he is acting out of the core of his being, and that is freedom.
Jesus was able to act out and live into the reality of which he was totally
convinced and that is that the world needs an alternative to the way it has
conducted itself if it would ever find the salve, the salvation and the healing
which he believed was the intention of God for the human family and, indeed, for
the whole created order. And Jesus was willing to engage the structures of his day
and his society in the name of the God of grace, conveying that sense of God’s
concern for justice with compassion, opening himself up to those who were
rejected, thereby gaining the enmity of those who were the guardians of the law
and the proper structuring of society. But, he was free. He dared to do it. He was
bold to do it. He did it, and, of course, they killed him for it.
As we said last week, it seems as though nothing has changed. I brought this
magazine, Tikkun, with me last week and shared a piece from Kathleen Kern who
is a Christian who went to Israel to be a peacemaker between the Palestinians and
the Israelis and was disillusioned with the terrible conflict and hatred, suspicion
and fear that exists between those people, and the way in which the Israeli
government has treated the Palestinians. I want to be very clear that I love Israel,
and I respect Israel because it is out of the Jewish voice that their self-criticism
arises. This is criticism within, which is rare in this world.
Tzi Marx, a young man who was here three or four years ago at one of the David
Hartman Dialogues, and at that time, was connected with the Hartman Institute.
He writes a piece in this issue of Tikkun. It’s entitled "From Idealism to Idolatry."
He talks about his disillusionment. He had come to Israel as a young man with all
kinds of expectations about the founding of the state of Israel as a place for
people to dwell in holiness, and he sees what has happened, the co-opting of the
nation by power politics and the positioning of power, blind ambition and all of
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
that which has gone counter to that spiritual vision with which the state was
founded. He says, "What happened to the religious vision in which I returned to
the Holy Land which stimulates the realization of holiness as in a kingdom of
priests and holy people? In which the holy ideals envisioned in the holiness code
of Leviticus, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy,’ culminating in
the loving of one’s neighbor and the stranger would be realized?" He said,
"What’s happened? What’s happened?"
And then he recognizes that it is the religion, the national religion that permeates
the mind of a young man who takes his gun and assassinates a Rabin who is the
Prime Minister negotiating the peace process because perhaps in the negotiation
process, a bit of the land will have to be given away. And he says, "What’s going
on?" The national religious structures are pushing Israel to the brink again.
I read that and I thought, Dear Tzi, it’s happening all over again. You’re talking
about my Jesus standing on the crest of Olivet looking at the city and saying, "Oh,
if only you knew the things that make for peace!" Marx says, "There have been
voices; there have been pleas." But they can’t stand up against the rabid passion
of those reactionary voices that want to be powerful, to secure the borders, to
expand the borders. The plain fact is that the force of the religious Zionism of the
national religious party was too much for this "morally caring" counter
movement. It always is, isn’t it? It always is! The morally caring movement is
always trod underfoot, isn’t it? He says one of the reasons for this kind of
paralysis is that it is very hard passionately to vocalize moderation. How do you
get passionate about moderation? It’s a problem, isn’t it? Those who are good are
without conviction, and those who are the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Things fall apart and the center cannot hold. Jesus standing over Olivet, Tzi Marx
talking about Israel at 50 in 1998 - it is exactly the same paradigm; it is exactly
the same kind of thing operative. It is the structures of society that have selfinterest, the routinizing, regularizing, ordering of society, whether they be
religious or political or whatever they be - structures that hedge in, control. We
are told that a healthy society needs structures in order to exist, and that is true,
but once the structures are in place, you move from idealism to idolatry and then
blind ambition and ruthless power grabs result in situations that bring crisis and
the way of peace is again shattered.
Jesus was free enough to see it and to say it. He did not simply take the party line.
He did not simply submit to the established temple authority. He recognized the
problem was not the occupation of imperial Rome, but he would not play the
game in order to ensure that there was no disruption that might bring on Roman
retaliation. Jesus said, "For God’s sake, for the salvation of the world, there’s no
other way! Kill me if you must!"
Gandhi was gunned down because he tried to put Muslim and Hindu together in
the creation of a new state. On Thursday it will be 53 years ago that they hung
Dietrich Bonhoeffer because he dared, with fear and trembling, to join the
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
assassination attempt against Hitler because he saw the demonic rise of evil in
National Democratic Socialism. He paid with his life, but he was free, he knew it
was coming. Thirty years ago yesterday Martin Luther King took the bullet that
he knew was coming. But, when you know something’s right, when you see it,
when you feel it, when it is the expression of the deepest core of your being and
you say it, you stand, you do it, you act, and you die for it, you die free!
Most of us, most of the time go limping through life accommodating, cowardly,
no heroism, no freedom, no joy, trying to get through, holding on sometimes with
white knuckle intensity, hoping the bottom won’t drop out or the roof won’t cave
in or they won’t call us to account, or nobody will ask us the real question. No one
will say, "What do you really believe?" What do you really believe would change
the church? What do you really believe would save the world?
Very infrequently, very rarely a voice is raised where it will make a difference. All
too rarely in this world is the truth spoken to power. And so, Jesus on the crest of
Olivet weeps over the city. Tzi Marx weeps over Israel at 50. And Nelson Mandela
has enough moral credibility to say to Bill Clinton, "Mr. President, president of
the most powerful nation in all the world, why don’t you get your act together and
clean up your policy over against these little gnats around the globe? Why don’t
you grow up and be mature over against a Castro? Why don’t you go to Kaddafi?
Why don’t you sit down with Hussein?"
Are they good people? No. Do they have ambition? Yes. Have they been powerhungry; have they threatened the peace of the world? Yes. But, what does it take?
It takes those who are in a position of strength to go to them because they are
acting out of fear, they’re acting out of threat. The world is always put in danger
because those who are weak are afraid and those who are strong will not bow
down and be human and humane and seek reconciliation rather than points in
the political polls by the bullying posture of arrogance and power. My God, is it
any wonder that the world is like it is?
Two thousand years, nothing different, because we’re not free. Jesus was free.
Bonhoeffer was free. Gandhi was free. Martin Luther King was free. And they all
got killed. If you’re smart and give up your freedom, you’ll die in bed. Boring. And
the world will go on its way to hell.
But the thing I love about Jesus most of all and the point, I suppose, where I
know I can’t follow him at all is that closing scene that we read a moment ago
where he says on the cross, being crucified, "Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do." That’s freedom. That’s freedom.
I’m not free. I have a vision, but I’m not free of those who obstruct my vision. I
can’t really bring myself to say, "Father, forgive them." I want to say, "God damn
them." I’m not free; I’m not so sure of myself and so settled in love and grace that
I can look at my enemies and say, "Forgive them because they don’t know what
they’re doing."
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
I don’t think that was a statement of arrogance on the part of one who felt
superior over against humankind. I think that was the expression of the deepest
grace and compassion of one who loved people, who understood humankind,
who empathized with our human situation, who looked at us and said, "Father,
forgive them. Forgive them for what they need is forgiveness and grace, because
they don’t understand. They don’t know what they’re doing. Blindly, they are
driven by their passions, their blind ambition, their quest for power and glory,
their lust for certainty and security, their selfish greed and constant compulsion
to aggrandizement. God forgive them. God forgive them. Because they’re really
good people." Now, that’s freedom.
Jesus wasn’t play-acting. If ever I would see Jesus in all of his humanity as the
full face of God, resplendent with deity, it is when he is able to manifest that kind
of freedom that says to me and all of the screwed up nature of my life, "You’re
forgiven. I know you don’t understand oftentimes what you’re doing. God forgive
you." That, my friends, is freedom. And I can only hope as we go through this
week again, poor, compromising, unworthy servants that we are, we’ll hear the
word of forgiveness and just maybe now and again, here and there, take a
faltering step to follow him.
Jesus is somebody. In his face, I see the face of God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b16c84b7075a0a3af5ecbbab37bddaaa.mp3
676b990a406f9876e47d58ae2b0b9d98
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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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
Palm Sunday
Series
The Human Face of God
Scripture Text
Luke 23:34
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19980405
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1998-04-05
Title
A name given to the resource
Freedom
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 5, 1998 entitled "Freedom", as part of the series "The Human Face of God", on the occasion of Palm Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 23:34.
Forgiveness
Freedom
Palm Sunday
Way of Peace
-
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30886130ca3cac721b0cefc740f1abc1
PDF Text
Text
The Strength of Surrender
From the series: Faces Around the Cross
Text: Luke 23:42-43
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
March 2, 1997
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Luke paints a portrait for us of the crucifixion scene with the three crosses
crowning the hill and the conversation between the crosses. Last week we
considered the one criminal who died, still cursing, pouring derision on Jesus. I
treated that particular person rather unconventionally for the Christian Church,
and I did it intentionally because I believe it's so important for us to bring some
imagination to the biblical text, to see if there are nuances, if there are deeper
shadows that we've not glimpsed before, lest we be so familiar with the story that
we come to church and we know how the sermon should end before we hear it.
But, more than that, I said a good word for that dying criminal in order to
address that which troubles me so often - the smugness of the Church.
How easy it is for us to write off, to damn those who seem so alienated, so other
than we are. And I even said a positive word about the fact that there is a certain
integrity in saying "No," part of human dignity, God taking us that seriously that
if our "Yes" is real, our "No" is possible. There is a certain integrity in that one
who would not break. But, I hope I was clear that this was no ordinary criminal. I
suspect that this was one of those insurrectionists who rose up at the injustice,
the inhumanity, the brutal and cruel world of which he was a part, who saw in
that unjust society a foreign oppressor and a domestic aristocracy that
collaborated for their own advantage. He saw people driven off their land, into
abject poverty. There was so much that was wrong with his world and he rose up
and sought to do something about it.
He was no ordinary criminal; Romans didn't crucify ordinary types. But, the hills
outside of Jerusalem were set with crosses, thick with those who would dare
question the coercive, violent life to which that people were subjected. And so,
this one was one whose soul was so seared, who had been so crushed, finally
rather than breaking before the threat to life, died, cursing the darkness. And I
even suggested that such bitter cynicism and hatred that can grip the human soul
could be broken only with an encounter with an unimaginable mercy and a love
divine. That, I think, we can leave with the mercy of God, for I don't mean to say
that it doesn't matter how we live. I don't think that anybody gets away with
© Grand Valley State University
�The Strength of Surrender
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
anything. But, it is the deepest confession of my life that there is a mercy and a
love in God, the God Whom Paul says was in Christ, absorbing the pain of the
world. There is a mercy and a love in God that is able even to absorb the venom of
a human spirit which has been hardened, embittered, and dies cursing the
darkness. That encounter, then, at death, would be the moment of truth for such
a one. For, what is the encounter with God at death? Isn't it the moment when
perhaps for the first time we see truly, when we can see through? Is it not that
moment when we see our lives in God's light? Is it not, then, for the first time that
we can see the designs of mercy and the configurations of grace and the abyss of
love unfiltered by all of the static of the human situation?
Can one still resist that light and love? C. S. Lewis, in his allegory, The Great
Divorce – and it's only by way of allegory in myth and symbol that we can begin
even to speak of these things – suggests that possibly one on the other side might
linger in those gray, drab flatlands, refusing, resisting that bus ride into the
center of light. Who knows? We ought not to know too much when it's beyond the
limits of human knowing. I don't know. But this, again, I believe and this is at the
center of my passion - if there is a final, absolute "No," it will not be God's "No."
It will be a "No" that we utter in the full light of amazing grace and unconditional
love, and to say "No" in the face of such love and grace - that I cannot imagine.
Having said that, let me go on to say that to die cursing the darkness is a very
great tragedy. To die with one's soul shriveled, encrusted is a human tragedy.
There are those who move into that kind of experience and then, through time,
move out and heal, thank God. There are some who live long in that embittered
state. God be merciful to them. And there are some that have been so damaged
and so hurt by Church or by society or by state or whatever, that, like the one on
the cross, they die cursing the darkness. And that's a great tragedy, for such a
person dies before they live, and as Luke portrays that crucifixion scene, as he
paints his picture, he tells us that there is another possibility and it is the
possibility that we see in the one on the other side of Jesus.
What happened to him? How do things like that happen? What kind of a
breakthrough was it that in his last hour transformed his life, enabling him to live
before he died? Was it watching the one in the center and the one on the other
side? Was it watching his partner in crime cursing the darkness to his last breath
in contrast to the one on the center cross praying for those who were crucifying
him? Did the prayer, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,"
somehow or other break through his defenses? Did he see in his brother, dying
full of hate, the stark contrast with Jesus, dying full of grace? And did he see it all
in a moment?
What happens to one in such a moment? Well, we ought again not to try to do an
anatomy, but I must say this - confronted with that cataclysmic contrast in spirit
and attitude and ways of being and living and dying, this one on the other side
was at a point of decision, for then it was for him to decide whether to stay the
© Grand Valley State University
�The Strength of Surrender
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
course in the darkness or to surrender to the light that had broken upon him. If I
would be faithful to this text and to my own human experience, I must say that if
I affirm the belligerent one for the integrity of his "No," I must affirm the other
for the strength of his surrender, for it takes courage to persist in the darkness
and even more courage and strength to yield to the light, once it has been
glimpsed, once it has dawned upon one.
That is the critical moment which will determine whether one dies before one
lives, or whether one lives before one dies. There is strength in surrender, and it
takes courage and strength to face one's whole life project and to say, "I am
wrong. My motivation was right, my concern was right, but my method was
wrong, my spirit was wrong, my heart was wrong, my soul is dying within me!
God be merciful to me! Jesus, remember me."
There is an integrity in the "No" of the belligerent one. There is strength in the
surrender of the yielding one, and don't fail to see it. It is a difference between
heaven and hell. It is hell to die before one ever lives, lives in the wonder of the
gift of life. It is hell to be imprisoned in the black hole of one's own bitterness,
cynicism and hatred, even though God be merciful to such. I wish I sensed more
compassion in the Church for those who have been so damaged that they cannot
turn to the light. Oh, I see concern sometimes for the salvation of their soul, but
what we ought really to be concerned about is the restoration of their humanity.
God will take care of the rest. It is those two possibilities that Luke sets before us.
There is a certain strength in surrender, and to surrender to grace is to begin to
live before we die.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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fcdab445cea78e1b551df9a8346f6183
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Event
Lent III
Series
Faces Around the Cross
Scripture Text
Luke 23:42-43
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19970302
Date
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1997-03-02
Title
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The Strength of Surrender
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 2, 1997 entitled "The Strength of Surrender", as part of the series "Faces Around the Cross", on the occasion of Lent III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 23:42-43.
Forgiveness
Inclusive Grace
Lent
Unconditional Love
-
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cbb23d9687b4a40a8c78b897a236e882
PDF Text
Text
The Integrity of Saying No
From the series: Faces Around the Cross
Text: Psalm 8:6; Luke 23:39
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
February 23, 1997
Transcription of the spoken sermon
As I was contemplating the portraits of the four evangelists, and looking at the
faces around the cross, I was struck by the face of one who has perhaps found his
way into many, many Christian sermons, but one who has gotten consistently bad
press, that is, the criminal crucified with Jesus who continued to mock to the end.
All four evangelists tell us that Jesus was crucified between two criminals. Mark
tells us that both taunted him. But, only Luke carries on a conversation between
the two crosses, and in Luke's account we have the one criminal continuing to
mock and deride Jesus, even in his own hour of execution, whereas the other,
recognizing his fate, pleads with Jesus for mercy and finds it.
Obviously, in the portrait that Luke is painting, we have the picture of Jesus in
the middle, and then the criminal on the right and the criminal on the left, two
opposite responses. What the evangelist is trying to portray to us is that it is
possible to rebel to the end and miss God's grace, or even at the last moment to
surrender and find God's grace. Now, quite clearly, that is Luke's intention. But I,
contemplating the scene, want to put a bit of a different spin on it this morning. I
want to think about that rebellious criminal in a different light than he is usually
understood in the Christian Church.
It's so easy for us in the Church to write people off, to damn people to hell, to
recognize their rebellion or their revolt, their sinfulness or their wickedness and
be done with them. But, as I've been thinking about that scene of crucifixion, it
has occurred to me that, far too often, for far too long in the history of the
Church, what we have been concerned about is the individual salvation of our
souls, even while, perhaps, the world is going to hell, unraveling, full of injustice
and oppression. I want to suggest to you something this morning that may be a
bit shocking, but which I hope before I am through, you will understand, and that
is that there are some things in the world that are more important than one's
individual salvation. There are some things that are more important than
whether or not one has a cozy relationship with God, and there are some things to
which we ought to be addressing ourselves which would get the focus off
ourselves and our individualism and our egotism and our selfish concern for our
© Grand Valley State University
�The Integrity of Saying No
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
own salvation. I want to give the rebellious criminal some good press this
morning.
What kind of a criminal was he? Well, you can bet he wasn't some petty thief. The
Romans didn't waste crucifixion on insignificant individuals. Maybe we get a hint
of why he was hanging there from the story of Barabbas that the evangelists tell
us about - Pilate wanted to release Jesus or Barabbas, hoping, according to the
account, that he wouldn't have to condemn Jesus. The crowd would have nothing
of it. But Mark tells us that Barabbas was in prison for insurrection and the more
we know about the times of Jesus, that Palestinian society under Roman
domination, the more we know that it was a brutal time. It was a land that was
occupied by a foreign oppressor. The heel of Rome was heavy on the necks of the
people. They were not only under the oppression of a foreign occupier, but under
the oppressions, the manipulation, and the abuse of the local aristocracy in
collaboration with the occupier. We know that people were being driven off their
land; people were being driven into abject poverty. The Roman governors and
tribunes had no qualms of conscience to release their legions to slaughter some
rebellion here or there. It was a time that ran with blood; it was a time of terrible
human suffering; it was a time when there were those who were rising up to say,
"Enough." It's the kind of human response that we are not a stranger to in our
own world, which is marked by terrorism. We who are so insulated from so much
of the pain and darkness of the world read and hear about terrorism and we
shake our heads and say, "What an awful thing," and certainly it is an awful thing
because so often the innocent suffer while the terrorists seem to have no
consideration for human life, not their own or that of others. We wonder what it
is that can drive a human person into that kind of mode, that kind of behavior.
We marvel that a human being can become so inhuman, so bestial. But, we know
it's true. Down through history it has been true.
There have been those who have seen oppression, have seen injustice and have
risen up to face it. Robin Hood, romanticized, to be sure, but the one who robs
the rich to feed the poor. We remember the story of the French queen who, when
told that the people had no bread, said, "Well, then let them eat cake." Such
insensitivity is not overdrawn. We know the decadence and the indulgence of
Czarist Russia before the Revolution and, if we marvel at the atrocities of the
Communist era, then we need to remember the background of that reign of terror
in Czarist Russia with its royalty and its luxury and its insensitivity to people.
My point is that that's the way that the world is. The world has always been
marked by injustice, by inhumane conditions. There have been people who have
suffered terribly and there have been those who have said, "Enough," and who
have put their life on the line and who have acted boldly in order to change their
world. I think Jesus was that way - of course, of quite another spirit than that
criminal hanging with him, nonetheless, seeing that which was wrong and
seeking to right it, to put his life on the line for the righting of the wrongs of the
world.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Integrity of Saying No
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
I like to think of the criminal crucified with Jesus who joined the derision to the
end as one who had a vision of the way things ought to be, as one whose soul was
so seared with the human situation and its brokenness and its pain, that he grew
barnacles and callouses on his soul until he became a person who, in the face of
his own horrible death, continued mocking to the end, refusing to cave, refusing
to grovel, refusing to beg for mercy.
I see something heroic in that. I see something attractive in that. As I said a
moment ago, perhaps it's something of the rebel in me, but I like a person who is
a rebel with a cause, who is willing to put his life there, and who is true to that to
the end. Krister Stendahl, when he was here, made a statement that struck me,
that it is a part of the dignity of the human person to be able to say "No" to God.
Certainly in the biblical story, if the human person is taken seriously, created in
the image of God, able to respond to God with the divine intention that that
response be one of openness leading to the communion of Creator and creature,
if God is serious and has done that seriously, then there is also the possibility,
there must be the possibility of the human creature saying "No" to God. Krister
Stendahl said it's a mark of the dignity of the human person that he or she can
say "No" to God.
I like to think of that criminal as having been so seared in his soul by the
wretchedness and the injustice of all that was wrong in the world that to the end
he was a rebel. When Jesus said, "Father, forgive them," he said, "I don't want
them forgiven. I want them damned!" That was his spirit; that was his soul. Can
you identify with someone like that? Is it possible that in a human situation we
can be driven to that kind of rebellion, that kind of fierce purpose to the end,
damning the consequences? I think that is a part of our story, and I think if we
don't own that in Church, we're just playing games. We so easily write off that
man damned by his own rebellion, damned by his own derision, "Good. Damn
him."
Mark Twain said one time, "If God did not want human beings to rebel, why did
God create human beings in God's own image?" And in the Hebrew scriptures,
there is enough ambiguity to make us wonder about that tree in the Garden of
Eden - why did God put that tree of the knowledge of good and evil there?
Certainly not for shade. He didn't need it for fruit. Well, traditionally, we've said
the tree was put there so that God would test the human pair - would they follow
the word of God and obey, or would they rebel? Well, there's another way to look
at it. Might it be that the tree was there almost as an invitation to the human pair
to take the initiative, to take responsibility for their lives and their world - to grow
up, to mature into the knowledge of good and evil, to be like God?
Ah, the divine-human relationship is so complex. The Psalmist begins to sing a
song of praise - "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the sun, the stars, the
moon which you have created, then I say, 'Who is the human person that you
© Grand Valley State University
�The Integrity of Saying No
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
should be mindful of him or her?'" The humility before the vastness of the cosmic
sky, a sign of the smallness with which we can understand ourselves over against
the one who said, "Let there be..."
But then he goes on to say, "You have made him lacking just a little of God." The
King James Version was nervous about that because, you see, to put the human
person that close to divinity can be a rather perilous thing, and so the King James
Version, if you remember, says, "Thou hast made him a little lower than the
angels." And the Jewish Publication Society in 1917 did the same thing. But then,
the New English Bible moved it up a notch - "Thou hast made him a little less
than god," with a small g, "A little less than a god." Finally, the Revised Standard
Version and the Jewish Publication Society of 1985 put it in the way it really is in
the Hebrew - "Thou hast made him to lack just a little of God."
So, what is this divine-human relationship? In a fascinating book by Richard
Friedman, he talks about the hidden face of God and how from the beginning
God is active and present and speaking and doing things, and then, as the story
progresses, God seems to withdraw, to be present less and less. Maybe you've
read God, a Biography, by Jack Miles. That was written on the basis of some of
Friedman's ideas, the withdrawal of God and the balance of God and human
changing over the centuries, with God withdrawing and the human taking a
greater role, incrementally taking responsibility for this world, for this universe.
That really is in the story itself. God, as it were, says, "Here it is. You run with it.
Grow up. You're responsible for it." It's like the parent-child relationship, the
adolescent who needs separation, who needs individuation from parent and yet,
who needs the parent and longs for the presence and the blessing and affirmation
of the parent. That tension between the parent and the child, the tension between
God and the human - God makes us so that we can aspire to the divine and yet
calls us to a subordinate role, which rests uneasily on our shoulders.
I think maybe the one who was dying, cursing still, was a mature human being, a
rebel with a cause, and one who kept his integrity to the end. I like that. There is a
certain integrity in saying "No," and there is a certain saccharine, sweet,
sentimentality about a lot of Christian preaching and Christian piety, a lot of
groveling, a lot of less than human, dehumanizing kind of groveling before an
Almighty Something-or-Other, to which I wonder if God does not say, "Grow up
and be my partner." I like the criminal who has probably never before gotten any
good press in a Christian sermon. I like something about him, and I think maybe
Jesus did, too. Jesus responded to the one who said, "Lord, remember me." And
there's good place for that and we'll come there next week, but Jesus didn't
respond to the taunts of the other. He said to the one, "Paradise tomorrow." And
I would like to believe that the one who was taunting him on the other side was
loved by Jesus just as much, because I like to think that Jesus knew how pained a
human soul can be. I like to think that Jesus understands when one has been so
hurt, so broken, that one simply will not, cannot yield and turn. I like to think
that Jesus knows the depths of the possibility of the rebellion out of a broken
© Grand Valley State University
�The Integrity of Saying No
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
human existence and lets it be, because he knows that on the morrow he'll meet
that one, too. And he knows that when that one comes into encounter with the
love and mercy of God, that one will become a rebel without a cause.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b951b69e77ee075429d27e5eb72fdfdf.mp3
1954f85a845239f3e493b5757f018b71
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Lent II
Series
Faces Around the Cross
Scripture Text
Psalm 8:6, Luke 23:39
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-0-19970223
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1997-02-23
Title
A name given to the resource
The Integrity of Saying "No"
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 February 23, 1997 entitled "The Integrity of Saying 'No'", as part of the series "Faces Around the Cross", on the occasion of Lent II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 8:6, Luke 23:39.
Forgiveness
Inclusive Grace
Lent
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The Cross and the Theology of Self-Esteem
Book Review
Self-Esteem: The New Reformation
By Robert H. Schuller,
(Word Books, 1983)
Reviewed by
Richard A. Rhem
Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Published in
Perspectives
A Journal of Reformed Thought
March 1986, pp. 10-13
The way of Jesus in this world led to crucifixion. God raised him up. Thus we
have a gospel to proclaim, but only Jesus stands beyond the cross; our history is
lived out under the shadow of the cross; those who follow Jesus are called to
costly discipleship. An authentic biblical theology must embrace the cross and
bring to expression the dying to self and denial of self, symbolized in the cross of
Jesus and the cross Jesus calls us to bear.
Does the theology of self-esteem outlined by Robert H. Schuller in his book, SelfEsteem: The New Reformation, meet the above criterion? Is there place for the
cross in a theology of Self-Esteem?
Schuller sketched the appearance of Christian theology, viewed from the
perspective of self-esteem, which he contends is the deepest need of the human
person. The whole spectrum of biblical truth is seen in light of this need. The
traditional content of Reformed theology, which is Schuller’s heritage, is not
changed, but the perspective of fundamental human need as a starting point does
put that traditional content in a new light. That new light changes dramatically
the appropriate approach to people. This is not surprising since this is theological
understanding which arises from the pulpit, from the heart of an evangelist, and
the passion of an apologist for the faith.
Schuller’s conviction that the deepest need of the human person is the need for
self-esteem or a sense of self-worth is coupled with an equally critical conviction
— the dignity of the human person. The content of the gospel addresses the
© Grand Valley State University
�Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 2
person’s deepest need; the approach to the person is determined by the infinite
value of the human person created in the image of God.
Robert Schuller has called for a daring and creative rethinking of biblical faith;
indeed, for a new reformation. He has written a call to action, drawing a first,
tentative outline of what a theology of self-esteem would look like. He invites the
church to think with him and to go beyond him. He is convinced that it is possible
to move beyond our Reformation theology, characterized by reaction, into a new
age characterized by expanded mission.
His own ministry of over thirty years has gained him a worldwide hearing. His
credentials are established. Now he has moved beyond concrete demonstration
into the area of theological reflection. He invites us to join him on the journey. To
do so we must be certain that the gospel of Jesus Christ centered in the
crucifixion and resurrection comes to full expression. Let us seek to discover from
his own writing whether this is the case.
The Human Person
Central to Schuller’s understanding of both the content and approach of the
gospel is the dignity of the human person. He claims:
Historically, the Church does not have a commendable success record in
its effort to purge sinful pride out of Christ’s followers without insulting,
demeaning, and bringing dishonor to God’s beautiful children.
The theological task to which Schuller calls the church is to discover
a full-orbed theological system beginning with and based on a solid central
core of religious truth—the dignity of man. And let us start with a theology
of salvation that addresses itself at the outset to man’s deepest need, the
“will to self worth.”
He is insistent at this point:
No theology of salvation, no theology of the Church, no theology of Christ,
no theology of sin and repentance and regeneration and sanctification and
discipleship, can be regarded as authentically Christian if it does not
begin with and continue to keep its focus on the right of every person to be
treated with honor, dignity, and respect. At the same time, any creed, any
biblical interpretation, and any systematic theology that assaults and
offends the self-esteem of persons is heretically failing to be truly
Christian....
Such forceful affirmations raise questions about Schuller’s view of human nature
and the human condition. Is he naive about the demonic potential of the human
© Grand Valley State University
�Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 3
person? Is he not aware of the record of human history written in blood, laced
with violence? Is his a Pollyanna view of the human situation, a refusal to see the
darkness? That is scarcely the case; he does, however, make a critical distinction
between the nature of the human person and the actual human condition.
Human nature is marked by wonder and dignity, a reflection of the image of God
in which the person was created. The human condition is marked by a reactive
behavior which is not reflective of human nature but by a denial of that nature.
The rebellious actions of a person are reactions, not the expression of a person’s
true nature:
By nature we are fearful, not bad. Original sin is not a mean streak; it is a
non-trusting inclination. Label it a “negative self-image,” but do not say
that the central core of the human soul is wickedness. If this were so, then
truly, the human being is totally depraved. But positive Christianity does
not hold to human depravity, but to human inability. I am humanly unable
to correct my negative self-image until I encounter a life-changing
experience with nonjudgmental love bestowed upon me by a Person whom
I admire so much that to be unconditionally accepted by him is to be born
again.
Schuller uses the illustration of the golf ball. The outside dimpled surface gives
little hint of what is really inside. Rebellion is our surface appearance. Why the
rebellion? At the center of the golf ball is a hard rubber core. Around that core is a
maze of stretched rubber wrappings. The core represents a negative self-image or
an intrinsic lack of trust or simply fear. The stretched rubber wrappings are the
reactions of that fear-filled core—all the anxieties and fearful reactions of
negative emotions which surface as the rebellious exterior—angry, mean, violent.
To use Schuller’s analogy, emanating from the core of the person constituted of
fear, feelings of inferiority, and doubt are all forms of demonic behavior—enough
to create hell on earth, presenting to the world an angry face. What is wrong with
humankind is the ego run amuck, an ego threatened, insecure, desperately trying
to establish itself, prove itself, justify itself, make something of itself. The
consequence is sin and misery. One can hardly accuse Schuller of naiveté in
regard to the darkness of the human situation.
He is not content, however, simply to explain it in terms of wicked human nature.
He asks why the human person reacts as he does. He finds the biblical picture of
human sinfulness corroborated and explained by insights from the behavioral
sciences. He sees the ego with its destructive potential reacting negatively
because instead of trust which liberates for love, there is at the core a lack of trust
which issues in fear, love’s opposite.
What is needful? To be born again—changed from a negative to a positive selfimage through an experience of grace in an encounter with Jesus Christ.
© Grand Valley State University
�Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 4
Beginning with a strong conviction that every person must be treated with
respect and accorded the dignity that is his because he is created in the image of
God, Schuller has probed beneath the surface of human sin and rebellion to
understand that one acts, not according to his nature, but reacts out of an
intrinsic fear and lack of trust. That being the case, the approach to people is all
important, and it is here that he is critical of the traditional approach of much of
the church.
One reason many Christians have behaved so badly in the past two
thousand years is because we have been taught from infancy to adulthood
“how sinful” and “how worthless” we are. The self-image will always
incarnate itself in action. A negative diagnosis will become a self-fulfilling
prophecy. The most difficult task for the Church to learn is how to deal
honestly with the subject of “negativity,” “sin,” and “evil” without doing
the cause of redemption more harm than good.
The Place of the Cross
The cross of Jesus Christ plays a central role in the theology of self-esteem, and
self-esteem is the perspective from which the cross is discussed. Therefore it may
appear that Schuller reinterprets the meaning of the atonement, but that simply
is not the case.
He claims, “The Cross is the central force in the kingdom of God.” He discusses
this claim under the double aspect of the cross of Christ and the cross of the
Christian.
Christ’s death for us witnesses to the infinite value we have in God’s sight.
Such a realization changes one inside. The core of fear and lack of trust,
which is the generating center of all negativity and rebellion, is
transformed into trust and security—a positive sense of worth, liberating
one in turn to extend love and forgiveness to others.
Were this all Schuller had to say about the cross, his critics would be right in
seeing in this interpretation the effect of the cross as “moral influence,” Jesus’
sacrifice inspiring us to emulate his example of self-giving love. To claim this as
the heart of Schuller’s understanding of the atonement, however, is simply
without warrant if we listen to his own statement. References to the atonement
are to be found throughout the text and it is always the substitutionary
atonement that comes to expression. For example:
It is not until we meet Jesus Christ, who is perfect and he offers to share
his robe of righteousness with us and his garment of grace is draped across
our shoulders that we can then walk with him into the presence of God.
He specifically discusses the crucifixion in another context. There he lists three
ways in which we can say we are saved “by the blood of Christ.”
© Grand Valley State University
�Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 5
1. The Cross of Christ brings vitality to my dignity...I know the value of my
life when I see the price God paid on the Cross to save my soul....
2. The Cross of Christ makes atonement from guilt possible because it
adds integrity to the positive Gospel...In the Cross of Christ we see the
harsh reality of “negativity,” “demonic human behavior,” “collectivized
social evil in institutions....”
3. The Cross of Christ adds morality to divine forgiveness. ...Negativity
must pay its dues. Evil must be punished. So Christ has taken the rap “for
our irresponsible negative behavior.” He experienced hell—on the
cross...His suffering is credited to my personal account....So God is morally
able and obligated to offer forgiveness to any person who claims the credit
card of Calvary’s Cross to cover the guilt of his sinful behavior.
As stated above, Schuller will always speak of the cross, and any other doctrinal
truth for that matter, from the perspective of his central motif, self-esteem,
because he is convinced that self-esteem affords an effective key for interpreting
the gospel for our day. To say, however, that the atoning death of Jesus Christ for
the sin of the world is not at the heart of that gospel in his understanding is
simply not true.
The second aspect in which the cross is “the central force in the Kingdom of God”
he discusses as “the cross of the Christian.” This is the cross the person graced by
God through Jesus Christ voluntarily assumes as his response to that grace. What
does it mean to bear one’s cross? It means to respond positively to the dream God
puts in the heart of the redeemed.
Faithful to his Reformed heritage, Schuller is careful to stress that he is now
speaking of the response of a grateful heart for a salvation freely given, a
salvation fully accomplished and graciously applied. To experience grace is to
respond out of gratitude, and that response involves commitment. Its price is
self-denial—”The voluntary vicarious assumption of the Cross.”
When God’s dream is accepted, we must be prepared to pay a high price.
The dream that comes from God calls us to fulfill his will by taking an
active part in his kingdom. The price? A cross. The reward? A feeling of
having done something beautiful for God.
It is the cross we voluntarily accept and willingly bear that distinguishes a
dangerous egotism from healthy self-esteem. To pursue the dream and thereby to
commit oneself to the fulfilling of God’s will as God reveals it to one is to bear the
cross. There can be no success without a cross, but even here success must not be
understood as “always winning and never losing.”
Rather, success is to be defined as the gift of self- esteem that God gives us
as a reward for our sacrificial service in building self-esteem in others. Win
© Grand Valley State University
�Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 6
or lose: If we follow God’s plan as faithfully as we can, we will feel good
about ourselves. That is success! We will then be able to live with ourselves
with dignity when we know deep down in our hearts that we did what God
wanted us to do.
Cross bearing is no minor theme for Schuller. Self- esteem restored in a person
through the encounter with Jesus Christ and the experience of God’s grace
becomes the dynamic of a fruitful life lived to the glory of God. If one has truly
been overwhelmed by grace, redeemed by Jesus Christ, then one knows with Paul
that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. For Schuller this is
what it means to be a possibility thinker.
To be saved is to know that Christ forgives me and I now dare to believe
that I am somebody and I can do something for Cod and for my fellow
human beings.
Schuller contends that forgiveness is not simply the negation of our guilt but “a
positive injection of saving and soaring faith!” Repentance follows the experience
of grace. Our thinking is turned around; a whole new world presents itself and we
are called to “caring, risky trust which promises the hope of glory...through noble,
human need-filling achievements.”
Cross bearing is costly. In many and various ways this fact comes to expression:
There is no crown without a cross. There is no success without sacrifice.
There is no resurrection without death...no accomplishment without
commitment, and no commitment without conflict. For there is no
commitment without involvement; there is no involvement without selfdenial; and there is no self-denial without personal sacrifice.
So what is the real Christ-call to self-denial? It is a willingness to be
involved in the spiritual and social solutions in society.
Self-denial is the daring commitment of your name, your reputation, your
integrity, your ego on the altar of God’s call to service. Mark this; it is
important: The greatest Cross any person can carry is to risk sacrificing his
or her ego by risking the embarrassment of a public failure in the pursuit
of some noble, honorable, God-inspired dream. That is positive self-denial.
It is denying your ego the selfish protection from a possible humiliating
failure that might occur if you tried to carryout the divine idea.
No one familiar with the ministry of Robert Schuller can doubt that he speaks
here out of his own experience. Jesus followed a dream to do the Father’s will and
he was crucified. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream and he was assassinated.
Robert Schuller has followed a dream, and only the naive would judge the
personal cost in terms of the grandeur of the Crystal Cathedral.
© Grand Valley State University
�Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 7
Cross-bearing in Schuller’s understanding is a call “to do something creative and
constructive.” He rejects the “crusader complex.” While recognizing that
sometimes a situation calls for frontal attack, confrontation, he is also aware that
such an approach is a dangerous style and should be the exception, not the rule,
because violence breeds violence. The difference between a positive, constructive
approach to society’s problems and the confrontational approach is the difference
between generating a social climate of polarization versus creating a
community where creative and mutually respectful dialogue can happen.
Finally, cross-bearing will move the Christian person into the whole spectrum of
human society and its concerns. Schuller will not choose between a gospel of
personal salvation or a social gospel. He proclaims a whole gospel that brings
personal salvation to individuals and addresses the larger societal issues as well.
It is Schuller’s conviction that the idea of self-esteem provides an integrating
factor which can show how the personal and social dimensions of theology can be
interconnected. Schuller thus sees the applicability of the gospel to the full
spectrum of human existence, personal and social. He sees the theology of the
Reformation as reactionary and the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries as the
“reactionary age.” With the conviction regarding the dignity of the human person
and the realization that the deepest human need and longing is for self-esteem,
he is convinced a Christian theology will be able to address the whole person and
the whole of society with its healing gospel ushering in a new age, the age of
mission.
As we reflect on our walk with Jesus Christ through another Lenten pilgrimage
we raise the question of the human condition and what address this time of selfdenial makes to it. In a critique of the idea that low self-esteem is at the heart of
the human dilemma, David G. Myers cites recent data from psychological
research which seems to indicate that there is rather a “self-serving bias” that
characterizes the human person. Myers contends,
It seems true that the most common error in people’s self-images is not
unrealistically low self-esteem, but rather a self-serving bias; not an
inferiority complex, but a superiority complex. In any satisfactory theory
or theology of self-esteem, these two truths must somehow coexist [The
Christian Century, December 1, 1982, pp. 1226-1230).
If Myers is correct, it would not be the first time that truth proved dialectical. We
ought not immediately be forced to choose between Schuller and Myers. Rather,
it would seem that each has hold of an important and critical insight. In all of the
recent research data referred to by Myers we are dealing with the human person
in action—acting man or woman in concrete, existential situations. In our
analysis of Schuller’s position on the human person we saw that there is no dark
shadow, no demonic dimension of human behavior that he denies. His
© Grand Valley State University
�Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 8
contention regarding the fundamental need of every person for self-esteem says
nothing about concrete human behavior. What he does insist is that that behavior
is a manifestation, not of human nature as human nature, but rather of human
nature as distorted, wrenched loose from its native soil of resting in God. Once
that separation of the person from God occurs, all hell breaks loose, literally, but
it is reaction, not simple action as a reflection of nature.
Thus the recent research data only confirms what we in the church have always
known from Scripture about ourselves: our lives are marked by rebellion, pride,
and self-love in the sense of selfishness.
It is precisely here that Schuller—the pastor and communicator of the gospel —
has so much to teach us. The diagnosis of the situation is dismal; will we be
content simply to declare that dark truth? Can we be content to reinforce what
our hearers already really know but which, if thrown in their faces, will only
reinforce them in their already entrenched rebellion by which they are trying to
deny the truth?
Schuller points us to an alternative which is both theologically and
psychologically sound. There is no need to recite the darkness of the person’s
reactive behavior of which he or she is quite aware; what is needful is to show
that through the creative action and intention of God, he or she is something
quite other than the behavior would seem to indicate. Through an appeal to what
he is, not what he does, one may just succeed in breaking through to the person
because the approach will have been motivated by love, executed with grace, and
grounded in truth. Defenses tumble; the cornered is known, feels no need to rush
to justify himself, senses acceptance, and learns of the reality of forgiveness. Then
it is that deep repentance occurs. It is not a prelude to salvation but a fruit of the
experience of grace. It is in the presence of Jesus Christ in whose face is seen the
good and gracious God that one knows unconditional love and acceptance;
therefore it is in that presence that one dares see oneself deeply and that one
“dies” to those old patterns of reactive behavior that bound him in chains of
selfish existence and created havoc in his human relationships and, most
seriously, alienated him from God.
If the church would really hear Robert Schuller, there would be renewal and
revitalization of major proportions. One of my most respected teachers, Professor
D. Ivan Dykstra, wrote in personal correspondence about Schuller’s basic premise
regarding the dignity of the human person and the basic need for self-worth.
Commenting on Schuller’s book, Self-Esteem:... he judges
it was Bob Schuller in search of a theology, or, better, in search of a Bible.
And this is exactly the right order and the only proper order, despite our
wish and our pretense that we find our Bibles first and then go on from
there. All reformations, vitalizations of the faith, happen by our first
responding to an instinct of authenticity and then going on to re-read our
© Grand Valley State University
�Schuller, The Cross & the Theology of Self-Esteem, review by Richard A. Rhem Page 9
Bibles accordingly or creating our theologies....The great prophets did it
that way, Jesus did, Luther, and so on down the line.
Dykstra then goes on to reflect on his own philosophical work which led him to
an examination of Christian beliefs through use of linguistic analysis. He raises
the question, are our Christian beliefs Christian? His conclusion is
That religious terms, including Christian ones, begin always in the form of
some great, situationally defined, instinctive authenticities. After the first
flush of excitement...there is a time of intellectual and institutional
structuring of the belief. There is a virtually complete discontinuity of
meaning between the universe of discourse of the original intuition and
the institutionalized universe of discourse into which we move the original
terms. In the process the whole original meaning is simply buried. In
Christian contexts, the over-all name for that structuring is
“ecclesiasticizing.” And everything, every dominating concept in the
ecclesiastico-theological structure, loses the authentic Biblical meaning:
faith, sin, Jesus, inspiration, scripture, resurrection have no longer any
discernible connection with the initial biblical intent. Until some
courageous soul, (like Luther, as one example) has, and has the courage to
act on, a new authentic instinct. To attack the ecclesiastical
inauthenticities one does not need to attack the Bible on which they base
themselves; one needs only to “out-Bible” the bibliolaters. To read the
Bible via the instincts is not to invent a new Bible; it is to recover it.
Dykstra suggests that Schuller’s authentic instinctual grasp of a deep biblical
truth has ramifications for the whole theological system; that perhaps Schuller’s
unquestioned Reformed orthodoxy is itself too confined a vehicle to contain the
ferment of his own insight. Such is certainly the case, but Schuller did not write
this slender volume as the complete and final word. He writes a first word
pleading with others to join the question for a more adequate way to bring to
expression his own authentic insight confirmed by the worldwide hearing he has
gained.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Robert H. Schuller. Self-Esteem: The New Reformation, 1983.
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The Cross and the Theology of Self-Esteem a review of
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Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought
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Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 2, 1986 entitled "The Cross and the Theology of Self-Esteem a review of", on the book Self-Esteem, written by Robert H. Schuller, it appeared in Perspectives, March, 1986, pp. 10-13. Tags: Way of Jesus, Theology, Unconditional Love, Human Nature, Christian, Self-Esteem, Forgiveness. Scripture references: Robert H. Schuller. Self-Esteem: The New Reformation, 1983. .
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Christian
Forgiveness
Human Nature
Self-Esteem
Theology
Unconditional Love
Way of Jesus
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Text
The Secret of Dying Well
All Saints Day
II Timothy 4:6-8; Luke 23:44-49
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
November 2, 2003
Transcription of the spoken sermon
This service is such a moving experience. To see all of you streaming to the Table,
to know the wonder of a loving community is quite overwhelming. What a
beautiful privilege it is-for us to be here together with sacred memories and
stories. As we continue to celebrate this All Saints Day, I want to think with you
for a few moments on "The Secret of Dying Well."
If you read the Gospels, there is no way you can reconcile the way in which Jesus
died. It's generally considered that Mark is the earliest Gospel; Matthew and
Luke followed him very closely, and John, of course, stands out by himself. But, if
you read those four accounts, you will find that Matthew is pretty much an exact
replica of Mark, so there you have one picture and it is the picture of Jesus in
utter desolation, crying out in the darkness of that hour, "My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?" If you would go to John, you would find that John's
portrait of Jesus is a Jesus who is simply in control. As the Passion story opens,
Jesus says, "I lay down my life. No one takes it from me." And throughout that
passion account, it is obvious that Jesus is really in charge, even though he is a
prisoner about to be crucified. His final words include taking care of his mother,
acknowledging his thirst, and then saying, "It is finished. My work is finished.
Completed. Done."
Luke, although he follows Mark as does Matthew, does not follow Mark in the
account of the crucifixion. You will remember the familiar crucifixion story of
Luke. It is beautiful, Jesus experiencing all of the horror of the darkness that the
human family is capable of, expressing gracious forgiveness, "Father, forgive
them, for they don't know what they're doing." Hanging there between two
criminals, one on his right and one on his left, railed on by one, beseeched by
another to be remembered, In the midst of his own anguish, he reached out as
always he had done, and said, "Today you will be with me." And then, borrowing
the Psalmist's expression, he died trustingly, "Father, into your hands I commend
my spirit."
© Grand Valley State University
�The Secret of Dying Well
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
From the utter desolation of Mark and Matthew to the Jesus in charge in John, to
the rather human, beautiful Jesus of Luke, you can't possibly reconcile those
accounts and we know now that those are not words from the cross, anyway.
These Gospels, written decades after the event, were certainly based on memory
and oral tradition. Some such expressions could have been made, but we don't
know that and that doesn't really matter because what we do know is that the
Gospel writers were painting portraits for us. They were artists. They were
painting portraits of a life, and they painted portraits of this life in its dying.
John, for me, is a bit too contrived, Jesus a bit too above it all. Matthew and Mark
- well, I'm glad for them because I know it is true to human experience that there
are those times when the only thing we can say is, "My God, my God, why has
thou forsaken me?" and so, I'm glad that there was a portrait of Jesus that
identified him with that kind of human desolation. But, as for me, I have to
choose Luke because Luke seems to reflect in Jesus' death the way Jesus was in
his life, that amazing, gracious, forgiving of those who were doing him wrong. It
is amazing. I think "Father, forgive them" has to be one of the most startling
revelations possible. How is it possible? And yet, what we have imbibed about
Jesus makes that so consistent with who he is pictured to be, reaching out in
compassion and in care, so characteristic of his life, and then, finally, that deep
trust and the grace to let go, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."
Three different portraits, three different stories, you can choose your own
favorite, and maybe sometimes you will choose one and maybe sometimes you
will choose another. There are times when we need all of those. But, again, I
choose Luke because it speaks so powerfully to me of what I have come so deeply
to believe, and that is that the secret of dying well is living well. Living with a
grace to forgive others and ourselves, living with the kind of care and compassion
that draws us out of ourselves to embrace the other, living with the kind of deep
peace that in fundamental trust allows us to let go. I think the secret of dying well
is living well.
It was true of Paul in his own final testimony. We have it in the Second Letter to
Timothy, "The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I
have run the race, I have kept the faith." The secret of dying well is living well,
living with a purpose and a passion, committed, devoted, fascinated, having one's
life grasped by that which is bigger than oneself, that which is full of grace, of love
and joy and freedom.
Bonhoeffer died that way. When they called his name, he said to his English
fellow prisoner, "This is the end, for me the beginning of life." And in the case of
Paul, there was this deep conviction about that final vindication of all things. Paul
had that apocalyptic sense of the imminent end of the End of history. Bonhoeffer
had that, too. He had at least a deep sense of the presence of God in his life.
Stories - Jesus, Paul, Bonhoeffer.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Secret of Dying Well
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
I had an interesting experience this summer. It's well known here that my
Tuesdays are kept with religious devotion at the table down at Duba's, and this
one whom I have come to know so well and love so dearly and respect so deeply,
Duncan Littlefair, had a medical problem with complications, so that he drifted
near the edge, intense pain, the deep of the night. And in his return to the table,
he was so anxious to tell us of being so near the edge where one could really let go
and move into the darkness, but peacefully. This good friend of mine is a religious
naturalist for whom this life is the gift of life and to be lived well without anything
beyond. I see him in such peace, such wonder and awe at the gift of life. Another
story.
If you were told that this was the last day that you were to live, how would you
spend it? I hope you'd spend it just the way you intended to spend it before you
found out that it was the last day, that life was so good, that it was lived with such
grace, that purpose was pursued passionately with all of one's energies and all of
one's gifts were drawn out of oneself so that notification of the end would be just
the natural course of things. Stories - Jesus, Paul, Bonhoeffer, Duncan Littlefair.
I am convinced that whatever there is in that mystery that is our source and our
ultimate destination, to live well these days is the secret of dying well, to live
without denial, to die without regret, to live fully, to give ourselves in prodigal
abandon to enjoy, to be free... Ahhh, good friends, it is so good and so rich. The
secret of dying well is living well and it is for us to live well today.
As has been announced here last week, I have pneumonia and on Thursday I had
an X-ray. I have had such wonderful medical care from Dan Powers and so he
wanted an X-ray so he could see me on Friday to see if the antibiotic had won the
battle or not. I showed up on Friday, was called in and faced that awful moment
when you're asked to step on the scale, and then I offered my arm for the blood
pressure to be taken and in those moments, my heart began to race in a way that
I have never experienced before. I know now for you medical people out there
that it was an SVT, a super ventricular something or other. I'm sitting there, my
blood pressure's good, my weight's awful, and my heart's beating twice as fast as
it should. So, Dan told me that the X-ray showed there was still pneumonia, that
pneumonia could trigger this kind of thing, but I had to go to the ER. So, I made
my way to the Emergency Room for the second time in ten days and, of course,
when someone comes in with a racing heart, they don't monkey around. They
send the wheelchair with you and on the bed and all kinds of wires and hook-ups
and one thing and another, and when they got me all set and were ready to read
the whole thing, the heart went back to normal.
But, of course, they don't let you out of those places so easily. They ask all kinds
of questions about why would that happen? So, I had six hours in the Emergency
Room on Friday to contemplate my All Saints Day sermon theme. You have to
believe that I was thinking about it, and I was thinking about me thinking about
it. I want to say this morning, the thesis holds. The thesis holds. So many things
© Grand Valley State University
�The Secret of Dying Well
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
to live for, so many people to live for, so many horizons yet to journey toward. So
many of the wonderful joys of life. But, if Friday had been the last Friday, it would
have been fine, because by the grace of God and the love and grace of this
community and my own beautiful family, surrounded with friends, My God!, how
life has been so good. I am convinced that the secret of dying well is living well.
Live well, good folks, be good to yourselves, forgive yourselves, forgive one
another, embrace, leave no stone unturned for kindness and justice and peace.
All will be well. All will be-well. All manner of things will be well. Thanks be to
God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Letters and Papers from Prison. First published in 1953;
First Touchstone Edition, 1997.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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1981-2014
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All Saints Day, Pentecost XXI
Scripture Text
II Timothy 4:6-8, Luke 23:44-49
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Letters and Papers from Prison. Touchstrone edition, 1997.
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KII-01_RA-0-20031102
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2003-11-02
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The Secret of Dying Well
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 2, 2003 entitled "The Secret of Dying Well", on the occasion of All Saints Day, Pentecost XXI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: II Timothy 4:6-8, Luke 23:44-49.
Compassion
Forgiveness
Meaning
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6896032617f5d3f12bb1874168e36bf5.pdf
4e8d687ea2557f4b2525e6b6e7145097
PDF Text
Text
A Dreamer’s Final Appeal
From the Lenten sermon series: The Dream
Text: Luke 19:41-42
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Lent V, April 2, 1995
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Jesus was a dreamer, and it is dreams that shape the world. Dreamers die, but
dreams don't die. Jesus, in his experience of God, was convinced that God was
full of mercy and compassion, that God's love would reach out and embrace all
sorts and conditions of humankind. After his wrestling with his calling in the
wilderness, filled with the Holy Spirit, he declared his dream in his home
synagogue, and in his teaching told stories which revealed his understanding of
God, a God Who received the prodigal home without recrimination, simply
embracing, weeping, loving, and restoring. The dream was embodied in his life,
in what he taught, and in how he lived, and it was brought to supreme expression
as he was being crucified and he looked at those who tormented him and he
prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Such amazing
love and grace, the epitome of the incarnation of the dream.
He made one final appeal. After ministering throughout Galilee, after those
months of his itinerary, he knew finally he must set his face toward Jerusalem,
and he did. And in our lesson this morning which anticipates Palm Sunday next
week, the Gospel reading tells of his final appeal to Jerusalem, his entrance into
that city, and his endeavor one last time to effect a radical change, a revolution
that would change the nature of that society and all human relationships. His
final appeal for the embodiment of his dream in the life of the people of Israel. He
went to Jerusalem because that was the center of it all. He went to Jerusalem
because there was the temple and the cult and the priesthood and the temple
establishment; there was the center of established power, and it was there that he
must address his final appeal.
My understanding of the nature of the Gospel and the ministry of Jesus has
changed in recent years, and I am so keenly aware of that in the season of Lent
when we are focused on his life and ministry. I have confessed to you before that I
have never known what to do with the Sermon on the Mount, and if you would
have a computer readout of all those texts that I've treated over all these years,
you would find a great dearth of treatment of that central body of teaching of
Jesus. That might seem a paradox, but it is true. And the dearth of treatment is
© Grand Valley State University
�A Dreamer’s Final Appeal
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
because I didn't know what to do with it. The Beatitudes - the counsel about
going the extra mile, turning the other cheek, offering the second garment when
one was requested, and of course, culminating in that call to love one's enemies
and to pray for those who despitefully treat one.
I never really knew what to do with that, to be very honest with you, because on
the one hand, it is so impractical. I've been hesitant to simply say what it so
obviously says, because it is so obviously contrary to our whole manner of life. It
cuts against the grain of every survival instinct that we have; it's contrary to
human nature as we know it in ourselves and in society. The Sermon on the
Mount which was the central body in the teaching of Jesus, which was embodying
that dream which motivated his life, was simply too foreign to everything I knew
about myself and about all of us. I understand now why a certain biblical
interpreter, Charles Scofield, interpreted the whole biblical story as he did.
Maybe some of you possess a Scofield Bible, which I associate with the Bible
School movement and more Bible type churches. The Scofield Bible is still being
printed, as a matter of fact. Charles Scofield divided the biblical story into seven
dispensations. It was his contention that we really don't even have to deal with
the Sermon on the Mount. In fact, in the more radical expression of that whole
school of thought, you don't even use the Lord's Prayer because the contention
was that Jesus came to offer the Kingdom to Israel and, when he was rejected,
then the Kingdom was postponed until a future date, and this interim period, the
period of the Church Age, is a period in which that ethic of the Kingdom is not
applicable.
Well, I certainly don't think that Scofield has correctly interpreted the biblical
story, but I do understand now what he was dealing with. He was facing the same
problem that I have faced, and that is, what do you do with that ethic? Isn't it
contrary to the way you live, to be honest? Don't we really know that if we follow
Jesus literally as it would seem the text would call us to follow, don't we know we
would come in last? Wouldn't we be gobbled up? Can you really live that way?
Can you order a society that way? That was the problem he was trying to handle, I
suppose. The way it’s been handled in my background and training is not that
radical claim that it simply doesn't apply now, but we have been as effective in
blunting Jesus' teaching by making it refer to a kind of spiritual attitude and
posture of the heart, so that you don't literally turn the other cheek. You don't
literally go the extra mile, but that sort of spirit washes over us a bit and does
temper our human behavior. We spiritualize it. We take the sharp edge off it by
saying that it is a spiritual matter and Jesus' Kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. The
Kingdom of God refers to a spiritual kingdom, and haven't we honestly now been
schizophrenic? Haven't we really spoken of a spiritual kingdom, those ideals, and
then gone on to live our practical life, (could I even say our secular existence), in
quite another fashion, if we would be honest?
Well, one of the things that has changed my ministry in recent years has been the
large amount of research that has surfaced about the times of Jesus, the social
© Grand Valley State University
�A Dreamer’s Final Appeal
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
situation, the politics and the economics of the life of his time, and what is
becoming evident is that Jesus was not talking about some spiritual kingdom in
heaven by and by. Jesus was addressing very concretely the life and society of his
day. When he said these things, he meant them. He was serious. He was talking
about quite another way to live out one's human existence, and quite another way
for a society to be in community together.
The cultural studies of that time will reveal that Jesus was taking the side of the
poor and the disaffected and the alienated and the outcast over against an
established official temple religion with a holiness code that managed the social
arrangement of society, and which excluded large numbers of people. And what
Jesus was interested in and concerned about was the concrete life of the people of
his day, particularly the disenfranchised. Particularly the poor, the landless, the
voiceless, and the powerless. Jesus was serious. Jesus was speaking about real
people and real social relationships in the concrete history which he was living.
Jesus was reaching back to an old tradition of his people. There really are two
traditions in the Hebrew scriptures. You may perhaps remember last October
when we were going through that survey of the history of Israel. When we came
to that section in I Samuel, Israel had entered into Canaan. They were now in and
settling the Promised Land. They were under the leadership of judges. That
Hebrew biblical book by that name tells the story of various of those judges.
These judges were the spiritual leaders, but they had no continuing authority.
They had authority when the spirit of God came upon them; they were raised up
by God to meet a crisis and, once the crisis was met, they went back home to the
farm. You remember Samuel, the greatest of those spiritual leaders, how some
came to him and said, "Samuel, this just isn't going to do. You have stature and
authority, but your sons are not following in your steps. We need a king; we need
to be like other nations." And you remember Samuel said, "You are rejecting
God." However, in those chapters in Samuel 8 and 9, you have two traditions side
by side, and one says let them have a king, and the other says to have a king is to
reject God. There were two positions, two traditions; they were in tension with
one another, one wanting to maintain that relationship with God directly, and the
other wanting a human figurehead on the throne.
And the one tradition, the Sinai tradition, coming from Moses, is the tradition
that says let God be our king. Moses had led them out of Egypt. What was Egypt?
Egypt was slavery. Egypt was empire. Egypt was a place of the royal throne, and
that royal consciousness permeated Egypt and it oppressed people, and the
Israelites were a part of that oppressed people. And God set them free. Moses led
them out of bondage, into their own land. Here they were, free. Their own people.
And then some came and said to Samuel, "We'd like a king." Samuel said, "You
got such short memories? Don't you remember what kings do? Kings tax. Kings
raise armies with your sons and daughters. Kings oppress. Are you crazy? Having
been delivered from that, do you want now to go back to that?" And they said,
"Yes," and they did.
© Grand Valley State University
�A Dreamer’s Final Appeal
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
The second tradition is called the Zion tradition. The great king of Israel was
David. We really love David because we think about David as a shepherd boy.
David was one clever individual - very charismatic, very strategically smart,
acute, and the first thing David did was conquer Jerusalem, which up to that
point had not been conquered because it was a natural fortress. He established
Jerusalem as Mount Zion, and he built his house there and made it the center of
this new monarchy. He wanted to build a temple, too, because every throne needs
the legitimacy of the temple. But God said, "No. You've been a man of war." So
what did he do? He gathered the building fund, so that when Solomon and his
son came, they could build the temple. Now you have the royal house and the
temple on Mount Zion, and you have all kinds of references in the Hebrew story
and Israel's history in the Old Testament of the exultation of Mount Zion. Don't
hear me as saying one of these traditions is biblical and the other isn't - they are
both there. The Sinai tradition, the wilderness tradition, the Mosaic tradition
where God is king- and the Zion tradition where the House of David is supreme,
and where the house of David which is the reigning family occupying the royal
house is in collaboration with the temple of Zion, temple of our God.
Now, you see, when Jesus came teaching, he talked about the Kingdom of God.
So often in the church we have blunted what he was really saying because we
have spoken of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven as a spiritual reign
above us, not connected with our concrete reality. But as a matter of fact, when
Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, Jesus was speaking about the rule of God, the
rule of God in my life and in your life and in our life together. The kingdom of
God was not some far off future ideal. It was that which Jesus was calling his
people to, here and now. And when he came to Jerusalem, he was serious. He was
making one final appeal. Jesus did not go there without hope. He didn't come
there without expectation. He came there because he knew that, until he had
entered Jerusalem, to the very temple court itself, and offered this alternative, he
would not have fulfilled his mission.
And so, he came, and in this final appeal, there were two dramatic acts. The one
was simply the entrance itself on a donkey. He came on a donkey, not a war
horse. It was a symbolic action. In Zechariah 9, you'll find that the man of peace
comes riding on a donkey, and Jerusalem is rid of its war horses. Jesus came as a
peace candidate. Don't we hate peace candidates? Aren't they pains in the neck?
Peace candidates. Chairman of the Peace Party. Coming into the city, Jesus went
right to the temple and, as we speak of it, he "cleansed" the temple. I'm believing
that I've preached that one wrong all my life, too. I always thought that he came
in to cleanse the temple because they were turning the Temple Court into a
bazaar and overcharging the poor pilgrims. But, it wasn't that they were doing
business in the temple court. Doing business in the temple court was a part of the
whole temple structure. Those who were doing business in the temple court were
simply serving the temple system, which was a holiness system. A holiness
system determined who was in and who was out. Who was right and who was
wrong. When you came to the temple, you had to pay your temple tax, but you
© Grand Valley State University
�A Dreamer’s Final Appeal
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
didn't pay your temple tax with a coin that had an image of Caesar on it. So you
had to turn your temple tax, your coin with Caesar on it, into the treasurer there
and get a holy coin so that, in turn, you could take the holy coin to pay your
temple tax. And in the meantime, the temple skimmed a little off. You know,
maybe only 5%. (I'm thinking about instituting that.) And if you were a pilgrim
from far away you cannot bring a ritually pure animal in for sacrifice, and so,
wonder of wonders, they're available. It was part of the system. It was perfectly
legitimate. And those who were doing it were doing it in the service of the whole
temple structure. It was not that they were doing business or having commerce.
What they were doing was they were reinforcing a system that said to the poor
that had no coin at all, "You can't come in." What they were doing was reinforcing
a system that said to the poor who had no bird, "You can't come in." What they
were doing was keeping intact a system that said, "You're in; you're out." Jesus
went to the very heart of the temple cult and he said, "Your separateness, your
separating, your dividing, your choosing, your setting those outside, alienating,
your determining who can and who cannot -this is wrong! It's contrary to what
God would have. This temple is for all people." And he quoted from Isaiah 56:7.
You read that chapter and in that chapter the prophet says as a mouthpiece for
the Lord, "Do not say, you foreigner, that you are separated from my people. And
you who are eunuchs who are supposed to be outside because of dysfunction,
don't say you were outside. You come in, because my house will be for all people
with joy." That’s what Jesus was after. That's why he went to the temple. He went
to the temple because it was the very center of a society that excluded the broken
and the bruised and the bloodied, that excluded the poor and the hopeless and
the powerless and the voiceless. He went to the very temple and he said to those
who were in authority there, "You are collaborating with the occupying power in
order to maintain the status quo of a society that is on its way to death. And if you
maintain this posture, you will lead this people to disaster."
That’s why when he came to the city he wept over it as he saw it in all of its
splendor and beauty. He wept for it because he loved it. He wept for it because, in
solidarity with all who had no access to it, he felt their pain. He wept for it
because those who were the very guardians and the custodians of the city were so
blind as to what was the consequence of their course of action. He was full of
anguish, not anger. Anger only elicits anger in return. But genuine anguish has
the possibility of permeating through the shell of a heart. Jesus wept. And what
he appealed for was so radical that they had to kill him, because in the Gospel
reading this morning, it says that the people were hanging on his words because,
with the people, what he was after rang true. And every regime, whether of
church or of state, fears when the people hear another drumbeat and find
resonance in their soul.
But Jesus wasn't a victim. There was no self-pity, and there was no recrimination.
Jesus was a dreamer, and he couldn't rest until he had brought his dream right to
the heart and center of all of that that kept the dream from being realized. But
© Grand Valley State University
�A Dreamer’s Final Appeal
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
making his appeal and being crucified, he was born again onto eternal life. He
was a free man. He lived by a grand dream. He lived with power, with dignity,
with integrity. He lived with joy because, when one is captivated by a dream and
lives the dream faithfully with passion, then come what may, one is free. Then
one knows joy.
Next Sunday marks 50 years since the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I like what
he says about his own learning what it means to be a Christian.
Later I discovered and am still discovering to this very moment that it is
only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe. One must
abandon every attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint
or a converted sinner, a churchman, the priestly type so called, a righteous
or an unrighteous person, a sick man or a healthy one. This is what I mean
by worldliness. Taking life in one's stride with all its duties and problems,
its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness. It is in such a
life that we throw ourselves utterly into the arms of God and participate in
his sufferings in the world and watch with Christ in Gethsemane. That is
faith. That is metanoia, or repentance. And that is what makes one a
Christian. A human being.
And then these words,
Can success make us arrogant? Or failure lead us astray when we
participate in the sufferings of God by living in this world? No. No room
for arrogance. No room for despair, but following the dream and being
true carries its own reward, and that reward is freedom and it is joy.
I still don't know what to do with the Sermon on the Mount. Don't test me by
cuffing me on the cheek. But what you are doing, here and there, in small ways,
and what we're trying to do together, to be a community of compassion, that's at
least a small step on the way, trying to live out the dream of the one whom we say
we follow. Jesus. Really something. Really somebody. What a way to go!
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f938a7b64bb9e6420deb58093213e62f.mp3
d1bd095de738a46ba684b8354436da57
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
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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Event
Lent V
Series
The Dream
Scripture Text
Luke 19:41-42
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19950402
Date
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1995-04-02
Title
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A Dreamer's Final Appeal
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Text
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application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 2, 1995 entitled "A Dreamer's Final Appeal", as part of the series "The Dream", on the occasion of Lent V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 19:41-42.
Forgiveness
Historical Jesus
Sermon on the Mount
Way of Jesus
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ee4d501aefa3bc12bd1649791fbec4a9
PDF Text
Text
A Dream Embodied
From the Lenten sermon series: The Dream
Text: Luke 23:34; I Peter 2:23
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Lent IV, March 26, 1995
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Lent 1995, remembering Jesus. The way he was. The way he lived. The life that he
lived leading to the death that he died. During these Lenten weeks we are seeking
to retrieve the dangerous dream, the dream that he declared in his home
synagogue, when he said, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed
me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, giving sight
to the blind, to let the oppressed go free." A dream that he declared because he
had struggled and wrestled with his own ministry, his own calling, and came out
of the wilderness filled with the Spirit of God, with an image of God imprinted
indelibly upon his heart, an image, a dream - a dream of the heart of God which
he would begin then to embody in his ministry.
Jesus had a dream. It was the dream of a different kind of world. It was a dream
that was characterized by compassion and mercy, in which every person was
attributed human dignity and valued as a child of God, created in the image of
God. It was a dream in which there were no outsiders and insiders, but only all
God's children embraced in the grace and compassion and mercy of God.
That was the dream that he dreamed. And dreams shape the world. Dreams too
bold create fear and elicit anger and can issue in violence. But the dream that
Jesus dreamed he continued to embody in the way that he lived, the style of his
life, and the teaching that he offered. Jesus had a dream. And dreamers die, but
dreams don't die. Because God keeps raising up dreamers to keep the dream
alive. Because the dream is a mirror of the heart and the purpose of God.
Wouldn't it be fascinating this morning if we could have the charter members
here with us? If we could ask them what was in their hearts 125 years ago? What
were their hopes? What were their dreams? Certainly they must have been people
of faith and people of vision and people of devotion and people of courage. And
they founded in this village a community of people for the worship of God and the
ministry of Christ. I wish we could have them with us this morning and let them
tell us of their dream. I cannot this morning relate the history of 125 years, but I
can relate the history that I have lived in the last 25 years. I can tell you of the
© Grand Valley State University
�A Dream Embodied
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
dream that was born, the new vision that captivated us 25 years ago, 1971, when I
returned to this place. It was a dream of a different kind of congregation, rooted
in a fine traditional Reformed congregation. We dreamed of becoming an
ecumenical community where the blending of traditions would enhance and
enrich, and where diversity would be celebrated. We dreamed of creating here an
oasis of grace, where the bruised and the broken could come and be healed by the
grace of God. We dreamed here a wonderful dream and, of course, there were
some who said it was an impossible dream. But at the Institute for Successful
Leadership in April of 1971, at the final communion service, I was deeply moved
as Robert Schuller told the story of the Man from LaMancha, and concluded with
those moving words of the song, "The Impossible Dream." It became for us
somewhat of a theme song. An appropriate song it is for the story of Jesus - one
who would fight for the right and who, though covered with scorn and scars,
would march into hell for a heavenly cause. It's a stirring song, and the
impossible dream became the dream that together we committed ourselves to
realize here and, in many respects, we've realized the dream. It was a dream that
captured our imagination and energized us and caused us to move out into a bold
venture, for then 25 years ago, it was a radical dream.
Jesus had a dream. And he lived out that dream. He lived it out in the manner of
his life, and he articulated it in the teaching that he offered to the people. But a
dream too bold elicits fear, which moves into anger which can issue in violence
and tragedy. And so, when he stood by his dream, they conspired against him and
they arrested him. They tried him and condemned him, and they crucified him.
And as he was being crucified, suspended upon the cross between heaven and
earth, receiving the torments and the taunts of those who mocked him, he
prayed, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
In the midst of the excruciating extremity of power, Jesus prayed thus, a prayer
almost too much to take in. But in praying thus for those who were murdering
him, he was embodying the dream, the dream that he had portrayed in the word
picture of the parable of the father who waits to receive his prodigal son and
beckons his elder son, as well, to join the party. If he painted in unsurpassable
strokes the portrait of the love of God in that story, then in this prayer that he
offered, he exemplified that love supremely. In his prayer for those who were
murdering him, for their forgiveness, we see the supreme embodiment of the
dream. He had taught his disciples and the people gathered around him to love
their enemies, for he said in loving your enemies you will be imitators of God,
children of God. And he taught the disciples in response to Peter's question that
they ought to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven, saying thereby
that forgiveness is not an occasional act, but a permanent state of spirit and mind
and heart. And when he was crucified and put to the test, the life that he had lived
and the teaching that he had articulated gave supreme embodiment to the dream.
And he could do no other, really. Such was the nature of the dream. You see, it
was the dream that had permeated his whole being. A dream that mirrored his
understanding of the nature of God. And believing as he did, that God was like
© Grand Valley State University
�A Dream Embodied
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
that, well, we could have understood if he had done any less but, in order to be
true to all that he had claimed, he had to respond out of his depths believing that
it was the response out of the depths of the heart of the love of God. "Father,
forgive them."
Incredible. Amazing. Defying every human instinct resident within the human
heart. Possible only by one transformed by love, by the love, which alone can so
transform that one can so pray. Can you believe it? "Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do." They know not what they do. It was not a statement of
arrogant superiority. It was a sad recognition of human reality. Jesus was saying
"Father, forgive them," because they're not really evil people. They're not really
bad people. They are, for the most part, sincere people, but they are ignorant,
they're blind to the deepest truths that emanate from the depths of your being.
Forgive them for they don't understand, they don't know. It wasn't some
statement of arrogant superiority. It was a sad recognition of human reality that
has been repeated over and over again throughout the course of history.
Appalling blindness. A feeling of threat. The rising of fear. The engulfing of anger,
and the consequence of tragic violence.
Dreamers die. But dreams don't die, because God keeps raising up dreamers in
whom the dream comes alive again because the dream can never die, for the
dream is a mirror of the heart of God.
It was a dream in 1870 when some Dutch immigrant folk founded here a
Christian congregation. The dream took a dramatic turn in 1971. We changed our
name to Christ Community, and opened our minds and hearts to fresh winds of
the Spirit, celebrating diversity, being marked by grace, beckoning all of those
who were broken and bruised and weary and despairing. But now, it's 1995. One
hundred and twenty-five years have passed. And it's time for the dream to take on
a new dimension. It is time for the dream that has been realized in this
community of grace where so many have found healing to become a dream that
now moves outward in ways we've not yet dared to do. To those of us who have
been beckoned in by grace, it is time for us to be turned inside out. To this
community and to the world. It is time for us to pray.
Jesus, in the hour of his extremity, with his body screaming with pain, said,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." It is time for us to pray,
"Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is sorrow, let us sow joy;
where there is hatred, love; where there is brokenness, wholeness; for it is in
giving that we receive. It is forgiving that we are forgiven. It is in dying that we
are born again to eternal life." God calls us on this anniversary year to dream the
dream and to embody the dream in order that finally, ultimately, the impossible
dream may become the reality of the whole earth.
Dream with me.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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4d6e007ab46c93d8d01dd8e16ff8502f
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Lent IV
Series
The Dream
Scripture Text
Luke 23:34, I Peter 2:23
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
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KII-01_RA-0-19950326
Date
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1995-03-26
Title
A name given to the resource
A Dream Embodied
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 26, 1995 entitled "A Dream Embodied", as part of the series "The Dream", on the occasion of Lent IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 23:34, I Peter 2:23.
Community of Grace
Forgiveness
Inclusive Grace
Nature of God
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/16105fcfb52711c7b1298a2fa6e50841.pdf
48a46a1b7fe4ed1bf576a89d7fac57c6
PDF Text
Text
Creation: God’s Risky Decision – Dream or Nightmare?
The Genesis Story of the People of Israel
Text: Genesis 9:8-11
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost XVIII, September 25, 1994
Transcription of the spoken sermon
"Then God said to Noah... I am establishing my covenant with you and your
descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you... and
never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." Genesis 9:8-11
The Bible is a forbidding book. In order to get some handle on it, let's try for a few
Sunday mornings to look at large chunks, with broad strokes, in order to see how
those large chunks fit into a whole to tell "The One Story of the Bible." Our
beginning is with the first eleven chapters of Genesis. But those first eleven
chapters, while they speak of the beginning of all things, are not really the
beginning of the biblical story. To go to the beginning of the biblical story, we
would have to go to the book of Exodus, to the birth of the people Israel. Here we
find Moses leading the Israelites out of the slavery and bondage of Egypt, through
the wilderness, and into the Promised Land. The Exodus, the movement from
Egypt and slavery to the land flowing with milk and honey, that was the founding
story of this people Israel.
The Creation story is the story of this people. This people Israel, like every people,
told stories. They told stories in order to understand themselves, who they were,
and to communicate that understanding to the rising generations. They told
stories of beginnings, like every people. They told stories of the ancient past. They
told stories in order to understand themselves in the broad scheme of things.
They told these stories in order to understand how they related to the whole
cosmic reality and the whole human history, how they as a people related to all
other peoples. They told stories in order to explain why life was like it was, and
how to respond to it, and from what perspective to interpret it. They told stories.
The first eleven chapters of Genesis are the stories that this people Israel told in
order to explain what they believed—what they believed to be true about the
world, about history, and about themselves, and about God. This people Israel
told their stories in order to give expression to their faith, for they were first of all
a people of faith.
© Grand Valley State University
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Page 2
Perhaps you will then say to me, "Well, then these stories in the first eleven
chapters of Genesis are human creations? Are they simply stories that people
told?" And I would say, "Yes .. . and No ..." Yes they are human creations, they are
stories that this community told, that expressed their faith. But whence did those
stories arise? They arose out of the experience this people had with the One who
was transcendent, the One who was beyond them, the One whom they
understood to be the source of all life—Creator of all. Their stories arose out of
their encounter with the Living God. So there's a sense in which you could say
yes, these biblical stories are human creations, but they are more than that; they
speak of human experience of being encountered by God. Out of that encounter
they gave witness to the things that they believed about the God who encountered
them.
As the centuries went by and the nation of Israel developed, the stories they told
in an oral tradition eventually became written down and gathered together. So,
we have today the Hebrew Scriptures or the First Testament. (Rather than the
Old Testament. To say the Old Testament it sounds as though the New Testament
superseded the Old, as though Israel has been surpassed. I think that that is
insensitive and I don't really believe that to be the case. I think more and more we
come to see that we, with Israel, worship this one God who creates all and is full
of grace.) So, the Hebrew Scriptures or the First Testament will be our primary
focus for a few weeks. And that Hebrew scripture begins not with the beginning
of the Hebrew people—that's told us in the book of Exodus – but what they
believed about the Source of all things. They said there is, because God said, "Let
there be." That is the creation story told poetically by James Weldon Johnson,
expressed marvelously by Franz Josef Heyden, recorded here by the First
Testament writer in the first chapter as a creed of creation. This story is recorded
in the midst of Israel's exile and despair, as an affirmation of faith, that a Creator
created all things. Why is there anything, rather than nothing? They said, there is
something rather than nothing, because God said, "Let there be." The unraveling
of that creation story is simply the explication of the fundamental decision of
faith that what is—is, not by accident or chance or an eternal cycle of things, but
is the consequence of the Living God who is the creative source of all, who
decided in a risky decision to bring into being all that is. That's what they
believed.
Then they went on to say, "But how—now that we have located ourselves in this
cosmic scheme of things, the consequence of God's creative word—how should be
feel about the world and the created order?" They went on in their storytelling to
reiterate that statement of God, "It is good," a positive affirmation, a positive
affirmation of human life. They said, "Who are we and how are we related?" The
storyteller said, "We are related to God, for we are created in the divine image,
and with profound insight."
This story also helped them to see that the human person, created in the divine
image, self reflective, created with freedom and responsibility, was also shaped
© Grand Valley State University
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Page 3
out of the mud of the earth—dust, humus. After the rain the worms buckle up the
soil—that's humus, the excretion of the worm. The humus is the stuff that God
shaped to make the human person. Humus. Its root is in the word humility; the
root of humility is the root of humor. In God's good humor, God making a joke,
created a being out of humus that had a spirit that could soar with God's own so
the human person beckoned upward, pulled downward, lives in this constant
tension. The Israelite tradition said, see, that's why we are like we are. But
someone else said, "But why? This God is good, and if this God created
humankind in God's own image, why all the disease and all the dis-ease? Why all
the trouble, the anguish and the pain? Why does it sometimes seem that this
creation is not a dream, but a nightmare?" The answer was: Not God's fault. The
Creator called the creature to live in freedom within limits, in harmony with
creation, and the Creator. But the risky part of it was that the creature had the
potential to say, "No," and with arrogant pride to usurp the place of the creator,
to seek human autonomy.
All of that is in those primitive stories. The writer was trying to give expression to
the conviction of Israel that creation is good because God is good, and God called
it forth. The human person is good because it is shaped after the image of God,
yet rooted in the earth, full of conflict, set always before choice, called always to
choose life, to choose the way of wisdom.
But again and again and again, say the storytellers, these persons choose wrongly,
bringing on alienation, disharmony, grief, death. The third chapter of Genesis,
following on the story in the Garden of Eden, tells us about Adam and Eve and
the trees and the temptation to eat from the tree. And the choice to do what God
had said they should not do, to eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
But that's not a story that happened at 6:00 a.m. on the first day of creation,
because these are not historical narratives as though day one is in chapter one,
and day two is in chapter three, then day four, or month six, or whatever. No,
these are a series of little stories, a series of portraits, of snapshots. So, in
chapters two and three we have a human couple, created for a garden of paradise,
an Eden of delight, who usurped their limits of the freedom and brought grief
upon them. Then, it is not as though from that point on there is no more human
possibility to choose rightly. In the fourth chapter there are two brothers, Cain
and Abel. Cain gets an angry eye over against his brother and he becomes jealous
of his brother. He has hatred growing in his heart, and he rises up and he kills his
brother. But the word of the Lord comes to him and says you did that because
your mother and father sinned, therefore, you are a sinner and are totally
depraved; you can't help yourself. Sin crouches at your door, but you can master
it, but you didn't.
If you want to call that the "fall" in Genesis 3, then you have a second "fall" in
Genesis 4. There the writer tells us that human civilization and culture developed,
and with the developing culture of the civilization there was an increase in
wickedness on the earth until God shook his head and he said, "I wish I wouldn't
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation: God’s Risky Decision – Dream or Nightmare? Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
have done it. I took a risk. I wish I wouldn't have taken a risk." The storyteller
uses anthropomorphic words– so child like, so profound—revealing the anguish
of a God who is engaged and involved, who says, "I will wipe it out."
Ah, but we're told, there's Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He
was a righteous man. God snatched Noah and his family out of the abyss of the
flood, and when the floodwaters passed away God said, "You know, I'm never
going to do that again. I am going to make a covenant pledge with the created
order and every living being and humankind. I'll never destroy it again and I am
going to put a rainbow in the sky to be reminded every time I see it that I am
pledged to stick with this risky experiment all the way to the end. I'll never let it
go." Such grace! Then you have Noah's sons and their trouble, and the final story
in these eleven chapters is the story of the Tower of Babel where they begin to
build this tower toward heaven. Again with such profound wisdom and insight
the storyteller is telling us that it is the human project to usurp the place of God,
to build the secular city, to organize all of life without regard to the Creator, to
break the limits. So we have the dispersion of the people due to the confusing of
their tongues. Because, when communication breaks down, community is
impossible and the world becomes hell.
That's how this people Israel related themselves to the total cosmic scheme of
things, to the whole flow of human history, to God whom they affirmed to be the
source of all life, and how they understood the reason there was so much pain
and trouble in the world. Not blaming God, and never letting themselves off the
hook as though, "We're just human, and we are fallen; therefore, marred forever
and it can't ever be any different." Always calling themselves back to choose life,
to live obediently – that was their understanding and their goal in the telling of
these stories. Those eleven chapters are foundational for the rest of the story
because, you see, what the writer did was say "We, as this peculiar people of
Israel, are who we are, chosen by God because in the beginning—Adam and Even,
Cain and Abel, the people of Noah's generation, the Tower of Babel—again and
again and again human failure, human cussedness, human obstreperousness was
the choice." But God says, "I can't let it go. I'll never abandon my people, so I am
going to have to do something."
What follows is the story of Abraham. Does the writer just happens to tell us that
Abraham's wife, Sarah, was a woman with a barren womb? I don't think that the
writer slipped that in order that there might be a wonderful trivia question some
generations later. The writer was using a metaphor to tell us that Israel would be
born as a new creation of God, out of a barren womb which only God could do in
order to be a people to bring light and truth to the nations on behalf of the God
who was the Creator of all. Out of the womb of Sarah that was barren, and at her
age as wrinkled as a dried prune, God would bring a people as numerous as the
stars of the heaven and the sands of the sea. But I am anticipating next week—so
for now let me say just two things. These marvelous stories answer the
fundamental question: All that is, is because God said, "Let there be."
© Grand Valley State University
�Creation: God’s Risky Decision – Dream or Nightmare? Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
I received a magazine at my Wednesday night class, brought by one of my friends.
The Scientific American, a special issue, October 1994 celebrating 150 years of
continuous publication. The theme, "Life in the Universe," has marvelous articles
about the latest bits of knowledge we have about the earth, the evolutionary
process, the human person, the extra-terrestrial investigations, the environment,
all of that. Marvelous! Now I want to say there is nothing in this [magazine] that
is in conflict with this [Bible]. The tragic history of the conflict between religion
and science has done irreparable damage to the cause of Christ and the mission
of God for the world. This [magazine] talks about how, when, by what means—
maybe this, maybe that. It speaks of baffling questions yet unsolved, yet a
continual probing, searching, reflecting. This [Bible] says nothing about what this
[magazine] says, except that there would not be this [Bible] if there were not One
who said, "In the beginning, let there be." It states that in the beginning, God
created. It is the affirmation of faith, the absolute affirmation of faith, and it is the
primary goal of this book to say only that. This is a book of faith by a people who
believed that all that is is because God said, "Let there be. That's all! And that is
everything! With such a faith we can relax, say, go to it ,all you scientists. Unravel
the mysteries, tell us the exciting news that brings ever more awe to the human
mind as secrets are revealed."
Tuesday and Wednesday this week at Hope College there is a Critical Issues
Seminar on Human Genetic Engineering. The chief of the whole project from
Washington, DC will be there Tuesday night. Medical questions, ethical
decisions, all of those things need to be figured out. All this book [Bible] says is
that the reason that you seek the answers is because you seek the God who is the
ultimate source. Now, use your minds, your best judgment. Find the path of
wisdom. Choose life." And there is free rein to uncover the secrets of this
marvelous universe, whose complexity is but a witness to the wonder of the
Creator.
One further word, those opening chapters are eloquent in their statement about
human wrong headedness, wrong heartedness, wrong choices, pride, arrogance.
Are you a cussed people? Oh my, are you ... and I with you. The Hebrew
Scriptures point to the hopelessness of the human person, but never in a hopeless
kind of way. There is no "fall" that marks generations from thereon. That's an
imposition on the stories. That's a doctrinal system that has done terrible
disservice to the human person, robbed the human person of dignity, stripped the
human person of self esteem, put the human person under a load of shame and
guilt. And it doesn't come from these scriptures. It is imposed upon it. Do we
make wrong choices? Yes, we do. Have we in the past? Yes. Will we in the future?
Yes, we will. But God says, "I won't give up, and when you fall down I will pick
you up and put you back on the road." These chapters, we understand them in the
Hebrew tradition, are terribly honest about the human condition. We are
hopeless, but not without hope because God is full of grace. Well, a risky decision
like that might seem a nightmare. But God will never abandon the dream. Thank
God.
© Grand Valley State University
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eb8d54aedb5ea401aac429378a88796c.mp3
d1ea75fb892dee4c74c4518c1d8a7e10
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 XVIII
Series
The First Testament
Scripture Text
Genesis 9:8-11
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-0-19940925
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1994-09-25
Title
A name given to the resource
Creation: God's Risky Decision - Dream or Nightmare?
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 25, 1994 entitled "Creation: God's Risky Decision - Dream or Nightmare?", as part of the series "The First Testament", on the occasion of Pentecost XVIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 9:8-11.
Covenant
Creator
Faith
Forgiveness
History of Israel