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World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith
Independence Day Weekend
Text: Psalm 33: 10-11; Revelation 15:3
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 5, 1981
Transcription of the spoken sermon
I have not lived on Lake Michigan long enough to grew accustomed to sunsets and I hope I never do. No matter how urgent the task at hand, Nancy and I stop
and watch the setting of the sun every evening that we are home. It is a very
special time - a time to savor the beauty and wonder of the created order; a time
to stand in awe of the beauty of our Father's world. But in the year we have been
there, I have learned that there are evenings when one can predict a beautiful
sunset - when the day has been clear and there is no sign of a cloud in the western
sky and the sun sinks toward the horizon with all of its golden radiance streaming
forth without a filtering cloud. Such a sight is beautiful - the end of a perfect day.
However, there is another kind of evening completely unpredictable as it moves
toward the moment of sunset. Perhaps a storm has just passed through or a front
is gathering in the West. Huge cloud formations in constantly changing
configurations play across the sky with the sun breaking through a crevice here,
gilding a foreboding looking cloud there. The interplay of sun and clouds is
dramatic, fascinating. Sometimes in those few moments as the sun slips silently
into the sea, a cloud covers it all and there is no sunset to be seen. But at other
times the clouds break, and across the water pours a path of melted gold and all
the lowering clouds are touched by the varying hues such that no artist could do
them justice. That is a sunset!
This is a parable of world history and, in microcosm, a parable of our personal
lives, as well. My theme on this Independence Day weekend is that the Eternal
God, the Sovereign of the Nations, works His purposes out in the midst of world
convulsion, and His movement in History can be detected by the eye of faith. If
we live by the vision of faith we can see the effecting of God's purposes in world
convulsion.
The dictionary defines the word "convulsion" as, "the action of wrenching or
condition of being wrenched... violent social, political or physical disturbance...to
shake violently, to agitate or disturb," and convulsion is a fit word to describe our
© Grand Valley State University
�World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
world. It is a world in ferment -so much more than 205 years ago when those
shots were fired that were heard 'round the world. As a matter of fact, those shots
were not heard 'round the world. Much rather, what was happening was a
rebellion in a British colony, the implication of which could hardly be foreseen at
that time. The world went on its plodding way then, but at that time one could
hardly speak of world convulsion. What happened then has had far reaching consequences. We have had now 205 years of national existence - an experiment in
freedom - a nation shaped and formed deliberately to create the greatest possible
freedom for its people.
That freedom has brought unprecedented blessing and prosperity and we cannot
treasure it too highly nor guard it too carefully. That freedom is a precious gift
which is constantly in peril from within and from without. After 205 years we
who enjoy it are still a small minority of people, for the vast multitude of
humankind live under totalitarian regimes, live regimented lives, live in grinding
poverty, despair and hopelessness.
What is the proper celebration of our national independence? Where have we
come in these two centuries? Where do we stand today and what ought to be the
posture of the Church over against our world in ferment? Are we threatened by
world convulsion? Should we use our mighty power in the world to repress the
cry for human freedom or ought we to be working to break the stalemate of terror
that characterizes our world today?
God works His purposes out in history. He, the Sovereign of History, effects His
purposes in the midst of world convulsion and world convulsion is pregnant with
new possibilities for the realization of God's intention that all people and nations
should live a fully human existence in peace and well-being.
It is not always a simple matter to detect the invisible hand of God in the midst of
the uproar and dust of history's unrest, but biblical faith has always been
characterized by a confidence that God makes the wrath of men to praise him and
that out of the chaos created by the pride of nations and the lust for power and
glory, God affects His purposes of love. And so, this morning, on this
Independence Day weekend, I want us to think about world convulsion as the
opportunity for the working out of the Divine Purpose and understand that world
convulsion in terms of the exciting perspective of our faith in the God of History.
The commitment that was made and the risk that was involved two hundred
years ago, which has proved to be so meaningful in the lives of us all, that
commitment which has issued in this great nation with our experience of liberty
and freedom, a nation deliberately designed to enhance human freedom – that
commitment must be made again. And it needs to be made again not only for
ourselves, but for all peoples. For it seems to me appropriate on this, our
Independence Day weekend, that we make another declaration and a new
declaration, this time not a declaration of independence, but of interdependence
with all the people of the earth. For if there were no higher motivation driving us
© Grand Valley State University
�World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
on than self-interest, then we could say, in all honesty, in the self-interest of this
nation and its people it is incumbent upon us to recognize that in this world
which has grown so small - grapefruit size - it is impossible for us to pursue
narrow, nationalistic purposes. Rather, we must become citizens of the world and
embrace within our purview all people and nations. And to the extent that we are
true to our own principles and honest with our own past, we must lend our power
and our resources to every movement of human freedom, being sensitive to every
cry for human liberation and the deliverance from bondage, wherever we find it.
If we would be true to our past, we must be as committed to the freedom and
liberty of all peoples as we have been to our own.
I do not have a program, a one, two, three-step approach that you can go out of
here with. Rather it is my intention to seek to raise your consciousness of the
issue that is before us - the necessity of our nation to be committed to the
freedom and the liberty of nations all over. Because, you see, we have moved to
the other side of the issue. We are now in the position of the crown of England
200 years ago. We now are in the preeminent position. It is now in our selfinterest, if we are shortsighted, to maintain the status quo. We live in a world that
is teetering on the brink of disaster with a balance of terror between the East and
the West. We live in a world that is on the threshold of blowing itself up and
destroying itself, and we are the persons of power. We are the persons of
resource. We now pull the strings. We, now, have the ability to impact the world,
either for peace or for destruction, and if we hear the word of God, then we will
not be fearful of world convulsion, but we will see it as the opportunity to nudge
and move the world toward a more humane society worldwide.
The shot that was heard ‘round the world 200 years ago wasn't really heard
around the world. This was a backwoods part of the world - who ever heard of
America, and who knew what was here and what possibilities there might be? I
am sure that Europe looked down its nose at this backwoods operation. The
American Revolution was really just a pimple on the surface at the time - who
would know what would issue from those apparently parochial events? But such
is not the case today because events of far less significance impact us. Through
the instant news coverage of the mass media incidents half a world away send
their reverberating shocks around the globe. We are bound together in a bundle
of life today like never before, and it is high time that we in the United States of
America and in the Christian Church in America recognize our worldwide
responsibility and recognize that it is not enough to pursue our own national
interests and our national purposes. Even intelligent self-interest demands that
we take the world into our view.
The American Revolution eventuated in this great nation, and we can say that the
commitment to liberty and freedom at that time has been vindicated. The
experiment of that time and these past two centuries has not been an accident of
history, for our founding fathers recognized that liberty and human dignity must
be grounded in the Eternal God and our founding documents witness to that fact.
© Grand Valley State University
�World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
But if we would be true to that heritage, then we must recognize that that which
we will for ourselves we must will for all peoples. And it is incumbent upon us to
recognize our world responsibility, and to declare our interdependence.
That isn't popular. As a matter of fact, it goes against the grain. It is much easier
to exploit the fears of people and it is much easier to beat the drums and whip up
a nationalistic feeling and a fervent patriotism. Throughout the history of
mankind there have been those who have set up straw men and scapegoats and
we see it happening on our evening news in Iran today where the Islamic
revolutionary fires need to be fed constantly by hatred of America, justified or
unjustified. History has always been filled with demagogues who would
manipulate people for their own purpose and we see a narrow nationalism
espoused by the very vocal religious Right in our day. But it is up to you and to
me who are Christians as well as Americans to recognize that history is His Story,
and that He embraces all people and has good will and purposes of love for all of
humankind. Therefore, it is not enough for us to make a kneejerk, nationalistic
and patriotic reaction to events in the world, but rather to take a step back and
recognize our responsibility to be the instruments of God for the furthering of
peace and the enhancement of the human condition everywhere, on both sides of
the curtain, in the East and the West, in the North and the South, in the First
World and the Second World, the Third and the Fourth, in developed nations and
in developing nations - to recognize in our small world, that has shrunk to such
miniscule size, that whatever happens anywhere in this world will impact our life
and our existence as well.
Whenever one gets into this area, one is in the area not of black and white, but of
many shades of gray. The international situation is so highly complex that there
is really only one thing we know for sure, and that is that those who have easy,
simple solutions do not understand. Beware of the simplistic solution to
problems whose complexity we can hardly probe.
However, we cannot be silent until we have all the facts in. And so, in the midst of
our struggle to determine the posture of America in this world of ours, in the
20th century, we recognize the inadequacy of our understanding and the
complexity of the problem. Yet, act we must.
For example, let us take the instance of El Salvador, which I have mentioned
before here. How ought we to react as a nation? Bishop Romero was murdered
there a little over a year ago. He was the Archbishop of San Salvador and in his
high, ecclesiastical office he had identified with the situation of the poor. In
identifying with the case of the poor, there are those who would write him off by
simply saying he fomented the unrest among the peasants. Well, I imagine that
he did that. As a Christian who knows that God will not have people live in
grinding poverty and futility, standing with the poor in a country that has been
characterized by repression and oppression, what is a Christian leader to do? He
wrote to President Carter back in 1980 and in that letter he said,
© Grand Valley State University
�World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
It disturbs me deeply that the U.S. government is leaning toward an arms
race in sending military equipment and advisors to "train three
Salvadorian battalions in logistics, communications, and intelligence." In
the event that this news is accurate, your government, instead of favoring
greater peace and justice in El Salvador, will undoubtedly aggravate the
repression and injustice against the organized people who have been
struggling because of their fundamental respect for human rights.
(…from an address by Prof. Jose Jorge Siman, Former President,
Commission of Justice and Peace of the Archdiocese, Catholic Church of El
Salvador, given from the pulpit of Riverside Church, New York City, on
Peace Sabbath, April 26, 1981.)
Nonetheless, our government did not heed the Archbishop. We did send aid and
military advisors. And this present administration has done the same. Choosing
El Salvador in their early days in office as the point at which they would draw the
line, they blew it all out of proportion, and then tried to dampen it down again.
Obviously, that little nation was to be a testing ground - those poor people, those
suffering peasants, the playground of the major ideologies of the day.
In April, on Peace Sabbath, Bill Coffin had in his Riverside pulpit a professor
from El Salvador who spoke about the situation and pleaded with American
Christians to send human aid, not weapons. And following his comments, Coffin
said,
... If it is true that Communism has never come to a nation that took care
of its poor, its aged, its youth, its sick, and its handicapped, then why can't
we say to the Junta in San Salvador, "We'll help you take care of your poor,
your aged, your youth, your sick, and your handicapped, but we will not
help you find a military solution to what is not a military problem?"
In Nicaragua, where Catholic priests are in the ruling cabinet, where
Jesuits manage the nationwide literacy campaign and are nominated for
the Nobel Peace Prize by more than one hundred members of the British
Parliament, why shouldn't we help the Sandinistas in the same way we
helped Somoza for forty years without blinking an eyelash?...
In Cuba, why shouldn't we lift the blockade of twenty years, and instead of
sending Marines to Guantanamo Bay, let businessmen wade ashore in
Havana? That's what Castro wants, that's the way to counteract Soviet
influence, and that's the way to practice peace. The cure is caring, not
killing; serving people, not power. Caring for others is the practice of
peace.... Peace does not come through strength; strength comes through
peace.
The Psalmist in the lesson we read this morning said the Lord brings the plans of
nations to nothing. He frustrates the counsels of the peoples. But the Lord's own
© Grand Valley State University
�World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
plans stand forever. And then the Psalmist went on to say what this world has
never learned - and our nation does not understand, as well.
A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his
great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great
might it cannot save. Psalm 33: 16, 17 (RSV)
The world teeters on the brink of disaster, and what have we to say? I don't like
radicals. I get sick and tired of radicals. I wish they would go away. I get tired of
the media putting them before us all the time. One such radical is Daniel
Berrigan, the Catholic priest who has been in and out of jail the last decade and a
half. Most recently he and a few others went into the G.E. plant in King of
Prussia, Pennsylvania, which produces equipment for nuclear missiles. They
destroyed what they could before they were arrested. They were just tried and
convicted. In an interview, Daniel Berrigan had some things to say which, in spite
of the fact that I don't like radicals, spoke to me. He said...
The Jesuit order accepted me as a member. The Catholic Church ordained
me as a priest. I took all that with great seriousness. I still do, with all my
heart. And then Vietnam came along, and then the nukes came along. And
I had to continue to ask myself at prayer, with my friends, with my family,
with all kinds of people, with my own soul, "Do you have anything to say
today?" I mean, beyond a lot of prattling religious talk.
Do you have anything to say about life today, about the lives of people
today? Do you have a word, a word of hope to offer, a Christian word?
That's a very important question for anyone who takes being a priest,
being a Christian, being a human being seriously, "Do you have anything
to offer human life today?" Sojourners, June 1981, p. 23.
Well, do you have anything to say today? Do I have anything to say today? The
last issue of TIME magazine has a two-page essay on “The Bomb.” It says, in
effect, since Hiroshima in 1945 the world has refused to look at the bomb. We
have refused to look at the seriousness of the bomb. And we continue with
nuclear proliferation and arming ourselves to the teeth with more warheads than
would be necessary to blow up the entire globe, and still the song goes on. Israel
makes a preemptive strike on the reactor in Iraq and justifies its action as
necessary for its own safety and the safety of the world. In the wake of that, an
Arab spokesman said, "We need the bomb!" In a world where six countries have
the bomb, probably two more, and by the end of the 80's the possibility of 40
nations having the bomb, what has the Church to say? TIME magazine deals with
it; I suppose we ought to, too.
The war horse is a vain hope for victory…
If the Psalmist were writing today he might say an antiballistic missile, or a
nuclear submarine is a vain hope.
© Grand Valley State University
�World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
A king is not saved by his great army. … The Lord brings the counsel of
the nations to naught; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel
of the Lord stands for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has
chosen as his heritage!
What do we do? Well, we don't make knee jerk reactions to every announcement
from the White House or the State Department that would rile up our patriotic
blood and make us feel like good guys over against the bad guys. We realize that
we are in this bundle of life, bound up with all nations and people, and it is not a
case of black and white or good and evil, of one side or the other. It is high time
that we are true to the principles on which we were founded and that we seek to
aid and abet every movement for human freedom and liberation anywhere in the
world; that we pray for peace and begin to take steps and action, concrete action,
that will further peace; that we come face to face with the horrible reality, the
insanity of a world that lives under the shadow of nuclear armaments and that we
recognize that our welfare rests with the welfare of the whole human family.
A Declaration of Independence 200 years ago – in the providence of God,
a magnificent move toward the enhancement of the human condition.
1981, high time for a Declaration of Interdependence for a world that
would be made safe for children and for the generations yet unborn.
Trust in arms? “The war horse is a vain hope for victory.” When will we learn it?
As I was thinking about all these things this morning, I did what I always do on
Sunday mornings, in the stillness, when the family is trying to sleep. I put on
Bach's Mass in B Minor - a powerful piece. It begins with the Kyrie, "Lord, have
mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us." And then
it moves into that great, strong, "Glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace
among men," then it moves on through the affirmation of faith, the Nicene Creed,
and eventuates in the great chorus of Alleluia and praise with the closing cry,
"Grant us Thy peace." And as I heard that stirring music, the music itself
communicating as much as the words, and I thought about the world in
convulsion, I thought to myself - the world in convulsion seems to be so real, so
close, so tangible, and the Glory to God in the Highest and Peace on Earth among
men of good will seems to be so remote, and yet the music, the music convinced
me that that is the Ultimate Truth, and in a world in convulsion we will not
despair or give up in hopelessness, paralyzed by fear because we believe that, in
the midst of world convulsion, God is working His purposes out. The exciting
vision of faith keeps us going and we know that history is not an accident going to
happen, but rather throughout all of its chaos is woven that meaningful thread of
the purposes of God that will culminate with that great cry, "The Lord God
Omnipotent reigns!" But He does not work in a vacuum, rather through His
people who, like those 200 years ago, are willing to die for a heavenly cause and
sacrifice life itself if need be that there might be peace on earth. Amen.
© Grand Valley State University
�World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith
Richard A. Rhem
© Grand Valley State University
Page 8
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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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.
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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
text/pdf
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Scripture Text
Psalm 33:1-5, 10-22, Revelation 15:1-4
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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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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KII-01_RA-0-19810705
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1981-07-05
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World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Text
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 5, 1981 entitled "World Convulsion and the Exciting Vision of Faith", at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 33:1-5, 10-22, Revelation 15:1-4.
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application/pdf
Divine Intention
Faith
Freedom
Global Community
Interdependence
Liberation
Peace
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PDF Text
Text
The Spirit Beyond All Human Religion
Text: John 4:21-24; Acts 10:34-35
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Trinity Sunday, June 6, 1993
Transcription of the spoken sermon
“The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain
nor in Jerusalem….The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true
worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth, for the Father seeks
such as these to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must
worship in Spirit and Truth.” John 4:21-24
“…I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone
who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.” Acts 10:34-35
We have traversed the Christian year once again. We have gone through the cycle.
Last Sunday was Pentecost, and the Sunday after Pentecost in the calendar of the
Church is Trinity Sunday, a time when we focus on the God for whom our hearts
long. The one true and eternal God, creator of all, whose heart we have seen in
the face of Jesus, and whose presence is with us in the Spirit. As we celebrate
Trinity Sunday this year, let me suggest that it is time for us to begin to think
about that Trinitarian formulation in terms of our present world, the state of that
world, and the relationship of the religions in the world.
The trinity was the formulation in the third and fourth and fifth centuries of the
Christian Church, trying to make some sense out of the experience - the
experience of the one true God who obviously was there revealed in Jesus and
was present in a powerful way in Spirit, the Spirit that Jesus promised would be
given to empower them and to send them out into the world, telling the good
news that he had brought, the good news of God. The God who was near. The
God who was gracious. The God who was inclusive of all, and who could be
trusted. The God of all grace and mercy. The formulation of the doctrine of the
trinity in subsequent centuries was an attempt to make some sense of that.
Last week I suggested that maybe the whole development of the Christian Church
was an unfortunate mistake, that maybe it was contrary even to the intention of
Jesus himself. The formulation of the Christian Church that set up a competing
religious institution over against Judaism – Jesus, I think, had no intention of
© Grand Valley State University
�Spirit Beyond All Human Religion
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
that. There is nothing in his ministry that would seem to indicate that what he
was about was the founding of another religious institution. What he was about
was mediating the presence of the only God, the one true God, the creator of the
heavens and the earth, and promising that God was ready now to move broadly
across the face of the earth in a spiritual presence and power. That’s the promise
of Pentecost. Jesus was pushing out the walls. He was removing the barriers.
They killed him for that.
There’s something about us. We want to have the last word. We want to have the
only truth, all of the truth, and nothing but the truth. We get an idea; then we
build an institution; then we set it up as an idol and we worship it. We claim that
somehow or other this is the truth, and it becomes a truth that divides. What
Jesus was trying to say, I think, was that there is only one God who is the God of
all humankind, a God who would gather all humankind into one world
community. Now we are at the point, Jesus was saying, where that Spirit of God
will move us out into the world. “Go tell the whole world. Start in Jerusalem. Go
to Judea and to Samaria, and the ends of the earth and tell them about the God of
grace whose presence I have mediated.” It didn’t take very long, however, and
that Christian movement, and the power of the Holy Spirit began to be
constituted into a competing religious institution. Now down through the
centuries we’ve had Judaism and Christianity claiming to serve and worship the
same God, and yet claiming to be the way of truth to that God over against the
other.
On this Trinity Sunday, 1993, let me suggest a modest proposal. That is that
Christ Community become a catalyst for the undoing of the absoluteness of the
Christian Church, advocating the undoing of the absoluteness of all of the
competing religions, taking down the wall, breaking down the barriers in order
that we might realize the intention of Jesus and the promise of Pentecost, that the
Spirit of God would be poured out on all flesh. It seems to me that this is what
Jesus was about.
The reason I am concerned about it more and more, is because religion is such a
potent, powerful force. It is the most powerful force in the world. The force of
religion in our world in the various divided camps has placed our world in peril.
It is time for us to stand up and confess that we have absolutized our own partial
vision over against other partial visions, and thus denied the very thing for which
Jesus lived, and for which he died, which was for us to see the universal calling of
all the children of God into that one world community.
Hans Küng, the Catholic theologian, has said that without peace among the
religions there will be no peace in the world. He’s right! And then he goes on to
say that without peace among the churches there will be no peace among the
religions. So there’s a sense in which talking about a dialogue among the religions
is already a step removed from where we are. But over twenty years ago, right
about this time of year, this congregation changed its name from The First
© Grand Valley State University
�Spirit Beyond All Human Religion
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Reformed Church of Spring Lake to Christ Community Church. That was done
intentionally in order to create a new image, in order to establish the fact that
here we would have an ecumenical community that reflected the whole spectrum
of the body of Christ. Here we would honor all of the faith traditions. Here we
would blend the traditions into a new mix and a new mold that would be
reflective of the breadth of the Christian church. And it has happened. You are a
broad spectrum of Christian traditions in your various backgrounds. If this
community were a dog it might be considered a healthy mongrel. Nothing pure
about this place. It is all mixed up and that’s healthy.
But it’s not enough! We have got to take the next step. Somebody has to stand up
and say,
“For God’s sake, for peace in the world the respective human religions are
human constructions that need to be transcended in order to realize the
Spirit of Pentecost, because the Spirit of God is beyond any of the
particular concretizations of the respective human religions.”
It seems to me that this is what Jesus was about. But too soon after the day of
Pentecost, as the Christian movement began to sweep across the face of the earth,
things went awry. A Christian Church was born. I am not saying that we have to
undo two thousand years of history. Nor am I so naive as to believe that the Spirit
of God does not work through all of the stuff of history, even through our
blindness and our obstinacy; even through our absolutizing of our partial views,
the Spirit of God works. Paradoxically, the God of Israel was brought to the
nations by the God of the Christian Church. But I am suggesting to you today that
the respective absolutizing of human religious institutions must come to an end.
It is time for someone to speak for God and for the Spirit of God, and for the
promise of Pentecost, bringing all of those who would serve and worship and
adore and hunger after the one true God into one community of faith no matter
how many faces it might have.
It seems to me that the Trinitarian formulations of the Church, which came four
hundred, five hundred years after Jesus in their final form, are a block to the
dialogue among the religions. It is very interesting that in the year 312 A.D. the
Emperor Constantine, the Roman emperor, established the Christian Church.
What a tremendous victory that was. What a triumph. From a ragtag bunch of
nondescript people with a vision and a passion, a persecuted people, in less than
312 years, the Christian Church becomes the established religion of the empire. Is
it a coincidence that the same emperor called a church council nine years later,
the Council of Nicea in 321 A.D., the council that formulated the exalted
Christology of our creeds and our liturgies, our prayers and our hymns? On page
12 of your hymn book there is the Nicean Creed.
The exalted Christology that exalted the conception of Jesus, which is stated there
in Greek philosophical concepts, is a far cry from the Gospels. “God of God, Light
of Lights. Begotten and not made . . . before all worlds.” And the formulation that
© Grand Valley State University
�Spirit Beyond All Human Religion
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
came out of that? The Trinitarian God. One God, but three in one, God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, co-equal, co-eternal, blessed forever. A
far cry from the Gospels. As a matter of fact, practically meaningless to us in our
everyday experience. We don’t talk that way. That conceptuality is something that
we only brush against in church, in a traditional way, without it really penetrating
to the depths of our being. The God for whom we long is a far cry from the
formulations of Trinitarian Christian doctrine. The God we really long for is a
God who embraces all . . . the God heralded by Jesus.
Take the story of Jesus in which Jesus has a very engaging conversation with a
woman at the well. And the very fact that Jesus was there, in Samaria, is a sign of
what he would later call the disciples to do – to go to all nations. The Jews and
the Samaritans had nothing to do with each other. They hated each other. Why,
they hated each other almost as much as the Reformed Church and the Christian
Reformed Church. (Laughter) The closer you are, you see, the greater the rivalry.
Jews and Samaritans were cousins, but they couldn’t stand each other. Jesus goes
through Samaria because he doesn’t happen to think that the Samaritans are a
godless, off scouring of the earth.
He talks to a woman. To a woman! Unbelievable! Incredible! No man, no decent
man would do that. There he is engaging her in conversation. Then he gets
personal and she wants to change the conversation, so she moves to theology.
(You can talk a lot of theology without ever getting personal.) She said, “Ah, I see
you are a prophet. Now tell me,” (Mount Gerizim looming up before them) We
worship here.” (A temple is there.) “You a Jew, you say we must worship in
Jerusalem. Who is right?”
Jesus, this Jew from Jerusalem, says to this woman from Samaria, “I’ll tell you
what, the hour is coming and now is when neither here nor there, neither in the
concretization of religious devotion as it came to expression in Samaria, nor the
concretization of religious expression as it came to full flower in Jerusalem –
neither here nor there, but in Spirit, God’s Spirit, the Spirit of the one true God
who was creator in Spirit and in Truth. For such God desires you to worship.”
Those who will worship will worship in Spirit and in Truth.
Jesus is breaking down barriers against Samaritans. Breaking down the barriers
against women. Breaking down the division between Samaritan worship and
Jerusalem worship. It seems to me he was trying to say that all of that
particularization of religion that came through Israel in which God was involved,
dealing with a few in order to reach the many, concentrating on Israel because he
loved the world, all of that particularization now needs to be universalized. We
have got to break out of Gerizim. We have got to break out of Jerusalem. And
ultimately, of course, such talk resulted in his death.
So maybe what I would propose sounds radical, but there’s nothing new in it. It is
what God has had to do throughout history. Smash the idols. Break down the
forms. Smash our structures. Loosen our heads. Open our hearts. Peter, who
© Grand Valley State University
�Spirit Beyond All Human Religion
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
always suffered from ‘foot in mouth disease,’ hardheaded Peter has a vision on a
housetop about noon time and he sees this sheep coming down with a grand
smorgasbord and he hears the voice, “Rise and eat.”
“Not so Lord. I’ve never touched most of that stuff. Pure kosher diet for me.”
Then there comes a voice from heaven, “Peter, don’t call common and unclean
what I call clean and pure and right.” Then there was a knock on the door and
someone from Cornelius’ house – Cornelius, the Roman officer, a god-eater, a
non-Jew, a Gentile – stands there asking Peter to accompany him. Peter was
compelled by the Spirit to go, but goes apologizing all the way for walking over
the threshold of a Gentile’s house, which flew in the face of everything he had
ever been taught.
Cornelius says, “I’ve had this vision, tell me about Jesus.”
Peter says, “Well, okay. I’ll tell you the story about Jesus.” And as he is telling the
story about Jesus, low and behold the Spirit of God came down (Whoosh) and
these people break out into ecstatic worship. The circumcised with Peter, that is
the good Jewish people who accompanied Peter, were amazed, because it
happened to these Gentiles like it happened to them on the day of Pentecost.
Peter says, “Oh my goodness, this thing is a lot bigger than I ever thought. Maybe
God doesn’t show partiality. Who could withhold water for baptizing these who
have received the Spirit just as we did?” This experience scrambled his whole
theology, shot to pieces all of the religious prejudices and biases. Shot all of the
things that he operated on as the basis of his life.
Tough stuff, the Spirit of God! Dis-comforter. “Nudging discomforter,” that will
never allow us simply to sit in our comfortable ruts absolutizing our partial views,
absolutizing our very human flawed institutions. When will someone stand to
say, “Enough?” When will we hear Jesus saying, “Not through Judaism, not
through Islam, not through Christianity, not through Catholicism, or Orthodoxy
or Protestantism, but those who would worship God must worship in Spirit and
in Truth. The Spirit that transcends is the Spirit that is beyond all human
religions.
There is a wonderful parable that was loved by Carl Jüng, the psychiatrist. It went
something like this: The water of life, wishing to making itself known on the face
of the earth, bubbled up in an artesian well and flowed without effort or limit.
People came to drink of the magic water and were nourished by it since it was so
clean and pure and invigorating. But humankind was not content to leave things
in this endemic state. Gradually they began to fence the well. Charge admission.
Claim ownership of the property around it. Make elaborate laws about who could
come to the well. Put locks on the gates. Soon the well was the property of the
powerful and the elite.
© Grand Valley State University
�Spirit Beyond All Human Religion
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
The water was angry and offended. It stopped flowing and began to bubble up in
another place. The people who owned the property around the first well were so
engrossed in their power systems and ownership that they did not notice that the
water had vanished. They continued selling the nonexistent water and the people
noticed that the true power was gone, but some dissatisfied people searched with
great courage and found the new artesian well. Soon that well was under the
control of the property owners and the same fate overtook it. The spring took
itself to yet another place. This has been going on since recorded history.
On Trinity Sunday 1993, let me suggest that, way back there a couple of thousand
years ago, there was one who came as a finger, pointing to God, inviting people to
see through him to the one true God. The people got obsessed with the one who
was calling them to look beyond him.
I think I saw this reality happen last night! I was watching television. Did you
ever see those wonderful ads where they have beautiful dogs, full-faced on the
screen? Well, we have a dog. I don’t mention her as much as I used to mention
Midnight. Midnight was emotionally dysfunctional and gave me a lot of sermon
material. (Laughter) Hersey is more normal. I saw this heavy-jowled, droopyeared old basset hound come on the screen. I wanted Hersey to see that dog. So I
said, “Hersey, look, look, look. Look!”
Dumb dog didn’t look. (Laughter) He licked my finger. (Laughter) He missed the
picture because he fastened on the pointer.
My point is this. I don’t believe Jesus came to start a Christian church, a church
established in the Roman Empire, so the empire could identify with this King of
kings and Lord of lords and find its power and identification with this exalted
one. Jesus came and said, “For God’s sake. Not here. Not there, but in Spirit and
Truth.”
God is waiting for the religions to give up in order that God may bless the earth
and bring Shalom. At least that’s how it seems to me.
I told Nancy when I was leaving what I was going to preach this morning. She
said, “Oh, no!” I said, “It’s true!” She said, “It may be true, but you don’t have to
say it.” (Laughter) But I just did.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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743dc091edc2b9fb67eadde3695637b9
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Interfaith worship
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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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Trinity Sunday
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John 4: 21-24, Acts 10:34-35
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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1993-06-06
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The Spirit Beyond All Human Religion
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Richard A. Rhem
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 6, 1993 entitled "The Spirit Beyond All Human Religion", on the occasion of Trinity Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 4: 21-24, Acts 10:34-35.
Community of Faith
Global Community
God of Grace
Trinity
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PDF Text
Text
The Promise and Peril of a New Age Aborning
Text: Isaiah 65:23, 25; Romans 11:32, 36
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost V, July 4, 1993
Transcription of the spoken sermon
“They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity.” Isaiah 65:23
“They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mansion,” says the Lord.
Isaiah 65:25
“… that he may have mercy upon all.” Romans 11:32
“For from God and through God and to God are all things. To God be glory for
ever.” Romans 11:36
This is a wonderful and exciting day in which to be alive in our fast-moving
world. Since this Lord's Day is also the anniversary of this nation and our
Declaration of Independence, I want to reflect just a little bit about the world in
which we live and the movements of history of which we are a part, the tides of
history that move back and forth. Sometimes in the midst of our own human
experience we get so overwhelmed with the immediate and the present
circumstance we fail to get that broader picture.
At the beginning of this century, after World War I, the great English poet Yeats
wrote, “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, the best have no conviction, and
the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Although that was written decades ago,
it could be written as well today from some perspectives. The poets often see
more deeply and see farther than most of us. But it is an interesting and
fascinating time in which to be alive for, in the broader picture, we can see that
we stand at the end of a long historical development.
This nation was born at the dawn of the modern period. The periodization of
history is somewhat arbitrary, I suppose, but most scholars would agree that the
18th century was the dawn—it had some beginnings before that during the Age of
the Enlightenment—and in this 18th century, The Age of Reason. That whole
period of the ascendancy of the human was the context in which this nation was
born. The human spirit began to come to flower in the fifteenth century, and in
the Italian Renaissance there was a great flowering of art, of sculpture, and of
© Grand Valley State University
�Promise and Peril of a New Age Aborning
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
architecture. It was like after that long period of medievalism when the Church
was so dominant and so oppressive, when there was a linkage between throne
and altar. And finally, in the fifteenth century there was this breaking out, this
blossoming of the human spirit. I think perhaps the sixteenth century of which
we are the children—children of the Reformation and the counter-reformation–
the sixteenth century was perhaps a detour. Maybe for a time the authoritarian
structures of society once again asserted themselves. But inevitably the human
person was going to break out.
Our nation was born in that context of history when all forms of authoritarianism
were overthrown. There was the assertion of the human spirit. There was the
conviction that there was dignity in every human person and that freedom and
liberty were the God-given and God-intended virtues with which the human
being and society was to live.
So our nation was born at a point of newness. That's really the first thing that I
want to say to you this morning: that in the midst of history there is development.
There is newness. Sometimes we get so depressed by the present. It seems as
though things don't go anywhere and we get all enmeshed, and in a situation of
no movement, of gridlock. We throw up our hands and we wonder if there's any
hope, and if anyone can make any difference, if anyone can change things, if
anybody can get things moving again. What I want to say to you is “Yes. Yes. Yes,
in the long run there is movement. There is development.” This nation was born
at a point of newness. There was a new understanding of human government.
There was a new understanding of the human person. There was an appreciation
for the necessity of liberty and freedom in which the human individual could
develop potential, God-given purpose.
There was recognition that the finest form of human government was the
government that governed least, that was a “government of the people, by the
people, and for the people” in that definition that Lincoln gave to this form of
government 100 years later in the crisis of the Civil War. Lincoln really redefined
the revolution when he said that this nation was “dedicated to the proposition
that all people are created equal,” and that the test of the Civil War was a test of
whether of not this experiment indeed could come to fruition and realization of
that high ideal of which it was initiated in the first place.
There is newness. We were born in the conception of things and in the
understanding of reality and the understanding of history, and understanding of
the human person that recognized the necessity of freedom, liberty, and
democracy for the full flowering of the human person. For two hundred years
plus we have been blessed. We have lived in this grand tradition and we have
flourished and prospered as no other people. We come into this 20th century. It
has been a tumultuous century. Yeats did not overstate the case early on in the
century when he said, “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” There was
WWI, WWII, and the Cold War when we were locked in ideological conflict over
© Grand Valley State University
�Promise and Peril of a New Age Aborning
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
all those decades, using all of our resources for armament, escalating the arms
race, bringing ourselves to the brink of disaster.
Then 1989, that amazing year. The columnist, George Will, says that there has
not been such a year since the 16th century; in fact, he says there has never been
such a fascinating, interesting, potentially devastating consequential year in all of
history as the year 1989, when more people and more societies were thrust into
the vortex of change than at any time in previous history, even more than in the
tumultuous 16th century. The images of our present world tumble through our
minds. The Leipzig prayer meetings, the candle light in the streets, hundreds,
thousands of people praying. The Berlin Wall falling. People dancing, singing,
hugging each other, celebrating. The removal of that oppressive Iron Curtain,
allowing them to breathe, to be, to be free.
And, with the disintegrating of that Iron Curtain and that panoply of oppression,
in the midst of our euphoria, we find the sparking of ancient feuds and ethnic
cleansing. Our television screens are filled with old women in babushkas weeping
over the bodies of wounded or dead soldiers: sons or grandsons. People
destroying each other. Our world with all of its promise, yet so filled with peril.
The fundamentalisms of the world, Judaism, Islam, Christian, the reactionary
fearful tides that would turn the clock back, that would tear the world apart.
Images of terrorism. The World Trade Center smoldering in the aftermath of the
bomb. Time Magazine a week ago addressed the whole question of terrorism.
Arrests in our major cities. Fear. A world that has such technology that small
bands of committed people can hold the world hostage. Our today, so full of
promise, so full of peril. Somalia children starving. South Africa, less than a year
away from a popular vote. Latin America. Our cities. In 1989 the walls fell. We
sang, we danced. And in the face of that promise we experience all of the peril.
But there is newness. We were born in newness, during a major shift in the
understanding of the human person and the nature of human government. In
1989 a State House Planner named Fukuyama wrote an essay entitled, “The End
of History,” in which he said that western liberal democracy has been proven to
be the only reasonable, rational government, and it will prevail. It has prevailed.
Well, his essay stimulated counter essays, and there were those who said he was
premature and he was far too optimistic. But it was his point that what we
realized in 1989 was already signaled in 1806 when Napoleon's troops moved
into the German city of Vienna and overcame the czars, the Prussian leader’s
forces bringing to fruition the French Revolution slogan of liberty and equality
and fraternity. The French Revolution, the American Revolution, all of that
simmering and in ferment for a couple of centuries, finally eventuates to where
one can look at it and say, “The end of history: This is the way it will be.”
Well, whether you agree with that or not, we are in a period full of ferment, full of
promise, and full of peril which is always the case in the human situation. Let me
suggest that not only is there newness in human history, but I believe that we are
© Grand Valley State University
�Promise and Peril of a New Age Aborning
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
on the threshold of a new age that holds tremendous promise for those who are
not fainthearted.
That newness must now not only be our national heritage, but it must be shared
with a global community. It is not simply because I would have you be Christian
or altruistic, if I appeal to you simply out of your own self-interest, out of our
national self-interest. Then I would say that it is time now on this anniversary of
our Declaration of Independence that we make a Declaration of Interdependence with the whole global community. Do you realize that the peoples of
this entire globe are more closely knit today than the peoples of the thirteen
colonies on the eastern seaboard in 1776? This is a smaller world. This is a global
village and it is incumbent upon us to commit ourselves to the whole world and
the whole human family. We cannot live in narrowly nationalistic purposes,
looking out only for America, Number One. If we were no more than selfish, it is
incumbent upon us today to have a world vision.
But of course for us, the people of God, there is no choice, for we are a people of
hope who are fired by a vision, who are shaped by a dream. It is a marvelous
picture of the poet-prophet in Isaiah 65 of a new creation, a new heaven and a
new earth, aligned with the purposes of the one eternal God, the creator of all.
This God says, “Behold I create a new heaven and a new earth. I create Jerusalem
anew, a joy. I will restore my people and I will bring my people into a period of
peace and justice, such as they have never known. A kind of society where there
will not be oppression, where there will not be exploitation, where a person can
build a house and live in it, plant a garden and eat the fruit thereof, a society
where children will not be raised to calamity, where people would live a long life,
where they would call and the Lord would hear, where the wolf and the lamb
would lie down together and the lion would eat straw like an ox. Where they
would not hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain. That's the biblical vision.
There are those who say, “You have to be realistic. You have to be pragmatic. This
is the real world. That's a dreamer. That's a poet.” I want to say, that dream, that
vision is the only real possibility for a world to be renewed, characterized by
justice and peace, and the integrity of creation. It is not in the assertion of power.
It is not in the measurements of dominance. It is not in being Number One. It is
in seeking justice, being committed to peace, and taking care of the environment
that holds the only possibility for the human family. I believe that we may be on
the threshold of a new age of which the present chaos is to be the prelude, the
disorientation before the new configuration. You can look at it all and wish you
could turn the clock back, you can look at it all and long for some golden age
behind you, but I'll tell you, you can't go home.
There is movement in history. There are hinge-points. This nation was born in
newness and this nation stands today urgently in need of joining arms and hands
with the peoples of the world in order to find Shalom, which is the purpose and
the intention of God. Paul struggled with it. He couldn't figure out why his own
© Grand Valley State University
�Promise and Peril of a New Age Aborning
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
people were not seeing in Jesus the Way. He tried to put it together and figure it
out - what in the world was going on. I don't think he was very successful, but he
knew that God had an intention for the world that included not only his people,
but also the nations. He knew that finally it was the covenant of grace with
Abraham that this specially called people would be the blessing of God to all
nations. Paul knew that just as all were disobedient, so God intended mercy for
all. Therefore, the Christian who lives in the biblical vision is a dreamer. The
biblical Christian is one who will leave no stone unturned to bring people
together.
Hans Küng said, “There will be no peace among the nations until there is peace
among the religions. And there will be no peace among the religions until we can
find peace among the churches.” So we sit and diddle and twiddle our thumbs
while the world stands more in danger by religious power than any other power
in the world. And we recognize that we cannot speak about the political and the
economic, and then over here the spiritual. It is all one world. It is one God
concerned about the totality of things, about a world in which there is not
political oppression, a world in which there is not economic exploitation, and a
world in which there is not adversarial relationships among those who are finally
the children of one God.
The choice is always before us. We can dig in our heels, set our jaw, clench our
teeth and try to resurrect yesterday. Or we can be people of the dream. People of
the vision casting themselves in with a spirit that would move toward newness,
for it is possible also here in the pulse of this new day as the poet Maya Angelou
said, “You may have the grace to look up and out and into your sister's eyes and
into your brother's face, to your country and say simply, very simply, with hope,
‘Good morning. Good morning.’”
© Grand Valley State University
�
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345c62470689d5141da840b1a82b0960
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
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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Sound
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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Event
Pentecost V
Scripture Text
Isaiah 65: 23, 25, Romans 11: 32, 36
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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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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KII-01_RA-0-19930704
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1993-07-04
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The Promise and Peril of a New Age Aborning
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
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Sound
Text
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application/pdf
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 4, 1993 entitled "The Promise and Peril of a New Age Aborning", on the occasion of Pentecost V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 65: 23, 25, Romans 11: 32, 36.
Freedom
Global Community
Interdependence
Shalom
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8a8860e50bd30961fbfec4fa746edacd
PDF Text
Text
Global Mission in a New Key
Text: Isaiah 58:6, Acts 1:4-8
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 11, 1993
Transcription of the spoken sermon
“...to loose the bonds of injustice, ...to let the oppressed go free, and to break
every yoke.” Isaiah 58:6
“...to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:4-8
It would be difficult to challenge the statement that it is the intention of God that
all God’s children live in freedom and human dignity. I don’t think anyone would
want to challenge that. Certainly that is the biblical vision. We noted last week in
the celebration of our own Declaration of Independence that God has blessed this
nation. This political arrangement was founded on the conviction that God has
created all people, all people, equal in God’s image. That to live in freedom is to
realize the human potential with which God has endowed us, and to live in that
freedom as we have for the last two hundred plus years, we’ve also found
economic prosperity because there has been, along with political freedom,
economic freedom. I suggested last week that perhaps, after some two hundred
years living with a Declaration of Independence, it is time for us now to declare
our Declaration of Interdependence because history doesn’t stand still. History
moves on.
While those thirteen colonies on the eastern seaboard were knit together by a
common vision, they lived not in nearly the proximity to each other that we live
with the whole globe today. Through the satellites that go through our sky we are
in touch with the whole world, and we know what’s going on everywhere. We
have become a global community. That global community calls us to a concern
for the whole world, for the freedom and the dignity of all people everywhere.
Certainly that is God’s intention. It was the prophetic vision the prophet was
most often called to speak to the people of God, to remind them that God’s
purposes transcended their own narrow interests. The prophet in Isaiah 65 of last
week’s Old Testament lesson spoke of the “new heaven and the new earth,” in the
time when people would build houses and dwell in them, plant gardens and eat
their fruit, living with dignity without exploitation or coercion, where the world
© Grand Valley State University
�Global Mission in a New Key
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
eventually would become a place where the lion and the lamb could lie down
together, and no one would hurt in all God’s holy mountain.
The Old Testament lesson this morning from the 58th chapter of Isaiah says the
same thing. The people of Judah having returned from the Exile carrying on their
religious observances said, “Why doesn’t God heed? Why doesn’t God hear us?”
And God says to the prophet, “Look, religious observances are not ends in
themselves. If you want to be truly religious, then care one for another. Break off
the thongs that bind people. Be done with injustice. Set the captive free. This is
God’s intention for humankind, for all people everywhere.”
With the globe becoming no larger than a grapefruit, and community becoming
world community today, it is incumbent for us to think of global mission “in a
new key.” Jesus stood in that prophetic tradition. Jesus sent his disciples into all
the world, “to the ends of the earth,” he said. He proclaimed the Gospel, the good
news. That good news – Jesus standing in the prophetic tradition – was that God
is near. God is present. God is gracious. That God would include and would
reconcile all people. Jesus said, “Go tell that good news.” And the Church has
become a missionary church.
We have noted in past weeks since Pentecost that it was unfortunate that there
had to be that break between Judaism and the Jesus Movement, but even so God
has used that division. The Christian Church has brought the God of Israel to the
nations. But the history of the Christian Church now encompassing the globe is
really a mixed affair. On the one hand you can write the story of the spread of the
Christian Church in glowing terms. There have been many heroes and heroines in
the faith. Christian Mission at its best has been concerned for medicine, and for
education, and for agriculture, and for the whole human condition. There have
been those who have given their all in order that the light of Christ might illumine
the lives of people. But the Christian Movement has a shadow side too. If we
would be honest we would have to admit that that movement into all the world to
make the world Christian was a movement that was characterized at many
periods with coercion. There were the enforced baptisms. There was the
development of that anti-Semitism which came to its ugly climax in the
Holocaust. There was the Inquisition - the enforcing of faith on people. There was
too often a lack of sensitivity to native cultures and native mores. So the history of
the Church has been a history of mission movement with a light and a shadow
side.
The modern missionary movement of the 19th century is the mission movement
that most of us are aware of. It was a movement that arose out of a passion to
bring all people to knowledge of Christ. What fired that mission was a conviction
that outside of Christ there was no salvation. But as that modern missionary
movement arose there was also the development of modern atheism. That whole
development of atheism in the Western World said that religion is not anything
that has any true counterpart here, but rather arises out of the human need itself,
© Grand Valley State University
�Global Mission in a New Key
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
that human beings create religion. And then, encountering atheism, that most
serious of all criticisms of religion, there was the counterclaim that human
religion doesn’t start with us but starts with one who encounters us from beyond
and draws response from us.
That’s about where I was in Europe about a couple of decades ago, a quarter of a
century ago, wrestling with that one. Recognizing that if human religion is
response to the encounter of God from beyond us, which is really the vital claim
that we must make, then it became more and more difficult to say of all the
human responses in the respective religions, there is only one that is right, and
that one is mine. I didn’t have to solve that when I came back here in the early
70s because some of us went out to California to the Institute for Successful
Church Leadership, and we learned that you ought to bloom where you are
planted and that mission is where you are. So we gave ourselves to creating here a
loving community, a compassionate community. The last couple of decades are
the story of creating here a Center for Creative Christianity.
But time marches on. History moves. The world changes, and it’s time for us to
make another move. It’s time for us to come to Global Awareness. I have to credit
Peter Theune for bringing to us, as he came to the Christ Community team, a
greater sensitivity to the larger world. The Task Force on Global Awareness in our
midst has been a catalyst to get us to think outward. I think in the recent past, for
the past two or three years, our whole world has exploded to such an extent that
we know that we are part of a global community whether we want to be or not,
and we have to decide whether we will put our resources and our efforts in trying
to maintain things as they are - building walls and developing a fortress
mentality, or whether we will cast ourselves on the side of the agents of change to
bring about reconciliation, to remove the barriers and the divisions, and to bind
the human family together, which it seems to me is reflective of the biblical vision
of God’s intention. The God of all compassion who loves people, who would
mediate grace to all, who would gather all in his bosom in order to build the
family of God.
Let me challenge this community of faith this morning to a new engagement with
concrete mission. We’ve begun already. For a number of summers now some of
you have gone to Staten Island, Project Hospitality, where The Rev. Terry Troia
works with the alienated and the outcast of society. Your lives have been touched
and changed by that encounter. We are sending today a group of young people to
Chicago to an urban ministry to encounter the realities of the city. Later this
summer we will send a group to Wales to be with Bob and Kris Kleinheksel in
that urban ministry in the city of Cardiff. Concretely this morning you have
before you Jeanne Farrer who will be going from us to be our presence in Africa,
in Gambia, to teach, to serve, to be there as the presence of the love of God that
she has come to know in Jesus Christ. Let me challenge all of us this morning to a
new commitment to Global Mission.
© Grand Valley State University
�Global Mission in a New Key
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
But that commitment to Global Mission needs to be in a new key.
I hinted a moment ago that when I came back here in the 70s I could not rouse
you to passionate action in order to bring Christ to the world as though that was
the world’s only hope. That was the theological problem I was struggling with.
Now let me simply say boldly, having not solved all those problems, this I know the world is a hurting, bleeding, wounded place. We cannot deny it any more. It
comes into our living rooms and our kitchens and our dens day after day after
day. The anguish on the faces of the adults who bury their dead, who look into the
eyes of the starving children. The knowledge that in Zambia sixty cents per child
per year goes for their education. The knowledge that our world is being torn
apart most decisively by religious fundamentalisms. The knowledge that, with the
umbrella of oppression that held the world at bay for some decades now
evaporating, there is a new uprising of ethnic feuds and national pride and
arrogance. Our world is bleeding. Our world is wounded.
The God of biblical vision is a God who cares, a God full of compassion, a God
who calls God’s people not to the exercise of religious observances - the fasts and
the rituals, and the worship that ends there, but rather the God who calls God’s
people to true religion which is to be concerned for the poor and the homeless
and the naked. To break off all injustice and take away the yoke and set the
captive free. Jesus in his inaugural sermon in his hometown quoted Isaiah 61
saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim liberty to the captive.”
Jesus, standing in that prophetic tradition with all of the compassion of God
moving through him, crying out to a world to break off the bonds and to set the
prisoner free.
Jesus would call us to his way; Jesus gave us the promise of Pentecost, which was
not a commission to found a church and a religion, but to move into the era of the
Spirit of God who transcends all human forms, the God of all mercy and
compassion who calls us to love the world as God loves the world. A new
commitment to Global Mission but in a new key. Not in order to found Christian
churches all over the globe, but in the name of Jesus to love, to heal, to bind up
the wounds, to teach, and to create a world in which it is possible for every person
not to become Christian, but to become human - for God’s sake. To realize God’s
purpose for human kind so that people might live in justice, peace - dancing
before the God of creation who dances in our midst, whose light shines upon us
when we catch the vision and allow our passion to be unleashed.
To bring salvation, salve, healing to the world. That is our calling. That will be
our joy. Together. We can’t do everything, but we can do something.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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f80480ef2361f13cb33bfe6c91a22fc5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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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.
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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
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost VI
Scripture Text
Isaiah 58: 6, Acts 1:4-8
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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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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KII-01_RA-0-19930711
Date
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1993-07-11
Title
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Global Mission In a New Key
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 11, 1993 entitled "Global Mission In a New Key", on the occasion of Pentecost VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 58: 6, Acts 1:4-8.
Divine Intention
Global Community
Inclusive
Interdependence
Shalom
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/59a8433ad416f5b1a044f96a682eb0b1.pdf
117a89f6376d709ae80ef17bff5259a3
PDF Text
Text
Something’s Happening
Text: Esther 4:14, Mark 9:40
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 18, 1993
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Who knows whether it is not for such a time as this that you have come to royal
estate? Esther 4:14
“Whoever is not against us is for us.” Mark 9:40
The story of Esther is a wonderful story. It might most appropriately be called an
historical novel. It probably has a certain historical core around which has grown
this marvelous story, full of drama. It has a great plot. I am waiting for Arnold
Schwarzenegger to get hold of this story. I think he could really do something
with it. I was thinking about the casting as I was preparing this sermon: for
Mordecai I would choose Clint Eastwood - kind of grumpy and clever, not
showing any emotion, just sort of sitting in the background. You know, kind of
organizing all of this stuff. For Esther, how about Whitney Houston? She could
tell the king, “I will always love you.” Well, anyway it is a wonderful story. I pull it
out about every five years or so. Usually I pull it out when I am dealing with God
and providence, and history and some of those themes.
I have to admit that when I really got serious yesterday, I thought to myself:
“Why in the world did I choose that scripture? What was I thinking about?” I do
that in advance, you know. It is kind of like the birthing process, I think. I go
through great labor pains and then suddenly there’s illumination, and I am all
excited, and I write it down quickly. But at this age those things don’t stay with
me as long. So I get down to the real thing and I say: “What in the world was in
my mind?” I thought and thought and thought about it, and finally it began to
come back again. It’s because “Something’s Happening” in our world.
Now something is always happening in the world. But sometimes there’s more
happening than other times. What I like about the story of Esther is that it is such
a wonderful, dramatic story of the faith of the people of God who believe that God
is engaged in the things that happen in our world. It’s that kind of involvement,
that kind of engagement of God that you can’t put your finger on. I say God is
involved, or God is engaged, and that’s rather ambiguous. I do that intentionally.
© Grand Valley State University
�Something’s Happening
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
I don’t know how to spell that out. But the biblical people of God have always
believed that what is happening in the world has another dimension, and there is
more to it than meets the eye. “Something’s Happening,” and God is involved.
It’s true in our world today. So many things are happening. There is so much
ferment. It’s a very exciting time in which to be alive. Then for some it’s a very
frightening time. It’s kind of scary. For some it’s threatening, but for others it’s
challenging. But for all of us we live in a spectacular period of the human drama.
What I want to say to us as the people of God, as the Church, is that “Something’s
Happening.” Will we or will we not be a part of the purposes and programs of
God as the agents of reconciliation that are trying to move the world toward
community and Shalom?
You see, that’s so clearly in the story of Esther - something was happening. The
people of God to whom God had pledged God’s faithfulness are threatened. An
edict has proclaimed all Jews must die. When Mordecai learns of it, Mordecai
says to Esther, “Do something about it.” Something was happening and Mordecai
believed that what was happening on the historical plane was not apart from the
involvement of the eternal God who had pledged God’s faithfulness to his people.
Mordecai also believed that what was happening would eventuate in the effecting
of God’s purposes. Mordecai was one of those Jews that believed that God’s
purposes would prevail. He wasn’t biting his fingernails. He wasn’t overly
anxious. He simply believed that God’s purposes would prevail. He also was one
of those people that believed that God’s purposes might be effected through a
particular person or a particular movement. He said to Esther, “Who knows but
what you have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this?”
She had naturally said, “I am scared. I can’t just go in to the king until he calls for
me. I risk my life if I do. I am in peril.”
Mordecai says, “Esther, just maybe you are where you are for just such a
moment.”
Thus there is this too in the story: it takes commitment at great risk to be an
agent for the effecting of the purposes of God. All of those things are so
beautifully narrated in this story. The reason, I think, back sometime in the misty
past, when I was thinking about that story and this message is that it is a word to
us at Christ Community. It is a word to us who believe that in this exciting, scary
day in which we live God is engaged. We live in the aftermath of Pentecost. The
Spirit of God moves across the face of the earth. And what is happening in our
day is not apart from the engagement of the eternal God. And, more than that, as
we think about that at Christ Community, do we really believe that God’s
purposes will prevail? So Mordecai’s question comes to us here, in our context:
might God have brought us together for such a time as this? Is there something
about this strange community called Christ Community that we characterize as
an “Alternative to Church as Usual” that might simply be at the right place, at the
right time, to be an agent for the effecting of the purposes of God and the power
© Grand Valley State University
�Something’s Happening
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
of the Spirit? And, if that might be the case, would we be willing to take the risk
and to commit ourselves to such a common mission?
Well, no one would deny that “Something’s Happening” in our world. My
goodness, it boggles the mind. I picked up a book from a dear friend this week.
(Just what I need is one more book.) Really she gave it for the church library, and
it will get there eventually, but I opened it up and I began to skim through it. It
was full of interesting data. It is called Racing Toward 2001. Do you know that
we are less than 90 months away from the 21st century? Now as God counts
years, I don’t imagine that the move of a century or the shift of a millennium is
any great shakes, but psychologically it’s going to impact us. It’s already
beginning to impact us. That’s a significant time shift. We are on the threshold of
century 21. This book begins to lay out some of the characteristics of this fantastic
world of which we are a part, the discoveries of which, and the technological
breakthroughs of which are only beginning to be felt, but will be impacting us and
will transform the face of the earth. It blows my mind!
Let me just give you an instance. One chapter speaks about century 21 as the
“information society.” I read there that the old copper wire that transmits our
telephone conversations, an old copper wire can transmit 24 conversations
simultaneously. That’s not bad for copper. But we are in the world of fiber optics:
filaments of glass that have a super ability to conduct: transforming the energy
into image, moving light at lightning speed, so that a single fiber optic can
transmit not 24 conversations simultaneously, but 16,000! Isn’t that amazing?
And I, who am addicted to books, I learned that on a 3½-inch disk can be
recorded 1000 volumes. I looked at my 3,000 plus volume library and thought,
“Well, I guess nobody’s going to be able to sell this for anything when I’m gone!”
Such a disk - about $10 - a thousand volumes. You could have a hundred
thousand-volume library in your desk drawer. On one disk they can record the
entire Bible, plus the Encyclopedia Britannica. Now that’s a lot of stuff to be
transmitted around the earth in two seconds! Can you even imagine that? Well,
that’s just one aspect of this age of which we are a part, the implications of which
will continue to increase exponentially and impact our human society.
For example, the stuff that we live with every day: the reality of the world
religions, the whole situation of pluralism. I mention it every once in a while.
Sometimes I think maybe you say, “Well, we’ve heard that.” You’ve heard it, but
we have not begun to reckon with it. The globe, as I said last week, has become a
grapefruit, and the world’s peoples have become a family. We simply cannot any
longer live in indifference to what is going on half a world away. We are fully
cognizant of much more than we ever wanted to know. But it’s not a choice. It is a
reality. It is a fact. And in a world where the great religions of the world are in an
adversarial posture, where the respective fundamentalisms of the world religions
are at each other, we have a volatile situation in which it will be incumbent upon
people of good will and the faith communities to engage in dialogue and
conversation in order that we might share a common goal and dream for building
© Grand Valley State University
�Something’s Happening
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
community rather than living in the awful threat of terrorism and some of the
horrible things that have happened in the all too recent past.
Multiculturalism. For some on the left, kind of a new “in” word. For some on the
right, a term that brings out animosity. But for all of us, simply a reality. The
United States of America has always been driven by immigration, as a United
Methodist report mentions. But formerly it was from Europe and Africa. Now it’s
from Latin America and Asia. There is a rising tide of multiculturalism, which is
the reality of the human drama in the society of these United States of America of
ours, as well as around the world. There is not a major ethnic group anywhere in
the world that is not now being represented here in more and more significant
numbers. Multiculturalism is a reality. The old “melting pot” is being challenged
by some who are saying we are a “salad bowl.” The uniqueness of all needs to
have its own integrity. However that is solved, the point is multiculturalism is
simply the state of affairs of the nations, and the world has become a grapefruit,
become family.
Gays in the military, the present point of discussion for the whole question of
sexuality. It’s on the news, on the TV day after day after day. What will we do in
the Church about this issue, which has the potential for being so explosive and
divisive in our society? We talk about it every other place perhaps, but not in
church because it is explosive and divisive. But, I wonder, I wonder if that whole
issue would make us say not, “Gee, if they would just go back in the closet,” but
might rather call us to acknowledge the diversity of the human situation so that
we come to deal with that diversity. It doesn’t happen through argumentation.
We only really change through concrete experience. While there are all kinds of
shades to that discussion, I know that the impact in my life has come through
concrete encounter with people who never had a choice given their orientation.
So what does that say to me as a Christian person that would build community
and tear down barriers, and remove the acids that eat away at the human family?
Pressing ethical questions. Abortion. There are decent civil Christian people on
both sides of that question. So, what are we going to do in order that we might
not have bombings and threats, and all of the animosity that is so characteristic
of the groups that are militant on one side or the other? How can we bring the
posture of Jesus Christ and the sense of what true community is to that burning
issue of our day?
Euthanasia. Dr. Kevorkian. Very difficult issues. Tremendous implications
needing to be handled with care. But I have talked with enough of you one-to-one
to know that while those broader social issues have to be handled with great care
and with great thoughtfulness, I have yet to find someone that does not wish to
die with dignity. To recognize that it is really an issue that we must face up to and
come to terms with. Maybe the Spirit of God is pushing us, saying to us, “There is
a certain measure of responsibility that you must take for your human existence.”
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
I use these things as illustrations, not to claim that I or anyone else has a simple
answer. But these are the kinds of issues that can divide, that can be a catalyst for
violence, and that break down human communication, and undercut human
community. “Something’s Happening” in our world. It’s not whether or not we
want to choose to deal with it. It is there at our doorstep. We will deal with it one
way or the other. We will be agents of reconciliation to deal with it or we will be
those who will build the wall high in order to stem the floodtide that is as
inevitable to break the levy as the old Mississippi.
I was reading an excellent thoughtful scholar who says what is needed today is for
a people to create a colloquy. Well, I thought I knew what the word meant. I think
I’ve been in one or two, but I looked it up. It simply comes from two Latin words
meaning to speak with, to have conversation, to have dialogue. This person
suggested, I think, a wonderful image. He said, rather than us being in face-toface confrontation, what we need is to be side-by-side confronting the question
and the issues. I really like that. So often we are face-to-face in confrontation.
How much better to stand with each other confronting the issues. That’s the gift
of real deep community. Scott Peck in his book A Different Drummer says that
most congregations are “pseudo communities.” I want to deal with that in a
couple of weeks. “Pseudo communities.” It means that we act just like my mother
taught me to act. ‘Don’t say anything to anyone that’s not nice. And if anybody
says anything to you that’s not nice, don’t let them know it. Be polite at all costs,
even at the cost of your integrity.’ (She didn’t say the last thing.) But Scott Peck
said that’s “pseudo community,” and it really is. What happens to us all too often
is that we seek out our own kind so that we can be confirmed in the position with
which we started before we even thought about it. Then we get communities of
like-minded people over here and communities of like-minded people over there.
And the community over here and the community over there face each other in
confrontation and mutual excommunication rather than staying side-by-side,
honestly facing the issues, raising the tough questions, honoring diversity,
granting respect and dignity to each other, and with grace seeking to move the
whole thing toward community, toward Shalom.
This is a wild time to be alive. “Something’s Happening.” And I think that the
thing we have to offer is that marvelous model of Jesus. The gospels were written
to specific communities in concrete situations, and the things that are dealt with
in the respective gospels are the things that needed to be dealt with in those
particular communities, and in this case John comes to Jesus and he says, “Hey,
Jesus, there’s this guy down the street casting out demons in your name. And he’s
not following us.” Jesus says, “Don’t stop him, John, just because he doesn’t
belong to our group. The one who isn’t against us is for us. And in fact, even a cup
of water in my name doesn’t go unnoticed.”
“Something’s Happening.” The Spirit of God will effect the purposes of God. I
wonder if we might be who we are, where we are, when we are for just such a time
as this? It is not without risk. But it just may be that God has something
© Grand Valley State University
�Something’s Happening
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
significant for us together, and incidentally, just maybe, just maybe for one of
you.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/52230c1593f4b8fb0922b730861b810d.mp3
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Dublin Core
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
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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.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
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Text
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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Event
Pentecost VII
Scripture Text
Esther 4:14, Mark 9:40
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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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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1993-07-18
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Something's Happening
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 18, 1993 entitled "Something's Happening", on the occasion of Pentecost VII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Esther 4:14, Mark 9:40.
Community of Faith
Global Community
Inclusiveness
Pluralism
-
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PDF Text
Text
From Babel to Bethlehem to Spirit and Truth
From the series: A Millennial Vision
Genesis 11:8; Acts 2:6
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
January 16, 2000
Transcription of the spoken sermon
I described for you last week a millennial vision of mine, the vision of a world
where the great religions would live at peace with one another, mutually
respecting one another, teaching each other, enhancing one another, and
dedicated together to the well-being of the whole world and the whole human
family. I used my favorite image of a cathedral whose respective areas have
stained glass windows that relate the biblical story, but no section has the whole
story. Each section has a part of the story and the common element that draws all
together is the common source of light, the one Light that illumines all of the
parts of the story that create the whole, and you can use that analogy for the
respective religious traditions, none of which has the whole story, all of which are
illumined by the one Light that enlightens us all. That particular image, I think, is
justifiable on the basis of the biblical story, for that image speaks about the
particular and the universal, all of the particular traditions pointing to the one
universal, and I think that is true to the biblical understanding, as well.
In the book of Genesis, the first eleven chapters are pre-history to Israel's history.
What we refer to commonly as the Old Testament is the story of Israel. But,
Israel, in telling its story, knew that it was a part of a larger story. It wasn't the
whole story. It was well aware of that, and so those first eleven chapters of
Genesis deal with universal themes, creation themes, the human theme, creation
of the human being, and disobedience and alienation and confusion and
judgment and salvation - it's all in there. After the judgment of the Flood, the
rescue of Noah, there is, very interestingly, in the eighth chapter of Genesis, this
covenant of God never again to destroy the earth. And that's with the whole of
creation. And then in the ninth chapter we find the covenant with Noah, never
again to destroy all flesh, and that covenant is with all flesh; it is a universal
covenant with humankind. Israel doesn't exist yet. And then, as though to
demonstrate that we human beings never would get it right, there's one more
story told, the story of the Tower of Babel, a fascinating little tale about the
human family, the flood survivors going to get together and build themselves a
tower and create a city, a sort of a fortress over against God, as it were. They were
going to do their own human thing, so God looks down and says, “Oh, that's
© Grand Valley State University
�From Babel to Bethlehem to Spirit and Truth
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
interesting.” God comes down and confuses their language because they had had
one language and so they could pass bricks with one another and they could build
a tower together, and then suddenly, they can't understand one another. But, the
word for understand is shema in Hebrew, it's a word to listen or to hear, so
ostensibly, that little myth perhaps explains why people are scattered over the
face of the earth and why there are so many different languages but, at its deeper
level, it was a story of our human community that is broken. It was a story of
human beings who do not listen to one another, and when one does not listen to
another, there's a breakdown of communication and then there's a breakdown of
trust, and there's a breakdown of community.
The story which prefaces Israel's history is a story of universal humankind
marked by broken community. So, God knows that another strategy is necessary
and so, in the 11th chapter of Genesis we find Abraham and Sarah, and Sarah has
a barren womb because God will start over and out of barrenness will create a
people and that people will be light-bearers to the nations. Israel understood its
particular vocation; it believed it had the light, it believed it was in touch with
God the Creator, and it believed that its light in the Torah was to be the
instruction for all nations. All nations would someday flow to Mt. Zion and Israel
would be the instructor. But, Israel knew it was not the whole story. It knew it
was a particular amidst a universal humanity, and so its prophets dreamed of a
day when one would come fully endowed with the spirit of God who would create
shalom and there would be a time when they would not hurt or destroy in all
God's holy mountain.
You see, the biblical understanding, in this case Israel's understanding of God's
intention for creation, was that it would dwell in peace and that there would be
well-being and that it would be marked by community. In the Christian reading
of that story it culminates in the birth of a child in Bethlehem, the child Jesus,
and the parents bring the child to the temple and aged Simeon, the voice of all of
Israel, takes the child in his arms and says, "Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared
beforehand for thy people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy
people Israel."
Beyond Jesus comes Pentecost and the outpouring of the Spirit of God and what
is the consequence? Well, the city is full of visitors from around the ancient world
and the Spirit falls on the disciples and they go out into the streets and they
proclaim the story of Jesus and everyone, from the respective geographical
locations and various languages, hear as though the word was spoken in their
own native tongue. And Babel is reversed at Pentecost and the Spirit causes
people to listen, to hear, to understand, and out of that gross community in those
early chapters of the book of Acts we have that early Jesus movement marked by
community in which no one had any need and all cared for the other. There was
the intention of God realized.
© Grand Valley State University
�From Babel to Bethlehem to Spirit and Truth
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Too bad it didn't last. Too bad Pentecost got sidetracked. Too bad the church got
stuck in Christology rather than in the theology of the Holy Spirit. Let me
suggest, and it's a rather radical suggestion, but I do think that I can support this,
that the intention as the story unfolds post-Pentecost was that God Who was
Spirit would embrace the world until there be world community. What really
happened? Well, this Jewish prophet, this one in whom God was visible, the
embodiment of God, this Jesus, this Jesus in those early centuries, was exalted to
high heaven, made to be none less than God, resulting in a rupture between that
Jewish movement that gave birth to the Jesus movement, and the Christian
church, and instead of community, we had one more great religious tradition.
I wonder if that was not a betrayal of Jesus and Jesus' own vision. Take, for
example, that conversation with the woman from Samaria at Jacob's well. Does
that one impress you as God of God, Light of Light, before all world, etc, etc.? Or,
is this Jesus, in all of his humanity and all of his fullness of spirit, engaging a
hungry, thirsty human being, pointing her to the universal? She says at one point,
"I think you're a prophet. Should we be worshiping here, we Samaritans on Mt.
Gerizim where our shrine is? Or, should we worship at Jerusalem where you Jews
say God is to be worshiped?"
And Jesus says to her, "Lady, the hour is coming and now is when you'll not
worship in Mt. Gerizim or Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth."
It seems to me that Jesus in that conversation, or the gospel writer instructing
that conversation, was pointing to a universal that would transcend those
particularities, that the intention of Pentecost would be that God would be
worshiped in spirit beyond all tribal loyalties and religious particularities. It
seems to me that the reversal of Babel at Pentecost can only be realized in global
community, and that would be my vision, a millennial vision, a vision for the
third millennium.
As I grow older and more reflective on the religious scene which marks me more
these days than once it did (once I was a busy pastor, I was building a
congregation, I was working in the broader Church, I was involved in all of this
institutional concern and construction and structuring and hardly had time to
think about God), these days as I observe the religious scene, I'm not pleased with
what I see. I see a frenzied religious activity on every hand. I know we live in
Western Michigan which is saturated with churches and religion, but there are
other places, Bible Belts, for instance, where this is evident. I think that what we
see here is not characteristic of the whole country, but it's also not totally without
duplication in other places. There is a tremendous amount of religious activity
and it's a frenzied effort in many cases, it seems to me, to miss the point of
Pentecost and the intention of God for the whole creation and the creation of a
global and world community.
There is worship as entertainment. It seems to me that it is a church in trouble
trying to find out what will possibly bring people in. There's the whole
© Grand Valley State University
�From Babel to Bethlehem to Spirit and Truth
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
therapeutic religious dimension, bringing health and healing, which is certainly a
positive thing, and yet, it's not the main thing. There is the hot salvation sector
calling people to repentance and faith, to deliver them from eternal
condemnation. There is the emotional, charismatic community. One can go to
any one of these sectors and find an intensity of activity which is religious, it is
busy, it engages tremendous financial resources and a lot of human energy, and
the more I look at it, the less satisfied I am with it and I wonder if it is really
dealing with the longing in the heart of the Samaritan woman which is the
longing in the heart of all of us who are human, which is to have our lives
touched, in touch with experiencing the living God who is Spirit, that God beyond
all of the trappings of our respective religions, the structures and institutions and
forms, the various stories that we tell, that God Who is the Source and the
Ground of all being, that God Who is eternal Spirit Who embraces the whole
world.
In a preacher's mind, a simmering sermon idea is like a magnet that draws filings
from all over, but I didn't have to look very broadly yesterday. The religion
section of the Grand Rapids Press had one article after another on God as Spirit
and Truth. There was the note about the National Council of Churches that's in
trouble, hoping that the Presbyterians will give them $400,000 because they
have a $3.2 million debt, and the Methodists have withheld funds until they get
financially responsible. Well, the National Council of Churches is a good
organization. Dr. Joan Campbell went to Cuba and talked to the father of Elian
Gonzalez who has the good sense to know that a child belongs with the child's
parent. I know Joan Campbell; I've preached to Joan Campbell; she is a lovely
woman, and the Council does a good thing, but it cannot get support anymore.
Structures are just not there.
And then I saw a little note about the University of Michigan Research Center
that did some comparisons between 1981 and 1998 and there was a fall-off of
church attendance in the country from 60% to 55%, which isn't too bad, actually.
But, they said, then, that they had added a question about the meaning and
purpose of life which they ask people and there had been a significant increase in
the number of people who think regularly about the meaning and purpose of life.
In Italy and South Korea and Australia and Germany, The Netherlands, over 10%
increase in the number of people were asking spiritual questions. And then there
was the Jewish Rabbi Laibl Wolf, who was in Grand Rapids last week who is from
Australia but who is a Jewish mystic dealing in the old Cabala system 3500 years
old, a system of meditation and contemplation which seeks to bring a balance
between body and soul, and it reported that he has recently held a seminar with
Fortune 500 company CEOs and also that Madonna is into Cabala. The rabbi
didn't put Madonna down because he saw it as a sign of that emptiness, that
hunger which is so common to our humanity, whether we're CEOs of a Fortune
500 company or Madonna or any one of us. In all the frantic religious activity, I
wonder how much is offering some living water for the parched soul that cannot
© Grand Valley State University
�From Babel to Bethlehem to Spirit and Truth
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
ever be satisfied with religious busy-ness and activity and tribalism and
triumphalism and success.
And then there was an article about the great religious traditions of the world that
are the same at the third millennium as at the second millennium - Hinduism
and Confucianism and Buddhism and Christianity and Islam and Judaism. If I
could have gotten to the writer before he wrote his article, I would have told him
the article could be better than it is because you could have said that it is the
same as 2000 years ago, as well, because, as a matter of fact, great religious
traditions arose simultaneously around the globe between 800 and 200 Before
the Common Era. They all arose simultaneously, and the reason those great
religious traditions arose with their significant insights is that there was a
transformation of human consciousness. We call that period the First Axial
Period when the human individual emerged out of that tribal sense and came to a
sense of self-identity and individualism, and with the rise of that human selfconsciousness arose these great religious traditions, and they are representative
of that which was happening similarly around the globe, in the human family.
And then I wonder, are we at a hinge point in history now for another
transformation of human consciousness to break forth? Might this period of time
in which we are living be a time of the transformation of human consciousness
from individualism to global consciousness? Might this not be the time to pick up
Pentecost and to reverse the Babel sounds that mark the failure to listen to one
another and the breakdown of trust and thus the breakdown of communication
and the devastation of community? Is it not time that we look at the intention of
God reflected in the scripture that the respective particularities pointing to the
grand universal need to come into conversation and community? Might we have
detoured off Pentecost for 2000 years when the one at the well fully intended that
that particularity would be transcended as people came to worship God as Spirit
and Truth? This Jew who dared speak to a Samaritan between whom there was
terrible hostility, this male who dared speak to a female which was unheard of in
that day and culture, this Jew who dared to say it's not in Jerusalem, not is it at
Gerizim, but it is in spirit and in truth.
Do you think there's hope? Is it the possibility that this vision and this dream
could catch fire? Do you think that in a thousand years someone will write an
article and will say that the same great traditions that there were 1000 years ago,
or might someone a thousand years from now write and say, “You know, there
was the breaking forth, here and there, of a larger dream, of the premonition of
global community.”
Well, it's a dream, but Martin Luther King, whose birthday we celebrate this
week, had a dream, too. It was just a simple dream of how little black children
and little white children could learn to play together and to live together, where
there wouldn't be domination, prejudice, bigotry, hostility, and brokenness, but
where there would be community, and that dream is far from being realized, but
© Grand Valley State University
�From Babel to Bethlehem to Spirit and Truth
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
the dream has become a dream widespread. Isn't it time that we learn to listen in
order that we might understand in order that we might live in the Shalom of God
whose Spirit is beyond all of our separateness? The God who is beyond all of our
partial insights, absolutized and made exclusive. Isn't it time for us all to wake up
to the dream of Jesus?
© Grand Valley State University
�
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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/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Epiphany II
Series
A Millennial Vision
Scripture Text
Genesis 11:8, Acts 2:6
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-20000116
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2000-01-16
Title
A name given to the resource
From Babel to Bethlehem to Spirit and Truth
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 January 16, 2000 entitled "From Babel to Bethlehem to Spirit and Truth", as part of the series "A Millennial Vision", on the occasion of Epiphany II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 11:8, Acts 2:6.
Consciousness
Global Community
Spirit
-
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PDF Text
Text
Freedom and Commitment in a Global Society
Independence Day Weekend
Text: Galatians 5:13
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost IV, July 2, 2000
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Not in every worship would such a mellow tenor be able to sing "America" so
beautifully. There are liturgical purists in the Church who feel that civil holidays
have no place in the celebration and the worship of the people of God, and, of
course, there is a point to guard the worship of the Church. It can get ridiculous,
you know. I mean, a sermon on celebrating Girl Scout cookies would be
stretching it a bit. But, after all, as the people of God, we are also people of a
nation and you cannot divorce the experience of your religious existence from
your existence as a citizen. We are a part of a nation and of a civilization and our
religious vision has shaped that civilization and been shaped by it, as well, and I
do believe there is a place, at least with some of the more important civil holidays,
to bring a reflection into the experience of worship, to celebrate the blessings that
have been ours as a nation. I think it is not at all out of place to recognize the
heritage that is ours with gratitude and to place that heritage and that experience
in the light of the word of God in order to see how we're doing with it and how
responsibly we are exercising the privilege of it. And so, for just a few moments
this morning, I want you to think with me about this nation, about our heritage. I
want to do it with affirmation and with gratitude, for we do celebrate a very, very
great national heritage and civilizational tradition.
We are a people of the United States of America; we are people of the West, of
western civilization, and we have a heritage that has been richly blessed of God. I
don't have to say that certainly it is a flawed vision and we have failed often, not
living up to our ideals in great measure and in many respects. Nonetheless, we
are a fortunate people and it is good to celebrate that and to remember it. Civil
holidays do sometimes stretch the ability of the preacher to find a relevant text
because the texts of the scriptures really do not address the kinds of things that
we will be reflecting on this morning, and yet I think, for example, in the Prophet
Isaiah, the 58th chapter, we do have that which we can bring into our own
experience. Before the verses which I read, the people are complaining to God.
They're saying, "We're very religious. We do all of our liturgies and sacrifices and
rituals and you don't seem to take note of us." And the scripture lesson began
with that question, “Is this the fast that I desire, says the Lord?” In other words,
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Richard A. Rhem
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do I want all kinds of religious rigamarole? Do I need the smoke of your incense,
the fragrance of your sacrifices? Do I need your obeisance and your devotion?
Show me your devotion in a life committed to justice and compassion. Unshackle
the prisoner and feed the hungry and clothe the naked and give the homeless
shelter. Then, then the light will rise upon you. Then you'll call and I'll answer.
Then you will be a repairer of ancient foundations, standing in the breach,
affecting renewal. Religion has an end in itself. It is not at all what God desires or
intends. Religious devotion is to result in fair and compassionate action.
Paul in the letter to the Galatians is dealing with what we might say is a
theological matter, a matter of grace as over against the performance principle.
Specifically in this case, the question of circumcision, the Jewish rite of initiation,
but that's not so important. The important thing that Paul is dealing with is the
fact that we are set free from that heavy obligation, that onerous task of religious
duty, and we don't come to God through all of our clap trap of religious practice
and observance, beautiful as it may be in some cases, boring as it is in many
cases, but rather, we come to God by the grace of God. We are set free, but we are
set free, Paul says, not for self-indulgence, but for commitment to the other, to
love. Set free to love. Set free to love in very concrete fashion, to live a life of
commitment out of the freedom with which Christ has set us free.
So, I think in the biblical perspective, you do have what I want to say this
morning about our responsibility as a nation who has been so richly blessed. I
want to say that we are called in our freedom to commitment in a global society, a
world so far different than the world into which this nation was born, and yet a
world that needs so desperately the blessings that we have received and the
insights and the understanding and the wisdom that have marked our Western
tradition. So, I want to say just a few things about that, and I want to begin
simply by affirmation of our Western tradition, of our heritage, our national
heritage as the United States of America. What a wonderful tradition it is. What a
wonderful heritage it is. What a treasure it is, and how fruitful it has become in
our midst, and how richly blessed we are as a people. I think there is every reason
for the people of God gathered in worship to give God thanks and to reflect upon
and celebrate that tradition, that civilizational track in which we find ourselves
having emerged. Human dignity, the rights of the individuals, of liberal
capitalism which has given us economic prosperity, human rights, although
certainly not spread far enough, broad enough, completely enough to enough of
God's children. Nonetheless, we know better. We know the ideal.
We have the rule of law, a society under the rule of law; the Elian Gonzalez case
tested that. Emotions got in the way and a tragic fiasco resulted, but finally the
rule of law. Apart from the rule of law, it's chaos. One can change the law, but one
lives under the law. All of those aspects of a national experience have been for us
a source of very rich blessing, indeed, and something for which certainly we
thank God. We have a national heritage that is a part of the Western civilization
that is rooted in Israel, that great prophetic tradition, a little taste of that this
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morning from Isaiah, rooted in Greek philosophical thought, that rich, rich
cultural flourishing in those centuries before Christ, and in Rome a model of
governance and law. Israel, Greece, Rome flowing into Europe, experiencing the
Renaissance, the coming to flower of the human being, the recognition of the
human being, the throwing off of all authoritarianism, and the development
therefore of critical rationality and the Enlightenment, and all of that opening up
the possibility of modernity which has brought us where we are today, not only
with our freedom, not only with our prosperity, but with the technological
breakthroughs - the Genome Project, the mapping of human DNA, the
possibilities that will break forth in the future, in the near future, which will
boggle our mind, a globe tied together intimately through the Internet, a world
that is absolutely amazing.
It is so amazing that people get scared. It is so fast and rapidly changing with so
much potential, that a lot of people will run into the shelter of fundamentalist
religious trying to stave off tomorrow and turn back the clock. But it is a world
that has absolutely flowered out of that Western tradition from Israel and Greece
and Rome, through Europe, Renaissance, and the U.S. of A., and we stand today
as the guardians and the guarantors of that precious heritage. It is no mean thing.
It is a great gift. It has given us so much and it has ongoing potential for the wellbeing and the good of the world.
But, having said that, I want to say that, while it is unique, it is not universal. By
that I mean that in this global society that has become so small and intimately
connected, it ought not occur to us to export our Western civilization globally.
There are great civilizational groupings that make up the human family and half a
dozen or so, all of them shaped initially, intimately by a religious vision. Again,
ours informed by Christianity coming out of the womb of Judaism,
Greek philosophy, Roman law, but so with the Asian civilizations, so with the
Orthodox countries, the Muslim civilizations - these respective civilizations are so
deeply rooted. They are deeply rooted in blood and ethnicity and it far transcends
allegiance to an idea or an ideal; it far transcends a national border, a nation
state. What we have to recognize today is that the West is not the best for the rest.
It is ours, and we ought to celebrate it and we ought to seek its renewal and we
ought to preserve it and enhance it in every way we can, but we live in a global
situation where our civilization must be understood as unique and not universal.
To claim it is universal is simply false. That can be documented. And it is
immoral.
If we were to export Western civilization globally, it would take military might. It
would take enforcement in its institution and in its maintenance. It would take
that old imperialism that marked the 19th century when Europe had hegemony
over the rest of the globe, or in the 20th century in the dominance of our own
particular nation. We could do it for a time through the imposition of power, but
it is immoral and it would be dangerous because in the long run it wouldn't work,
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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because in the long run, coercion is overthrown by that which is more deeply
rooted in the human spirit. And so, we are unique but we are not universal; we
ought not to be. Therefore, what we need to do is reject mono-culturalism which
would see the globe as marked by just one culture, and also multi-culturalism.
Now, that may surprise you because you know me as a bleeding heart liberal, and
I have to say that I have been inclined to multi-culturalism because, after all, one
ought to respect diversity and respect differences. But one must recognize that
our founding fathers saw diversity as a problem, and to meet that problem, they
had the little Latin phrase, E pluribus unum, out of many, one. The typical old,
classic symbol for that was the melting pot. A New Testament scholar whom I
deeply respect, Krister Stendahl, who has been here with us, Bishop Stendahl
says that in the melting pot, you have to recognize that the dominant culture
wins. You sort of assimilate everything into the dominant culture, and that's true,
and I think we have to be very sensitive about that. He suggests rather than a
melting pot, we have a salad bowl, where you have the various ingredients
maintaining their own identity. But, however you do it, what we have to recognize
is that multi-culturalism will deny, and therefore destroy, the uniqueness of
Western civilization, which is not universal, which is not for everyone, but which
has a heritage, a wisdom, and a fruitful tradition with which we ought not play
fast and loose.
No mono-culturalism, no multi-culturalism, but a recognition of the uniqueness
among the diversities of civilization, and then a mining of that heritage and that
tradition for its best. And then recognizing that those qualities and those virtues
are biblically rooted in the Hebrew tradition, expressed in the Christian tradition,
reinforced by Greece and Rome. We ought to know who we are; we ought to know
the pit from which we've been hewn, and we ought to recognize its value and do
everything we can to make it better and to make it a part, a gleaming part, one of
the facets of the global reality.
And then, I would say this, too - because of the position of power that we have, it
is absolutely incumbent upon us to bear the burden for the rest of the world. It is
incumbent upon us, the U.S. of A., to bear the burden and the cost of
implementing a peaceful world. We need to do this by recognizing our
uniqueness among the diversity, rejecting the mono-culturalism and the multiculturalism, and then doing what we can in a world such as we see before us to
accommodate the respective civilizational groupings. We need to do this through
the energy and the resources that are ours, recognizing that it will be incumbent
upon us to take the lead, to yield, to compromise, and back down. It's always the
responsibility of the one in power to yield and to give way, to be sensitive because
in a position of dominance such as we have, if we don't do that, we will incite a
backlash which can be read almost anywhere around the globe today. They love
the golden arches of McDonald's, the world loves the economic prosperity, the
world loves all of the gadgets and the toys and the affluence, but they don't want
us dictating their civilizational ways, and we need to recognize that a world which
© Grand Valley State University
�Freedom and Commitment in a Global Society
Richard A. Rhem
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is diverse will always be diverse, and therefore needs accommodation, needs
somebody who has the power who will give up the power here and there in order
to make the whole thing work. Paul Schroeder, a retired history professor from
the University of Illinois, says a peaceful world has resulted when there has been
a dominant power that is benign, that is able to use its power in a positive
fashion, and the problem of such a world comes when that dominant power is
either unable or unwilling to pay the cost. In such a case, there is incited a
backlash or the rising of competing ideologies that finally will undermine that
status quo, that peace that has been achieved.
I hear people grumble about all the billions of dollars that we ship overseas. Of
course, we never stop to figure out that the beneficiary of all of that far beyond
anyone else is ourselves. You hear Congressmen brag that they've hardly ever
been out of this country. Someone of them said they didn't even own a passport.
What kind of head-in-the-sand stupidity is that? You hear people thinking that
you can turn the clock back, shut down movements like free trade and return to
an isolationist kind of position. What kind of ignorance is that? And since we are
in a position of such dominance and such power, it is incumbent upon us to be
full of grace, full of integrity, to lead with generosity and with sensitivity. There is
a good deal in this morning's scriptural passages about the pointing of the finger,
the fighting and devouring of one another, added to the hostility and anger.
Did you happen to catch the little piece in the news last night about taking down
the Confederate flag over the capital of South Carolina, only to raise it on a
flagpole in the yard somewhere? You can have whatever position you want on
that, but when I saw on the television screen the hatred and the meanness and
hostility, I saw the violence of the human animal. I thought to myself, "Dear God,
I wish I was preaching this morning where my friend John Richard DeWitt is
preaching, within sight of the capital, First Presbyterian, Columbia, South
Carolina." I think I could get excited about preaching there this morning.
But, you know, it's not a Carolinian problem; it's a human problem, and I have to
say to you that, as citizens of the United States of America and as children of God
who have been so richly blessed, who have such a marvelous tradition, the
tradition of the West - we may not allow meanness, divisiveness, bigotry and
hostility to mark us.
Where is the Church? Where are the pulpits of America? How can we allow it to
go on, when I have to say to you we are blessed, we are affluent, we are full of
resources, we have limitless power, and it's time for us to take the lead and giving
it away with gentleness and graciousness, not yielding up our power to lead, but
yielding up our egotism and our self-indulgence. We are called in a global society
in freedom to commitment and only thus will the Spirit of God be able to nudge
this whole process along, that creative, enlivening Spirit of God that would move
us animals onward toward Spirit in order that there might be peace on earth
© 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.
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Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Pentecost IV
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Galatians 5:13
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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Freedom and Commitment in a Global Society
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Richard A. Rhem
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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 July 2, 2000 entitled "Freedom and Commitment in a Global Society", on the occasion of Pentecost IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Galatians 5:13.
Compassion
Diversity
Global Community
Inclusive
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/aff6c726f136e2037728519bf982c190.pdf
9d7378dde17fa39019450ecd075b79f9
PDF Text
Text
Crucified Violence in History
Memorial Day Weekend
Psalm 33:12; John 11:49
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
May 27, 2001
Transcription of the spoken sermon
This past week, we had to bury Nancy's brother, Larry Dornbos. On Monday, as
we gathered at the Presbyterian Church in Grand Haven in the lounge to receive
friends, there was more than one collage, there were other mementos that were
very sensitively arranged, which represented the life of Larry. Two things were
very prominent; one was, of course, Larry was a fisherman loving the outdoors,
but the other was a reminder that he was a World War II veteran. Being 76 years
of age, he was at that prime time for that great war. And, as I looked over the
collage and saw his picture, I was reminded of today being Memorial Day,
thinking about this service of worship in which we would remember those who
served their country, and indeed paid that supreme sacrifice.
Thinking about that, memories came to my mind, and then I had another
realization and that is that the memories that come to my mind will not come to
the minds of people who are much younger than I am. I experienced the second
world war as a child, but old enough to feel something of what the nation was
going through. I was six years old, and going to a Sunday evening service in
Kalamazoo on December 7, 1941, when the attack on Pearl Harbor, the battle of
which is being celebrated in what's supposed to be a blockbuster film this
weekend, was announced. I was nine years old, and remember celebrating V-E
Day and V-J Day. I had two brothers-in-law who served in the European theatre.
As I was thinking about that, I thought how many are there out there who will
remember if I say that my brothers-in-law were in the Battle of the Bulge, that
terrible, terrible European experience. My sisters were part of that spirit of the
nation and, against the wise counsel of my father, they foolishly married boys
that were going off to service. And wouldn't a parent say, "Is that wise to do?
Couldn't you wait?" Of course, they couldn't wait.
I was thinking about some of the names of battles and some of the famous places,
and remembering my old grandmother reading the newspaper and saying,
"They've got Rommel on the run." I can remember the tension. I felt some of the
fear because we had loved ones over there. I remember the flag with the stars
hanging in the sanctuary of my home church in Kalamazoo, and the stars that
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Richard A. Rhem
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hung in the windows of the neighborhood. I can remember it was a time of
genuine threat. It was also, I suppose, ironically, one of the best times in terms of
the nation and its spirit, and its unity. Sir Kenneth Clark – who has done a
wonderful video series on civilization some years ago now for the BBC, also
printed in a book – makes a statement which I looked for but couldn't find
quickly. He's almost hesitant to say that times of war, as you trace the history of
civilization, have been times when the best and the noblest have been elicited
from the human spirit, ironic though that is. But, at Larry's funeral before those
collages, I began to think about all those memories, and then as I said began to
realize there are a few with white hair and a few of us without any hair, who are
the only ones who probably can be triggered by that type of thing.
A good friend of mine gave me the book, Flags of Our Fathers. It's the story of
the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, the six marines that finally got to the top of
the mountain and raised that flag. There was a photograph which captured that
event. It's maybe the most famous photograph in the world. If you go to
Washington, D.C., you'll see a monument with that re-enacted. One of the six
died in the 90s, and his son wrote a story, Flags of Our Fathers, and he tells the
story about how he never heard from his father anything about that event. Even
though his father was a war hero who had been one of those six captured on film,
the picture never hung in their home. He told how people would call for
interviews and his father would always say, "Tell them I'm on a fishing trip." He
would never speak of that event. His son would probe him on occasion, as would
other children of the family, but he wouldn't talk.
All he would say is, “The real heroes were the ones that didn't come back.” Even
though he had been thus honored, he couldn't speak of it. When he died in, I
think, 1993 they found in a closet hidden in an office, three cardboard boxes with
mementos, in which they learned that their father had received the Navy Cross
which I think is the second highest badge of honor one can receive. The family
never knew it and, out of the mementos, his son found letters which caused him
to begin to trace the story of the other six. Three died in action, two others died of
broken hearts and alcoholism. His father was the only one of the six that survived
to live a relatively normal life.
Anyway, James Bradley tells the story of his father, John. As I read that, I
realized that those who have experienced war in its depth and in its horror do not
speak of it. I have a person that I know speaks of his World War II experience
continually. He never got out of the country, but the ones that were there have
been so deeply impacted by it, that they don't speak easily of it.
Just recently there's been the story, the uncovering of the incident of Vietnam
with former Senator Bob Kerry. Somebody, I suppose, a journalist, a writer, who
knows - digging into this stuff, causing Senator Kerry to speak after all these
years of that Navy Seal operation. Evidence again of the horror of war, of its
insanity, of its dehumanizing, of its destruction of the human soul and spirit.
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Well, what got all this going was a photograph in the collage of Larry, a handsome
young man, which he sent home from Burma where he served as a kid. There he
was in this photo, and I looked at him and I've known this, we've all known this,
but it just struck me - he was a child. He was a beautiful young boy. And what I
suppose impacted me doubly was the fact that he was the age of my oldest
grandchild. I thought to myself, dear God, we send our children to fight our wars.
We send our children into that insanity. We expose our children to that horror, to
that human devastation.
The book Flags of Our Fathers was dedicated to the father of John Bradley, and
to the mothers who gave their sons. In that dedicatory page, there's a statement
from, I suppose, a Japanese woman: "Mothers should negotiate between
nations." The mothers of the fighting countries would agree. Stop this killing
now. Stop it now. Indeed, we should send the mothers to the negotiating table
because I cannot believe, in spite of the fact that I can remember, I cannot believe
that we send our children off to war.
So, as I was thinking about that and thinking about today, I remembered that two
or three weeks ago when the President suggested that the whole world situation
has changed, and that the old kinds of defenses won't work any more, that it's no
use having all of our missiles aimed at Russia or China, but that the real threat to
our world today are those few rogue nations, and that what we need is a missile
defense system in space, I remember in the sermon suggesting that maybe rather
than finding a more sophisticated defense system, that this might be the time,
seeing that we are overwhelmingly powerful on the world scene today, for our
President and our Secretary of State to go to the rogue nations and to sit down
with them and to say, "What do you need?" "What are your dreams?" "What
drives you?" And, "Can we help you to become a part of a human community?" I
said that, admitting that it was a silly idea. Admitting that I don't understand
international politics. Admitting that it's a very complex situation. But, I said it
out of my own intuition, out of my own deep human spirit. I said, "Why can't we
change the feel of the global situation? Why can't we initiate and inaugurate
something that might have a positive effect on the lives of the human family?"
Well you know several of you went out the door and suggested that it was a good
idea. I get all kinds of stuff at the door, "Wonderful sermon." "You were
marvelous this morning." "I was deeply moved ." "I could have just as well slept
in this morning." "You had nothing to say, what a preposterous idea." All of that,
then sometimes you know, when you really nice people want to say something
but there's nothing nice to say, you just sort of stand there and stammer. But,
there are times when I say something, and I know that it registered, that you have
said, too, "You know, that's true. Why can't we do something like that?"
I know that that is highly impractical, that it is idealistic, and I suppose
hopelessly romantic. You don't vote for a president that would do that kind of
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thing. You don't vote for some one like me for president. I don't know if I would
vote for me. It's scary. It's scary, isn't it?
You vote for people like Caiaphas. Caiaphas, the high priest. Two people went
down in infamy at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. Pontius Pilate actually made it
into our most popular creed - "suffered under Pontius Pilate." But, Caiaphas, not
making it into the creed nonetheless has a name that is identified with infamy, for
he was the High Priest at the time when Jesus was crucified. Caiaphas was a wily
politician. In that situation, the religious and political leaders, were all wrapped
up into one person, and Caiaphas was it. Obviously, Judah was an occupied
nation. The Roman legions were at the ready. The best they could hope for was to
collaborate with the Roman power in such a way that they could carry on some
modicum of their Jewish life.
Caiaphas was a leader, the high priest, leader of the Sanhedrin. The Sadducean
party was the ruling party. I think Caiaphas would have been a fellow you would
enjoy having at a dinner conversation. He was pragmatic. He was a realist. Jesus
was causing quite a stir. And that final miracle had really caused a ripple of
anxiety in the ruling circles. There was a bit of panic. They were frenzied. What
are we going to do? What are we going to do? Caiaphas demonstrated why he was
a high priest, not only in a priestly family; leadership rises to the top often. This
man, fulfilling the role that was expected of him said, "Look, this is a no brainer.
It's better that one man die than that the nation perish. If we let this go on, the
Romans are going to come in here and they're going to destroy our holy place, our
temple, and they're going to destroy the nation. If we let this man go on, the
Romans are going to come in here and there's going to be a lot of blood that's
going to flow in the streets. Obviously, you have to do away with him."
In history, that's the way it is. And pragmatic politicians who are responsible and
reasonable have to do things that are often unsavory, things that they don't want
to do, things they can't put their heart into; it's never a clean-cut situation. On the
one hand there is the nation, there is the temple, there's this grand tradition. On
the other hand, I'm also the high priest and I've got it fairly well right now. I
would rather not have the Romans here, but the Romans being here, I'm still
getting along quite well, thank you very much, in my collaborative role.
I'm just reminded of a lady I roomed with in the Netherlands, an older lady who
told me that, when the Netherlands was liberated in the Hague, the neighbors
went and got the collaborators - the ones who had worked with the Nazis - shaved
their heads, and marched them down the middle of the street. Collaborators are
not well liked, but what do you do if you are a leader like Caiaphas? You call it the
Caiaphas principle, I suppose. It's a principle in which real politic continues to
take place. It's a kind of reasoning that leads to spending billions of dollars for a
missile defense system.
What are we to do? What are we to do? I do realize the depth of darkness and evil
that is present in the world. I do realize that human nature is such that it's going
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to be a long, long time before there's something like the peaceable kingdom. But I
wonder if we aren't at a point in history where we have to say, we can't any longer
do business as usual. I wonder if we don't have to call into question reasonable
and responsible people who want to lead us in ways that are business as usual. I
wonder if the globe hasn't become so small that the world has become a
neighborhood, if we are not too tightly bound with one another, if it isn't time for
us to think of some other way. How would we think? Well wouldn't we think of
Jesus?
The church calendar on Thursday was Ascension Day, forty days after Easter. We
run from the darkness of Good Friday, the crucifixion, to Easter Sunday and the
brightness, because we would prefer resurrection, of course. Then, forty days
later to see him ascended at the throne of power of the universe to know that
King Jesus is on the throne ruling. Of course, in that early story as they
understood it, as they communicated it, they expected his imminent return in
power and great glory, to judge the nations. Those who followed King Jesus, even
though they had seen him crucified, believed that, somehow or other, ultimately
there would be the triumph, there would be the kingdom and the power and the
glory!
It's been 2,000 years, and I don't think that King Jesus is going to come back and
make it all right. I don't see any evidence that God has ever done something that
intrusive way. It seems to me that God has done all that God can do, and that is to
put into our midst a flesh and blood model. The word became flesh and dwelt
among us, and he spoke of the compassion and the goodness of God. He lived for
justice. He reached out to the lame and the leper, and he challenged the Caiaphas
principle. He challenged all the institutional forms of structures that make society
possible, but become ends in themselves and become oppressive. And, in thus
challenging them, he became a threat to them and he spoke his truth, and held
his ground, and didn't flinch, knowing surely that his end would be violent death.
I don't think that God can do more than God has done. And I don't think we
ought to live with that illusion that, somehow or other, when it all gets really dark
on earth, the heavens will open and the Son of Man will come and the nations will
be judged. The nations will be judged, they'll be judged by the righteousness and
the justice with which they live. And what, concretely, does Jesus embody? I see it
nowhere more eloquently spoken than that word at the cross when he is being
crucified when he says, "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are
doing."
They knew what they were doing. They knew good and well what they were doing.
They were perpetuating the status quo. They were preserving what was, even
though it wasn't ideal. They were holding on to their world, to their privilege, to
their position. They were keeping the wolves at bay. They were trying to hold on,
to preserve, to perpetuate power and privilege. They knew what they were doing.
© Grand Valley State University
�Crucified! Violence in History
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
But, they didn't know what they were doing, because what they were doing was
futile. There's only one thing that will finally work and make a difference, and
that is when humankind learns to say, "Dear God, forgive them. Dear God,
awaken them. Dear God, through my own self-sacrifice, raise some beacon of love
and grace that will turn hostility and hatred and violence into embrace and
inclusion and community."
The Psalmist knew it long ago: an army cannot save, a war horse is a vain hope
for victory. Isn't it ironic that as we speak the Caiaphas principle is operative in
Israel once again? What will happen there? Will Sharon finally have enough? Will
the old warrior in him rise up and say, "Destroy them." But, you can't destroy
them.
In 1976, I saw immigrant camps filled with those who hadn't been there in 1948,
but were born subsequently and were already refugees at the point of their birth.
Now there's another whole generation, so what if you wipe out a million or two?
Look at the Balkans where they still feud over some battle back in the 13th
century. Animals remember and lust for revenge. There's only one thing - only
one thing – that changes them and that is the love and the grace lived out by
Jesus. It's a scary business. It's a scary business, and it's our only hope. God help
us.
© 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
The topic of the resource
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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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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Event
Memorial Day Weekend, Eastertide VI
Series
Credo
Scripture Text
Psalm 33:5-17, John 11:45-53, Luke 23:32-34
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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2001-05-27
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Crucified! Violence in History
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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>
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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
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 27, 2001 entitled "Crucified! Violence in History", as part of the series "Credo", on the occasion of Memorial Day Weekend, Eastertide VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 33:5-17, John 11:45-53, Luke 23:32-34.
Format
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application/pdf
Global Community
Non-violence
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/399363ae2404cd7828c457618c3b4b22.mp3
21cdd946ab3ab078b9706cc54a6babb3
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PDF Text
Text
Beyond Nation, Ethnicity and Creed
Independence Day Weekend, Pentecost V
Readings from our Past: Psalm 33:10-17; Matthew 5:38-48
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 1, 2001
Transcription of the spoken sermon
About eighteen months ago, at the turn of the millennium, I pointed to a book
that had impressed me with its insight about our present human situation in
terms of the international global situation. Samuel T. Huntington with a lot of
experience in international affairs had written a book, The Clash of Civilizations,
which concludes with this paragraph:
In the 1950s, Lester Pearson warned that humans were moving into an age
when different civilizations will have to learn to live side by side in
peaceful interchange, learning from each other, studying each other's
history and ideals and art and culture, mutually enriching each other's
lives. The alternative in this over crowded little world is misunderstanding,
tension, clash and catastrophe. The futures of both peace and civilization
depend upon understanding and cooperation among the political,
spiritual, and intellectual leaders of the world's major civilizations. In the
clash of civilizations, Europe and America will hang together or hang
separately. In the greater clash, the global real clash between civilization
and barbarism, the world's great civilizations with their rich
accomplishments in religion, art, literature, philosophy, science,
technology, morality and compassion, will also hang together or hang
separately. In the emerging era, clashes of civilizations are the greatest
threat to world peace and an international order based on civilizations is
the surest safeguard against world war.
The human story is a fascinating story and, as in this week once again we
celebrate the independence of our nation, I thought it might be well for us to
think of our nation and our Western civilization in terms of its unique values
which have come to us at great cost and great sacrifice. We have, I think, a
growing awareness or raised consciousness of the sacrifice and the cost of that
which we enjoy together and so easily take for granted.
Nancy and I, two or three weeks ago, went to see the film, Pearl Harbor, which is
justifiably criticized for making a big buck on a love story and perhaps trivializing
© Grand Valley State University
�Beyond Nation, Ethnicity and Creed
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
the event itself, according to those who were there. It seems to me that is
probably a justified criticism and yet, once again, that film calls to mind that Day
of Infamy, and the terrible cost that has been paid even in the last century for the
freedoms and the liberties that we enjoy. Perhaps the anchor of NBC, Tom
Brokaw, in his book, The Greatest Generation, in his continuing effort to bring
those voices forward, has also given us a certain new awareness of that which it
has cost in the past in order to preserve and to protect that which we have as a
people. And so it seems to me that it is good for us, on an occasion like this, to
reflect on where we are in the world, who we are in the world, and that which is
incumbent upon us in order to preserve and to perpetuate the values that have
been so richly enjoyed by us as a people.
In his book, The Clash of Civilizations. Huntington tells the story of the past
century and those great wars that were waged. There was the First World War,
for example, and President Wilson committed us to that war with a suggestion
that it would be a war to end all wars, and, of course, it was not, but rather it
birthed Fascism and Communism and the retreat of Democracy which had been
gaining ground in the century past. And then there was the Second World War
and, toward its close and the close of his life, Franklin Delano Roosevelt began to
speak of the United Nations and the creation of an organization of peace loving
nations that would come together in the universal organization, and that would
ensure a structure of permanent peace. And, of course, after the euphoria died
down, we recognized before long that we were engaged in a Cold War which for
decades had us teetering on the edge of disaster in a balance of terror.
I remember well the euphoria that came in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall
in 1989. There we thought finally we had won the battle. There was a State
Department official, Francis Fukayama, who wrote a very widely discussed essay
entitled, “The End of History," in which he suggested that the West had won, that
the values of freedom and democracy and free enterprise and all of that which
marks our life had finally been demonstrated to be superior and that it was just a
matter of time before the whole world embraced those particular values and
marks of Western civilization. Fukayama went so far as to suggest that the future
of history would be boring.
And we know what happened to the euphoria of the fall of the Berlin Wall, for it
opened up ancient wounds, the Balkans, ethnic cleansing, that terrible slaughter
and massacre that went on, brought to us once again with greater clarity through
the turning over of Milosevic to the world court to be tried on crimes against
humanity. In the last decade plus we have seen the rise of militant
fundamentalisms and religion, creating violence and horror. We have seen
massacres and racial genocide, and we have recognized that the global body
politic is wounded, indeed. Then President Bush had spoken of a new world
order, but it was not to be, and so here we are.
© Grand Valley State University
�Beyond Nation, Ethnicity and Creed
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Samuel Huntington suggests that it was a foolish optimism that ever believed
that there could be a universal civilization, that what we are faced with and what
we have to recognize is rather a diversity of civilizations, perhaps seven or eight
civilizational groupings which are tied by blood and language and religion, which
have a deep identity that transcends national boundaries, that represent ancient
bonding of human families. It is Huntington's contention that the only way to
security and to peace in this global world of ours is through the acceptance of that
diversity, the recognition of it, even the celebration of it, simply to come to the
realization that it will not be the West and the rest, or the West as the best, but
rather, in the respective civilizational groupings, each having its own integrity,
there will have to be a way of coming to understanding, of mutual respect, of the
investigation of the history, the culture, the art, the philosophy, and the religious
faith of the respective groups in order that there might be a living together in
human community with that diversity acknowledged and recognized and
celebrated.
This seems to me to make a lot of sense and the other point that he makes
(apropos for us on this week in which we celebrate our independence) is that we
ought to renew those values that have made us what we are, that we ought to
renew and recommit ourselves to that which is uniquely Western, that which was
born in Europe and has been lived out and embodied here in such a fruitful way individual liberty, political democracy, human rights, the rule of law, that
pluralism and that Christian rootage which has flowered in Western civilization.
Certainly we don't want our civilization to be closed against others but, according
to Huntington, there has been a naiveté about the possibility of multi-culturalism
within a given civilization. Multi-culturalism within a civilization attempts to
make that civilization the world, and it is not. Just as a mono-culturalism would
attempt to make the whole world like one's own civilization, and that brings
conflict, and that won't work, either. To recognize the diversity of civilization, but
to recommit oneself to one's own values, to recognize anew that which has given
us birth, that which is at the foundation of that freedom and liberty and humane
existence, the civility that has marked our civilization at its best would seem to be
the path of wisdom.
As I think about the biblical story, we read Psalm 33 and its insight is that we will
not live and survive by military might. That has been practiced and that has been
our practice and, as the most powerful nation on earth, we have often been told
that we must continue to be strong in order to preserve peace. There have been
instances in the past where, thank God, we had the strength to turn away the
aggressor and the tyrant. But we ought to recognize the wisdom of that Old
Testament poet in that finally what we are all after, global security and peace, will
not be secured by superior military might. A king is not saved by his armies, said
the Psalmist, and the war horse is a vain hope for victory. Finally, you cannot arm
yourself, you cannot have strength enough to repel every enemy and to remove
every danger. We have to find it in some other way. Peace does not lie through
military power, and if I move to that famous and disturbing Sermon on the
© Grand Valley State University
�Beyond Nation, Ethnicity and Creed
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Mount, I hear Jesus talking about the law of retaliation, an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth, and I recognize that there was a time when an eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth was a code of justice. What it says is that the penalty ought
to meet the crime. An eye for an eye, not a life for an eye. It's a tooth for a tooth,
not a life for a tooth. That was a step forward in human understanding.
But, Jesus goes beyond that. In the very, very disturbing moral imperative, Jesus
suggests turning the other cheek, going the extra mile. And then, in the most
radical of all suggestions, to love our enemies, for he says if you like the people
who like you, big deal. If you love the people who love you, big deal. Everybody
does that. It's natural to do that. It is human to do that. But, to love your
enemies? That’s divine. For he points to the God whose sun shines on the just
and the unjust and the God whose rain waters the gardens of the good and the
evil. The God of Jesus was a God of non-discrimination and humanity, in Jesus'
image of things, is rooted in God, so that there is a common ground of humanity.
God is the eternal ground and source and, therefore, because of that common
ground and source, there is a common humanity and, consequently, all humanity
deserves to be treated humanely and it is incumbent upon human beings to be
humane, one to another without discrimination and without exclusion.
Well, I don't know what to do with Jesus' words. Some in the history of
interpretation have said that's not for now, that's for when Jesus comes again and
establishes a kingdom on earth. That’s a future ethic.
Well, nice going, but it won't work. In all honesty, whether you want to take Jesus
seriously or not, whether you think he was on to something or not, what we can't
do is say he was talking about some future age in the Sermon on the Mount. That
was immediate. That is here and now.
Others have said that's fine on an individual basis, but you can't do it in the
corporate. Well, maybe it won't work, but I think that's what Jesus intended. I
think that is what he was saying.
I don't quite know what to do with it. I think it would be helpful if, before we
argued with it, we listened to it. If, before we reject it out of hand as some
ridiculous kind of counsel, we let it seep into the pores of our being. We let that
ethic simply be with us for a bit because, if it would saturate our being and seep
into the pores of our nature, it would have to have some kind of effect on our
spirit and on our attitude.
And finally, the human problem is a problem of attitude and spirit, and Jesus was
suggesting that there is a common humanity that demands a universal
humaneness and acceptance. Positively, we have to accept the civilizational
diversity and even celebrate it. We should renew our own values and recognize
the roots from which they have sprung, and celebrate them and preserve them, as
well. And then, we ought to find those areas where the civilizational groupings
overlap in common values, common, shared human values for justice and for
© Grand Valley State University
�Beyond Nation, Ethnicity and Creed
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
truth and compassion, rejecting murder, deceit, tyranny, torture and oppression,
because if one takes those civilizational groupings at their best there is a shared
value, there is a shared morality, a shared ethical sense which can be distilled and
which each respective civilizational group committing itself to would make for the
kind of security and peace and well-being that is necessary for our world that has
come to a crossroads because of the tremendous power, because of the
tremendous technological capacity, because of the fact that we have everything at
hand to destroy the whole human experiment if we don't learn to live with justice
and peace, one with another.
Certainly, the Christian church has not been a good example. I was just rereading again the book that I'll be using in July by Richard Rubenstein, When
Jesus Became God, the conflict in the 4th century in trying to establish the
orthodox Christological formulation. After a century and more of bloody conflict,
an edict of the Roman Empire established orthodox Nicene Christology and,
when that was established, a group of Christians began to burn synagogues and
pagan temples and massacre people, and the emperor as a responsible ruler
demanded that they make restitution and that the leaders be punished, and the
great and highly esteemed Bishop Ambrose of Milan said to the emperor, "Why
should God's people be punished for destroying the heretics and the pagans? If
you don't rescind your rule to punish, I will not serve you Holy Communion," and
the emperor relented.
I suppose I tell you that little story because I started out where Ambrose was –
not quite so violent, thank God – but with that kind of exclusionary attitude that
ignorantly and arrogantly said, "This is it and this is true and only this is true."
And then, by the miracle of grace and the Holy Spirit, those blinders began to fall
off and I began to see the light and the grace in others and, rather than closing
myself off and rejecting, began to open up and embrace and found a vitality and a
joy and a celebration of life such as I never knew in that cramped and crimped
orthodoxy that was wringing all of the joy of life out of me. I suggest that has
happened to this community, as well, where we have learned the broadness of
God's mercy, we have learned the freedom of throwing open our arms and
embracing all and excluding none, and we have learned that breaking down the
barriers that divide is the way to humanity, to grace and joy and blessing.
So I would suggest that, as a civilizational group, as a nation, there is possibility
for us. There is possibility for the world. It may yet be a long way off. We'll have a
good many battles yet to wage. But, finally, with an attitude and a spirit that has
at least heard the word of Jesus, has recognized how it cuts against the grain of
the human animal, but is indeed the voice of the Spirit, little by little we might
move toward that day when we will not exclude the other, but rather, find
ourselves celebrating that family of which we are a part, in harmony with the
other families of the globe, and there would be peace on earth.
© Grand Valley State University
�Beyond Nation, Ethnicity and Creed
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
References:
Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World
Order. Touchstone, 1997.
Richard E. Rubenstein. When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define
Christianity during the Last Days of Rome. Harcourt Inc., 1999.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Independence Day Weekend, Pentecost V
Scripture Text
Psalm 33:10-17, Matthew 5:38-48
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Touchstone, 1997. Richard E. Rubenstein. When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome. Harcourt,Inc., 1999.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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KII-01_RA-0-20010701
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2001-07-01
Title
A name given to the resource
Beyond National, Ethnicity and Creed
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 1, 2001 entitled "Beyond National, Ethnicity and Creed", on the occasion of Independence Day Weekend, Pentecost V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 33:10-17, Matthew 5:38-48.
Diversity
Global Community
Inclusivism
Non-violence
-
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PDF Text
Text
The Revolution Then and Now
Independence Day Weekend
Scripture: Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 33:10-17; Matthew 5:38-48
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 7, 2002
Transcription of the spoken sermon
On this Independence Day weekend, I invite you to think with me about our
nation, especially in the present circumstance of our post-9/11 world. It is always
appropriate to reflect on the good fortune we have enjoyed - the privileges that
we have enjoyed together as a people, as a nation. What a heritage we have
entered into. What marvelous freedoms and liberty have we lived with. What
advantages have we had. What a glorious vision was that vision that founded a
constitutional democracy and all of those things that down through the last two
centuries and more have made the American experiment. And an experiment it
is. In that heroic document with its great language, the Declaration of
Independence, we read of self-evident truths and of inalienable rights. But, as a
matter of fact, the truths of the vision upon which this nation was founded are
not at all self-evident, and the rights that we claim are not at all inalienable
human rights. As a matter of fact, only a small minority of humankind has ever
enjoyed them as we have, and those rights as documented in our founding
documents are rights that even, at the time of their affirmation, were affirmed
and appreciated by only a minority. But what a marvelous nation this has been in
which to be able to pursue our happiness. And how grateful we should be for that
privilege that has been ours.
I did a little rummaging around this week thinking about this moment in order to
understand how such a nation could have been born, and it is all the stuff that we
learned in American History 101, but we forget, and so I had to refresh my
memory. It was about ten years before the Revolutionary War ever began that the
difficulties between Mother England and these colonies began to heat up. It is so
typical, such a typical human story: England of empire, England of king and
crown, and these thirteen bedraggled colonies with no national government, no
army, no legislative body, really a confederation of colonies, and Mother England
began to twist the arm just a bit. They had been rather exhausted emotionally and
financially through the French and Indian War. They had not paid a great deal of
attention to these colonies. These colonies became rather independent-minded,
and when England caught its breath and began to feel that it should maintain
© Grand Valley State University
�The Revolution Then and Now
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
certain situations and conditions here, and to raise enough finances to enhance
the imperial treasury, of course, the sparks began to fly.
These were people from a common tradition, they spoke a common language
and, as you go back and read about those events, one wonders that there wasn't
someone there able to sit them down together and to talk together, because it was
obvious that the human ego was flying high, that there was a battle of wills that
was building up, and, human animals that we are, someone will either back down
and submit and become submissive, or the clash is inevitable. So, the sugar tax,
three pennies on every pound of molasses imported, a very costly tax for these
colonies that were apparently importing a lot of molasses to produce a lot of great
rum.
And the tea business, the East India Tea Company, unhappy about the fact that
tea was not being consumed as it should have been with a boycott at work. It all
comes down to rum and profits eventually, doesn't it? And so, we have that
sterling episode of the Boston Tea Party and all of those great events, and as you
read it, you can remember, perhaps, if you are as old as I am, how those old
history books used to make you thrill to the story of the Revolution.
I suppose it is fruitless at this point to raise the questions as to whether or not it
ever should have happened, but I think it is important for us to be reminded of
the fact that there was a time when this nation was being born, that Mother
England, the King and the Crown, were calling us terrorists and that we became
violent in our pursuit of freedom and liberty. And it is good for us to remember
that, as someone has said, one person's freedom fighter is another person's
terrorist.
At that time, we were weak and poor and ungoverned, and so we didn't have a
great deal to lose and let it all go, and when you are fighting for your homeland
and for a future, when your blood is running fast, then, of course, what can the
imperial forces do against you? But we did get involved in war and thousands of
lives were lost and there was tragedy in thousands of homes, and from all of that
has emerged this great nation and it is fruitless, as I said a moment ago, to
contemplate the question as to whether or not it was a good thing. Certainly it
would seem that it could have been settled in some other way without bloodshed,
but that is the human story, isn't it?
So, we have a great heritage and we have enjoyed great privileges beyond
comparison. But, there was a time when we did resort to violence in order to
realize our dream. And it is probably important to remember that. I entitled the
message "The Revolution Then and Now" because, although it was a local contest,
geographically limited, happening in a small corner of the world, nonetheless it
was a revolution and the revolution today is a global revolution, and all of the
dimensions of it have changed drastically. But, as a matter of fact, that dream in
the human heart which we pursued even with violence is a dream not so far from
the human heart of earth children around the globe. The times have progressed
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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and technology has progressed and the world has become as small as a grapefruit,
and we live in a global village today in which it is no longer possible for
something which happens in one little corner not to affect the whole. And so,
what do we do in this moment of our own crisis? This moment when our
freedoms and our way of life and our peace are being challenged and disturbed?
How well are we reacting to the revolution now?
Well, if we were still those thirteen colonies without any power or prestige or
position in the world, it would be a very simple thing for me to preach to you
today. I would remind you what the Psalmist said, although his conception of
God is one which I cannot adopt anymore: God looking down and sort of smiling
at the machinations of humankind. Nonetheless, there was an insight way back
there, millennia ago, when the Psalmist said, "An army cannot save and a
warhorse is vain hope for salvation or victory." Even then the Psalmist knew that
that which is effected by force affects nothing, finally. If we were just the thirteen
colonies and a nondescript people on the face of the earth, I'd point you to Isaiah
42. It is one of the servant songs. In those middle chapters of Isaiah, there are
several poems called the Servant Poems. One of them is Isaiah 53. But the one
read a moment ago in chapter 42 is about the servant who will bring justice to the
land, and he will not break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick. In other
words, with tenderness and compassion, the servant of the Lord will work at
justice. The 53rd chapter of Isaiah speaks about this same servant who, as a lamb
to the slaughter, is led away to die. You say, "Nice image. Great hope. Happy
motivation for us to follow in his steps."
But, Jesus followed in the steps of the servant. We feel that it was those servant
songs that shaped Jesus, and if we were just thirteen colonies of a nondescript
people, I would preach from the Sermon on the Mount about moving away from
that system of justice that said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, moving
away from the natural animosity and hostility against the enemy to a love for the
enemy, an emulation of God who causes the rain to fail on the garden of the just
and the unjust and causes the sun to shine on all God's children. Because, you
see, in God's view there aren't any enemies. We make enemies one of another, but
God has a problem. God is the God of all people, and so what does God do? Rain
falls on the gardens of both sides. Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural
address, brought an uncharacteristic humility to the office of the presidency, an
uncharacteristic sensitivity and spirituality, and in his second inaugural address,
he recognized the fact that both sides in that bitter struggle in the Civil War read
the same Bible and prayed to the same God.
So, Jesus said love your enemies, be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect,
but perfect is not a good word. A better word is mature. Or, in Luke's rendering of
the Sermon on the Mount, it is be compassionate as your father in heaven is
compassionate.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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If we were just ordinary folks like the rest of the world without a great deal of
power or responsibility, I could preach those things and you could hear those
things and say, "Sure, that's good."
Obviously, might does not make right. Obviously, military force does not create
heaven on earth. Obviously, the world needs justice and it ought to be done with
compassion and tenderness. And sure, loving one's enemies is a better way to go,
Jesus. Even though it did lead to a cross. But, you see, the problem is that is not
who we are.
I've never particularly cared for Jesse Jackson. The last time I confessed that
publically, somebody gave me a book by him, so you don't need to do that. But,
one of our alumni from Christ Community, Jim Dykehouse, sent me this from a
Chicago paper, Jesse Jackson to Yassar Arafat, an Open Letter. It’s one of the
finest things I've read on this whole situation. Speaking about the PalestinianIsraeli situation, Jesse Jackson writing to Arafat says,
Terrorist attacks can destroy, but they cannot build. They can generate
fear, but not hope. They can revenge past injury, but cannot rebuild future
prospects. In the end, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves
everyone blind and toothless and bloody."
A little later, he says,
"Non-violence establishes the moral legitimacy of your cause. Nonviolence requires discipline and training. It speaks to hope for the future,
not hate of the past. It engages the young, not in individual acts of despair,
but in collective actions of hope. Terror bombings appall the world
community. Non-violent resistance will engage that community and force
it to respond. Palestinian statehood and Israeli security are two sides of
the same coin. The one cannot exist without the other. Terror bombings
generate hatred, fear and distrust and insecurity. Non-violent resistance
recognizes the humanity of your opponents. It challenges their moral
sensibility, but not their military capacity. It forces them to recognize your
humanity and because it demonstrates your discipline, your commitment,
your love of life, it lays the basis for co-existence rather than coannihilation. Non-violence is not passive suffering. It is an action strategy.
It actively resists repression. It actively challenges the occupier. It actively
disrupts business as usual. Non-violence is not a coward's path. Nonviolent demonstrators must face anger, violent responses, beatings, jailing
and worse, and be disciplined enough not to respond in kind. For the
Palestinians, non-violence may be the only road to statehood now. It
would demonstrate the nobility of your people and the justice of your
cause.”
If we were just thirteen colonies, without cutting a great swath in the world, I
could preach Jesse Jackson's advice to you. If we were just an ordinary people, I
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
would know what to say to you. But, we're not. We're the world's one super
power. We're the greatest nation on earth in terms of our military might. We can
act unilaterally. We can force our will. We can devastate any nation we choose to.
We are limited somewhat by world opinion, of course, but not by what we can do,
if we would do it. We use the Bible often in our political rhetoric, but won't you
have to grant me that most of that appeal to God and the scriptures is simply that
- political rhetoric? And isn't it ironic that those who pledge the greatest
allegiance to the Bible are the very people who are marked by a militant spirit, by
some kind of sense that this nation is God's chosen vessel for the evangelization
of the world and, therefore, we can do anything in God's name for God's cause
because it is bringing in God's kingdom?
Somehow or other, the game has changed on us. Even as recently as World War
II, a great evil could be confronted and dealt with. But, the game has changed.
The enemy has become almost invisible and the ability to attack insidious, and
our most visible and powerful weapon systems are impotent against the crisis we
face today.
If we were just an ordinary people, I would recommend the way of Jesus. But, it's
really foolish preacher talk to recommend that way to the most powerful nation
on earth for, in spite of the fact that we claim the scriptures as the source, the
vision of our Western civilization, we know there are limits. And so, what do we
say to ourselves as this great nation that we are?
I really believe in the American people. I believe in the goodness of the American
people. I believe, if you scratch the surface of the average American, you will find
a good heart and a good intention and a desire for peace and well-being. But, we
get all caught up in empire. We get all caught up in our economic prerogatives.
We get all caught up in the privileges of being number one, and when you are on
the top of the heap, why in the world would you give your life away? When you
are ruling the world, why would you yield up your authority and your power? If
you are the United States of America, the last thing in the world you want to do, if
you're smart, is tangle with Jesus, because it just does not make sense. It cuts
against the grain of our animal nature.
And so, I don't know what to preach if I can't preach Jesus. Or, should I assume
that there really is that goodness down beneath the surface of the vast majority of
our country's people? Should I assume that if someone should rise up and suggest
that what we really need is not the reorganization of our security system, because
in all honesty, there is no security, that what we really need is not the
enhancement of our defense budget, for a military response is a vain hope for
victory, to paraphrase the Psalmist. Would I dare believe that if someone arose
who dared to suggest that what we really need is a new national vision and a new
national purpose, that the people might follow?
To my knowledge, what we did after the Second World War was unprecedented,
and the nations of Germany and Japan were re-created as strong and vital and
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
healthy societies, because, in a sense, we loved the enemy. What would happen
today if, rather than declaring our independence, we acknowledged our
interdependence with all earth children? And rather than declaring the
superiority of our way of life, of our religious perspective, we acknowledged that
all peoples and traditions have their identity and their pride, and if we invited all
together to sit down at the table in order that we might understand one another's
traditions and discover the sources of violence and injustice that are there, in
order that in all traditions we might come to see that, at base, all of them point to
God as the source of life, of humane existence.
What would happen if, rather than mounting our power and asserting our rights,
we really followed Jesus?
© 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.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Interfaith worship
Sermons
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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Event
Independence Day Sunday, Pentecost VII
Scripture Text
Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 33:10-17, Matthew 5:38-48
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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2002-07-07
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The Revolution Then and Now
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Richard A. Rhem
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 7, 2002 entitled "The Revolution Then and Now", on the occasion of Independence Day Sunday, Pentecost VII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 33:10-17, Matthew 5:38-48.
Global Community
Non-violence
Way of Jesus
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b6f20315306bc4d857b283610c14c4be.mp3
bfee391c72ba82c471de40e6f70a9d27
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2de542fa4199b6fc0ccd04497d3a0ff6.pdf
6730dae388345ad60706587564312394
PDF Text
Text
Living With Intentionality
Confirmation Sunday
Psalm 16:7-11; Luke 12:41-48
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Eastertide III, May 4, 2003
Transcription of the spoken sermon
On this day, or as I contemplate this day I always think about these young people
and some word to say to them and, hopefully, a word to them which is not
without significance to the whole congregation. I want to say how impressed I
always am on this day with our young people. They are wonderful kids. Well, they
should be, they are yours, of course.
Young people, I am going to speak to you and then the other folks can listen in.
What I really want to say to you is the consequence of what was happening some
weeks ago when I was thinking about what the theme and text would be and my
mind was filled with images of war and destruction and devastation, and the
suffering and even the sight of liberation, tearing down statues and thinking
about people who perhaps for the first time could open their mouth and speak
their mind without fear of death. I was thinking about how much of the world
consists of people who are living with suffering, tragedy. And then I am thinking
about you and I am thinking you are the lucky ones. You know that? You're the
lucky ones.
When I say that, I have to confess to you that I always use the word luck with a
bad conscience, as I have confessed here before, because my father wouldn't let
me use the word luck because you just weren't lucky. There was a divine
providence and God had one’s life pretty much written out, and so luck was not a
word around our dinner table, and I admit luck is really not a word for a sermon,
for a pulpit, for a church, for a Christian congregation. But then, I have never
been tied by what is proper. You are the lucky ones. We're all the lucky ones.
I was delighted to find in Psalm 16 that in verses 5 and 6 the Psalmist speaks
about God being his portion and he says, "You hold my lot and the boundary lines
have fallen to me in pleasant places." Do you know what that is about? That
reference goes back to when Israel entered the Promised Land and conquered the
land and the Canaanites were there. It was one of the early instances of ethnic
cleansing. When they got into the land, there were the twelve tribes and a couple
of them stayed on the east side of Jordan, but the rest came in and they had to
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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divide up the land, and how do you divide the land? Well, at one point Joshua got
disturbed with them because they weren't getting on with the work and so he
called them together and had a couple representatives from each tribe and do you
know what they did in order to determine who was going to go where?
They cast lots. Do you know what that means? They held a lottery. They rolled
dice, in other words. Now, to be sure, they prayed before they rolled the dice,
which I would highly recommend if you go to Las Vegas. This was a common
practice. To be sure, they believed that in the casting of the lots that God's will
was going to be executed. There is a verse in Proverbs, "Man throws the dice, but
God makes the spots turn up." Of course, that is the whole thing about life, isn't
it? Is it all prescribed? Is there a God up there who is playing chess with us, or are
we lucky? In any case, you are the lucky ones. I was awfully glad I could use that
biblical reference to the distribution of land through the casting of lots because
that was a practice in ancient society. What it kept somebody from doing, some
great skillful, powerful entrepreneur, was it kept someone from building an
empire because, from time to time, in these agrarian societies in ancient times,
they would gather the community together and they would cast lots so that you
got that portion this time, you got that portion next time. What it did was create a
kind of equality. It leveled everybody from time to time and gave everyone a fair
shake. So, this really was a practice, and to be sure, there was a conviction to that
in the biblical understanding of things, that this was the way in which the will of
God was determined.
Well, that is a conception of God's involvement in our lives which is a little
different than the one that I have but, nonetheless, that is what was happening.
In any case, when that was over, you could say, "I'm one of the lucky ones." And
when you say, "I'm one of the lucky ones," the thing that it does is it
acknowledges a certain randomness about life, and everything we know about the
universe today, our cosmologists, our scientists tell us that what has actually
evolved and emerged in our universe, in our global reality, in our human story
has an element of randomness about it. There could have been trajectories off in
a thousand or a million different ways and, however it happened, here we are
now and to say "You're the lucky ones," at least what it does is say everything that
I have is not a consequence of my specialness. Sometimes religious communities
think of themselves as special and then that can lead to an attitude of selfrighteousness, although it is always clothed in a real humility. But, you know, if
God is playing chess with people and if I am special, and God has really favored
me, how do I explain all of those whose lives are filled with tragedy? So, I like to
get off that and just say "Wow! Wow! I'm one of the lucky ones." Because which
one of you young people this morning chose to be born? Which one of you chose
your parents? Who of us chose where to be born, when to be born? When you
think about it, you must have to sit down and be amazed, and then when you
think about all we have, the blessings of our lives? That's why I keep saying until
everybody gets tired of hearing it, all is grace, because grace means gift. It means
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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it is simply bestowed on us. Here we are, and I want to say to all of us this
morning, we're the lucky ones.
I don't think anybody would argue with that, so then let me ask a second
question, or let me make a second point in the form of a question. Given you are a
lucky one, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?
That's why I read the parable about the man who was a big problem because he
prospered so much that he couldn't house all of his goods and his crops. It was
occasioned by the question somebody asked Jesus, somebody who was unhappy
about the way the inheritance was divided. Do you know how many families have
had rancor and bitterness and brokenness over inheritance? Jesus said, "Get a
life. Get a life! Why would you trouble yourself over how the split came down?"
And then he tells the story about this man who prospered so much that he had all
of these crops and he didn't know what to do with them all. He said, 'Ah, I know.
I'll tear down my barns and I'll build bigger barns." And so he built bigger barns
and he talked to himself, he planned by himself. Himself, he himself was the
center of all of his concern and he congratulated himself and said, "Ah, now I
have it made. Eat, drink and be merry. Relax a little, already." And in the story
Jesus says, "A fool. Tonight it's a coronary. It's over." And he implies that while
the man gained all of that, he lost his life, his soul, his being.
I use that story of Jesus to confront you who are the lucky ones with how you
respond to the unimaginable good fortune you have to be born when you were
born, where you were born, to whom you were born. What are you going to d o
about it? We could put that question to our whole nation and one of the things
that concerns me about the way that this nation is being led today is the fact that
we who are so wealthy and so powerful, who have just demonstrated to the whole
world, if there was any question about it, that there is really nothing we cannot do
or accomplish, and when I read the policy statements now in fact being followed,
it sounds to me like what we have to do is step it up, increase, according to the
blueprint, the military defense budget 15 to 20 billion dollars a year annually,
while the education budget gets cut and while the road system and the
infrastructure suffers, and old people like me about to retire don't have
prescription drug coverage. That really worries me. So, we are dominant and we
are preeminent and the thinking today is that what we have to do is work at
enhancing our preeminence. Well, it sounds like building bigger barns to me.
But, I don't like to think about that too much. It's really an exercise in futility and
despair, because I'm just an individual and what can I do?
But then I realize I am responsible and I have been blessed. I'm one of the lucky
ones. What can I do? And it's up to just a lot of us to do what we can do.
I want to hold before you one of my heroes. His name is Albert Schweitzer. I don't
know if you are familiar with him or not, but he died around 1960 at the age of
90, and this is out of his autobiography. He was a young man who grew up in a
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
parsonage in Germany. His father was a pastor. Albert Schweitzer, before he was
30, became one of the greatest world biblical scholars and theologians. He wrote
The Quest of the Historical Jesus, which is still a classic. He was an outstanding
scholar. And then he became an accomplished organist. He studied with Widor.
He became one of the world-renowned organists; he became one of the greatest
scholars of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. This guy, before he was 30 now.
Now listen to this out of his autobiography:
Long ago in my student days I had thought about it. It struck me as
inconceivable that I should be allowed to lead such a happy life while I saw
so many people around me struggling with sorrow and suffering. Even at
school I had felt stirred whenever I caught a glimpse of the miserable
home surroundings of some of my classmates and compared them with
the ideal conditions in which we children of the parsonage at Giinsbach
had lived. At the university, enjoying the good fortune of studying and
even getting some results in scholarship and the arts, I could not help but
think continually of others who were denied the good fortune by their
material circumstances or their health.
One bright summer morning at Giinsbach during the Whitsentide
holidays, (it was 1896, he was 21 years old) as I awoke, the thought came
to me that I must not accept this good fortune as a matter of course, but
must give something in return. While outside the birds sang, I reflected on
this thought and before I had gotten up, I came to the conclusion that,
until I was 30,I could consider myself justified in devoting myself to
scholarship and the arts. But, after that, I would devote myself directly to
serving humanity. I had already tried many times to find the meaning that
lay hidden in the saying of Jesus, "Whoever would save his life shall lose it,
and whoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel shall save it."
Now I had found the answer. I could now add outward to inward
happiness.
He was 21 when he came to that resolution. He did continue his organ work and
his theological research until he was 30, and then he started medical school, and
he continued his other work while he was studying medicine and eventually he
became a physician, and you know the story probably, he went to Africa. The rest
of his life was given to the Congo building a hospital at Lambarene and serving
the African people, for the rest of his life. His parents, his university professors,
his colleagues, his associates, his friends said,
"Stupid! Why would you waste your life that way? Look at your education,
look at your gjftedness, look at your mind, look at what you can do in the
world! Why would you go into the middle of Africa?"
But, he was undeterred and he did it. He has probably received every award and
honor that could be bestowed on a human being in consequence and his life
© Grand Valley State University
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continues to be a beacon light. Of course, he didn't come on it accidentally. As I
said, his book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, is still a classic.
He was convinced. He was fascinated, captivated, totally saturated with Jesus,
and he changed his world. Not globally, but impacted it in such a way that we are
still talking about it here, as we are still thinking about Jesus 2000 years later,
because we are going to come to this table and the bread will be broken and the
wine will be poured out, because we will remember that the cost of Jesus' way
was his violent death.
And I invite you, the lucky ones, to come and take that bread and that cup, not so
you can have your sins forgiven, and go to heaven, but so you can live the way of
Jesus here and now, because taking the bread and the cup is an act of solidarity.
It is the raising of a banner. It is the flying of a flag. That is what this is about this
morning. It is a rite of Christian identity. You get your own candle. You have to go
your own way now. Let me suggest Jesus, who will ask of you everything and in
consequence, give you life.
References:
Albert Schweitzer. Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography. Henry Holt
and Company, Inc., 1933.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
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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
Confirmation Sunday, Eastertide III
Scripture Text
Psalm 16:7-11, Luke 12:41-48
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Albert Schweitzer. Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography. Henry Holt & Co., Inc., 1933.
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-0-20030504
Date
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2003-05-04
Title
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Living With Intentionality
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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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
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 4, 2003 entitled "Living With Intentionality", on the occasion of Confirmation Sunday, Eastertide III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 16:7-11, Luke 12:41-48.
Awareness
Global Community
Intentionality
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1c155aaa8d890d9a6817607e21b41c44.mp3
658ee61c17ebb2c448e3358b4b4e24ff
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f610b1ac70b6cfe782af390c475c6183.pdf
98ce364b301be4768e09d7f365e00dc5
PDF Text
Text
My Country, Right or Wrong…
Independence Day Weekend
I Kings 22:1
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 6, 2003
Transcription of the spoken sermon
The title of my Independence Day sermon is "My Country, Right or Wrong..." and
I suppose there are some of you wondering whether or not I have had a
conversion in the middle of the night that I should suddenly be an advocate of
that statement, "My country, right or wrong," becoming perhaps a chauvinist
overnight. Nicholas Chauvin was a French soldier attached to Napoleon I who in
1815 was so fanatical and unreasonable and irrational about the lost cause of the
Napoleonic Empire that he gained notoriety through his bellicose proclamations
and ever since he has given to us the word chauvinism, which means to be
fanatical and unreasonable about one's nation or the opposite sex or whatever.
Well, I do want to say to you I have not become chauvinist. "My country, right or
wrong," is a phrase which is often quoted and quoted as though it can stand
alone. But the title of this sermon as it is printed has three dots after it, and the
sermon is about those three dots.
Forrest Church, in a very fine book entitled The American Creed, which he wrote
post-9/11, tells about a day when he was rummaging through the attic of his
grandparents and he came across a very attractive wooden plaque that had a
picture of a World War I soldier in his broad-brimmed helmet, and on burnished
brass on the front of the helmet were embossed those words, "My country, right
or wrong." Obviously, coming across that in his grandparents' attic, Forrest
Church must have had his curiosity piqued because he did some research to find
out that "My country, right or wrong," is a phrase lifted from a larger statement
that was made in 1899 by a Senator from Missouri, Charles Schurz, and the
complete statement is "My country, right or wrong. If right, keep it right. If
wrong, set it right."
Now, I cannot imagine how you could take five words out of context and make
them say entirely the opposite of the original intention, how you could do it any
more successfully than was done with that little phrase. It had nothing to do with
the kind of chauvinistic attitude, "My country, right or wrong." Indeed, it was
saying the opposite; it was saying if you are committed to your nation, if you love
it dearly and deeply, then you will do what is necessary to love it when it is strong
© Grand Valley State University
�My Country Right or Wrong…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
and to confront it when it is wrong. Those who truly love their nation will not
stand idly by while it goes in any number of directions, but will continue to judge
its course in terms of the founding principles that have given it life and liberty
and the marvelous national experience that we have had.
My country, right or wrong? No. My country affirmed in its rightness, critiqued in
its wrongness, judged by its own creed, a creed which is summed up no more
concisely than in that marvelous Preamble to the Declaration of Independence,
that Preamble finding echoes down through the centuries as our commitment to
democracy, to freedom, to liberty, to justice for all. It is the person who truly
loves his or her nation who will be thoughtful, mindful, aware, and engaged in the
affairs of that nation, concerned about its course and its direction, holding it
always to its highest and noblest vision. That has always been the task of a free
press and also of the pulpit. Whether by the pen of the journalist or the word of
the pulpit, there has been a tradition of self-criticism that has marked us at our
best. We have just gone through a period when it has been a very dangerous and
delicate matter to call in question the direction and the policies of this nation.
That is nothing new. It always happens. Those who are in power do not
appreciate the critique of those who would hold them accountable to their noblest
principles and vision. That is what the scripture lesson was about.
Israel was born as a tribal confederacy and they were well aware of the fact that
God was king. In our terminology, Israel was a theocracy, and in those early days
of inhabiting the Promised Land, there would be a crisis on occasion, and a leader
would be lifted up who would lead the nation again through the crisis. One of the
greatest of those charismatic leaders was Samuel, called a judge. During the
ministry of Samuel, there was a call on the part of the people for a king so that
they could be like other nations. Samuel resisted and reminded Israel that God
was their king. Still they persisted. They wanted to be like other nations round
about them. Samuel said, "You will pay taxes, you will have to give your sons and
daughters to the army, the king will oppress you, dominate you." Nonetheless,
they wanted a king, so eventually they got a king. Samuel anointed Saul, but in
the very anointing of Saul, it was a symbolic action which said to the king, "You
are a king under the aegis of God. You are not autonomous or absolute, for you
are accountable for your reign before the face of God."
With the rise of the monarchy in Israel's history came the office of the prophet,
and the prophet was the one who spoke the word of God to power. The prophet
spoke truth to power. The thing that made Israel unique in the context of its own
history was the fact that, contrary to those nations 'round about where the king
was absolute, in Israel when the prophet spoke, the King trembled. There was
respect for the prophet as the spokesperson for God. And so, we have the story
this morning of King Ahab, infamous king of the Northern Kingdom, who is
visited by Jehoshaphat, the king of the Southern Kingdom. Very likely, the
stronger Ahab had summoned Jehoshaphat who said, "You know, Ramothgilead, over on the Transjordan is in the hands of Aram and it really belongs to us
© Grand Valley State University
�My Country Right or Wrong…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
and we simply haven't done anything about it. Will you join us in going on a
military venture in order to reclaim Ramoth-gilead?" Jehoshaphat said, "Look,
King, my people are as your people, my horses are as your horses, let's go. But
wait, first of all, let us engage in that which was characteristic of Israel both in the
north and in the south. Let us hear the word of the Lord from the prophet."
So, Ahab set up their thrones, they got their robes on, they had a public place,
they had the whole thing choreographed, probably as marvelous as many of the
Fourth of July celebrations in the past week, and there they sat. Ahab summoned
400 prophets, and 400 prophets came with their ecstatic utterance, and Ahab
raised the question, "Shall we go to war or shall we refrain?" The word from the
400 was like a chorus, "Go up to Ramoth-gilead and triumph."
Well, Jehoshaphat was really a pretty good king and a rather pious man and he
must have sensed that this whole scenario was staged somehow. He said, "Isn't
there anybody else?"
Ahab said, "Yes, there is one other guy. I hate him. He never says anything
favorable, always speaks about disaster for me."
Jehoshaphat said, "Don't talk that way."
So, Ahab summoned an officer to go and get Micaiah and the officer came to
Micaiah and said, 'The king has summoned you and, incidentally, 400-strong the
prophets are in one accord. They have given the counsel to the king to go up and
triumph, so watch your script."
When Micaiah came, Ahab said, "Shall we go up or shall we refrain?"
Micaiah said, "Go up and triumph," to which Ahab replied, "How many times do I
have to tell you, tell me nothing but the truth of the word of God?"
Micaiah said, "It's going to be disaster."
Ahab looked at Jehoshaphat and said, "See what I told you? He never says
anything but disaster."
Ahab summoned his officer again and said, "Take Micaiah home and tell the
governor to throw him in prison. Give him rations of bread and water, reduced,
until I come in peace."
Micaiah said, "Return in peace? Then the Lord has not spoken through me."
Some of you have chuckled a little bit to hear the story because there is wonderful
humor there. What is a poor prophet to do? He is sternly charged to speak the
word of God as that word has come to him, and when he does, he is thrown in
jail. I could, of course, go almost anywhere in the Hebrew scriptures, Jeremiah,
© Grand Valley State University
�My Country Right or Wrong…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
for example, having been accused of being a traitor because he saw the imminent
invasion of Babylon, accused of undermining the morale of the people, having
been put in prison, but the king once again scared to death sneaks to Jeremiah at
night and says, "Is there any word from the Lord?" Jeremiah says, "Yeah, it's not
good," and he ended up in the slime pit.
Or, there was Amos, moved by God to address the royal house of Israel. He had
the audacity to suggest that God has a plumb line and that that plumb line was
going to measure the degree to which Israel conformed to that straightness. The
royal priest, the chaplain, once again on the king's payroll, came out and said,
"Amos, don't ever do that again. This is the king's court. Go prophesy and earn
your bread some other place."
As I said, it is all over the Hebrew scriptures. This was the great tradition of
Israel. What Israel gave to the world was this sense of the prophetic voice that
addressed, that spoke truth to power, always a dangerous and delicate and lonely
task, but nonetheless, a task which reflected the greatness of the founding vision
of that people, always calling Israel back to that justice and that righteousness
and that compassion which was in its founding documents in the Mosaic
covenant. All of that legislation in the book of Leviticus and Exodus that you go
over when you are reading through the scriptures, all of that boring legislation, all
of those prescriptions, all of those things concerned with the poor and the widow
and the orphan, about the doing of justice and the loving of mercy - all of that was
the fodder of the prophets as they addressed the respective monarchies in the
history of Israel and Judah. An important task, a task which if any nation loses,
the nation loses.
You know in the 20th century my great spiritual hero was Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
There is a film out on Bonhoeffer now which I am anxious to see, but I have
already seen, as some of you have with me, a video of Bonhoeffer's life, and on
that video where there is actual tape of some of those Nazi rallies where the
bishops of the church were literally co-opted into the Nazi cause, it is chilling
when you see the degree to which the church had been co-opted by the cause of a
demonic regime. In 1939 when Bonhoeffer was given a study grant at Union
Seminary in New York City, arranged by Reinhold Neibuhr and John Bennett and
some of those greats, he came to this country and he found himself restless
because things were heating up in Europe, and in spite of the fact that he had this
marvelous opportunity, that he had safety and security and he could pursue his
studies and he was a brilliant student, a brilliant theologian; nonetheless, he
turned his back on it all and got on the last possible ship for Europe. When others
asked him, "Why?" he said, "Because I cannot be in peace and safety here while
there is turmoil in my nation."
He was so German, German to the core of his being and he loved his nation so
greatly, and he said, "I must go back there and be with my people now if I am
going to have any part in their future." And then he said, "I must will the defeat of
© Grand Valley State University
�My Country Right or Wrong…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
my own nation in order to preserve western civilization. Should I will the success
of my nation, it would be the ruination of western civilization."
It was a wrenching and painful decision that he had to make. He who was a
pacifist in his own heart, nonetheless, saw the darkness in such stark terms that
he joined a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, joining himself to a violent response,
going against everything that was in him, but recognizing how high the stakes
were. It is that kind of a prophetic witness, Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth coming out
of that state church, forming the confessing church whose creed, the Barman
Confession, begins by saying, "God alone, the word of God alone rules. "No
political entity, no potentate or king, nothing can take allegiance over that loyalty
to God who transcends, of course, every nation and every civilization. The
country that loses that prophetic witness is on a road to disaster. One of the great
things about this nation is that we have an American creed with its principles that
created a structure which allows for, demands, self-criticism, self-critique, and
the interchange of diverse opinions and ideas, and the free exchange that can
only result in a healthy body politic.
We are at a critical point in our nation today when we have to judge the direction
in which we are being taken. It is interesting that the social gospel of which I
spoke last week was made up of those liberal, Protestant leaders who saw a vision
of this whole nation becoming the land of the free, and then looked beyond the
nation to the globe, and they started that World Missionary Movement and were
thinking about world evangelization, and some of the greatest voices envisioned
the whole globe evangelized with the gospel and with this marvelous democratic
spirit that we had discovered and were living.
Then, in the 20th century, all of those grand schemes were dashed on the rocks of
the violence of that last century - World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the
nuclear standoff, and there continued to be those who advocated an
internationalist approach. Coming out of the ashes of the Second World War, the
United Nations was founded, largely at the impetus of our own nation. Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, a leader in that movement, an internationalism that believed
that security could be found only through collective agreements, alliances, and a
willingness of all states not to do anything they could do, but to comply with
international law.
It hasn't worked very well. There were realists in the wake of all of the violence of
last century, and the realist position was to keep the competing powers in a kind
of balance. That was our experience during the Cold War. It was a balance of
terror. It was the possibility of mutual total annihilation. The realist looks at the
human situation and says the only thing that can keep some kind of peace is by
competing powers being more or less level. But, today, there is no level playing
field. Today it is the unipolar world.
A few months ago when I suggested the idea of an American empire, there were
those of you who said, "Well, why haven't we ever heard of it?" Now everybody's
© Grand Valley State University
�My Country Right or Wrong…
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
heard of it. Now it is a given. Now it is a cliché, that we are it. The question is how
are we going to respond in this situation? I hope there will always be from pen
and pulpit those voices that will call the nation to its highest and its best. What
we tend to be moving toward now is a kind of nationalism back up by militarism.
There is a fascinating article in the July/August Atlantic Monthly by Robert
Kaplan, where he suggests that we simply ought to take "the stealth approach to
supremacy."
I think of the idealism of our past and I am unwilling to give up that vision that
was present at our founding and has been echoed through the centuries. In an
address to Congress, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his famous Four Freedoms
speech, the freedom of speech or the press, freedom to worship God according to
the dictates of one's own conscience, freedom from want that involved economic
structures, and freedom from fear which involved the reduction of armaments
world-wide. And in the final draft of that speech, he added a phrase after each
one of his freedoms, freedom of speech everywhere in the world, freedom to
worship everywhere in the world, freedom from want everywhere in the world,
and freedom from fear everywhere in the world.
He invited his advisors to take a look at his speech, and one of his principal
advisors, Harry Hopkins, said to him, "Mr. President, “everywhere in the world”that's a lot of territory. I don't know if the American people care that much about
Java," to which FDR replied, "I think, Harry, that the globe is getting so small
that we will have to be concerned about Java, because they are becoming our
neighbors." A prophetic insight into the way the world was going, and we are
there. And we are the lone superpower of the world, and who will rule? The
realists with a smidgen of cynicism, or the mushy-headed, simple- hearted
idealists in which I would still like to believe?
Judge Learned Hand, a rather well-known figure of our recent history, defined
the spirit of liberty this way: The spirit of liberty. I cannot define it. I can only tell
you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is
right. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of
other men and women. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their
interest alongside its own without bias. The spirit of liberty remembers that not
even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded. The spirit of liberty is the spirit of him
who, near 2000 years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but
has never quite forgotten, that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be
heard and considered, side-by-side with the greatest. I believe it is my task to
keep that vision alive, and I would consider this sermon a success, not if you
agreed with me, but if you agreed that I am doing what I ought to be doing.
My country, right or wrong. If right, then keep it right. If wrong, set it right.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost IV
Scripture Text
I Kings 22:1-28
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-0-20030706
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-07-06
Title
A name given to the resource
My Country, Right or Wrong...
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 6, 2003 entitled "My Country, Right or Wrong...", on the occasion of Pentecost IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Kings 22:1-28.
Global Community
Prophetic Voice