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Of Dreams and Visions
Baccalaureate Sunday and Pentecost
Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:14-17, Luke 4:16-30
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Memorial Day Weekend, May 30, 2004
Transcription of the spoken sermon
This is one of those full Sundays. We live by three calendars - there is the church
calendar, and on that calendar, this is the day of Pentecost. But, we also live by a
national calendar, and on the national calendar, this is the weekend of Memorial
Day. And we have a community calendar, and for Spring Lake it is graduation
day, last week it was Grand Haven’s. I don’t know about Fruitport or West
Michigan Christian, but it is the time, at least, of commencement, and so at Christ
Community, it is the celebration of Baccalaureate. As we thought about that, we
realized that it was just too much to handle on any one Sunday and so our new
pastor, Ian Lawton, was moved by the Holy Spirit to proclaim next Sunday
Pentecost. We will have a grand Pentecost festival and I trust you will all wear
red.
Because it is Baccalaureate, and I happen to have two granddaughters
graduating, as well as a grandson from another university, that is Michigan State,
Ian very graciously offered the pulpit to me today so that I could get in a last
word, as it were.
As a matter of fact, as I thought about it, the themes of Memorial Day and
Baccalaureate for me came together very easily, and I even found a biblical text
with a Pentecost flavor. When you’ve been preaching as long as I have, you can
twist almost anything to say almost anything, and so with great skill, I have
woven Pentecost passages into a Baccalaureate challenge as we remember
Memorial Day.
Some of us here viewed recently in this place a documentary film entitled “The
Fog of War.” The title itself speaks volumes - The Fog of War. The ambiguity of
the human situation, the confusion and turbulence, and the fact that we often
make tragic judgments that lead to horrific consequences. I’m not going to speak
about that film this morning, but it is that documentary of the years of Robert
McNamara who was Secretary of Defense during the Cuban missile crisis and the
Vietnam conflict. I mention it because he is now 85, and as he looks into the
camera, he says, “I’m 85, I’ve lived a long time and I’ve learned some things.” And
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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I thought that’s really a good excuse for my Baccalaureate sermon. I’m an old
man and I found a text about old men. “Old men will dream dreams,” the prophet
Joel said and the Apostle Peter repeated. Old men will dream dreams and young
men and women will see visions, and so very simply, as the rest of you listen in,
although I trust there’s a word for us all, this morning is about an old man’s
dream to inspire young men and women to become all that they can become in
this critical moment in our world’s history.
I did take the text from Joel, the Hebrew prophet. The prophets had a
magnificent dream. We call it a Messianic Kingdom that they imaged, and
Messiah is the Hebrew word for anointing, the anointing of the Spirit of God. The
Hebrew prophets had this magnificent dream. It comes to expression in so many
different ways in the writings of the prophets. It is a dream of nature in harmony,
when the lion and the lamb lie down together. (I think it was Woody Allen who
said, “When the lion and the lamb lie down together, the lion will sleep more
soundly than the lamb.”)
Nonetheless, you get the picture - the lion and the lamb bespeaking a
peacefulness in the kingdom of creation where there is no longer violence or fear.
And the prophet speaks of that day when they will not hurt or destroy on all God’s
holy mountain. The prophet Isaiah followed by Micah and Joel pick up that
promise of a time when the Spirit of God will judge among the nations and they
will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And
Micah speaks of that time when all of the nations will walk before their own God
and Israel will walk before the Lord God, and every man and woman shall dwell
safely under their own fig tree. Those pictures of a peaceable kingdom, pictures,
images of a world that is in harmony between God and nature, nature and nature,
nations and nations, people and people, is a dream. It’s a magnificent dream.
It is an ancient dream. That dream is between 2500 and almost 3000 years old.
It’s not something that we dreamed up recently because things have unraveled
for us. It’s a dream that has rested intuitively in the human heart throughout the
ages, from the time that the human became human, and probably began to
recognize that the kind of tribalism that put everybody in peril at all times was an
impossible way to live. The time when the human consciousness began to realize
intuitively that there was an alternative way to be other than the way of violence
and war and death and destruction. A marvelous dream of the prophets - no
exploitation. You would plant a garden and eat the produce thereof. You would
build a house and be able to dwell in it, not fearing that some bulldozer would
knock it down.
Throughout those prophetic books, you can read over and over again that sense
of an alternative world, another possibility, of a community at peace. Of course,
the prophets dreamed of a world like that in terms of a God who was in control.
They dreamed of a world in which eventually that God would act powerfully in
the midst of history. They imaged a God who was outside of the whole created
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Richard A. Rhem
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order, the God who had called it into being, the God who still continued to guide
and direct and control, the God who was the sovereign Lord of history, the God
who would bring about eventually the end of time.
Well, the fullness of time saw the birth of Jesus and the community that gathered
around Jesus saw in him the embodiment of that dream, they saw the
enfleshment of that dream of a different kind of a world. Jesus in the days of his
flesh, called people to love their enemies, to do good to those that persecuted
them. Jesus overcame the conventional wisdom of the day. Jesus broke down
barriers, he spoke to women, he greeted the Samaritan, he refused to be
crammed into that dye cast of prejudice and dogma and ancient feuds. They
looked at Jesus and they said, “This is the one.”
Whether Jesus preached that sermon in Nazareth or not, I don’t know, but when
Luke paints the portrait of Jesus, he paints a portrait of Jesus coming to his
hometown and saying, “Now, look, this is the time. The prophecy of Isaiah of that
day when the Spirit of God will be poured out and captives will be set free, the
blind caused to see and the lame to walk, the favorable year of the Lord, that’s
now. It’s fulfilled in me.” And, of course, such a claim ran into that conventional
wisdom and that age-old prejudice of the day, because Jesus dared to suggest that
the grace of God was broader than the river of Israel. Jesus used examples of the
grace of God that overflowed banks of Israel and embraced all people.
They wanted to kill him for it. There is a latent anger in the human heart when
those prejudices are tapped, when conventional wisdom is challenged.
Nonetheless, in the embodiment of his visions and values, Jesus was one who was
followed and the community gathered around him such that in the wake of his
death and resurrection, on the day of Pentecost, Peter would stand up and say,
“Look, this is what it is. This is that realization of that dream. This is the pouring
out of the Spirit of God that will usher in that New Age.”
The mistake that the Church made was to see that embodiment of the dream in
Jesus as a one-time event. And so, the community following Jesus, instead of
recognizing that now into the creative process the Spirit of God had emerged into
that kind of humanity which was the calling of all, set Jesus apart as one and
only, as unique. But, as a matter of fact, Jesus was the embodiment of that
ancient dream. He dreamed it himself, he lived it out, and while we do not have
that God “out there” to come in and fix things for us, what we have learned is that
God is in us, that God is that creative process that is moving this whole cosmic
journey along, and that that ancient dream in the human heart of a world at
peace and harmony is a dream now that must be realized, not by some returning
judge from beyond the earth, but must be realized by the likes of us, you. That’s
my word to you today, a call from an old man who is a dreamer, for you to dream
the impossible dream, and the impossible dream is a dream of a world without
war.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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This is Memorial Day weekend, and yesterday there was dedicated a grand
memorial to the veterans of World War II. Perhaps you caught it on the television
screen, old, aged veterans now with canes, wheelchairs and oxygen tanks, many
of them weeping as they remembered, as some of you would weep even now as
you think about those days in mid-twentieth century when the whole world was
in crisis and conflict.
en years ago some of us visited Normandy Beach, looked at the bluffs that had to
be scaled, where our troops were sitting pigeons. We watched the calm,
undulating sea that on June 6, 1944 ran red with blood. It is a moving experience,
and in those moments one senses something holy and sacred, and out of the
chaos of that Second World War, there emerged the realization among our
leaders that we could no longer afford war among nations, and there was a vision
and a dream of a United Nations in which the conflict between peoples would be
solved through discussion and conversation and compromise, empathic
understanding and the yielding in order that there might be finally peace on
earth.
Now, some decades later, we find that the dream is still not realized and even the
vision of a United Nations has taken a serious blow, not through any foreign
power, but through the miscalculation and misjudgment, the manipulation and
coercion of our own government and leaders.
I want to say to you young people today the world has reached a point where we
can no longer tolerate war. It was one thing when one tribe took off against
another tribe. It was one thing when the world was younger and a whole village
could be decimated or a whole region. But, planet earth spun on its way and most
people had no knowledge of it. Do you know that half of the people who have ever
lived are living today?
We have come to a point ... Mike Ackerson with your national championship in
the Science Olympiad, you could devise a means by which this planet could be
destroyed. We have it in our hands. We have it in our power. When I say we could
no longer tolerate war, that is not just idle idealism, nor is it fluffy romanticism.
It is the most hard-headed realism with which I can confront you, for if we do not
change course, if we do not recognize the error of the myth of redemptive
violence, that is that violence finally can achieve peace, we will come to a crisis
which will get out of our hand.
What’s happening in Saudi Arabia as we worship this morning? Can you not
imagine the scenario which would throw the whole globe into conflict? You see,
we had an opportunity in 9/11 for a wake-up call. It was a wake-up call which
should have been followed by the kind of police action which would have sought
to bring to justice those who perpetrated the atrocity. But, the wake-up call
should have been to us who are the most powerful, affluent people in the world to
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Richard A. Rhem
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recognize that we can never be secure until the globe is secure, because we have
become a global family, a global community, a global neighborhood. We should
have awakened to the fact that there are those who are humiliated, hopeless,
having nothing to lose, and we should have recognized that wherever there are
people who have nothing to lose, the world is a dangerous place. We should have
recognized that it was time to sit down with all earth’s children and recognize the
gulf between the haves and the have-nots, those who have everything and those
who have nothing, and it was time to effect the ancient dream where everyone
could plant their own garden and eat the produce, build their own house and
dwell in it, have the dignity of human existence.
With all of the power and all of the resources that we have, if only we had not
dreamed dreams of empire and concocted strategies by which we might maintain
our dominance. But, if only we had learned from the one who stood up in
Nazareth to say “Today the scripture is fulfilled in your presence.” If only we had
learned that it is only in dying that one comes to life, that it is only in giving one’s
life away that life can be possessed, that it is only in being willing to die that one
can live. If only we had learned the lesson of Jesus who said God causes the sun
to shine on the just and the unjust, and the rain to rain on the good and the evil.
If only we had recognized that we are members of one human family, that we are
the human family through whom God, the Spirit, is emerging, that we look not
“out there” somewhere for someone to come in and make it all happen, but
rather, the God who is within us would, through us, who embodied the dream,
realize an alternative world, a world at peace.
I call you young people to dream the impossible dream, to march into hell if need
be for a heavenly cause.
In your insert there are the words of “The Impossible Dream,” and under it a little
statement from William of Orange who was the liberator of the Netherlands back
in the 16th century, who said, in effect, “You don’t need hope to undertake an
enterprise, and you don’t need success to persevere.” There’s something so strong
about that, something so good about that.
Oh, I want you to be kids. I want you to have a ball. I want you to have fun. I want
you to celebrate. But, I want you to have a vision beyond all of that. I want you to
have a vision of an alternative world which may seem like an impossible dream
and, in light of the history that has been written to this moment, you might say
it’s hopeless. But, William of Orange said you don’t need hope to undertake the
enterprise. You undertake the enterprise because it’s right. You undertake the
enterprise because it’s true. You undertake the enterprise because it is imperative
if there is to be a human future, if the creative process is to continue, if the
human story is to move into all that it can possibly be. You don’t need hope. You
simply have to believe it. And you don’t need success. You just need a dogged
perseverance. Never give it up.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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I would say to you this morning, think critically.
Back one hundred years ago, when I was where you are, nobody said to me think
critically. They said think traditionally. I want to say to you, think critically. Don’t
believe your President; don’t believe your political leaders; don’t believe your
teachers; don’t believe your parents. (I make an exception for grandparents.)
Don’t believe them without filtering what they say and what they teach through
the filter of your own mind and heart. Believe that God is in you, the Light is in
you, trust that intuitive sense within you that things can be other than they are.
Refuse to live by conventional wisdom. Reject the prejudices that we adults have
placed upon you. Follow Jesus.
We here have achieved something. I think again of how narrow has been my
focus, trying to create an alternative to church as usual, and I think we have, and
I think it’s good. But, I want to say to you - that’s too narrow. We need to think
about an alternative world and a global community which is a neighborhood
filled with every race and every creed and every idiosyncracy with the Spirit of
God.
I hope that it doesn’t take you as long to wake up as it took me. The best I can do
is, as an old man, to dream a dream in the hopes that there’s a vision that will
catch on fire in you.
You are really terrific. You can change the world. God bless you. Go for it!
© Grand Valley State University
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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
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Event
Baccalaureate Sunday, Eastertide VII
Scripture Text
Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:14-17, Luke 4:16-30
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-20040530
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2004-05-30
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Of Dreams and Visions
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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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Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 30, 2004 entitled "Of Dreams and Visions", on the occasion of Baccalaureate Sunday, Eastertide VII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Joel 2:28-29, Acts 2:14-17, Luke 4:16-30.
Global Community
Global Peace
Pentecost
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PDF Text
Text
The Clash of Civilizations and the Healing of the Nations
From the series: A Millennial Vision
Text: Genesis 2:9; Revelation 22:2
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
January 23, 2000
Transcription of the spoken sermon
At this beginning of the year and the century and the millennium, I have been
sharing with you A Millennial Vision, a vision of a world at peace, a peace that is
created by the understanding and mutual respect of the respective, great religious
traditions of the world. It was over a decade ago that I began to probe this issue;
for me, it was quite a transformation to move from a rather honest exclusivism
that the Christian faith was the only way to salvation, the only truth of God - to a
pluralist position that recognized that other great religious traditions were both
revelatory and that they did put people in touch with God, and also salvific in that
they were the mediators of the grace of God. As I began to probe the issues of that
pluralist position, I was very much aware of all of the questions that I would have
raised to myself in my earlier years and I moved rather gingerly at first, although
I was more and more deeply convinced that the great religious traditions did
mediate that light and salvation, as well as my own Christian faith. But, I felt it
necessary to justify and to explain myself because it was quite a move for me and
for the congregation, as well. I, in the course of that decade or so, mentioned
many times that my greatest concern was the fact that there could be no peace
without that kind of understanding, quoting the great Catholic theologian, Hans
Kiing, who said there will be no peace among the nations until there is peace
among the religions. He went on to say there will be no peace among the religions
until there is peace among the churches, but I can't wait that long. I think Kiing's
point was well taken and I did believe that and I think we have come together to
see that more and more. But, I never saw it as profoundly and was never
convinced of it so strongly as I am today.
There was a book in the books that I was reading that was referred to now and
again in footnotes, a name continuing to pop up, and that's always a sign that
someone has gotten someone's attention, and so I went out and got the book. It's
called The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, by Samuel P.
Huntington who is at Harvard University, one of the recognized leaders in the
country in the understanding of international policy and foreign affairs, and he
writes this book about the clash of civilizations in order to indicate his
understanding of where we are in the human global community today. It is his
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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contention that the world is not ever going to become one world, one universal
world empire, preferably dominated by the West, bringing the whole world into
our own image, but rather, the world is made up of a group of civilizations. Those
groups of civilizations include the West (America and Europe), China, Southeast
Asia, Islam, Africa, and interestingly, Christianity, which is the religious root of
the West over against Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Christianity, so
that Christianity actually founds two different civilizational cultures.
Huntington's claim is that where we have come is to a point of groups,
civilizations, societies, cultures that must learn to co-exist with each other if there
would be peace in the world.
If you think about it for a moment, just over the last 50 years, for example, some
of us at least can remember the euphoria of the end of the Second World War,
and then the crisis of the Cold War, and during the Cold War decades the world
was divided into two, two great super powers, and the rest of the peoples in
nations and tribes and societies and cultures simply had to line up on one side or
the other. It was a political division; it was a power play; it was a world at an
impasse; it was a two-world system. Do you remember the euphoria in the late
80's, 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down? Do you remember when we in the
West "won," and when, for example, the State Department analyst published a
very provocative essay about ten years ago that suggested the end of history, that
liberal Western democracy and liberal capitalism had won the day, had been
proven right, that history was over in the sense that we had reached the universal
and that the world would all come into tow in that kind of framework? Well, there
was some objection at the time, but we did bask in the glory of that triumph after
all of those Cold War years and all of those crises that we had been through with a
standoff of terror with nuclear arms pointed at each other.
And then what happened? Well, it all came apart, didn't it? Today, as we speak,
Russian troops are engaged in that very awful conflict in Chechnya which is, if
you go down deep enough, an Orthodox civilization against a Muslim civilization.
And, of course, the falling apart of Yugoslavia - Croatia, Western Catholic, coming
to its own independence, Serbia, Eastern Orthodox, both of them practicing some
ethnic cleansing on the Muslim people, and most recently the horror of Kosovo.
So, we who are enlightened, liberal, gracious Western people say, "What's going
on? Won't the world ever learn?" Things fall apart. Fragmentation. Just when the
world was being spanned with McDonald's golden arches and Hollywood's
productions and American technology and American investment. Just when we
were creating one world, things come apart.
Samuel Huntington says of course it is never going to be one world. That
demands global empire. It is impossible and we don't have the power to do it,
anyway. Of course, it's not two worlds ideologically threatening each other. And
nations - what are nations? Lines drawn on maps by powers at the time. Nations
don't reflect deep reality. No, rather, the world is divided into a series of
civilizations that are united at the deepest level of identity in their religion. I find
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Richard A. Rhem
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it fascinating that this probably is the best work since the Cold War in terms of
the global situation, and it is by a Harvard scholar who points to the
fundamental, critical nature of religion as that which informs the respective
civilizational groupings.
Four out of the five major traditions are the foundation, the glue and the
emotional center of these respective civilizational groupings. You can ask Dr.
Boyd Wilson afterwards why Buddhism isn't, but Huntington says it's because,
born in India, it got exported and transformed somewhat in Japan and Vietnam
and China. The point is this - that what is being recognized today is that religion,
religious faith and commitment, is absolutely fundamental to a civilizational
grouping, whether it be the West or the Orthodox East or Islam or the Confucian
states in the Far East. These civilizational groupings have a rootage in a religious
identity, or I could say their religious understanding is the source of their
identity. It goes back hundreds and thousands of years.
I recently read again a story of Athanasius and Arius in the third century. Alius
was a priest in the Christian Church in Alexandria and he believed that Jesus was
human, certainly God's mediator and representative, but human. And Athanasius
said Jesus was God. The book, incidentally, is When Jesus Became God, written
by Richard Rubenstein, a Jew. Very interesting. For two centuries that battle on
the nature of Jesus Christ raged. Mobs in the streets, churches burned, people
killed – it was a tremendous conflict between Athanasius and Arius, and Western
Christianity centered in Rome was always more inclined to Athanasius and Jesus
as God. The Eastern sector was always more inclined to Arius and the humanity
of Jesus. Finally it was nailed together at Chalcedon at 451, true God, true man,
but in the 11th century, East and West came apart. They mutually
excommunicated each other. And today you have Western Christianity as the soil
of the West and you have Eastern Orthodoxy as the soil of the East. Russia is the
great core state whose religion is Orthodox, and when the Balkans began to
explode, it was Croatia that is Western Christian and Bosnia that was Orthodox.
Those splits going back through the centuries continue to manifest themselves
and in our own experience, people, we have seen the horror and the slaughter of
those ancient feuds and rivalries and competitions that continue to manifest
themselves in this enlightened, advanced age of which we are a part.
The point is this - we live in a world that has become a global community, but not
one world, but rather, groupings of peoples, civilizational groups informed and
identified by a religious commitment, ethnic lines, cultural characteristics. We in
the West who have come to such power and such prosperity would like to think
that we can throw our weight around, and we have, and that we can have it our
way. Interestingly, Huntington points out with data that is irrefutable that we are
on the threshold of decline. Nothing is inevitable, but his plea is for a renewal of
that uniqueness of Western values and visions. He points out that at this moment
of our power and glory that is precisely when societies are on the threshold of
decline. The society that believes that it has come to the end of history, to the
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Richard A. Rhem
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universal, is a society that is at the point of decline because there are others
waiting for their place in the sun. He speaks about the tremendous power,
growing power in self-consciousness and assertiveness in China, for example.
And the resurgence of Islam scattered around the world, with a growing selfconsciousness and a growing assertion of itself. It is a cultural, civilizational,
religious grouping of people and those ties and those commitments are far deeper
than a national allegiance or any other political alignment that can be concocted
by leaders of nations.
So, that's where we are in our world today: respective civilizational groups. And
what are we to do? Huntington would suggest that we have to learn, for one
thing, that we ought not to go in and throw our weight around in the midst of
another civilizational grouping, and we have to accept that there are those
civilizational groupings with deep commitments that will simply not be cowed
into submission. Oh, they can be beaten up for a while, but they'll not be
uprooted, and that we ought to, obviously, learn co-existence through mediation.
And that we should find the commonalities that are human, common to all
people because they are human. The civilizations and societies are particular and
they are relative, but there are some basic, fundamental human qualities that
need to be discovered and cultivated in order that the world might live at peace.
He calls upon us, as I said a moment ago, to find again our own uniqueness, a
strong word against multiculturalism that tries to make America the world.
We are not the world. We are the West. The rule of law. Human rights. Personal
liberty, and parliamentary democracy. A few fundamental pillars that make us
who we are find their rootage in our Judeo-Christian tradition. Renew that.
Believe in that. But recognize that we are one such group in the various
civilizational configurations around the globe. Learn to co-exist.
That word is politically pertinent. Considering the Iowa Caucases tomorrow, then
New Hampshire, South Carolina. Would that the current Presidential candidates
would discuss The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington. If they did, they
would be unelectable because the things that need to be said and done in this
country at this time would give the death knell to anybody's candidacy. That
should disturb us.
If that is a word to the political establishment, isn't there a parallel word to the
Church? If it is false that there is one world to be universally made after our
image, if it is immoral to do so, if it is dangerous to try to do so, it seems to me the
same would be true in terms of our faith commitment; that there, too, we ought
to learn, as I think we have been learning, to co-exist with the great religious
traditions. Proselytizing ought to be out of bounds. World evangelization ought to
be a goal yielded up as unworthy of the Christ whom we follow. It seems to me
that in the church what we need to do again is cultivate our own tradition,
preserve our own tradition, seek renewal for our own tradition and learn to
understand, from which will come respect and mutual enhancement of the
© Grand Valley State University
�The Clash of Civilizations, The Healing of Nations
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
religious traditions of the world. Not only pluralism passively, but I would call
you to pluralism actively as the only appropriate response to the multiplicity and
complexity of the world in our day, a world that politically needs to learn coexistence, a world religiously that needs to recognize the deep rootedness of those
traditions that need to be respected and understood.
If only we would come to understand that the other cultures of the world are
saying to us, “Give us your technology, give us the wealth, send us your movies
and your hamburgers, but frankly, we like our cultural values better than yours.”
Who are we to tell the rest of the world how it ought to respond to life, what its
values and vision ought to be? Who are we to tell the rest of the world that our
truth is the only truth?
In the Garden of Eden in the Genesis creation story, the writer was obviously
saying that God's intention for creation is to be a garden, and there was a tree of
life there. In the closing vision of the seer on the Isle of Patmos, the vision was
not of a garden, but it was of a city, and it was paradise regained, that beautiful
image of the city with the river of crystal and trees on the banks with its leaves for
the healing of the nations. This is the vision, you see. This is the intention of the
Creator according to the biblical writer. This is the dream, the healing of the
nations. And how in the world will it ever be accomplished?
Well, of course, just to throw a ringer into the works, let me point you to Jesus,
the highly impractical Jesus who says when one slaps you on the right cheek, turn
the other. Who says not an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but yielding up
to the other. Who says love your enemies. There are those who take those
chapters wanting to preserve them as the word of God and infallible and
authoritative, who say of those sayings of Jesus that they are meant for personal
ethics, but not for great nations. Well, would this stuff work? Somebody would
get beaten up, I guess. But, if it were going to work, should we who are powerful
invite those who are without power to yield up their swords? Or, would it make
sense for we who are powerful to begin the process? Now, you try that in Iowa
tomorrow.
You see, Jesus is that disturbing presence in all of our rationalization. In all of our
practicality and all of our wisdom, all of our savvy and all of our cleverness, we
keep running up against Jesus. Would not Jesus say at least learn to live in a
multi-civilizational world of diverse religious traditions, learn to see from the
perspective of the other and understand, if you can, value your own path and seek
its renewal, and follow me in the ways of peace. That, I think, is a task for the
third millennium because in the third millennium we get angry and hostile and
we have the means to blow it all up, you see. It's not really a possible way to go
anymore. It's a matter of human survival beyond being the will of God.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Clash of Civilizations, The Healing of Nations
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
References:
Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of the World Order.
Touchstone, 1997; reprinted, 2001.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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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
Epiphany III
Series
A Millennial Vision
Scripture Text
Genesis 2:9, Revelation 22:2
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Samuel P. Huntington.The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of the World Order. Touchstone, 1997, 2001 edition.
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KII-01_RA-0-20000123
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2000-01-23
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The Clash of Civilizations and the Healing of the Nations
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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.)
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 23, 2000 entitled "The Clash of Civilizations and the Healing of the Nations", as part of the series "A Millennial Vision", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 2:9, Revelation 22:2.
Global Peace
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dd8fdbe40a2288d2cc4cb412288f6a53.mp3
3c8f520f47563794f13ab5b753b6a045
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/715b241e4cee12390d72a3b7f9be25c1.pdf
55819d86b65ab3b4bc066a9c34bb5d58
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Text
Light of the World
From the series: A Millennial Vision
Text: Isaiah 49:6; Matthew 2:9
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
January 9, 2000
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Some weeks ago, as I was thinking about this morning, contemplating the
beginning of a new year, the beginning of a new century, the beginning of a new
millennium, I thought, "Dear God, I ought to have something profound to say,"
and nothing came. But, I did think long and hard about it, realizing that this is a
rather significant time.
The human calendar is a human calendar; it's a human construct. It doesn't have
anything to do with the divine plan of anything, the cosmic reality. It's simply
something that we've put together, but it's a handy item. It is a good instrument.
It enables us to get the sense that life moves and that history unfolds and that
there is development. And the calendar gives us a way to mark time, to mark the
seasons of our lives. It gives us a chance to evaluate where we have been, the
extent to which we've accomplished our dreams and our goals, and it gives us a
fresh start, an opportunity to set again those goals that we might go after and to
have a sense of that which is beckoning us. And so, while the calendar is a human
construct, nonetheless, this is a significant time. There aren't many of our
brothers and sisters in the human family who ever get to experience the turn of a
millennium, and so I thought to myself, “What are the critical insights that we
have gained, that we need to actualize, to implement? What are the important
matters before the human family, before the Christian church, before the
religions of the world, and how might we set for ourselves a vision for the third
millennium?” And because this Sunday is also the celebration of Epiphany, I
thought, “Why not think together about the light of the world?” It is the
symbolism of the star that points to the light that led the Magi to the adoration of
the Christ child in Matthew's story.
The word Epiphany comes from the Greek language meaning manifestation, and
in this congregation your children speak about Epiphany Eyes, that is, eyes that
are able to see through, to see deeply. Epiphany has to do with seeing with
insight. Epiphany Eyes are eyes that see, not was not there, but what was always
there and not seen or understood, and the Festival of Epiphany is the celebration
© Grand Valley State University
�Light of the World
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
of the fact that it is the Christian Church's witness that in the birth of Jesus light
came into the world.
Matthew tells a delightful story of those Magi who saw a star rise in the east and
followed it until it led them to Jerusalem where they consulted with Herod the
King, and he with the religious leaders, as to what this bright star might be
because such a heavenly body would often, in the eyes of the astrologers of that
time, signify the birth of some royalty, some ruler of the world. And so, Matthew
prefaces his story of the life and ministry of Jesus with this delightful story of the
Magi who follow a star that leads them, finally, to the stable where they worship
and where they praise God.
Where did Matthew get the story? Well, interestingly, if you would read the 60th
chapter of Isaiah, which would be a good Hebrew lesson for a day like this, you
would find, “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has
risen upon you. Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of
your dawn. A multitude of camels shall cover you and your camels of Midian and
Ephah, and all those from Sheba shall come and they shall bring gold and
frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” Of course, Matthew
simply dipped into his Bible and he found there a promised one who would be
thus worshiped and adored by kings who would bring gifts. And in order for
Matthew to give expression to what he believes Jesus to be, what he believes to
have happened in Jesus, out of his own biblical tradition he tells us a story. There
probably was such a bright light around that time and there probably were
conversations about what the brightness of that heavenly body should signify, but
all of it is put together beautifully by Matthew who wants to say in Jesus, the
child that was born, the light of God came into the world.
John also, in the prologue to his Gospel, mentions light coming into his world.
This was the light that enlightens everyone coming into the world. And in John's
Gospel, he even has Jesus say, “I am the light of the world.” But, even in John's
Gospel, it's obvious that John recognized that the light that is in Jesus was a light
that pointed to a greater light beyond Jesus. Right? Follow me? Even in John's
Gospel where we have such a bold declaration, “I am the light of the world,” even
there it is obvious as you read that Gospel that John is aware that that human,
historical manifestation of light was a beacon and a pointer to the true light that
transcends all. In other words, even John did not absolutize the light that was in
Jesus as a light synonymous with the Light of the world.
Wilfred Cantrell Smith, who was one of our great scholars of this century, studied
comparative religions, going back a thousand years. I find it rather interesting on
this first century of the third millennium that he went back to the first century of
the second millennium and he identified five leading exponents of five religious
traditions. In his study of their work he says it was obvious, in the case of all five,
that all five of them had experienced God. They had an intuition, they had an
insight, they knew there was this Ultimate, this deep Mystery, and then each of
© Grand Valley State University
�Light of the World
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
the five in their own way sought to express what they had experienced. The
insight or the intuition was one thing. The expression was another. And so, this
common experience of coming into the presence of that Absolute Mystery that is
the ground of all being and the source of all life, this experience came to
expression in five different traditions.
Smith, in his book, Faith and Belief, said the first experience is faith. That is the
experience of God. But, belief is the religious system that we create in order to
stammeringly and stumblingly point to that ineffable experience of the One who
was Light Inaccessible. And then Smith points out, interestingly, that each one of
the five who gave particular expression to that common experience, each one of
them was aware that when they had said what they could say, they had not said
enough. Each one of them indicated in the very nature of that which they shared
that they knew that there was more which was beyond their capacity to share.
They could intuit it, they could experience it in the sense of being overwhelmed
by a Presence, but when it came to giving expression, articulation, to put it into
words and sentences and concepts and ideas, each one of them recognized that
they were falling far short. They were not doing justice to the depth of the
experience. To translate that into Christian terms, what that means is that Jesus
for us is the light that reflects the Light, but the light that is in Jesus is not the
absolute Light that is over all and beyond all.
Epiphany is the time when we think about that Christian idea of revelation and
for revelation to be revelation, something has to be revealed, something has to be
communicated. And for something to be communicated, that communication has
to be context-specific. For example, right now I am talking to you in English.
Many of you would say, yawning, “It sounds like Greek to me,” but nonetheless, I
speak English, I speak in ideas and concepts that we have in the interchange, in
the intercourse of our lives. It's the only thing I can do. It wouldn't do me any
good to speak Latin to you. We talk about these things that are common to our
experience in a particular context because, being human, we are historical. That
means we are limited to a time and to a place and we can only communicate with
one another in the specificity, the particularity of our particular situation. Jesus
was that particular word of the infinite and eternal God who came to expression
in Jewish flesh in a child, in a Hebrew prophet, revealing that God beyond all
religious concepts. Jesus is the light of the world for us because Jesus is our way
to the experience that we have had of the Light of Lights.
I like Paul's way of saying this better than Matthew and John, frankly. Paul said
in the second letter to the Corinthians, the fourth chapter, 6th verse, “We have
seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.” That's the big One. “We have
seen the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In
that historical, time-limited, race-limited, language-limited human flesh of Jesus,
in the particularity of Jesus we have seen a glimpse. Now, of course, historically,
what the Christian Church has done is to absolutize that historical manifestation
as though that was all, the end all and the be all, as though that historical
© Grand Valley State University
�Light of the World
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
manifestation was synonymous with the big One, and all you need is two different
religious traditions to absolutize their own particular story and you have the
seeds for conflict, and the possibility for violence. Nothing can fuel human
conflict better than religion because it's right at the heart of our being, it's the
thing we cherish most. The religious commitment of our lives gives us our sense
of identity and, when you rattle that somehow, you create great conflict, great
struggle. But, that's what we did. We took the particular manifestation that is
ours, full of light and grace, and we said, “That is synonymous with the whole,”
and, of course, to say that was to exclude all the rest.
Wilfred Cantrell Smith said that a thousand years ago there were Jewish, Muslim,
Christian, Hindu, Buddhist thinkers who were perfectly content with the
experience of God they had which came to expression in their particular
traditions, but they didn't realize that they were parallel traditions because they
weren't aware of one another in a human situation where there was not this
global mobility and CNN everywhere, satellites in the sky, and all of that. But, we
know different. We know. We can see the origin and the source of all of these
religious traditions. We can watch the development. We can see their claims and
understand the articulation of that experience of the Ultimate. As a millennial
vision, I would hope and pray that increasingly the Christian Church would also
recognize that its grasp, its glimpse of the Ultimate filtered through the face of
Jesus is true! But, there's more.
I did a little research last night because I remembered an experience I had that
was one of those life-changing experiences. I had been fussing around with the
breadth of the grace of God and I had been including more and more people from
the narrow little beginning where I began. And then some of us, ten years ago,
1990, traveled to Europe and we made a stop in Paris and took a trip outside of
Paris to that magnificent cathedral at Chartres. There's a guide there, an
Englishman named Malcolm, who gives fantastic lectures on that cathedral. He's
lived in the shadow of it for years. He took us around and for the first time I
realized that the great cathedrals, the stained glass of the great cathedrals, were
really the libraries of these communities. This was before the time of the printing
press; it was before the time of near universal literacy. And those stained glass
windows told the significant stories of the human story. Particularly in the
cathedral, they told the biblical story so if you came into the nave and looked to
the west you would see the story of Creation in stained glass. If you went on to the
transept, you would see the development of Israel, and perhaps in the depths of
the choir you might see the birth of Jesus, the Christmas story, and perhaps in
another transept the Crucifixion and then the Resurrection. This was a marvelous
way to inform the people of the story. They had no Bible in their hand. They could
see the story. I thought to myself as I was in the cathedral, and I told you this ten
years ago, October 14 1990, in “A Place to Stand in a World of Religions.” I told
you this story how being in that cathedral I thought to myself, “What if, what if
there were a people who only looked through the windows in the west wall of the
nave? What if there was another group huddled in the transept, in the choir, or in
© Grand Valley State University
�Light of the World
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
another transept, in another part of the nave, people who didn't move out of their
locale, who only knew there was light streaming through a particular part of the
story? The only part of the story they knew was Creation or Christmas or Easter,
or whatever it may be. Would they not think, That's it! That's the story.' But it
wouldn't be the story at all. It was a chapter of the story. It was a facet of the
story.”
And then I thought to myself, “What if they were not all Christian groups, but
what if there was a Jewish window with the community of people seeing the light
stream through and a Christian and a Muslim and a Buddhist and a Hindu? What
if all of these respective groups were gathered before their windows where the
story was told, their story? And what would be the common thing that would bind
them together? Being unconscious of one another and without knowledge of
anyone else's story, what would be the common thing? Well, it would be the light
that streams through all the windows, that illuminates all the stories.”
And it was then that I saw a paradigm of that Light of the world which is greater
than the light of the world that dawned in Jesus. The light that dawned in Jesus is
an authentic and true light of Light Inaccessible. But God is Light Inaccessible
and in the mercy of God, Light Inaccessible became light focused in a human
face. And that's my story. And it's a true story, and through that story I have
experience of that Light Inaccessible. But, so do my brothers and sisters in other
respective traditions.
I thought that was a rather good paradigm, a good model, a good symbol, a good
story I told you. In fact, it was so clear that everything went downhill from that
point, because it made so much sense, it seemed so obvious, and one way or
another I've been hammering away at that and once in a while I get weary. I get
weary about being so concerned about the things that don't concern many people.
It's tough to be "strange," to see ultimate importance in things most people yawn
about.
I must have grumbled about that a couple of months ago, mentioning that maybe
I was growing tired of it and one of my astute listeners wrote to me and said that
she had been thinking about that often of late, and then one night she saw on
public television, perhaps some of you did, as well, a documentary on Elizabeth
Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, these two war horses that led the women's
suffrage movement, and she said, “I was overcome by a deep sadness when
reminded that from the time of the convention in Seneca Falls when the whole
idea was affirmed, accepted, when it seemed as though everyone would say "Yes"
to women's suffrage, it was 72 years before the Constitution was finally amended
and the suffrage actually happened,” and my correspondent says, “Susan B.
Anthony gave virtually all of her adult life to that struggle, and Elizabeth gave
much of hers, as well. What can one say but, ‘Why? Why does the right thing take
so long?’”
© Grand Valley State University
�Light of the World
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
So I am counseled by my correspondent when I grow weary, because Susan B.
Anthony never even saw the passage of the amendment for which she had given
her life. So I am counseled when I grow weary to remember the ladies. They
stirred and stirred until they created a wave of women who filled the streets with
banners and songs and, at the end of her life, Susan said, “With such women
consecrating their lives, failure is impossible.” And then my correspondent
writes, “People are listening. The waters are churning. Minds are opening. Thank
you for making CCC an exciting place to be, something of an Imagination Station
for all ages, and when you are tired, remember the ladies.”
An Imagination Station for all ages -I love that. And it's happening, and it will
happen, friends, because people are hungry all over. They're not hungry for all of
the ecclesiastical structures and the baggage of institutional religion. But they're
hungry just like the Magi were hungry and took off on a journey following a star.
People are still and again looking to the stars, looking here and there and
everywhere for some authentic word, something that resonates to the depths of
our humanity. It will happen, this millennial vision of a world at peace. As the
Catholic theologian, Hans Küng has said, “There'll be no peace among the nations
until there is peace among the religions,” and I have a millennial vision of a time
when all of the religions will respect each other and enrich each other and teach
each other and live together, hand in hand, in the harmony that alone can reflect
the Creator's purpose. It will happen.
What happened on New Year's Eve? From the far South Sea Islands, around the
globe, in our own living rooms and kitchens, as a human family we celebrated the
turn of the millennium. Has there ever before been such an event celebrated by
the whole human family around the whole globe, celebrating all together the
movement from the second to the third millennium in such a world? Let us
rejoice in that light that has come to us in Jesus Christ that points us to Light
Inaccessible and join arms and hearts with all of those of good heart who,
likewise, have experienced the eternal and in their own way and own manner
bring praise and worship to the eternal God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Epiphany Sunday
Series
A Millennial Vision
Scripture Text
Isaiah 49:6, Matthew 2:9
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-20000109
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2000-01-09
Title
A name given to the resource
Light of the World
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 9, 2000 entitled "Light of the World", as part of the series "A Millennial Vision", on the occasion of Epiphany Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 49:6, Matthew 2:9.
Epiphany
Global Peace
Pluralism