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Human Community in the Image of God
From the sermon series: This Is Our Father’s World
Text: Philippians 2: 1-11
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
October 20, 1985
Transcription of the spoken sermon
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any
participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by
being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one
mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better
than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the
interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves which you have in Christ
Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a
thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being
born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has
highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God
the Father. Philippians 2: 1-11
This is our Father's world. We can be comfortable here because it is not an alien
environment; it is a created reality made for us, and we for it. This is our Father's
world. This is the great affirmation of the opening chapters of the scripture. As we
look for a few weeks at those first eleven chapters of Genesis, which are so
foundational for all the rest of biblical faith, I want to focus today on the creation
of man and woman, on the creation of the human person. I want to say that we
are created for human community; created in the image of God for human
community. We are created for God and for one another, and our creation from
the hand of God reflects our value and our worth and our dignity. I can't say
everything in this message that there is to be said about the human being, the
human creature. I'll have to come back in another week and I'll have to deal with
the shadow side, that rebellion that has led to alienation and all of the havoc that
we have created in the wake of that. So, what I'm going to say today is far more
fundamental than what I'm going to say next week. It's far more important for
© Grand Valley State University
�Human Community in the Image of God
Richard A. Rhem
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you to hear that you are a creature of God and loved by Him and created for His
glory than it is to hear that you're a sinner. We've reversed that in the Church.
We've stressed so much that we are sinners, and I suppose that is because the
need has to be created before the remedy can be applied, but the most
fundamental thing is that we are created in the image of God. Human potential
and human possibility, human dignity and human worth - that's more
fundamental than human deviation. It's a great message. And incidentally,
perhaps if that message were heard more, there would be less of the shadow side
manifesting itself. If we could ever get hold of the fact of who we really are, we
might start acting like it. So, this message is to underscore the simple truth that
as human beings, as men and women, we are created by the good and gracious
God.
I want to say just a couple of simple things which you know already, but I'll say
them again - we are created by God, we are created in the image of God, and we
are created by God for community with Him and with one another. That's as
simple as it is. We are created by God, and to say that we are created by God is to
make an affirmation which in the Church may seem a truism which everybody
believes and nobody would deny, but we don't live our lives out just in the Church
and in the community of faith, and we have to recognize that, when we say that
we are created by God, that is not a self-evident truth; it is not something
believed by everybody; it is not something believed by every thinking person. It is
a biblical statement. It is an affirmation of faith.
We have to recognize that our conviction about creation based on the scriptures
is a conviction that arises out of the proclamation of the scripture. The opening
chapters of Genesis are like the creed of creation. They are a song, they are a
message, they are a sermon. They are not a religious speculative statement; they
are not a philosophical discussion. They are not a scientific statement. They are
affirmations of faith based on the experience of God's grace in Jesus Christ, or in
Israel's case, God's grace in that deliverance from bondage in Egypt. The
conviction about creation is an article about faith. We believe it, but we have to
recognize that it is not self-evident. We have to recognize, too, that it is so
foundational for so much else that we believe that we cannot simply take it for
granted, but we must continue to make that affirmation intelligently, selfconsciously with awareness. Because if we lose that, we lose everything. Almost
everything that we believe subsequently in our biblical faith is posited on our
conviction that we are creatures of worth and value and dignity because we have
come from the hand of the Creator. There are other philosophies about, and
there's a good deal of contrary opinion, and in very scholarly circles.
Sometimes to make a point it is good to hear the other side, and I did that last
week, and I want to do it once again. This time I cite as an example a Nobel Prizewinning biologist, Jacque Monod, in his book, Chance and Necessity. Already the
title tells you something, doesn't it? Chance and necessity as over against
© Grand Valley State University
�Human Community in the Image of God
Richard A. Rhem
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purpose, intelligence and loving intention. Chance and necessity. This is what he
said after a very negative statement about the human situation:
If he that is a human person accepts this negative message in its full
significance, man at last must wake out of his millenary dreams and
discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation. He must realize that,
like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world, a world that is deaf
to his music and is indifferent to his hopes as it is to his suffering or his
crimes.
We say we are created by God. Well, wait a minute. What if that isn't true? If that
is not true, then the other is true. Then we can't say this is our Father’ s world,
and that somehow or other we are a part of the whole created reality.
We say that this is a friendly environment which is good. According to the
commentary of the Creator, there is a place where we can become what He has
intended us to be. If that isn't true, then the other is true, that we live on the
boundary of an alien world contrary to our purposes. Or worse, just indifferent to
our purposes. Indifferent to our music. And indifferent to our hopes, our
sufferings, our crimes. What that statement says is that, however we are involved
in this process of human history as human creatures, there is no one at the
beginning and there's no one at the end, and we aren't going anywhere in terms
of any purpose or meaning. Now, I quote a very scholarly opinion so that I don't
give the impression that biblical faith is just obvious and self-evident. No, there
are good thinking people who have come to this kind of conclusion. That's why I
say it is important for us to hear this as a declaration of faith. Then it's important
for us to begin to draw the implications. The implications of Jacque Monod are
that we have to wake up, grow up, face up to the darkness, to the coldness, to the
meaningless of it all, so that whatever meaning there is, we'll have to create;
whatever love there is, we'll have to generate. But there's no one and there's
nothing more.
We don't believe that. We believe that God created us with an intention for our
good. We believe that God created us with a thought in mind, with a selfconscious intelligence, and with a great purpose, and that this world is not an
alien environment, but a friendly place in which human potential may be
developed to realize the high calling with which He calls us.
Carl Sagan, the cosmologist, the one who does such a fantastic job with the films
about the cosmos, and his book Cosmos, gives the other explanation. The other
explanation is that some inanimate, non-living cell was triggered by some ray of
light at some point, moved across the abyss from the inanimate to the animate
stage, continued from that point in the development of cellular structure to
increasing complexity to the present complexity of the human being. And where
the primeval pea soup came from in the beginning, where the cell that God
triggered came from in the beginning, how the ray of light ever activated it, about
all of that, nothing is said. But what is claimed is that whatever is, is the
© Grand Valley State University
�Human Community in the Image of God
Richard A. Rhem
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consequence of accident, of chance, moving on with the kind of inbuilt necessity,
but going nowhere and having no accompanying purpose.
It's always good to look beyond the surface statement and say, "Then what does
that mean?" So to say that God created us is a rather simple affirmation of faith,
but it makes a world of difference as to how we view ourselves and understand
our situation. We affirm that God created us, and when we say He created us,
we're not talking about wind; we're not talking about techniques; we're not
talking about the process. The Bible doesn't know anything about when it
happened. It says, "In the beginning..." The Bible's affirmation is that all that is,
is because He said, "Let there be ...," and that's all the Bible is interested in. All
the rest the scientists can fight about.
In my class on Wednesday night, someone told me that the "Big Bang" theory of
the origin of the universe is being challenged. The Big Bang has been popular of
late in the circles of the physicists, and I could smile and say, "Oh, really? Well, I
hope the scientists have a field day fighting about it. I don't care." Now, if I had
said, "The Book of Genesis finally is verified," because a group of very scholarly
people has said that the universe started in a Big Bang, which therefore spoke of
an original moment of creation, then when the Big Bang blew up, my faith would
blow up, too. I can't identify this Book with any ideology, philosophical position
or scientific plank of any platform, because when I do, that which is transient and
of human generation will be an unsteady foundation for this word of God. This
word of God only says one thing. It says, "Whatever is, it is because He said, 'Let
there be...'" And then the whole world can try to figure out how it happened. I
mean, it doesn't really make any difference, does it? I told you last week that I
saw the jawbone of the Heidelberg man in the University of Heidelberg Museum
recently. Six hundred thousand years old, they say. It was discovered just outside
the city of Heidelberg, and up on the chart they had visualized what they thought
this creature had looked like. He stood up straight, with a little resemblance to
primates (big monkeys). Now, the Bible doesn't know anything about the linkage
backward from where we are. And there are some people who have been offended
by the claim that maybe we've got monkeys in our past. Well, I would say that just
an objective observation of human behaviour would give a great deal of support
to the idea that there might be a lot of monkeys in our past. "There's a lot of
monkey business going on!
But, you see, that's not even a biblical issue; it doesn't even matter. And yet, oh,
has not the Church churned over that issue? When did a human being become a
human being? Well, I'll tell you when. That's the second thing I want to say. It's
when the whatever was there was addressed by God and knew himself, knew
herself to be addressed and was able to respond in kind. It was in the moment in
which consciousness dawned and that created person, animal, whatever you want
to call it, suddenly understood itself, gained a beginning sense of identity and
self-awareness, self-reflection and the ability to respond to being addressed. The
first word of a first human being was a prayer. And when that creature learned to
© Grand Valley State University
�Human Community in the Image of God
Richard A. Rhem
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pray, that creature could be called human. For to be human is to be created in the
image of God, to be like God. And it doesn't really matter whether the human
being sprang fresh from the word or at some point in the process heard the word,
the creative word that called him or her forth. The fact is that when this creature
came face to face with God we could speak of being human.
In the image of God, our scripture tells us, is like God. God made us like Himself.
It's an amazing truth. Therefore, we accord to one another dignity and value and
worth, and we never put ourselves down either; for the most fundamental fact
about us is that we are a reflection of God. If I could pile up scripture upon
scripture this morning I could have also read Psalm 8, "Lord our God, how
excellent is Thy name in all the earth. When I consider the heavens, the work of
Thy hands, the sun and moon, which Thou hast made, what is man that Thou art
mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visited him?"
Ah, the Psalmist who didn't have an inkling about the expanses of the cosmos as
you and I do, nonetheless looked into the starry sky and knew that those stars
were a long way away, and he felt himself in the expansiveness of his world to be
insignificant and small. But then he had even a deeper intuition, for he went on to
say, "For Thou hast created him a little less than God and given him dominion."
Reflecting our chapter this morning, the most profound thing is that we are
created by God and made like Him to reflect Him.
My Professor Berkhof coins, at least in the English translation, the word
"respondable," in reference to the human being. Respondable. By that he is
meaning to say he is responsible to respond, or he might not, but he can.
Respondable. He has the capacity to respond. He has the capacity to respond to
the address of God and he is created for love and he is free in that condition of
respondability. So you're really something! I preached on that subject one time.
You are really something. You can never put yourself down. No matter how
tarnished and tainted and withered and wilted. No matter how great the failure,
how deep the abyss - you can never put yourself down. Nor may we ever put one
another down. For we've come from the hand of God, and we're a reflection of
His glory.
And He has created us for communion with Himself and with one another. To be
human is to be addressable, respondable, to be in covenant with God. If we
believe that He created us, then He created us with purpose, on purpose, with
meaning and, of course, He created us to be that over against Him with whom He
could commune and upon whom He could shed His love. And we'll have to speak
next week about the fact that we've not taken well to that, that we've not opened
ourselves up to that potential that is ours to live in the light of that love and grace.
But there's still good news, because there is one of us that has done precisely that
and that is Jesus.
Paul, obviously with reference to Genesis 1, in Philippians 2 tells us about Jesus.
Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, thought equality with God not to be
© Grand Valley State University
�Human Community in the Image of God
Richard A. Rhem
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something grasped after, but rather emptied himself, indeed was made in fashion
as the human being and became a servant and humbled himself unto death, even
the death of the cross. And that passage has been the center of Christological
controversy over the centuries, but it's such a paradox because it is such a
practical, pastoral appeal to this congregation whom Paul dearly loved. He wrote,
If our common life in Christ yields anything to stir the heart, any loving
consolation, any sharing of the Spirit, any warmth of affection or
compassion, fill up my cup of happiness by thinking and feeling alike
with the same love for one another, the same turn of mind and the
common care for unity.
There must be no room for rivalry and personal vanity among you, but you must
humbly reckon others better than yourselves. And then he appeals to Jesus. And
after saying all of this, after this warm appeal for warmth and the binding
together of human community, he said,
"Well, let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus."
That's why he talks about Jesus and his relationship to God and his emptying and
his death. Not to give us some Christological discussion about the divine and
human in Jesus, but to say to the human congregation, "Will you be human and
will you allow community to flourish and blossom through lowliness in mind,
esteeming others better than yourselves, through warmth and affection and
compassion, in a word, let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus."
The first Adam grasped after the prerogative of the Creator. The second Adam,
the new man, Jesus, offered himself up in total obedience and subservience to the
Father and became the instrument of reconciliation between God and human
beings, between human being and human being, and between human beings and
the whole created order, so that now in Christ we can say we are new creations,
restored in the image of God and if anyone is in Christ, it is a whole new creation.
There is harmony with nature and peace with God and reconciliation one with
another, human community, realizing the intentions of the Creator.
The creation story in the first chapter ends with the celebration of all of this in the
Sabbath rest. And the Sabbath rest is a sign pointing to the ultimate Sabbath rest
when the Shalom of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. How
important it is, then, that we begin now to incarnate, to live out this peace with
God through Jesus Christ and reconciliation with one another in harmony with
the created world. You are really something! We are called to become what we
are.
Let us pray. God, our Father, enable us to catch a glimpse of the wonder of being
human and then, through the power and grace of Your good Spirit, enable us to
live humanly and to provide in the community of faith an alternative society and
© Grand Valley State University
�Human Community in the Image of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
a sign pointing to that Kingdom which is surely coming when there shall be peace
on earth. Hear our prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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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
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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Event
Peace Sunday
Pentecost XXI
Series
This is Our Father's World
Scripture Text
Phillipians 2:1-11
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
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KII-01_RA-0-19851020
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1985-10-20
Title
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Human Community in the Image of God
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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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
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
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 20, 1985 entitled "Human Community in the Image of God", as part of the series "This is Our Father's World", on the occasion of Peace Sunday, Pentecost XXI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Phillipians 2:1-11.
Community of Grace
Covenant
Creation
Divine Intention
Faith
Hebrew Scriptures
Image of God
Shalom
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Text
God, Humanity and Cosmos
From the sermon series on the Cosmos
Text: Psalm 8: 4-5
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
November 15, 1981
Transcription of the spoken sermon
What is man that thou art mindful of him, …dost care for him? Yet thou hast
made him a little less than God. Psalm 8: 4-5
Through a happy coincidence, this was an exciting week in the old U.S. of A. as
we once again accomplished a great triumph of science and technology, sending
into space again our Spaceship Columbia, watching it blast off with all of the
drama of those moments, and then, in order that we might report its safe return
this morning, the mission was shortened, and they came back yesterday. Exciting,
really, isn't it? And doesn't it boggle the mind to think about the human potential,
to think about what human intelligence is able to effect? Isn't it amazing, really,
when you contemplate the nature of such events? Truly it is thrilling. Yet we
become so easily accustomed to the dramatic and the sensational. If we were to
tell our forefathers that these things were happening, they wouldn't believe it.
They would say it was impossible. At best they might say, "Well, it's a miracle."
Well, it is a miracle, in a sense. But in another sense, it is simply that the human
mind has been able to probe the secrets of reality in order to accomplish a
mission like that and continue the exploration of the cosmos.
I kidded about them bringing the spacecraft home early so that we would know
this morning that they were successful, but, as a matter of fact, that decision was
made, though not for that reason. As I was thinking about Psalm 2 and the
psalmist's reflection upon the cosmos and then upon himself, who he was in
relationship to God, I thought that decision was a rather nice illustration of the
second Psalm, for a choice was made in favor of human life over the probing of
the cosmos. If the psalmist was impressed with the cosmos, then how much more
you and me? If he was impressed with what he could see, which was but an
infinitesimal fragment of what there is, if he was impressed with his smallness
over against the vastness of space and the eons of time, which are becoming more
and more clear to us, then how much more must we be impressed with our
smallness and our insignificance? And yet, when one of the three fuel cells of that
spacecraft failed, a decision had to be made as to whether to let the mission run
its course, or to bring it home early. Two fuel cells were enough to allow the
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Humanity and Cosmos
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
mission to take its full run. But then, down to two, if one should fail, the mission
and human life would be in jeopardy. And so, at headquarters, discussion was
held and the decision was made. They came home early, even though involved
were scores and scores of people, and millions and millions of dollars and all of
that which is at stake. They brought that mission home early because in this
nation, standing in the biblical tradition, we know the value and the sanctity of
human life. And when it comes to taking a risk and succeeding with a few more
scientific experiments, but placing at the same time, human life in jeopardy, there
is really no question, because we know in the face of space's immensity and time's
ever-rolling stream, that there is still one thing that counts supremely, and that is
a human being.
Now that is really the same kind of conclusion that the psalmist came to. On the
one hand, he said,
Lord, when I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars which you
have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of
man, that you care for him?
He felt his smallness and his insignificance. He was overwhelmed by the
immensity of the heavens overhead, and he recognized that his days were but a
brief span of time. His littleness in the vastness of it all gave him such a sense of
insignificance and smallness.
As I said, if he felt small, how about us? We have to say that in our own day there
have been a lot of people who have been unable to move with the modern
conception of the universe and maintain a faith in God the Creator. The psalmist
had a correct intuition. I mean, who are we, really, when you think of it? Fifteen
to twenty billion years in the process, and now we are here, threescore years and
ten, perhaps. Why, our lifespan is a blink of the eye. And when you realize, as Carl
Sagan says in his book, Cosmos, that the earth is a speck of dust, circling a
humdrum star, our sun - just an average old humdrum star - you begin to realize
the vastness of the cosmos. We are on a speck of dust circling a humdrum star in
a corner of an insignificant galaxy; and if we are on but a speck of dust in the
vastness of space, so are our days but an instant in the eons of time. When you
really stop to think about it, I mean when you really stop to contemplate it, can
you still believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?
You see, there have been many of our contemporaries who have not been able to
make that move and that adjustment. We have opened up the mysteries of the
cosmos, and it is a most exciting day in which to be alive. But what has to happen
is not only that the cosmos expands before our eyes, but our conception of God
must grow commensurately. As J.B. Phillips wrote so many years ago, Your God
Is Too Small.
We have to admit, too, that in the Church we have not been very good at helping
people to make this adjustment.
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Humanity and Cosmos
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
In the most recent issue of Science '81, an excellent magazine which was placed in
my hands, there is a centerfold on Creationism – Creationism as opposed to
Evolutionism, and all of the controversy that is being stirred up by the
fundamentalist wing of the Christian Church today. It recounts how several states
have gone to court to get equal time for the doctrine of Creation in their schools.
It is a very interesting development. This is a science magazine. And in this report
it was stated what we have been saying here over and over again, that all of the
scientific investigation of the cosmos, whether in biology or physics or geology or
in whatever field - all of these investigations really do not impinge upon whether
or not God created the heavens and the earth, and whether or not I can still
believe that this is my Father's world. That really isn't at issue. But the problem
with the fundamentalist wing of the Church that is stirring up all this controversy
is that it is creating, once again, that overagainstness with science, and that
mindset in much of the Christian Church that there is something destructive to
faith in all of this explosion of knowledge in the natural sciences. That is tragic.
We do ourselves a great disservice.
If you feel good when you see some television evangelist pounding the pulpit and
talking in terms of creation over against a godless, atheistic evolutionism, don't
clap, because he is not on your side, if you are on the side of God and Truth. That
is a false distinction, that is a false antithesis, and it is deadly. It is deadly because
it offends the best minds and the best spirits, and it creates the illusion that to be
a Christian you have to take off your head, shut down your mind and refuse to
survey the vast amount of data that is there for anyone with any common sense.
We can't play that game any longer. We have to admit that what the psalmist saw,
the immensity of the universe and the eons of time and all of this which has
become even more clear to us will necessitate an adjustment of our
understanding of God.
We simply cannot have this neat, secure little world, little planet Earth and our
few thousands of years and our literal, biblical account of things, because, you
see, the biblical writers were not writing physics, were not writing biology, were
not talking about geology. The writers of the Bible thought that this was a threestory universe, with heaven above and the waters under the earth. God didn't
whisper in their ears and give them some revelation of the mysteries of physics.
This is not a science textbook, and you cannot find out about the process of the
created order, you cannot find out about the stages which have brought us to this
present point by going to the scriptures. The only thing the scriptures will tell
you, and of course the only thing that really matters, is that in the beginning was
God, and that He will be in the end, and that He is with us in the meantime.
When the psalmist looked up and thought, "Oh my goodness, I'm not much,"
then how much more we, and we simply have to recognize that we need to do
some readjusting because, as a matter of fact, this old, cosmological, evolutionary
process has been going on for a long, long time. There is no doubt about that. And
it has been following a course of natural development which now is more and
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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more understood, with many mysteries still to be unraveled, but which will be
unraveled. We live in a day which is right at the crest of a breakthrough that will
continue to explode and explode and explode all around us. The more we learn,
the more access we have to deeper mysteries, and when you saw Columbia come
in and land right on the second and right on the line, that is simply a sign and a
finger pointing beyond itself to the most fantastic dreams that are even now
welling up in human hearts and minds. Never say never! Because before you die,
it will have happened.
But the psalmist had another insight, and that is the critical insight, for he not
only experienced his smallness and his insignificance, but he went on to say,
"Thou hast created him a little less than God. Thou hast crowned him with glory
and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the whole created order." That is
the biblical insight. That is the significant fact. That is the uniqueness of being
human. That is the religious issue, for it doesn't really matter how long it's been
going on, and it doesn't really matter how vast the immensity of space. The fact is
that we are here now at this point in the process, and we are human. The psalmist
recognized that there is something about being human which is nearly divine.
And if I were to put it in a sentence, I would say to you this morning that the
message is simply this - You are really something. That's the biblical message.
We may be impressed with distance, and we may be impressed with age, but what
we really ought to stand in awe before is the mystery of being human, the wonder
of what it is to be man and woman, created in the image of God, for what the
psalmist was saying here when he said, "Thou hast made him a little less than
God," was what the writer of the Genesis account was saying when he said, "God
created man and woman in His own image." God created a creature over against
himself and made him almost divine. He created a creature with selfconsciousness and with a measure of freedom and self-determination, and with
responsibility and the opportunity to fall in worship and adoring praise before the
Creator of it all.
You are really something! To be human is the greatest mystery reflecting the
deepest majesty of the whole cosmological process.
When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the
stars which thou hast established: what is man that thou art mindful of
him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him? Yet thou hast made
him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou
hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands… Psalm 8: 3-6
We are created to be the co-laborers with God, partners with God in this creative
process. We are endowed with gifts, with human potential, and we have the
powers and the ability to reflect the divine image. We can think His thoughts
after Him, and we can enter into His creative activity, and with the things that
have already been accomplished through the exercise of human intelligence, who
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
would dare say what the frontier finally would be? You are really something, and
good religion will affirm human personality.
Now, we need to hear that in the Church, too, don't we, because for too long we
have spoken disparagingly of human personality. Nothing I say this morning
would in any way detract from the fact which we have faced honestly that there is
something desperately wrong with us all and we fall short of the glory of God.
There is a meanness about us and a contrariness; someone, somewhere has
thrown a wrench in the works, and man's inhumanity to man is given eloquent
testimony from beginning to end. But in the Church, so often that is where we
have left it. We talk about our misery and fail to talk about our grandeur. We talk
about our fallenness and fail to take in the destiny to which we have been called.
God has dealt with our sin, and by His grace, calls us to realize our destiny and to
develop the full potential with which he has endowed us, and to reflect the divine
image. You are really somebody. You reflect God. You were created in His image,
a little less than Him, and He has created us in order to be in relationship with
Him, to live in communion, and to live not only in communion with Him, but in
communion one with another, and in interpersonal relationships where there is
love and care and forgiveness and grace. There is a little bit of heaven. God and
His creature, living in fellowship and communion, one with another and with
Him, define the ultimate miracle and the meaning of the whole process.
Now, that is terribly important to affirm and it ought to make you feel really good
about yourself, because you really are somebody. You have potential untapped,
you have gifts yet undreamed of, you have possibilities without limit. You are
almost divine, and God calls us to that upward way more and more to respond to
that destiny for which he has shaped us, to be prepared for the future that He has
for us.
Now, when you watch Carl Sagan on Cosmos, be enrapt with him in the
excitement of exploring the mysteries of the physical world. And I affirm that,
and I love it, and when you study it, as I have more and more, you are so
impressed with the simplicity on the other side of complexity. The complexity of
the cosmos and humankind seems so apparent. But once the smoke has cleared
there appears a simplicity in the created order. All of us and all matter is made up
of the same building blocks, the same atoms, the same fundamental elements,
whether here on planet Earth or the moon or Jupiter or the sun or your beating,
human heart. Everything, being composed of very simple and fundamental
elements, seems to reflect a divine intelligence which can hardly be conceived of.
But when you watch Carl Sagan and he begins to suggest that that process that
has moved through all of the eons of time and all of that evolutionary process to
the present moment is purposeless, the product of chance, when he begins to
suggest that you are the latest and highest expression, and that there is no one
beyond, then don't you believe him, for then he is no longer a scientist; then he is
in the sphere of religion. He suggests that maybe the universes are not the
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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dreams of God, but rather, that God may be the dream of man. He is saying that
we have come to this point and then we have simply projected out, beyond
ourselves the God that we wish were there.
When he begins to talk that way, he has lost me. Then he has said that I am
simply the consequence of all of that process of development having really no
freedom and no unique spiritual character, related to all that went before but
missing completely that relationship to Him Who is beyond and above. Then I
know that he has missed the ultimate truth. Nothing that he says about our
relationship to the cosmos is in any way in conflict to that relationship we have
with a God Who spoke and called it into being. But to deny that God and to end
up here is to leave me alone without a home and without meaning. Human
existence, then, is the chance result of spontaneous reactions along billions of
years. His explanation for the first development of life is that in a primeval soup
one cell got the ability to reproduce itself and then through billions of years,
organizing by perhaps a light ray striking a cell and causing a change, a mutation,
and finally organizing and gathering and getting more and more complex, until
finally one glob of cells woke up and said, "Well, here I am." Now, that takes faith
to believe.
When we contemplate what it is to be human, then we need not deny that whole
process. But to me, it makes far more sense to believe that in the beginning there
was an Intelligence that said, "Let there be..." with a purpose, and a purpose of
love that moved the process to a point at which one day there was someone who
looked into the face of God and experienced relationship, communion.
For finally, what is ultimate and what is important?
At NASA this week they made a decision, and a correct decision, for there is really
nothing in the whole cosmos, there is no experiment, there is no technological
breakthrough so important and so pressing that it would be worth placing in
jeopardy one human life, one human life that knows itself as free and in
relationship, able to love and to care.
A couple of weeks ago when Nancy and I were at Mayo's, we did a lot of sitting
and waiting for our names to be called. You watch a lot of people and a lot of
people in various states of difficulty and need. It's always obvious when, for
example, a son or a daughter has brought an aged parent, maybe in a wheelchair
or helping them along to the desk. You think a lot about people and you watch
them. Nancy was telling me about two old gentlemen, the one helping the other,
hobbling along, finally getting to the desk because his name had been called, and
the other who was helping said to the nurse, "Is it all right if I go in with him?
You know, he's my brother."
Well, you know, to me that's more impressive than a thousand billion galaxies.
Isn't it, really? What finally counts? We stand not in any conflict with any
scientific probe of the depths of reality. Half of the physicists are mystics, trying
© Grand Valley State University
�God, Humanity and Cosmos
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
to determine the nature of what is. That is an exciting venture; it is a human
venture. But we do stand in the midst of the darkness of space and the eons of
time to say that, whatever else may be, this is ultimately important — we are, and
we know one another, and we have learned to love and to care because into our
lives, in our own flesh, has appeared Jesus. Jesus, in whose face we have seen the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God, and found Him to be gracious.
Ah, you are really something! You are really somebody. There are no limits to the
possibilities that await you and, as the writer to the Hebrews recognized, what we
see now is only a part. We see Jesus, not yet all things put into subjection to him,
but the whole tenor of that New Testament, in the wake of Jesus, tells us that
there is a future, the contours of which we have not yet begun to dream about.
For eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of
man to conceive of the things that God has prepared for them that love Him.
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children
of God; and so we are. I John 3: 1f (RSV)
And what we shall be has not yet appeared, but we know that when He appears,
we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And throughout all Eternity
we will be brothers and sisters with our Lord, lost in wonder, love and praise of
the God Who spoke and called all things into being. Blessed be His holy name.
Amen.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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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.
Scripture Text
Psalm 8, Hebrews 2:5-9
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-0-19811115
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1981-11-15
Title
A name given to the resource
God, Humanity and Cosmos
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
Text
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 15, 1981 entitled "God, Humanity and Cosmos", at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 8, Hebrews 2:5-9.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Community
Cosmic Evolution
Creation
Creator
Creature
Grace
Image of God
Love
Nature of God
Nature of the Human