1 24 5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1176b9f3952e7bdc571f685e86b951ab.pdf 336b528adbcaf306f9b056935b81f250 PDF Text Text Incarnation Here and Now From the series: The Presence of the Future Text: John 1:14; I John 4:12; 16 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Advent, December 20, 1998 Transcription of the spoken sermon The Advent season is a season whose theme traditionally has been "The One who came is coming again." A main emphasis in the Christian tradition and a clear biblical teaching is that the one who was born in poverty and humility is the child who will return in power and glory to judge the nations and issue in the end and the consummation. On the second Sunday in Advent, I suggested to you that we have to rethink that: that Jesus is not coming again in that sense. As someone said to me, "You’re not usually that dogmatic." I said, "Well, I’m not usually that sure." Well, I didn’t say that. Nancy said to me, "Why do you say things like that? You don’t know everything." Amen. But, I said it the way I said it because I wanted you to hear me. I could be the perfect heretic and preach all my life and you would never know it. All one has to do is fudge a bit, use vague terms, dance around, and I don’t want to do that. I’m too old; I’ve got too little time left. I want to be simple and I want to be clear. I do not think that the Christian model, the biblical model of history coming to an end with the appearing of the Lord from the clouds of heaven is, as a matter of fact, the way it’s going to be. I think history is going to continue to unfold and to develop, and going I know not where. But it is a part of a cosmic process of 15 billion years, unfolding in this cosmic wonder and majesty all those years, until finally there was the arrival of the human, the unfolding, then, of the story of history, even to the present moment, and I do not know where it is going, but I suggested to you that the good news is that, though I don’t expect Jesus to come from the clouds of glory, Jesus has come. Jesus has come again and again and again, and the key to our understanding, I believe, a more profound biblical understanding beneath that structure of things is a sense of Immanuel, God with us, here and now. Thus, Jesus with us, in spirit. "If you ask anything in my name, I will pray the Father, and God will give you the Spirit, the advocate, one to stand with you, one who will lead you into all truth, one who will call to remembrance the things that © Grand Valley State University   �Incarnation Here and Now Richard A. Rhem Page 2   I have said." And so, the present has within it the seeds of the future. The present is pregnant with the future. The vast potential beyond our conception is already incubated in the present, in the cosmos, in our history, in our humanity. But that future that is already in our present, is always under threat. We noted last week that the future that is trying to be born is always threatened by the present establishment for, if we have achieved a position of prestige and power and affluence, why in the world would we work for the transformation of tomorrow? And that’s the story of human history. As I said last week, if nature is red in tooth and claw, then human history is a veritable river of blood, violence and destruction, war and death, most often because the future that is trying to be born will be crucified by the present that is established and very happy with the way things are. Herod, on the throne, wanted to hear nothing of a royal child that might threaten his position and so, not being able to find the child, simply decreed that all children two years of age and under should be slaughtered. The Slaughter of the Innocents is the subtitle of the story of history. It has always been thus, for the future that would be born, the dawn that would break in this unfolding story of history which is the unfolding development of the cosmic reality, will always be threatened by those who would vie for power and position and stifle the spirit and crucify tomorrow. That’s human history. But, that’s not the whole story. If we are not to wait for someone to come and clean up our mess, then, as I said to you last week in concluding, it is our responsibility. History is our responsibility. The future is our responsibility. It is for us who have caught a glimpse of the vision, who’ve dared to dream the dream, to engage in the ongoing story, to stand for justice and righteousness, to live with compassion and to work for peace. The transformation of tomorrow is incubated in today and it is our task to midwife it into birth. The old model, that really doesn’t work anymore because it’s inconsistent with our experience of history and our knowledge of the cosmos, the old model would have us at this season of the year look for the big event somewhere out in the future, another place and another time. My Advent theme is a plea to you to find it here and now. Incarnation here and now. For that is the radical and profound declaration of the Gospel - that God has been embodied in human flesh. In the beginning was the word, reminding us of the first chapter of Genesis, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." John, in telling the story of Jesus, is trying to connect the whole cosmic reality from the beginning with that historical manifestation in the midst. The Creator of the heavens and the earth is embodied and enfleshed in the humanness of Jesus. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Incarnation, here and now. Human history now manifesting divinity in the concrete. Paul said we have seen the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus, in John’s Gospel, is purported to say, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." The © Grand Valley State University �Incarnation Here and Now Richard A. Rhem Page 3   incarnation here and now in human history, and the image that Paul uses in his letter of the body of Christ simply says that that was not a one time happening. That was not a once-for-all-event. That was an emergence into history which continues in the body of Christ, where you are the body of Christ, you are the flesh of God in the world. You are the concrete manifestation of God in this marvelous, awesome, wonderful, unraveling of cosmos and history and humanity. Incarnation, here and now. The big event is not in the future. The future is incubated in the present and the present is pregnant with the future, and it’s for us to allow it to come to birth. That’s our task as humankind, in history, the children of the Big Bang, stardust children of cosmic reality manifesting our life in an ongoing story of history. I don’t want you to lose the moment. I don’t want you to live with anything less than awe and wonder at the gift of life and the marvel of the ongoing drama. How can I speak with such glowing terms on the Sunday after the week through which we have just lived? As I thought about this message and I thought about Christmas and incarnation, I was all too well aware that, unless something is said this morning about the debacle that has been played out in our midst as a nation, then I will simply give credence to the widespread sense that the pulpit is the epitome of irrelevancy. But, how does one speak about the crisis of our times? How does one speak with some objectivity and sensitivity without partisan bias? It’s impossible. So, let me warn you at the beginning that anything I say is no word from the Lord; I have no word from the Lord. Let me speak about it, however, as one responsible to say something in the face of that which faces us, is in our face. Someone who simply broods on these things and muses on these things, let me say a word, if I may, and let me share with you something that’s been very helpful to me in giving me some perspective. Andrew Sullivan is a journalist. He writes in The New York Times Magazine of October 11 a marvelous article in which he addresses the present situation and, although he is himself a liberal, he speaks very fondly of Conservatism at its best and the great tradition of Conservatism historically. He suggests that the Conservative movement today is betraying itself and its own finest principles. Let me read you a few paragraphs, even though I know that’s a boring exercise, but it says it better than I can say it, and I want it said here. Speaking about the Conservatives, he says, ... Conservatives have always been concerned with morality - and rightly so. They have long understood that political order rests upon a vibrant civil society, and on the morality that such a society sustains. But conservatives have also always been aware of the dangers of excessively policing that morality, and of the evils that can occur when the morally certain gain power. Hence the apparent conservative paradox. Conservatives want morality but they don’t want the big government that © Grand Valley State University �Incarnation Here and Now Richard A. Rhem Page 4   could effectively enforce it. For true conservatives, the evils of moral chaos are usually outweighed by the evils of a moralizing big brother. And so conservatives have learned over the years to live with a little paradox. They have resisted the temptation either to become morally indifferent libertarians or to become morally repugnant ideologues. Although they have worried about moral and social trends, they have resisted easy pessimism and the jeremiad. And they have left the impositions of morals to the churches and preachers and mothers and fathers and teachers and friends of America to sort out. When it comes to preaching, true conservatives would much prefer to praise the examples of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa than to demonize the likes of Dennis Rodman or Marv Albert. Above all, true conservatives have not been depressed by freedom. This, after all, is where the modern conservative movement in America started in the 1950's - in a revolt against the creeping power of the postwar welfare state. When American conservatives lose sight of that central strain in their philosophy, when their love of freedom becomes an afterthought to their concern for morality, then they lose sight of what makes them both conservative and quintessentially American. They lose sight of what distinguishes them from the darker history of European conservatism... Truly American conservatives would not recoil at the greater liberty enjoyed by women, racial minorities and homosexuals, as the truly American conservative Barry Goldwater showed. In the last decade, true American conservatives would have been heartened by the declines in divorce, crime and teen-age births, and encouraged by the move among gay people for more stable, responsible relationships. They would have been elated by the collapse of collectivism and totalitarianism abroad, and encouraged by the return of fiscal prudence and social responsibility at home. They would have seen in Bill Clinton a dangerous proclivity for dishonesty and abuse of power, but they would not have seen him as the degenerate apotheosis of an entire generation - let alone an entire nation. And they would have seen the emergence of religious dogmatists on the far right as a threat to constitutional order and political civility, not as a boon for votes. Above all, they would not have fatally overplayed their hand and tried to impeach a President not for illegality but for immorality, and they wouldn’t have shredded the virtues of privacy and decency and common sense for the emotional release of a cultural jihad. ... Well, he goes on, and I find what he says to be profoundly true, for what has happened in this nation is that, in the debacle we’ve experienced before a President that should have resigned a long time ago, I suppose, Andrew Sullivan suggests the same, but nonetheless, we have come to focus on that which is © Grand Valley State University �Incarnation Here and Now Richard A. Rhem Page 5   miniscule, in light of the constitutional tragedy that is being played out in our midst. And the Congress has stooped so low that Larry Flynt can remove the Speaker-elect of the House of Representatives, not because Larry Flynt has become a major player in the American political scene, or somehow or other risen from his normal arena of operation, but because the Congress of the United States has descended into that arena for partisan mean-spiritedness, and that decrying of the social condition of America which is rampant in conservative intellectual journals in our day fails to take seriously the Christmas miracle of incarnation. In this day, on the threshold of another Christmas, I want to speak of incarnation, here and now. I want to say that what has happened in our nation’s capital is a betrayal of that which is highest and best and most noble in the American tradition. I want to say that I refuse to join in the bitterness and the cynicism and decry this present moment. This is human history; human history is messy! Whoever said it was anything else? It is violent, it is destructive, it is deathdealing, it is power hungry, it is all of that, and it is also the arena into which God has emerged. I want to give you another image, the old Christmas image of love coming down at Christmas is an image of intervention from beyond. That won’t work anymore. It is not love came down at Christmas. It is that love emerged in the incarnation 2000 years ago in Jesus Christ, the embodiment of God emerged out of the process and has been emerging ever since. It is trying to be born, the spirit of the flesh of Jesus trying to be born in this world of ours. I don’t give up on it. I have hope in history, as did the prophets who didn’t blind their eyes to anything that was wrong, to the darkness, to the evil, to the destructiveness. But, nevertheless, because they believed that God was in the process, God was in the midst, they believed in God, trusted in God, hoped in God, and therefore, dreamed a future and a vision. I do not believe that America is going to hell in a hand basket. I know you. I know too many people. I believe in the basic decency, honesty, civility of the American public across the board as well as around the globe. I do not believe that this is the worst of times. There have been good times and bad times vying for position throughout the whole spectrum of human history. This is a time at Christmas to remember that, not an intervention from beyond, but an emergency from within has resulted in one like Jesus in whose face one could see the heart of God. The heart of God is like the face of Jesus. Jesus is the human flesh – a concrete sign of God with, Emmanuel – the same kind of human flesh that you and I possess. I believe in you. I know you well. I believe in the future; I believe in history because history has emanated from cosmology that has emanated in the beginning from the God who said, "Let there be ..." I believe in the future; I believe in Christmas; I believe in you. © Grand Valley State University �Incarnation Here and Now Richard A. Rhem Page 6   This is a great day in which to be alive; this is a day to believe. We know all too well all of the dissembling - dishonesty, lack of integrity of a William Jefferson Clinton, and we don’t know it because we’ve seen it in him. We know it because we’ve seen it in our own hearts. When will we stop this kind of moralism and judgmentalism? Isn’t that perhaps why Jesus said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged?" Is it not we need a word of hope, a word of courage? Hope in history, hope in history’s God, confidence that we’ve not come this way through thousands and billions of years to end up in some fiasco of human conjuring. Oh, I think we have the potential to ruin it all, but one of the surest ways to do it is to become meddlesome, mean, small, and forget, by God, it’s Christmas! God in human flesh! God in flawed human flesh! God in your face and mine. God is love, and if one abides in love, one abides in God. God is present where two human beings love each other. Where love is, God is. I’ve seen God because I’ve seen you. I’ve experienced God because I’ve touched your flesh, and by God, I believe! I believe. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4d561c3f94442bddf3ebd4a11ab78d0c.mp3 f15d3cf618295bb94005e1c09d53cf50 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 Advent IV Series The Presence of the Future Scripture Text John 1:14, I John 4:12,16 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-0-19981220 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998-12-20 Title A name given to the resource Incarnation Here and Now Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 20, 1998 entitled "Incarnation Here and Now", as part of the series "The Presence of the Future", on the occasion of Advent IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 1:14, I John 4:12,16. Advent Emergence Love Presence Spirit https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/48c9b87092b10fb0b98a3d392794e487.mp3 a7b777306adc129b2acf796f5e9e20b3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/61d9566a92d26dcdda169fd526207471.pdf a3e149ca05cd1d65c16576bff78decac PDF Text Text Living With Wonder From the sermon series: Lifelines Text: Isaiah 6: 1 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany IV, February 3, 1985 Transcription of the spoken sermon …I saw the Lord…high and exalted. Isaiah 6: 1 Viewing the Robert Kennedy story on television this past week I was reminded of the tumultuous events of the last quarter century. What drama and high tension have punctuated the flow of the years of recent decades. I remember vividly where I was the day John F. Kennedy was shot. Seeing familiar scenes flashed on the TV screen again this past week still sent a chill through me. The vast majority of our days flow without special significance and they are lost in the mists of the past. But not all days, not all events. Some days, some moments change us forever; they leave their imprint upon us and we can never be the same again. Isaiah knew that. He shared such an experience. Isaiah wrote, In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted ... It was not necessarily the occasion of the King's death, although that is possible. Perhaps it was the annual enthronement festival. At least it was a great worship celebration, a state occasion in the setting of the Temple with, no doubt, the pageantry of priesthood, altar and incense. Whatever was the particular focus of the worship that day, for Isaiah, it was a moment of revelation, of the breaking through of the hidden majesty of God, the penetration of his whole being with the vision of the glory of God and he was transformed; his whole life was grasped, shaped and given its destiny. In chaste and restrained fashion he describes the vision: © Grand Valley State University   �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 2   ...the skirt of his robe filled the temple. About him were attendant seraphim ... calling to one another, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.’ As he was transfixed by the scene, The threshold shook to its foundations, while the house was filled with smoke. Such was the vision of the glory of God. In reaction to the vision of God's holiness, the prophet was overwhelmed and sensed his unworthiness, his uncleanness in the presence of the Lord and he cried, Woe is me! I am lost. He knew immediately that there was a great gulf between the creature and the Creator. Such a vision would be his undoing, for he cries, I have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. But the gracious God revealed Himself not to destroy His servant; rather the ministering seraph took a glowing coal from off the altar and touched his lips, signifying his cleansing and the removal of his sins. Then it was that he heard the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for me?" To which Isaiah answered, "Here am I; send me." And the word of the Lord was, "Go and tell..." And Isaiah became one of the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, speaking the word of God to the People of God. This passage is obviously about the making of a prophet, about the vision of God and the prophetic call. In this message, however, I want to use the passage for another purpose, which, although not its primary teaching, is yet certainly a valid use. Let us consider the experience recorded here as an instance of the encounter with God in the celebration of worship. Worship is our focus. And even though Isaiah's experience was very personal, as all moments of divine revelation must be, yet its occasion was the corporate worship of God's people. It is corporate worship about which I invite you to think with me. Corporate worship is a lifeline; it provides the occasion in which Eternity breaks into our time, heaven touches earth, God reveals His glory, Grace and forgiveness are realized, the call of God is heard, and our response is offered. © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 3   Worship provides the setting in which we are lifted out of ourselves, beyond the limits of the ordinary, in which we have the experience of transcendence and we are enabled to live with wonder. Living with wonder — That is the enrichment that worship affords. Moving from the experience of worship into the ordinary and the mundane to pick up our duties and exercise our vocations, all is transformed. A glow radiates over all of life. We move through the world as through a magnificent vaulted cathedral, conscious of the vertical dimension of life by which the horizontal plane of our lives has been intersected and transformed. Archbishop William Temple wrote: To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God; to feed the mind with the truth of God; to purge the imagination by the beauty of God; to open the heart to the love of God; to devote the will to the purpose of God. Those statements seem to flow directly from the experience Isaiah recorded for us. Worship is a lifeline because it is the highest action of the human person whereby true humanity is realized through the vision, grace and call of God. Worship is a spiritual discipline. It is means by which we are shaped into the persons God has called us to be. That shaping, that forming of persons, of a people, is accomplished most notably through the experience of corporate worship. In this message I recommend to you the great importance and value of regular corporate worship. I do so not to make it a legalistic requirement, the socalled "Sunday obligation." I do so because I believe the regular, corporate worship of the people of God gives structure and rhythm to life. I recommend regular, corporate worship to you as a spiritual discipline, indeed, a lifeline, because I believe it is so vitally important to have a regular weekly appointment in which you can be unlocked from the world's grip, freed from the grip of value systems and ideologies that would mold you into a sub-human existence, lifted above the economic struggle for survival, the competitive struggle that creates tension with values of mercy and compassion, the perils of a consumer culture that pummels you with eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die – like a dog, a culture that would convince us that this is all there is. No people can know spiritual formation, the shaping of life and value by the Word of God without a regular appointment with the occasion and the setting in which our lives may be encountered, confronted, judged, graced, healed and sent forth again to be the people of God in the world. Living with wonder. © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 4   That could be a definition of being human. It speaks of living with the awareness of God, with the awareness that there is something more, a transcendent dimension; with a sense of grace that overcomes brokenness and failure; with a sense of vocation, calling, that gives life meaning and purpose. A sense of wonder. Living with wonder would enable others to sense through our language and behavior a life lived in openness and awesomeness before the world of things and peoples. As a friend and colleague described it, In an over-rational and over-explained world our overweened arrogance of knowledge teaches us that wonder is a temporary state of curiosity caused by an ignorance of adequate explanation. To realize that this universe, the one in outer space as well as inner space, holds mystery beyond imagination. Dag Hammarskjold was a celebrant of that mystery. He said in his diary, “God does not die on the day we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason. (Howard Moody) Isaiah's life was transformed in that moment of vision which occurred in the context of corporate worship. Every time we gather together here we place ourselves in the posture and setting where lightning may strike. Reflect with me about the act of corporate worship. Obviously one could bring a whole series of messages on the subject of the corporate worship of God and I cannot begin to cover the subject in this one message. My focus is very limited and specific: I am setting before you the great importance of a regular corporate worship as a spiritual discipline by which your life might be characterized by a sense of wonder. In choosing this narrow focus I create for myself inevitable problems. First, I can point to the vision of God which transforms human existence but I cannot guarantee that that will "happen" every time we gather for everyone, or even for anyone. God reveals Himself. God gives Himself. God is sovereign in His own unveiling. The same thing stated negatively - God cannot be manipulated by liturgical acts, incantations, sacramental actions. God is God. He is not at our disposal. He is not a genie to be "rubbed," moved by a magical formula or coerced into action by ritual of priest or people. I face a second problem: To speak of the vision of God is not the same thing as experiencing the vision of God. To speak about worship is not worship. Speaking as I am now, tied to a biblical text over which we have prayed and to which we © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 5   give attention is an essential action of corporate worship. In speaking as I am, I speak out of prayerful preparation with confidence in the promise of God to speak through my words. Yet here, too, God remains God; God remains free. In our Reformation tradition we have highly valued the sermon. We speak of the Word made flesh, the Word written and the Word preached and we call them all the Word of God. Nonetheless, apart from the present action of the Living God, the Word written remains a dead letter and the Word preached but human stammering. In other words, in corporate worship all of the forms, liturgical acts, gestures, sacramental actions are human structures that provide the framework in which the "happening" may occur. To use an analogy, the structure of the service and the actions in which we engage are like the train tracks. Whether the locomotive moves down those tracks is not in our power to determine. There is a third problem I face related to the one just mentioned: I can only describe that to which I refer rationally; yet what I am seeking to describe is beyond reason. Obviously as I speak to you I must attempt to be clear, to make sense. I work hard to make the message understandable. It must therefore be reasonable, able to be grasped by the reason. It must be logical so that its meaning can be grasped. But when I speak of the vision of God, of the inbreaking of God, of a “lightning strike” of revelation, I am speaking of an action of God, the experience of which is ineffable. The definition of “ineffable” is that which “cannot be expressed in words; unspeakable, unutterable, inexpressible.” Do you sense my dilemma? I am speaking about what is unspeakable, attempting to express what is inexpressible, trying to utter the unutterable. The best I can do is to point you by means of speech in logical thought, to a Reality which can only be experienced. In a classic study of the experience of God, which is beyond reason's ability to grasp or describe, The Idea of the Holy, by Rudolf Otto, the author states: This book, recognizing the profound import of the non-rational for metaphysics, makes a serious attempt to analyze all the more exactly the feeling which remains where the concept fails, and to introduce a terminology which is not any the more loose or indeterminate for having necessarily to make use of symbols. (Forward) To speak thus of "feeling" certainly is not to reduce religious experience to a purely human phenomenon. The translator of Otto's book writes in the preface: It is possible to devote our attention to religious “experience” in a sense which would almost leave out of account the object of which it is an experience. We may so concentrate upon the “feeling,” that the objective © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 6   cause of it may fall altogether out of sight. Is religious experience essentially just a state of mind, a feeling, whether of oppression or of exaltation, a sense of “sin” or an assurance of “salvation;” or is it not rather our apprehension of “the divine,” meaning by that term at least something independent of the mental and emotional state of the moment of experience? (p. XIIf.) In reference to Otto's purpose, the translator affirms: He is concerned to examine the nature of those elements in the religious experience which lie outside and beyond the scope of reason - which cannot be comprised in ethical or "rational" conceptions, but which none the less as "feelings" cannot be disregarded by an honest inquiry. And his argument shows in the first place that in all the forms which religious experience may assume and has assumed, so far as these can be reinterpreted ... certain basic "moments" of feeling ... are always found to recur. Speaking directly to our point, he continues, Here we are shown that the religious "feeling" properly involves a unique kind of apprehension, sui generis, not to be reduced to ordinary intellectual concepts, and yet - and this is the paradox of the matter - itself a genuine "knowing," the growing awareness of an object, deity. ... a response, so to speak, to the impact upon the human mind of the divine," as it reveals itself whether obscurely or clearly. The primary fact is the confrontation of the human mind with a Something, whose character is only gradually learned, but which is from the first felt as a transcendent present. "The beyond," even where it is also felt as "the within" man. (XIV F.) When I speak of the problem of expressing what is essentially inexpressible, I am speaking of what Otto describes in his study. The translator states it thus: The "feeling" element in religion involves, then, a genuine "knowing" or awareness, though, in contrast to that knowing which can express itself in concepts, it may be termed "non-rational." The feeling of the "uncanny," the thrill of awe or reverence, the sense of dependence, of impotence, or of nothingness, or again the feelings of religious rapture and exaltation, - all these are attempted designations of the mental states which attend the awareness of certain aspects of "the divine." (p. XV) It is to the "feeling" that remains when the concept fails that I point you. I can only point to the experience. Isaiah described such an experience in the imagery of the Temple service. There in the midst of some festival celebration God broke through to him. © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 7   It was a life-transforming moment. For the rest of his days he was shaped by that vision. Few of us will ever have such a vivid, dramatic encounter. But it is the contention of this message that it is in the setting of corporate worship that we put ourselves in the way of such an experience. It is here in the sanctuary that we are most likely to be encountered and that we have the greatest potential for apprehending the divine vision. If we would live with wonder then we can do no better than place ourselves in the presence of God with spirits open to the lightning strike of His glory. Rudolf Otto coins the word "numinous" to describe ... The specific non-rational religious apprehension and its object, at all its levels, from the first dim stirrings where religion can hardly yet be said to exist to the most exalted forms of spiritual experience. (p. XVII) But he maintains that we cannot dispense with the knowledge that comes through human reason and moral experience. He insists, writes Harvey, that for him the supremacy of Christianity over all other religions lies in the unique degree in which ... in Christianity the numinous elements, such as the sense of awe and reverence before the infinite mystery and infinite majesty, are yet combined and made one with the rational elements, assuring us that God is an all-righteous, all-provident, and all-loving Person, with whom a man may enter into the most intimate relationship. (p. XVII) Thus it is Otto's contention that religion ... is a real knowledge of, and real personal communion with, a Being Whose nature is yet above knowledge and transcends personality. This apparent contradiction cannot be evaded by concentrating upon an aspect of it and ignoring the other, without doing a real injury to religion. It must be faced directly in the experience of worship, and there, and only there, it ceases to be a contradiction and becomes a harmony. (p. XVII) God is the object of worship. We attempt to speak of God. The description of God is spoken of as the attributes of God and Otto writes, ... all these attributes constitute clear and definite concepts; they can be grasped by the intellect; they can be analyzed by thought; they even admit of definition. An object that can thus be thought conceptually may be termed rational. The nature of deity described in the attributes above mentioned is, then, a rational nature; and a religion which recognizes and maintains such a view of God is in so far a "rational" religion. Only on such terms is Belief possible in contrast to mere feeling. (p. 1) © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 8   However, too much religion, including our Reformed tradition, has stopped there. As Otto says, ... so far are these "rational" attributes from exhausting the idea of deity that they in fact imply a non-rational or supra-rational Subject of which they are predicates. ... That is to say, we have to predicate them of a subject which they qualify, but which in its deeper essence is not, nor indeed can be, comprehended in them; which rather requires comprehension of a quite different kind. (p. 2) Otto points to the failing of Christian orthodoxy in that it found in the construction of dogma and doctrine no way to do justice to the non-rational aspect of its subject. So far from keeping the non-rational element in religion alive in the heart of the religious experience, orthodox Christianity manifestly failed to recognize its value, and by this failure gave to the idea of God the one-sidedly intellectualistic and rationalistic interpretation. (p. 3) So much for the problems I encounter as I point you to the discipline of corporate worship as the place and occasion for an encounter with the living God from which one derives the sense of wonder that transforms all of life. Recognizing that I can point to the vision of God but cannot guarantee that to speak about worship is not the same as worshiping, and that I must describe the worship experience rationally, but that it is an experience beyond reason, let me nonetheless say something about the experience of corporate worship. The first statement I would make is that our worship is response to God. He has taken the initiative; He has woven the truth of His being into the fabric of our being and no matter how much we deface His image in our souls, yet we can never fully divest ourselves of the trace of His imprint. This is where we part company with those following the German philosopher/theologian Feuerbach, such as Marx and Freud and company, who insist that religion is of human creation, prompted by human need and thus must be understood not as response to the revelation of God, but as a purely human action fashioning God out of human projections. We speak of the "feeling" that remains when the concept fails; we speak of that which shatters our reason and breaks the bounds of our rational thinking, but we insist that is a reflex action a response, a re-action. God reveals Himself; our worship is response. Thus worship is something the People do Godward; it is human action offered to God Who is the object of our worship. Therefore, while worship should be edifying and instructive, edification and instruction are not in themselves worship. Therefore, worship ought never to be boring, but neither is its purpose entertainment, simply holding the people's attention. Worship is the offering of praise and adoration to God Who has made © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 9   Himself known to us so that we cannot but respond by acknowledging His worthship. Secondly, the corporate worship of God occurs in a carefully choreographed, dramatic pageant. Such a statement will certainly not be accepted by all without objection. Let me quickly admit that there is a large variety of acceptable modes of worship. Where God's people gather, God's truth is declared and God's Spirit is present, there the worship of God occurs. Let me acknowledge further that various modes and media of worship touch different persons. There must be no stereotyping of personality type that alone can worship truly, and worship depends not on one's theological understanding, liturgical training or aesthetic sense. Granting that I must insist that the worship of God demands of us the highest attention, the most strenuous care for detail, and the utilization of our best gifts all devoted to excellence of form and content in the experience of worship, I have acknowledged the legitimacy of variety in modes of worship: the silence of the plain Quaker Meeting House, the fervor of the Charismatic Pentecostals, the solemn dignity of Evensong in the setting of Cathedral magnificence. Yet, let me put in a word for the mode of worship created in this place week by week. I spoke of a carefully choreographed, dramatic pageant. The word pageant has several definitions. The most obvious is "a scene acted on a stage." Another definition is "a spectacle arranged for effect." And "pageantry" is defined as "splendid display; pomp." "Pomp" is defined as "splendid display or celebration; splendour, magnificence. " In the definitions of pageantry and pomp there is also another meaning of empty display or ostentation. That is interesting because it indicates what a fine line there is between truth and its counterfeit. That is why religious ritual and ceremony have so frequently through the centuries become empty, lifeless display without substance, without soul. Hollow forms have been the curse of the Church, foisted on her by ministers and priests without passion and faith, by religious leaders grown callous through familiarity with holy things. Acknowledging all of that, I must still contend that the celebration of worship of the People of God at its highest and best is the full-spectrum pageant in which is utilized the arts which appeal to the aesthetic sense: music that moves one in the depths; movement that expresses what leaves the tongue dumb; color and symbol creating a feast for the eye; the word of truth that engages the mind and triggers the emotion that triggers the will; candles and crosses and colors of vestments; incense and smoke rising heavenward; © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page10   the roar of the mighty organ; the chill of an obligate; the simplicity of a gesture - breaking bread, pouring wine, making the sign of the cross on a forehead with baptismal water; The word of assurance -"Your sins are forgiven; go in peace." Choir and congregation in one mighty voice, singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Alleluia! Go back to the definition of pageant: "A spectacle arranged for effect." That is it, you see: arranged for effect. What effect? The vision of God, surely! The vision of God, high and lifted up! I cannot in calm rational discourse affect the vision; I can only point to it, speak about it, draw out the implications of it. Sweet reason does not remove the veil from the face of the living God. Reason reaches its limit; rational discourse comes to its bounding and still beyond reigns the living God. He must come to us. He must penetrate our space and time. But if I can choreograph a pageant full of sound and sight which engages not only the head but the heart and soul, then at least I have set the stage - created the setting, arranged the spectacle where the effect might, if God be gracious, happen. In such a setting I just may catch a glimpse of His glory; there may well be a moment in which there is a rift in the sky and in that moment my life may well be transformed, become radiant with light and full of glory. Then I will have come to know God Who is beyond knowledge, and to possess a joy which is unspeakable. Then my life will be full of wonder, and I will walk beneath the blue sky of the heavens as though it were a great vaulted cathedral and my every day will be vibrant with praise. Finally, in such an experience of worship all of life is lifted into the presence of God, cleansed and claimed and sent forth to serve. It is here in worship that one is most likely to hear the Voice, "Who will go for me?" "Whom shall I send?" It is while one is lost in wonder, love and praise that one is most open to respond, "Here am I, send me." That, of course, is why this service always culminates in the offering. Where a People has caught a glimpse of the glory of God and heard the call of God, response is inevitable. Some action is called for, some gesture must be made. That is why the organ builds to mighty crescendo, the people rise, the gifts come forward and together we sing, "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow." © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page11   How could we remain seated, passive, uninvolved? Such is the wonder of worship. From such worship flows life full of wonder. Living with wonder is living with heaven on earth. Reference: Rudolf Otto. The Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey. Oxford University Press, 1958. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Epiphany III Series LifeLines Scripture Text Isaiah 6:1 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Rudolf Otto. The Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey, 1958. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19850203 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-02-03 Title A name given to the resource Living with Wonder Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 3, 1985 entitled "Living with Wonder", as part of the series "LifeLines", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 6:1. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Presence Prophet Isaiah Sacred Transcendence Wonder Worship https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3fd5e9c187ca04d03cd880dd3dea5bee.pdf 7e9eb7601c441e6c39767e4ebb7947a9 PDF Text Text Morning Prayer in June Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan June 22, 2003 Transcription of the written prayer For these moments, let us quiet our minds, letting go of concerns that burden us, regrets that cripple us, fears that paralyze us, whatever is troubling us. Let us image that which causes gratitude to rise in us -the gift and grace of life; the sources of our joy; those persons who make life rich. Let us call to mind those images which have shaped us: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Since God is for us, who can be against us? Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. All will be well, all will be well. All manner of things will be well. Oh, God. Those words rise from our depths so naturally – Oh, God... It seems that, in moments like these when we purposefully, intentionally turn to you, when we turn to whomever or whatever you are, we do so almost with a sigh, - Oh, God – for we know we are now in the zone of Mystery. There was something about Jesus when he prayed © Grand Valley State University   �Morning Prayer in June Richard A. Rhem Page 2   that caused the disciples to plead, Lord, teach us to pray. We plead, as well, Oh, God, teach us to pray. Once, perhaps, we came as suppliants to the Royal Throne of the universe with requests we must admit on reflection were very self-centered, reflecting a very small universe in which our hopes and fears loomed very large. And still there are moments when we flee into your Presence, totally occupied with our own concerns – something that threatens us, or some experience that crushes us, or some potential happening that involves us in a loss we fear would undo us. Saturate our faith and devotion with worldliness, that we may love the world – with sensitivity, with awareness, with openness and candor, with care borne of insight into the world's agony, with hope borne of the realization of the world's wonder and potential. Before the world's chaos, pain and anguish, give us the wisdom to be silent before we speak; to identify with and immerse ourselves before we offer remedies too easy, too facile, too self-serving. Give us insight and sensitivity to discern that ominous thunder of the shaking of the foundations, to recognize the recurrent corruptions of power that we see all around us. Enable us to see beneath the skin of the world its heaving passion, its loveliness and its horror; a world that is a ridiculous mixture of good and evil, of beautiful tenderness and unspeakable brutality. A world where flowers bloom on manure heaps, and deadly cancer grows on a beautiful, young body; a world under the dominion of death, natural, yet often so unexpected, so violent, so absurd! Ah, dear God, this is the real world, the only world we have with its dreams of Eden and its portents of Armageddon. O God, as you love the world, we would love it too. Teach us how to live in it, how to speak to it, how to love it. Let us sense the truth of Jesus' word: That it is in losing our lives that we will find life, In serving that we will be fulfilled. © Grand Valley State University �Morning Prayer in June Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Creator Spirit, brood over this community of faith, this Christ Community. Keep us steady; keep us strong, keep our spirits open, our hearts tender, our whole being full of grace. Sometimes we wonder, sometimes we waver, sometimes we want to run, to be done with it all. But, where would that leave us? Where would we run? To whom would we turn? So, good and gracious God, gather us in, hold us close, steel our purpose. Give us joy in the journey and undying trust in your purpose for us. And sometimes it is sheer joy, ecstasy, exhilaration that bursts forth in a torrent of praise, shutting out everything else for the moment. But, more and more, we look not out there, but somehow within, into our own depths, sensing we are connected deep down, rooted in Being itself, You being the inexhaustible Source and Ground of all that exists the good earth, the starry heavens, the ocean's tides and ourselves, conscious, aware, groping for some clue by which to know you, to rest in you, no longer strangers, but at home in the universe, at one with all that is. Oh, God. In that address is a deep fundamental trust in the face of so much in our world that is not well. We wonder, we imagine an alternative world, where human frustration, hopelessness and despair that breed violence and destruction are recognized and their causes dealt with. Spirit of God, save us from the illusion that a new world order will be born out of a wealth of resources and sheer military might. Save us from the pitfall of believing we can simply overpower and cover our vulnerability without an honest facing of the world's festering soul. Before your face, Eternal Spirit, give us some balance, some perspective as we wrestle with this complex and dangerous world. © Grand Valley State University �Morning Prayer in June Richard A. Rhem Oh God, this is the real world, the only world we have. We celebrate it; we anguish over it. Holy Presence, we are present here that vision may be renewed, hope restored, and courage found to be agents of reconciliation, bringing peace, justice and compassion, walking in the steps of that Exemplar of what He called the Kingdom of God. Amen. © Grand Valley State University Page 4   � 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 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Event Pentecost II 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 RA-1-20030622 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Morning Prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Prayer created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 22, 2003 entitled "Morning Prayer", on the occasion of Pentecost II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Tags: Prayer, Community, Presence, Mystery, Faith, Awareness, Trust, Global Community. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-06-22 Awareness Community Faith Global Community Mystery Prayer Presence Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2f5dbeea1e8e116d5a62918554c69200.pdf 11c2508024f7c570f806f2af36093130 PDF Text Text Religion: Binding or Setting Free From the series: Moving On To Maturity Text: Isaiah 46:3-4; Ephesians 1:17-19; Matthew 23:15 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan July 18, 1999 Transcription of the spoken sermon I hope you got up this morning and said, "Ah, Sunday. We get to go to church." If you got up and said, "It’s Sunday; we have to go to church," I hope you feel a little guilty for about five minutes, but not much longer than that. Religion ought to be an experience of joy and liberation, and Sunday worship ought to be the crown of it all, the time when we find inspiration and encouragement and new reason to live zestfully. I find that what I am dealing with this morning pops up on my chart quite often. The fact that religion ought to be a source of freedom. I would like to be known as the singer of the song of the soul set free. Some Lents ago I preached a rather strange sermon, admittedly; it was a sermon about the insurrectionist that was crucified with Jesus. Now, not the good one, you know. Everybody preaches on the good one. After all, the good one pleaded for mercy in the end and got this wonderful promise from Jesus. But I preached on the one that remained belligerent, cursing through his teeth to his last breath, finding therein something I thought rather heroic. I suppose because of my own Libertarianism and contrariness, perhaps. But I thought it was probably not biblically accurate, but interesting. However, someone got really angry with me about that and came in to see me, and said to me, "All you preach is freedom and grace and in my work, I find out that what people need are rules and guidance and discipline." And it was a moment of awakening for me. I think I didn’t react defensively, I just smiled and I said, "Well, they won’t get it from me." And it was a moment of awakening wherein I recognized that I am not a complete preacher. No one has ever accused me of balance. I think balance is boring, and balance ends up in making no point deeply, and I can’t be everything. I have been shaped in a certain way and had certain kinds of experiences, and that has enabled me to put my finger on what I discern is a very important niche to be filled - that is to seek to save people from religion, to set people free, free from religion, especially religion. And I have been doing that now for a long time and as this morning we continue in this series, "Moving On To Maturity," I simply want to say what I’ve said here many times but find that it needs to be said again and again because © Grand Valley State University   �Religion Binding or Setting Free Richard A. Rhem Page 2   there is something intrinsic in religion that tends to bind and cripple the human personality rather than setting a person free. So, this morning, let me say I am the herald of good religion that releases and sets free, and I would speak a word against that religion that binds the soul and becomes a burden to be borne, because there is a lot of religion that way. We need to recognize how religion arose in the first place. It didn’t just drop down out of heaven, and it is not something that God gave to us, but it is something that we have created in our attempt to respond to God in the early beginnings of what we call the human, the beginnings of consciousness, of selfconsciousness. There was the growing awareness of one’s existence, how fragile it is, how perilous it is, and inevitably with the emergence of the human come questions of meaning and of purpose. From whence have we come and whither are we going, and what is the meaning of it, anyway? Life with its passages and its perils is not easy to negotiate, and in the early dawning of human consciousness these deeply existential questions began to be asked, and then someone saw a bush that burned and wasn’t consumed. Someone entered the temple and it was filled with smoke and the pillars of the temple were shaking. Someone looked at a man and said, "The Lamb of God." Someone was going on the road to Damascus and a bright light encountered him and a voice spoke to him. In our own tradition, but we could duplicate that in all the great religious traditions, there was someone sometime who had some kind of experience and, to the extent that that experience spoke to the reality of his or her situation, and to the extent that as it was shared, it resonated with the experience of others, there was a gathered community and then a gathered community that became a tradition, and that experience was reduced to a teaching and a ritual through which one worshipped and a way of life. And so, we have the great religions that are based on a founding experience and have taken on a certain institutional form, and those great religions continue to serve people as life maps, to give orientation, to answer those alternate questions of life as we live in the mystery of our existence before that Ultimate Mystery that bears us. That’s the nature of religion. If you were here in May when we welcomed our eighth graders into the continuing pilgrimage of faith, you heard me say to them that all we could give to them was secondhand religion and that really is what institutional, traditional religion is - it’s secondhand religion, and I quoted a statement of William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience, where he said, "Such an ordinary religious person, his religion has been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit." And that’s really true, when you think about it. There is the experience that someone else had. There’s the tradition that conveys it. There is the form by which it is fixed by imitation or repetition, and continued by habit. So, most of us are what we were born to be; we are within the tradition and that understanding with which we were born and nurtured, and our religion secondhand. Now, hopefully it becomes the occasion for fresh experience, for firsthand experience. But, institutional religion is, after all, a commodity which inevitably tends, in its © Grand Valley State University �Religion Binding or Setting Free Richard A. Rhem Page 3   institutional forms which are necessary, it tends to become a burden rather than that which lifts the burden. It tends to become another obligation for which we feel responsible and it becomes burdensome. Second Isaiah, with the Jews in exile in Babylon, gives us a marvelous picture of religion that has become a burden. Baal and Nibo were the chief gods of the Babylonians and the Jews in exile would see on New Year’s Day the grand processions of the images of the gods, down from their pedestals, taken on parade around the walls of the city. The problem with the Jews in exile was that it seemed to them that these gods must be the chief gods because where was their God? They were in exile; they were in captivity. So, the prophet has to remind them that their God is the creator of the heavens and the earth. He has to have them remember who their God really is, and in drawing this picture with a little satire and humor, he pictures the images of the gods being taken from their pedestals and put on beasts of burden and carried out of town, not in a New Year’s feast, now, but because the enemy is at the gate and what they’re trying to do is save their gods. Now, if you don’t get a little laugh out of that, you see, their gods are going into captivity; they’ve got to rescue their gods! For gods’ sake, they have to take care of their gods! And the prophet says to them, "Look at them, carrying off their gods in order that they not be taken into captivity and their images can’t say a word, they can’t save, they become a burden to be borne." And then, in contrast to that, he sets forth these words from the Lord, "Listen to me, O house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb, even to your old age, I am God. Even when you turn gray, I will carry you. I have made and I will bear. I will carry and I will save." God is not a god that needs to be rescued or a burden to be borne, but a God Who carries, a God Who lifts, a God Who rescues, and a God Who saves. Now, we can laugh at the silly Babylonians for putting all that stock in those images that they put on beasts of burden. Can’t you see the idols sort of tipping off because the poor, old beast can’t handle it and the idol’s nose is dragged in the dust as it’s going out of town in order to be rescued. And we can laugh at that, and the prophet intended this satire to be biting, but our religion so easily becomes that. Take, for example, the Church. Ask me about the Church. It’s not so easy to keep the machinery going; it’s not so easy to keep the budget up to snuff, and then all of the programs of the church - how many pulpit announcements don’t jerk you just a little bit, add just a pinch of guilt? And if you didn’t get up this morning and say, "Oh, thank God it’s Sunday; I get to go to church," maybe you were saying, "Oh, what a beautiful summer day. But, I suppose we’d better go to church. There was poor old Dick slaving all Saturday and he’s going to sit on his stool and nobody there, we’d better go." There’s so many good people who support religion for all the wrong reasons. I’ve known a lot of good church leaders that way. They remind me of what Mark Twain said, "A good man in the worst sense of the word." Think about that. © Grand Valley State University �Religion Binding or Setting Free Richard A. Rhem Page 4   I do thank God for responsible people and serious people and people who bear the burden in the heat of the day and who keep it going, but I have to tell you - it can turn religion into a burden and it misses the intention. It makes religion an end in itself rather than a means to the end of setting the soul free and finding a way to sing and shout and dance. Religion is a means to an end, it’s not an end in itself, and when it becomes organized and institutionalized and established well, it becomes something that has to be kept up. Just look around us today - all the stuff about religion in the newspaper, about plastering the Ten Commandments on every wall in the schools and in the courts. We want to have children pray in school. Why? Not because we’re so concerned about the spiritual life of people, but rather because we are afraid the morality of the nation is unraveling and we have to keep the Ten Commandments up there, and we’ve got to get children praying and we have to expose them to all this. We have to utilize religion in order to keep society from disintegrating and that makes religion oppressive; it uses religion; it makes religion a tool, and it sours us. Religion used for any other purpose than the worship of God, dancing before God Who sets the soul free, is bad religion, good for family values, good for community values, good for maintaining the civilization in the West, and all of that misses the point, and all of it abuses and misuses religion, and all of it makes religion a burden to be borne. In the Church, my philosophy over the years of programming has been do only as much as you have to. I never try to scratch where people don’t itch. The things that will meet human need are the things that will be supported, people will be there. Otherwise, you have an elaborate program and you plead with people to participate in these good things we have prepared. The whole society today is organizing all kinds of good things for me to do that I don’t want to do. I don’t need to do them, and the Church can be as guilty, and maybe more guilty than any other social organization in providing all sorts of "stuff." It becomes a burden, and the more serious you are, the more conscientious you are, the more you are inclined to support this project. It’s like the PTA - everybody ought to support the PTA, everybody ought to support the United Fund, everyone ought to support Boy Scouts in America, everybody ought to support the Cancer Drive, whatever drive there may be, and, for God’s sake, we ought to support the Church. A community needs a church. It makes for a good community. It just makes for better people. All such reasoning misses the point completely. We imitate the Babylonians hoisting their gods off the pedestals onto the beasts of burden and trying to guide them and keep them from falling, trying to get them out of town so the gods can be saved. I don’t think anyone here is into that kind of religion, but if there is, you really need a sabbatical - get cleansed of it or you’ll never be able to enjoy God. If your religion is heavy with obligation under the tyranny of ought, the musts, and the shoulds, you are burdened. Jesus certainly knew that. When I read the 23rd chapter of Matthew, as other Gospel passages of conflict, I always want to say the controversy is probably © Grand Valley State University �Religion Binding or Setting Free Richard A. Rhem Page 5   between Matthew and those he was in conflict with rather than reflective of Jesus in his time. However, certainly Matthew was reflective of the spirit of Jesus and the intention of Jesus, and one of the reasons that Jesus got into such serious trouble was that he didn’t support that kind of institutional religion that had become a burden, and in the 23rd chapter of Matthew we read, "You bind heavy burdens on people that they cannot bear and you don’t yourself." He said the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat so when they teach, they are teaching you Moses, the Mosaic tradition, that’s fine. But, don’t do as they do." And in the conclusion to that chapter he says, "Woe to you. You go all over the world and make a proselyte and once you have a proselyte, you’ve made him twice over the child of Hell, binding heavy burdens on people, trying to make them religious and all of it turns upside down what it’s really all about, which is setting the soul free." Jesus was so strong against the conventional wisdom of his day that put people in their places and through their paces, and he violated all of the taboos in the interest of people with that sense he had of the graciousness of God. What we do with bad religion is scandalize God. What kind of a God is it, anyway? A stern, demanding parent who created us and then keeps us in our adolescence, treating us as naughty children. The biblical paradigm of paradise and fall adds to that. We’re guilty sinners. Are we guilty sinners? Well, let’s go to Kosovo, or let’s look into our own heart. Of course, we are. But, not because we have fallen from some pristine perfection, but because we are still clawing our way out of the jungle, and we haven’t made as much progress as we should have made. But, I will tell you what - that stern, demanding father doesn’t help any. Rather, it binds us in our rebellion and it keeps us in our immaturity. God is for us! This is what Paul was trying to say. If I had more time this morning, I could have read the whole first chapter of Ephesians, those first fourteen verses fairly soar as Paul talks about the eternal, everlasting grace of God, His loving us, knowing us before the foundations of the world and working things out according to his purposes. A grand, grand passage. And then Paul comes to address his people in Ephesus personally, where he says, "I pray for you that God will enlighten the eyes of your understanding, that the inner being will be illumined that you might come to know what is the hope to which he calls you. What are the riches of the inheritance which is yours, what is the power available to you, the very power and resurrection." Paul says, "Oh, I hope you’re getting it. I pray to God that He will help you to see it." You see, Paul was the one who had that pounding vision; Paul had his soul on fire and he said to these people, "It’s so grand, the grace of God is so big, so rich, so wonderful! I hope that you have come to see it." When religion is used as a means for everything else other than dancing before God , it becomes a burden to be borne rather than a gift to be celebrated, and it binds the human soul rather than setting free. © Grand Valley State University �Religion Binding or Setting Free Richard A. Rhem Page 6   I want to say this clearly this morning - there are religious observances that are important and helpful. Talking about religious observances, which I’ve been rather hard on this morning, C. S. Lewis said, "When we carry out our religious duties, we are like people digging channels in a waterless land in order that when at last the water comes, it may find them ready. There are happy moments, even now, when a trickle creeps along the dry beds, and happy souls for whom this happens often." Obviously I know that there are certain religious observances that we go through and sometimes going through them, there’s no electric shock, no lightning strikes, but we do have a pattern of religious life, and we do that because we know that, now and again, here and there, there will be a trickle of water, fresh breath, new insight, deep resting in grace. And so, we keep coming and we keep opening ourselves, and we keep practicing. But, all the time we know it’s not to keep the community healthy or the nations sound or our accounts square with a stern, demanding God, heavenly parent. But, we do it because now and again we’ve tasted grace. We know the taste of cool, running water, and we long more and more to be lifted by that experience. There was once a pastor who had a little boy who used to come down from the parsonage to the study on the parking lot here every morning to say to his father who was the preacher, "Daddy, what day is it?" The father would say, "Tuesday." "Oh, good." He would come down again, "Daddy, what day is it?" "Thursday." "Oh, good." "Saturday." "Good." "Sunday." "Ahhhh," and he would go into a wailing temper tantrum. Sunday; ugly Sunday. Well, God has a special grace for preachers’ kids, and the preacher was a stern father and a demanding heavenly parent type and he broke the child’s will and the child eventually came to church. But that story always amused me because I think it reflects the experience of many of us growing up. Sunday. Church. You don’t have to come, but come when you need to. Come, like digging up channels in a waterless land, and just maybe, just maybe there will be a trickle of water. And, if it’s rules and guidance and structure that you need, check down the street. But, if you need a shot of grace, I’ll see you every Sunday. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b417c72aa6ccfad27784669355fff6bc.mp3 2059f0baa4782ca6c32032d7e3b106fc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost IX Series Moving On To Maturity Scripture Text Isaiah 46:3-4, Ephesians 1:17-19, Matthew 23:15 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-0-19990718 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-07-18 Title A name given to the resource Religion: Binding or Setting Free? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 18, 1999 entitled "Religion: Binding or Setting Free?", as part of the series "Moving On To Maturity", on the occasion of Pentecost IX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 46:3-4, Ephesians 1:17-19, Matthew 23:15. Presence Religion as a Human Construct Ritual https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cc5a17acfe8b56b1f64ca99387388081.pdf c0d80f13083483ae20aeb840c0e197c7 PDF Text Text The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness From the sermon series on the Book of Job Text: Job 13:15, in four translations Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XII, August 14, 1994 Transcription of the spoken sermon "He may kill me, but I won't stop; I will speak the truth to his face, Translation by Stephen Mitchell "He may slay me, I'll not quaver. I will defend my conduct to his face." Translation by Marvin Pope "If he would slay me, I should not hesitate; I should still argue my cause to his face." New English Bible "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him: But I will maintain my own ways before him." King James   I find it is not so easy to bring Job to a conclusion. I struggled in the last service and am very thankful I don't have such a long struggle this time. I have four manuscripts in various stages of completion, and had to finally quit and say, "So, what's the bottom line?" The last word of Job must be this, I believe, "There is a Mystery of Suffering, in the midst of which we must dare to trust God, even in suffering’s darkest days." In his poem, the author of Job makes it eloquently clear that the innocent suffer, that the kind of world that we live in is a world where cancer strikes "willy-nilly," blood clots form, loved ones are ripped from our lives, and sometimes the wicked prosper and the innocent suffer. The word last week, the voice from the whirlwind, was God's defense against Job's accusation, which comes to expression in the text of the morning, "He may kill me, but I'll not quaver." Job was absolutely convinced that the conventional wisdom was wrong. He was so convinced that the religious establishment didn't have it right, that he was willing to stand with his fist raised to heaven. There were moments of deep pathos when we felt Job reaching out. "Oh that I knew where I might find him," says Job, because he was convinced that he had a case to make. Ironically, Job in some ways still shared the erroneous conventional wisdom of his friends. Job still felt that somehow or other God sent that suffering. And if God sent that suffering, God was unjust, for in his case, God was in the wrong. Job cried out to heaven © Grand Valley State University   �The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness Richard A. Rhem Page 2   and said, "If it takes my life, I'm going to state my case." Well, God showed up, as we noted last week, and out of the whirlwind Job was given a panoramic view of cosmic reality and it literally blew him away. He said, "Well, I knew God is big. I never denied that. I knew if I ever did get my opportunity to state my case I'd probably have no chance against God so now I will be silent." But he was still thinking the same way. Once again the voice sounds and God says, "Job, come on and take my place. What would you do if you were God for a day? Because you see, Job, the issue is not whether or not I have absolute power. The issue is: What does one with absolute power do in a world where there are other values as well, values that I have woven into the fabric of creation—freedom of choice, moral choice, spontaneously offered worship, virtue done for its own sake? How does one guard those values in a cosmos like this as one seeks to manage the world, even if one be God?" God is saying, it seems to me, "The world is not perfect, it is a world where cancer strikes, a world where people die, it is a world where darkness can be oh, so dark, but I, God, given the values to which I am committed and the created order I am weaving together – I, God, am doing the best I can do." Well, where does that leave us? Is that a God in which you can find comfort and security? It certainly isn't the traditional view of God that we have been nurtured on, is it? The traditional view of God that we've been nurtured on is a God of the omni's: omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, knowing all, present everywhere, all powerful, able to do all. Some of us, at least, who have come out of the Reformed tradition have had that large word "predestination" hovering over us throughout all of our days; that is, that all things ultimately are predetermined, that there is a predestinating will of God that determines all that happens. I heard a delightful story the other evening. It was a family story about a young man courting a young lady whose father was a sturdy Christian, of strong persuasion that predestination is indeed the rule, and that God indeed determines all that happens. As they were walking the back 40 acres, a donkey happened to bray and the young man, the interlocutor, said, "You mean at 3:00 in the afternoon on this given date, God determined that that donkey should bray?" The old man said, "Absolutely. My God is a God that makes it so that whatever is going to happen is going to happen, whether it happens or not." (Laughter) Now, Yogi Berra would have been proud to have said that, wouldn't he? If you think about it, "whatever is going to happen is going to happen whether it happens or not," now that's a muscular God, that's a macho God, that's a no nonsense God, that's a God in control. If we want anything, we want God in control, and understandably so. We don't want to be orphans in a pathless wilderness leading nowhere. We don't want to feel abandoned and alone on this spinning mud-heap. But if I hear the voice from the whirlwind correctly, then that old classic idea of God of the omni's is flawed. In the light of what we know about cosmic reality, if we know anything about our world, the cosmos, we know there is a kind of randomness about it. There is an unpredictability, there is the Huizenberg second law of thermo dynamics (which of course, you all © Grand Valley State University �The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness Richard A. Rhem Page 3   understand), a law that on the one hand was able to open a cause and effect universe that had no room for miracle or eruption of the new, but on the other hand shows us that this cosmos is so much more mysterious than we ever dreamed of. Perhaps the people today, who stand in the greatest awe, are the physicists who study the mystery of the universe and are continually mystified at ever deepening reality. So, the God of the whirlwind is a God who suggests that, while this is not a perfect world, God is nonetheless engaged in moving it in that direction, and invites us who are created in the image of God to grow up and to become mature and to join our shoulders to the task as well. It is not so much that I look at God in my pain and say, "Why are you doing this to me?" But rather, I sense the presence of God with me in the midst of the darkness, moving toward the Light. What I really need to know, I think, is what Job needed to know. He longed not to receive a logical and rational answer to the mystery of suffering, but to know that there was someone who would show up, that there was a Voice, that there was Someone engaged and involved. When Job saw that, Job said, "I didn't know. I didn't understand. I didn't realize." If we're honest, I think we would all have to own the fact that we would love to have God simply a littler larger than our parents, a divine parent, someone who could make it all right, someone who could fix it all, soothe it all, salve the wounds. Friends, it isn't so. You know it isn't so. If in that old classic idea of God where God is throwing all the switches and pulling all the strings, there is an awful lot of darkness and pain and horror in this world that then has to be attributed to God. It won't do simply to say that all the darkness and the pain and the horror of the world is the consequence of human sin and rebellion. There is a grand residue of darkness for which there is no explanation, and for which there seems to be no meaning and no purpose. There is a contemporary school of theology that has been very helpful to me. It's called "Process Theology," which does not deny God's ultimate power and purpose, rather sees God neither aloof nor pulling the strings, but rather a God who is in there with us, a fellow traveler, a fellow struggler, a fellow sufferer, One who has invited us to join in the creative purposes that would move reality toward the realization of love and mercy and justice. The vision of Shalom, that beautiful word, which we translate as "peace," is more than peace. It is a vision of the total harmony of things. If I understand the God who speaks through the whirlwind, if I understand the message of the poet-Job, there is a picture there of a God, who, in the midst of this cosmic reality, is far beyond our ability even to conceive. It is a vision of a God who is engaged in the movement toward wholeness and toward Shalom, and invites us to become one with God and the establishment of justice, and the doing of mercy, and the building of community for the purpose of Shalom. A God like that I can trust in the darkness, a God who is for us. © Grand Valley State University �The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness Richard A. Rhem Page 4   This was Paul's conviction. "What can separate us from the love of Christ, famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Know in all things that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that there is no angel or principality or power or thing in the heights or the depths, nothing in all creation that can ever separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord." That God I can trust in the darkness, believing that God is for us, that God's purposes of love are for wholeness and health and Shalom, and that God is doing all God can do. Given not only God's absolute power, but also God's absolute commitment to our human freedom and our moral choice, and the universe in which there is elbowroom for the reality and authenticity of a human creature living in the image of God. A God like that I can trust. Ironically, the religious always try to protect God and to blunt human responsibility. So that as you read the citation of William Safire in the bulletin states, the translation of Job 13:15, is not as we read it this morning as it is accurately translated, "Though he killed me, yet I will not quaver," but rather the mistranslation of, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." This translation plays down the darkness and blunts the edge of Job's charge. But ironically the mistranslation may actually better articulate the bottom line in the book of Job. It is said, perhaps even better, in Psalm 23, by the Psalmist who had also struggled with the prosperity of the wicked and yet says, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee, there is none on earth that I desire beside thee." I like it better in the words of Habakkuk who struggled with the place of God in human events, who finally said, "Though there be no olive crop, though there be no cattle in the stall, though all be lost, yet I will rejoice in God, my Savior." There is that witness in our tradition. There is that Biblical witness that is able to say, "Nevertheless... Let it all be stripped away, nevertheless ... I will trust." That's where Job came to rest. And that's finally where Job would invite us to rest. As I said last week, the evidence is divided, the circumstances full of ambiguity. There is no simple and easy unraveling of the knot of the Mystery of human suffering. But, finally, the alternatives are embittered cynicism and cursing the darkness, or trust in God that will sustain one through hell itself— "Though he slay me, yet will I trust Him." © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8fd6010e9c25529043ffde293385aeb4.mp3 7317fab644e3402970396d5eb576e560 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XII Series The Job Series Scripture Text Job 13:15, Romans 8:39 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19940814 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-08-14 Title A name given to the resource The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 14, 1994 entitled "The Mystery of Suffering: Trust in the Darkness", as part of the series "The Job Series", on the occasion of Pentecost XII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Job 13:15, Romans 8:39. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Hebrew Scriptures Meaning Nature of God Pentecost Presence Shalom Trust