1 24 4 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/370652d735191c2e3c570dbeafca3eb8.mp3 46bdc358ed9268f184911abc620cc597 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/afebbd0c3125a892e005f456dcf27fa5.pdf f8c583e9588128c29b3f8ada55cc8eb1 PDF Text Text The Insight That Makes Praise Irrepressible A Reflection on the Psalms Text: Psalm 103:13-14 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan August 9, 1987 Transcription of the spoken sermon As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. Psalm 103:13-14 With this message I will leave the Psalms for a time but, before doing so, I want to conclude with a Psalm of praise and thanks giving. If you want to classify it according to the interpretative framework of the previous messages, it is a psalm of orientation or, perhaps, new orientation, a hymn of praise, "a public song sung with abandonment in praise of God's person or the nature of God's creating and liberating actions." (Brueggemann) One could debate if the praise hymn is response to some surprise of grace or if it issues forth from the heart of one convinced of the goodness of God and the meaningfulness of life. I treat in this message Psalm 103, not to demonstrate one of the three classifications we have been tracing, but rather as one final demonstration of the beautiful way in which genuine human experience is acknowledged, brought into the presence of God and thus how human experience is really affirmed. By that I mean that, according to the best insight of Old Testament faith, it is O.K. to be human. Human is what God made us; for that we need make no apologies. To be human is to be a person on the way, a person in process; it is thus to be incomplete. To be human is to be vulnerable and to be fallible; to be human is to live in tension between the highest idealism and the lowest meanness, between high aspirations and moderate achievement, between soaring dreams and visions and frustrating roadblocks. To be human is to know the good and fail to perform it, to resolve the best and too often produce the worst. That being the truth of our humanness, there is a marvelous statement in Psalm 103 that should mean everything to us. It is an insight that makes praise irrepressible. In a psalm full of insight, it is this insight that makes it impossible to be silent. © Grand Valley State University   �Insight that Makes Praise Irrepressible Richard A. Rhem Page 2   As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. Psalm 103:13-14 Is there any greater comfort than that? He knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. He knows our frame - of course, is he not our Creator? He remembers that we are dust - of course, that is the way he made us. And, in contrast, these affirmations are not simply statements of fact; rather, I hear the Psalmist saying, "It is all right to be human." We can be who we are. A more accurate translation of our text is: For he knows our form, mindful that we are clay. That calls to our minds immediately the creation account in Genesis 2. In the profound imagery and symbolism of that creation story we read, Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Genesis 2:7 The word for man is generic in the Hebrew; it is adham from whence we derive Adam. The story, however, is not first of all about a man named Adam, but about a creature, Adham, who is formed from Adhamah, "dust", or better, "clay." One translation of Genesis 2:7 puts it this way: God formed man (Adam) from the clods in the soil (Adama). We will probably never displace "dust" from our minds, yet the meaning is that the stuff of the soil is the stuff of which the human creature is formed. Sometime we speak of a human person as an "earthling" and this would be a comparable play on words - an earthling of the earth. It would be stretching it a bit if we found here the source of that negative label we sometimes put on ourselves when we refer to ourselves or another as a "clod." Yet perhaps precisely that common put-down points up a critical insight; we do put ourselves and others down for being what we are in our clumsy and awkward moments. We feel "cloddy." However, what we must see is that the reality of our identity with the created order is not in the Bible a put-down; it is simply an open recognition, an owning of our very creatureliness - a part of a created whole which the Hebrew writer understood as being pronounced "good" as it came from the Creator's hand. To the extent that the generic name "man" came to be used as a name for a person, it reflects the ancient idea that a name literally "named," that is, it bespoke the essence of the thing named. Adam, then, if you would think of a concrete human creature, was named according to his intimate relationship to the earth. © Grand Valley State University �Insight that Makes Praise Irrepressible Richard A. Rhem Page 3   The image of the Genesis story, which is reflected in our text, is that of God as the potter who takes up the clay and fashions it into the design of His desiring. The human creature is the product, if you will, of the Divine design and initiation. God has created us; God has fashioned us to reflect His own creative purpose. If we back up to Genesis 1, we find that account of Creation speaking of God creating the human person in His own image, which truth is picked up in Psalm 8, the psalm with which this series of messages began, ... Thou hast made him little less than God, ... That idea of the image of God in which we were created speaks of our relationship to God, that which connects us to Him and sets us apart from the rest of the created order. But that is not our concern in this message. Here I would emphasize our earthiness, our connectedness to the created order. And what I want to emphasize is that that is not noted in a negative tone, but in a factual statement of the way it is because that is the way God willed it to be. God knows our form. He remembers that we are clay. This statement follows a statement of God's compassion for His people. The image used is that of a parent; As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. Thus the point the Psalmist is making is that God is compassionate. Four times in this psalm he refers to God's steadfast love, the beautiful Hebrew word hesed we noted last week in the text from Lamentations 3. God can be trusted to be merciful and compassionate just as a good parent naturally feels compassion and mercy for a child. We do not have to apologize for who we are or what we are. The Psalmist points out that we are what we are because God created us to be what we are. That is an insight that makes praise irrepressible. The solid sense of being accepted as we are, being valued for the persons we are, being affirmed in our very humanness is the basis for our own self esteem and self worth. We are God's creation; we are a reflection of the Divine intention. Now, I can hear an objection: "Ah, yes, but we have sinned; we have defaced the image of God; we have forfeited our status as children; certainly you claim too much, you must be soft pedaling the guilt we have brought on ourselves." Let me respond to that. © Grand Valley State University �Insight that Makes Praise Irrepressible Richard A. Rhem Page 4   First of all, we have been far too obsessed with the idea of sin in the Church. That is a bold statement and no doubt sounds strange coming from the Christian pulpit, but stay with me for a moment. I will come to the reality of human sin eventually and there is no need to downplay that in order to lift up the human person. But my point here is that too often in the Church being human has been understood almost as being identical with being sinner. Now from our text I sense that the psalmist is reflecting the feeling that God is easier on being human than many of us human beings are - especially we who make up the Church. What does it mean to be human? To be human is to be created, not creator; it is to be creature, not God. That must be obvious. Yet we do forget it and perhaps it is precisely the power of our sin that we forget we are human and are rather driven by a god-complex. Nonetheless, we are human and, therefore, we are creatures of history. We live in the stream of history; we live one day at a time, moment by moment, with no possibility of jumping out of the stream and surveying it from a perspective beyond it. How we would love to know what lies around the corner. How we would love to know the unfolding drama of history and of our own lives before time, but that is precisely it – to be human is to have no "before time;" it is to have time, the present. To be sure, there is a past and we learn from it if we are wise. There is a future and we prepare for it if we are wise. But the past is written; the future is not yet; we are writing the present - now is the only moment we ever have. Our lives are lived in moments of decision - critical choices we must make time and again - choices of lesser import daily and we must do it with only limited knowledge, limited insight, some measure of wisdom - more or less -and some store of experience. We are fragile, vulnerable creatures. From time to time we hear of someone whose fragile existence hangs on by a thread. An accident brings one to the very brink of death and a life support system keeps life until the body functions once again. A stroke, an aneurism, a coronary. The psalmist of Psalm 139 wrote, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made," and we are! The human body is a marvel to fill us with awe. And it is fragile – a breath, a heartbeat away from being over. Too much thought of life's vulnerability could drive one out of one's mind. We are part of a community and world where free choice and responsible decisions are everyone's. Therefore, we cannot really determine our own destiny as though all critical factors were for our deciding. Beyond our personal decision are the choices and decisions of the whole community, the nation, indeed, the nations. What happens if the fanatical fundamentalism of the Shiite Moslems brings the world into conflagration? © Grand Valley State University �Insight that Makes Praise Irrepressible Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Being part of the whole is God's intention for us – living in community – but that also means we are at the mercy of decisions and choices beyond our own in so many crucial areas that determine our wellbeing. We are mortal; we will all die. I could go on citing the characteristics of our human existence, but let's cite just this one final reality – our mortality. That puts the limit on our dreams, our visions, our designing, our building and acquiring. We are limited by that terminus point which no one knows and no one can predict. Indeed, we do live under the shadow of death. There is so much more one could say, but this is enough to make the point I am trying to make. We are fragile, vulnerable creatures. We are a marvel; we ought to stand in awe of our humanness; yet it is also a threatened existence that is ours. I have a book on my shelf entitled, The Worry and Wonder of Being Human. Indeed! If all the above is true, then we fragile creatures of dust (or clay) are bound to live with some anxiety. We are constantly moving into uncharted waters exposed to a thousand threats having limited knowledge and yet having to make choices for good or ill. And we will make mistakes, wrong choices. And being anxious, we will become defensive and self-protective. And being free and independent (relatively), we will be pushed by self concern and concern for those closest to us. And such self-centered motivation gone awry has written the horror story of human history, but we could not be the creatures we are without that drive for independence and a certain aggressiveness. We feel that tension in the family. We try to socialize our children, teach them the limits of acceptable behavior. Yet we do not want to break their will or crush their spirit and sometimes when our own children plunge and lunge at life we may get nervous and yet, at the same time, feel a little pride at their daring. A great danger of our educational system is that we socialize too successfully and cut the creative nerve of the child. It is only a further development of that when in totalitarian countries the system would undercut all free and independent thinking and produce row after row of socially controlled robots. Now hear the text again. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. He knows our form, He remembers we are clay. Was not the psalmist saying that it is precisely in our fragile and vulnerable human existence that we are looked upon with compassion by God Who made us and made us just the way we are? It is on that basis that I began with the assertion that it is O.K. to be human. It is O.K. to be limited, vulnerable, fragile and susceptible to err. © Grand Valley State University �Insight that Makes Praise Irrepressible Richard A. Rhem Page 6   But, my objector persists: "Are we not sinners? Have we not rebelled against God's purpose and do we not set ourselves up against God and our neighbor?" Of course. Let me say again, to make my point I do not need or intend to whitewash the sin of the human person. I could go on now to paint the canvas of the human portrait black and shadowy gray: selfishness, meanness, pettiness, cruelty, violent madness. The picture does not have to be overdrawn to convince us of something in the human creature that is twisted, warped, distorted, and we know it well because there is no sin "out there" that I cannot find "in here," in the secret depths of my own heart. But again, to be honest with all of that is not simply to write off the human creature. In his Christian Faith, Berkhof suggests that the Genesis story of human creation ought to be heard not so much as a story of a perfect state followed by a fallen state, but of a human creature always caught between the tug of the lower and the call of the higher. But even that is not the point. The point is made so beautifully in the Psalms. The God Who, father like, has compassion on us and knows us is the God Who has also provided for us forgiveness. Sometimes I think we have never really heard the declaration of forgiveness. Sometimes I hear it spoken here and still condemn myself. Could the Scripture be any clearer? As far as the East is from the West - as high as the heaven is above the earth, so great is His mercy, His steadfast love; He does not deal with us according to our sins. How shamefully we have muffled that message in the Church. How assiduously we have marched over the earth preaching sin in order then to present sin's solution. How much wiser we would have been if only we had preached the solution already in effect and then invited persons to come home to the Father's house because there is no longer any reason to stay away. The Gospel of Jesus Christ which is only the full realization of the grace of which the psalmist sang is the announcement of the radical, unconditional, allencompassing, universal love of the eternal God Who made us and loves us just as we are - human, all too human! That is the biblical message; that is the passionate center of the one story of the Bible. It is a story of a Creator, full of grace, Who fully understands us and unconditionally loves us. God created us human with all the struggle that that entails and God will not let us go 'til we take on the shape of the one who lived a © Grand Valley State University �Insight that Makes Praise Irrepressible Richard A. Rhem Page 7   fully human existence as the faithful human covenant partner of the covenantkeeping God. No wonder the psalmist burst forth in praise as he reviewed what God does for His children - forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, satisfies and renews. Bless the Lord, O my soul! © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost X Scripture Text Psalm 103:13-14 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-0-19870809 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-08-09 Title A name given to the resource The Insight That Makes Praise Irrepressible 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 9, 1987 entitled "The Insight That Makes Praise Irrepressible", on the occasion of Pentecost X, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 103:13-14. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Creator God Divine Intention Forgiveness Human Nature Praise Psalms https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0d887fd798c231b8bd03b9ce0696094d.mp3 3ef966eaef354aa6e5384c74a82e8c2b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/74ddf4040d65102b3ed2df7a79bf9f7b.pdf c2a5d28540de685c06d42d80eba10a1c PDF Text Text Surprised by Grace Text: Lamentations 3:22-26 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan August 2, 1987 Transcription of the spoken sermon The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness… It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:22-26 Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings; It is the Lord, who rises with healing in His wings: When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again A season of clear shining, to cheer it after rain. William Cowper has captured the theme of this message beautifully in these lines. He lived from 1731 to 1800 and was England's most honored poet between Pope and Shelley. He was a frail child and very sensitive. His mother died when he was a child of six and near the end of his life he remarked there had never been a day when he had not mourned her death. His father sent him to law school, but the prospect of appearing for his final exam so frightened him that he suffered a mental breakdown and even attempted suicide. For 18 months he was placed in an insane asylum. He found a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through reading Romans. Having recovered, he was befriended by the family of a clergyman, Morly Urwin, and when Urwin died, John Newton, the converted slave trader become Anglican pastor and author of "Amazing Grace," invited Cowper to come to Olney, England, Newton's parish. For the last two decades of Cowper's life, he was a close personal friend of Newton. With Newton, Cowper cooperated in producing Olney Hymns, a collection of 349 hymns. Cowper's own personal experience finds expression not only in the hymn cited above but, for example, in "O For a Closer Walk With God." Return, O Holy Dove, return, Sweet messenger of rest! I hate the sins that made thee mourn And drove thee from my breast. © Grand Valley State University   �Surprised by Grace Richard A. Rhem Page 2   And in "God Moves In A Mysterious Way." Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head. In a word, the one who trusts in the good and gracious God is not spared the troubles and anguish common to humankind; the child of God, however, knows more than the awful darkness; the child of God also knows what it is to be surprised by grace. Sometimes a light surprises a Christian while he sings – or prays, or reflects on the past mercies of God. And the light which scatters the darkness ushers in "a season of clear shining." The experience is one of sheer grace; it comes in the wake of an anguish and despair which seemed beyond resolution; it comes when one has lost all hope and cannot imagine that things will ever come right, that one's heart will ever be mended, that one will ever again know joy and rejoicing. Unpredictably, unexpectedly, light returns, the woundedness heals and grace is experienced. God intervenes; one is assured anew of a mercy that never fails and a steadfast love that never wavers and a faithfulness that remains rocklike. So to experience grace is to find life transformed, reality transformed. One moves from disarray, disorientation to new orientation and all one can do is praise God out of a heart saturated with gratitude. In our study of the Psalms we have traced the rhythm of human experience that is never static but rather dynamic, in motion. Sometimes life is experienced as harmonious and well-ordered. Meaning is secure and purpose in life clear. One trusts in the wise and gracious rule of the Sovereign Creator. But sometimes the roof collapses, the bottom drops out and order turns to chaos. The dark night of the soul knows only anguish - and as noted in our study of Psalm 88, the darkness sometimes settles in with no relief, no resolution. But, thank God, in our common human experience there more often follows a scattering of the darkness, a burst of light, the promise of joy and a new orientation – the surprise of grace. The Psalms are a mirror of Israel's spiritual experience; they are a portrait of the way life is for us all. Life is lived not so much in one state or the other, but in the dynamic movement from orientation through disorientation to new orientation. © Grand Valley State University �Surprised by Grace Richard A. Rhem Page 3   That is the way life is and the Bible is a very honest book and the Old Testament a very wholesome portrayal of human experience before the face of God. This message celebrates the surprising grace of God that effects healing and wholeness, the grace that is not at our disposal, not ours to control or manipulate, not predictable or expected – the grace which is the intervention of the faithful God Who comes to us out of the darkness, Who meets us in the darkness, Who transforms the darkness into light. Although we have been tracing this pattern in the Psalms, and there are many examples of the surprise of grace in the Psalms, I have chosen my text from the Book of Lamentations. The whole book is poetry, five poems, elegies that give expression to the deep anguish of the people of God over the devastation of Jerusalem through the destruction ordered by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar after the seige of 587 was successful and the Holy City was finally taken. The walls were torn down, the Temple burned, the best of the citizenry taken away and the city left a smoldering shambles. The situation, the historical context out of which this grief pours, is given in the book of II Kings 25:8-12: In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon - Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, an official of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem. He burned down the house of Yahweh, and the King's house; and all the houses in Jerusalem, including every great man's house, he set on fire and burned. The whole army of the Chaldeans tore down the walls of Jerusalem, all around... The rest of the people who were left in the city, and those who had deserted to the King of Babylon, and the rest of the populace, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, took to Babylon as prisoners. The captain of the guard left only some of the poorest in the country to tend the vines and farm the land. Lamentations.supplies the meaning of this historical data. As one commentator says, It is first of all a recital of the horrors and atrocities that came during the long siege and its aftermath, but beyond the tale of physical suffering it tells of the spiritual significance of the fall of the city. For the ancient people chosen by Yahweh it meant the destruction of every cherished symbol of their election by God. In line after line the poet recalls all the precious, sacred things which had been lost or shattered: the city itself, once "The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth;" the city walls and towers, once the outward sign that "God is in the midst of her," the King, "The anointed of Yahweh, the breath of our nostrils"; the priests, and with them all festive and solemn worship; the prophets, and with them all visions and the living word of God; the land itself, Israel's "inheritance" from Yahweh, now turned over to strangers; the people - dead, exiled, or © Grand Valley State University �Surprised by Grace Richard A. Rhem Page 4   slaves in their own land. Every sign that had once provided assurance and confidence in God was gone. (Anchor Bible, Lamentations, p. XV) To the survivors these poems in Lamentations served as a means by which to bring to expression an almost inexpressible sorrow. Their grief was deep - beyond words; yet these words gave vent to the anguish and as we noted last week, when in the darkness, it is so important to bring to expression the anguish - to bring it into the presence of God Who is experienced as absent, yet present in the absence. So much for the historical context and the deep spiritual malaise the events of 587 created in the experience of Judah. What we are focusing on in this message is not the darkness which provides the backdrop, but rather the surprise of grace, the return of hope. From near total despair, the person described by the poet wins through to confidence that God's mercy is not at an end and that his steadfast love will not fail nor his faithfulness falter. In chapter 3, the first 16 verses portray vividly the terrible suffering the person has experienced; verses 17-20 describe the resulting despair and then, in an amazing turnabout, verses 21-25 speak of renewed hope that rises from the remembrance of the mercy of God. In verses 1-16 the author is saying, "This is what any human being may be called to endure." Verses 17-21 are a transitional bridge which portray the despair and despondency which results from the onslaught of suffering. But even in the darkness of despair, the one who trusts in God will wait. With verse 22 we have the breakthrough, the surprise of grace. And the surprise of grace is a renewed sense of the mercy or the steadfast love of the Lord. The Hebrew word is hesid, "steadfast love" or "loyal love" or "mercy." The remembrance of the steadfast love of the Lord is the basis for renewed hope. Hesid describes God's faithful and merciful love which is promised and may thus be expected even when there is no tangible sign of its presence. Hesid speaks of more than an emotion; it is the loving and merciful action of God which transforms reality. In the darkest hour Israel remembered the steadfast love, the mercy of God. The reality of the God of covenant grace returned to flood the soul of the sufferer; he was surprised by grace and found his hope renewed; he found the grace to wait patiently for the salvation of God. To his surprise, a new and unexpected possibility shows itself. God's mercy is not at an end; God's compassion will not fail. He breaks forth in exclamatory praise, "Great is Thy faithfulness." In the wake of the new realization there is amazement, joy, gratitude and praise. This is an expression of biblical faith at its heart, at its most profound depths. It rests on the sure mercy, the steadfast love of the faithful God. It was when the © Grand Valley State University �Surprised by Grace Richard A. Rhem Page 5   grief had been brought to speech in the presence of God, that the writer was no longer mesmerized by the darkness but once again remembered the true nature of the Covenant God. Suddenly a light surprised him and that light was a prelude to a season of clear shining. This mercy of God was not spent, exhausted; rather, embracing the darkness and permeating the darkness was that mercy which was new every morning. Now the sense of the faithfulness of God returns and hope once again floods the soul. In human experience we find that there are periods of anguish but we find, too, that there is a grace that comes to us from beyond ourselves, that effects healing in the midst of brokenness and creates hope in the most desolate human situations. The movie, "Choices of the Heart," was rerun on TV last week. It is the story of Jean Donovan, one of the four women brutally slain in El Salvador a few years ago. She was narrating her experience showing the terrible poverty, the violence and fear that stalked the lives of the people. But she pointed to the children in tattered rags, playing in the dusty rubble of their poor neighborhood and remarked how amazingly they lived with hope. "They know," she said, "the roses will bloom again." It seems that hope thrives best in the darkness awaiting the light. And it is true there is a positive, healing power that gives buoyancy to the human heart even in the darkness. I re-read M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, remembering his discussion of grace which he defines as a powerful force originating outside of human consciousness which nurtures the spiritual growth of human beings. As a medical person trained in the natural sciences, he witnesses to a miraculous power which cannot be located as to origin or source nor explained in any scientific fashion, but which he has, nonetheless, experienced for himself and as operative in the patients he has dealt with in his psychiatric practice. He is ready, for himself, to identify the source of grace as God. This, of course, is precisely the witness of the Scriptures. It is not simply that there is a force that is on our side; it is that there is a gracious God Who is for us. It is not that the darkness is not threatening, that the anguish is not real; it is that there is One Who invades the darkness and by the transformation of grace changes the reality of our situation. It is not simply that time heals all wounds; it is that God graciously heals us and brings us toward wholeness, just when it seemed all hope was gone. In the previous message I found the epitome of the experience of Psalm 88 in the crucifixion of Jesus who cried out, "My God, why...?" and died in darkness, alone. Within the framework of history there was, neither for the psalmist nor for Jesus, a resolution. But, we can move beyond history now to the ultimate word, the event of Easter morning. God raised Jesus from the dead. That is the last word, a © Grand Valley State University �Surprised by Grace Richard A. Rhem Page 6   word far too good to limit to Easter. Each Lord's Day is an Easter celebration, a celebration of the bedrock of our confidence; our trust is in the God Who transforms reality, the God Who raises the dead. Sometimes we marvel at the resiliency, the buoyancy, the toughness of the human spirit. It is really amazing and awesome. But that is not so much a characteristic of the human spirit; it is a testimony to the steadfast love of the Lord Whose compassion never fails, Whose mercy is new every morning, Who is great in His faithfulness. Sometimes hope is almost gone. Sometimes despair completely overwhelms. What then? Wait. Why? Because, The Lord is good to those who look for Him, to all who seek Him; It is good to wait in patience and sigh for the deliverance by the Lord. Again, that Hebrew word, "wait," can also be translated "hope," or "wait with expectation," because His mercy is not over. Sometimes a light surprises; Sometimes we are given "a season of clear shining;" Sometimes we are surprised by grace because God is good and gracious. He is our God. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost IX Scripture Text Lamentations 3:22-26 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-0-19870802 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-08-02 Title A name given to the resource Surprised by Grace 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 2, 1987 entitled "Surprised by Grace", on the occasion of Pentecost IX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Lamentations 3:22-26. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Hope Psalms Suffering Transforming Grace Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3eab6a43d32514739c6acfc1f0b7b882.mp3 4609fb47b960281d3782bac9d8f94377 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3cc9447ef09b915a2182a5cf3462fe6d.pdf 899b203b548a21fe3c53afcc1c52546f PDF Text Text A Song of Serenity A Reflection on the Psalms Text: Psalm 8:1 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan July 19, 1987 Transcription of the spoken sermon Human experience is uneven. It may seem that for some it is always Summer, and for others it is always Winter, but it would be more accurate to recognize that for most of us human experience is varied; it is dynamic, in flux, and it contains both light and shadow, good times and difficult times. The Psalms are a beautiful reflection of human experience as it is lived consciously before the face of God and, if we are honest in letting the Psalms speak to us in the full spectrum of these experiences, they will have a word for us in every season of our lives. They will bring to expression the depths of our experience, whether that be of joy or sorrow, of pain or pleasure. Walter Brueggemann in his study of the Psalms suggests that the whole range of human experience, which comes to expression throughout the whole Psalter, can be diagrammed as a movement. There are three life situations which are easily identified in many Psalms and those life situations are true to our common human experience. There are Psalms of orientation which express confident trust in the good order of Creation, reflecting the seasons of wellbeing; there are Psalms of disorientation which reflect the struggle of the person in conflict and confusion, the dark night of the soul; there are Psalms of new orientation which give expression to the joy and gratitude felt because of the surprise of grace which has effected healing and brought wholeness to life again. Most of life is lived in movement from one state or condition to the other. Human experience is uneven; we are always in process; life is fragile and we are vulnerable to the slight tilting of the axis of the heart, which can move us from settled confidence to disarray, and again, from disarray to the healing of grace. Each condition of our human expression finds an echo in the songbook of Israel. Psalm 8 is a song of serenity, singing the confident trust of one who is © Grand Valley State University   �A Song of Serenity Richard A. Rhem Page 2   experiencing reality, the world and life as well ordered, well structured, reliable and harmonious. The Psalm ends as it begins with a paean of praise to the majestic greatness of God, Who has created and Who sustains this well ordered world. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth! The psalmist stands in awe of creation, of the wisdom with which all has been ordered. How great Thy name means how gloriously Thou art manifested in the whole created order. Here is an expression of buoyant faith, of a sense of wonder, of a joyful acknowledgement of God Who has brought about the harmonious symmetry of all of reality. Here we have a confident, serene settlement of the faith questions. The Psalmist has found a place to stand, a place to set his feet. Since God is trustworthy and reliable, there are some things that are simply settled. One can go on to other things because there is a kind of untouchable core of trust that moves one beyond doubt and anxiety. Life is good because God in His goodness has created a good and hospitable space in which one can live and move and have one's being. There is an elemental certitude that forms a solid foundation on which to rest one's life. Such is the conviction of the poet who penned the eighth Psalm. Let us look at the heart of faith's conviction as it comes to expression in this song of serenity. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth! Exclamation point; so the Psalm begins, so it ends. Worship, praise and adoration of the greatness of God form as it were the brackets, the boundaries within which the psalmist contemplates the identity and dignity of the human person. At its heart, the Psalm is an affirmation of human power and authority, which is grounded in and bestowed by the eternal God. In this Psalm, doxology at the beginning and end form the context in which the dominion accorded to the human person is celebrated. There is a proper order and a careful balance in the contemplation of our place in the total scheme of things. And what is that place? We are placed over creation, under God. The prepositions are critically important. We are placed over creation. The psalmist celebrates this fact. In the beginning we find him feeling extremely small and insignificant as on a clear night he contemplates the stars and the moon and the vastness of the deep, dark reaches of outer space. Within him runs the question, © Grand Valley State University �A Song of Serenity Richard A. Rhem Page 3   What is the human person that Thou shouldst remember him, mortal humanity that Thou shouldst care for them? The eternal God Who spoke and brought the worlds into place, Who spoke again and hung the stars in place – that God behind and beyond the vast Creation must be so majestic, so awesome that One can hardly believe that One so mighty and magnificent would bother about the frail and fragile human creature who lives beneath the stars, so vulnerable to the overwhelming might and mystery of the natural world. That is the psalmist's initial reaction as he lies on his back, staring into starry space. But then he contemplates further; he goes on to realize, Yet Thou hast made him little less than a god, crowning him with glory and honour. The psalmist was no doubt familiar with the beautiful first chapter of Genesis, the Song of Creation. There, too, in poetic fashion the wonder of God's creative work is celebrated and the crown of that work, the pinnacle of God's creative genius is the creation of the human person in God's own image. God made us like Himself – that is the daring biblical affirmation, and therein the greatness and the dignity of the human person are proclaimed. The Bible will have nothing to do with the denigrating or scorning of humanity. Rather, it proclaims loudly and clearly the greatness of the human person. God has committed to us rule and authority. Thou makest him master over all Thy creatures; Thou hast put everything under his feet. Again the Creation chapter from Genesis comes to mind. The human person is charged with responsibility for the good Creation; to be the steward of Creation, to care for it, preserve it and make it fruitful. And so, as God is to the whole created cosmos, the human creature is to the good earth. The vastness of cosmic space, which the psalmist could only guess at but we know to be beyond our contemplation, which in the beginning seemed to dwarf him and his sense of significance, is now brought into perspective. Now the very wonder of Creation points to the pinnacle of Creation itself, the human person who, godlike, contemplates the whole and takes responsibility for it. That is what the Psalm celebrates: human dignity, power and authority bounded by the eternal God Who willed it thus and Who grounds the whole structured reality. The human person – over creation, under God, finds thus his dignity, her destiny. © Grand Valley State University �A Song of Serenity Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Professor James Cook of Western Theological Seminary preached on this psalm here some months ago and entitled the message, "The Poem That Puts Us In Our Place," a fine title for the psalm. That is precisely what we have here – a poem that puts us in our place, over creation, under God. We learn who we are and we learn what we are called to do. Identity and destiny are terribly important issues to get settled. To know who I am (and Whose I am) and what I am called to do is to find my place, to get my bearings, to gain a sense of orientation. In the psalms of orientation there are some matters of critical importance that are settled. One can get on with life because the large questions of human existence are settled. The God Who in grace has embraced us is the God Who upholds the world He has created and preserves it in its course and will finally realize His purposes of love, bringing all things to consummation. Is it important, thus, to believe and to live? Yes, without question. You will remember the opening scene of "Fiddler On The Roof." Tevye tells us that life is precarious; it is a delicate balancing act, like playing a fiddle on a peak of a sharply sloped roof. And, he asks, how do we keep our balance? He answers his own question - Tradition. And a great foundation stone of that Tradition would be Psalm 8 with its praise of God's majesty which grounds reality and gives meaning and dignity to human existence, holding out the promise of a final redemption. The story goes on to portray the three daughters who successively test the limits to greater and greater extent – finally to the breaking point. Yet, even the breaking of the traditions gives a definition of human existence because there was a settled order, a tradition against which one struggled. Three years ago I returned from the Netherlands where I had spent much time with my mentor, Professor Berkhof, who spoke of the near impossibility of communicating with the youth of the Netherlands who seemed so lost, so much adrift without any fixed and settled points on the compass of their lives. His comment was that one could not offer answers to their disorientation because they themselves did not even know the Question. And then he said something that struck me and I have shared with you. "The youth of this generation are not the prodigals; they are the children of the prodigals who left home but never returned." The prodigal had a memory of home. The prodigal knew somewhere there was a father, somewhere there was something called home. But those born and raised in the faithless wasteland of the Far Country do not even have a meaning of home. We are told of today's youth as being without orientation in our own country, as well. The reason often cited is the nuclear threat that hangs over our world. The scourge of drug trafficking is attributed to the meaningless malaise that seems to © Grand Valley State University �A Song of Serenity Richard A. Rhem Page 5   characterize the lives of so many. Our culture has in large measure lost its orientation. There are no longer those certainties that can simply be trusted. Life is without definition. How thankful we can be if we have been given the gift of trust in the good and gracious God Who created and Who preserves and Who will bring all things to consummation. That is an affirmation of faith. It cannot be proved by methods of scientific demonstration. It is gift. To have received such a gift is to cry out with the psalmist, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth! To have received such a gift is to have a place to stand, to sense a solid foundation from which one can get on with life. To have received such a gift is to have some matters settled, some issues put to rest. To have received such a gift is to be moved beyond anxiety, beyond fear. Let me underscore the blessing of such a gift: it speaks of the givenness of life, the world, the order of reality. There is no sense of peace about achieving the world or securing the world; no sense of super importance as though one is responsible for the survival of the world. As Bishop Quail heard God say in the midst of a sleepless, restless night: "You can go to sleep now, Bishop; I will stay up." What a wonderful gift it is so to trust. But, let me point to a serious error to avoid: That does not mean presumptive trust, nor irresponsibility as though we can simply "leave it all to God." He has given us dominion over the works of His hand. He has crowned us with glory and honor and called us to the responsible stewardship of nature and responsible engagement with the course of history. But with trust intact, we are free from paralyzing fear, free to plunge into life exercising our best gifts to further God's purpose in the assurance that finally all things are in His gracious hand. Finally, we must recognize that the Psalm is a song of serenity; it is the expression of calm and confident trust in the great tradition that is ours. But, tradition must never be allowed to degenerate into traditionalism. Jaroslav Pelikan has said that tradition is the living faith of the dead; but traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And if the Church has in its tradition a very great gift, it has often sinned by allowing that tradition to harden and to die. Failing to recognize that tradition is living and growing and needs always to be translated into contemporary idiom as it is brought into engagement with the present horizon, the Church has too often acted as though its faith were recorded in timeless statements that can never be interpreted anew. Then in a world like © Grand Valley State University �A Song of Serenity Richard A. Rhem Page 6   ours, with the explosion of knowledge, there is no light shed from the tradition on the new discoveries and insights of the present, and to believe becomes adherence to an anachronistic belief system, which no longer illumines human experience. We have too often offended here; we have lost the best and brightest. It is not only those who are offended intellectually. There are also those whose lives are not precisely marked by serenity, but rather by severity, whose lives are in disarray. There are those for whom there seems to be no symmetry, no harmony, no well-ordered cosmos. They, too, have a true insight. For many, there can be no easy orientation. The writer to the Hebrews knew that. Citing Psalm 8, "What is man ...," he concludes the citation with these words: Thou didst put all things in subjection beneath his feet. (2:8) But then goes on quickly to add, But in fact we do not yet see all things in subjection to man. And then he goes on, But we see Jesus… That author knew what some of you know. In this our Father's world there are still many things out of sync. There is yet much to be put in subjection before we exercise our royal rule in the created order of God. But we see Jesus - he lived, died, experienced the darkness of hell from which God raised him up, giving him a Name above every name! Therefore, even when I cannot find the light, I cling to Jesus; I live by hope; I appropriate already that which is promised but is not yet. And thus even in life's confusion I begin to hear the melody of a greater harmony and I know one day all Creation will resound with the song of serenity when all God's purposes are realized in heaven and on earth and He is everything to everyone. Reference: Walter Brueggemann. The Message of the Psalms. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost VI Scripture Text Psalm 8:1 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Walter Brueggeman. The Message of the Psalms, 1984. 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-0-19870719 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-07-19 Title A name given to the resource A Song of Serenity 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 July 19, 1987 entitled "A Song of Serenity", on the occasion of Pentecost VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 8:1. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Divine Intention Psalms Stewardship Tradition Trust https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d6a587d0f31db12f796fc41643037582.mp3 4efcde8a6e790317357897109087d237 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ed205de2dc3b21693d6836b6cf101880.pdf 553952d0be11551691dcd748635efd53 PDF Text Text God is Easy to Live With Text: Psalm 103: 13-14 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan August 31, 1986 Transcription of the spoken sermon As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on all who fear him. For he knows how we are made, he knows full well that we are dust. Psalm 103: 13-14 The Psalmist begins this Psalm with a call to his own being to bless the Lord. The Psalm ends with the same call, now inviting the whole created order and all created beings to join in the praise of God. The body of the Psalm witnesses to who God is by pointing to all God does, thus giving the cause for gratitude which issues in the praise of God. Psalm 103 is an expression of pure praise. Nothing is requested; no plea or complaint is expressed. It is simply a paean of praise to the good and gracious God, a God Who is easy to live with. The psalm flows; it is a spontaneous eruption of joy at the contemplation of the wonder of God's goodness, compassion and grace. It is the amazement at the realization of Who God is and what He has done and continues to do. Praise is spontaneous. It arises in our hearts; it erupts on our lips; it breaks forth, irrepressible. The Psalmist calls himself to consciousness of God's mercy; praise is the result. Praise cannot be coerced; forced, it is not praise. But we learn from the Psalmist that it is in the contemplation of God in His saving acts toward us, His mercy and goodness to us, that we put ourselves into the posture of praise. Let us listen as the Psalmist describes the God Whom he calls upon his soul to bless. We bless God because of Who He has shown Himself to be. Old Testament faith was not speculative and abstract. Rather, the God Whom Israel praises was the God Who revealed Himself in human experience. He was the God Who revealed Himself to Moses. That brings to expression the whole history of redemption in which Israel was called and claimed by God to be © Grand Valley State University   �God is Easy to Live With Richard A. Rhem Page 2   His people. Israel had a sense of being God's chosen people. In the Exodus event, God freed their Fathers from Egypt's bondage. He was the God Who led them through the wilderness and brought them into the promised land. In His revelation of Himself to Moses, He made Himself known as merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Mercy, grace, steadfast love - what a list of attributes that makes. He was the God of salvation; He set His people free from the galling slavery that de-humanized and oppressed. He provided for them, nurtured them and established them in their own land. Israel's history was a history of salvation of the Mighty God Who delivered them. In Exodus, as Israel gathered at Mount Sinai and prepared to receive the Law, these were Moses’ words to them: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my vice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples…. Exodus 19: 4-5 That beautiful image expresses well Israel's sense of being called and claimed by God. But not only in their corporate history, but also in their personal, human experience, the Old Testament people had a sense of God's grace and mercy. Just listen to the five verbs of verses 3-5. God pardons, heals, redeems, crowns, satisfies. Consequently, His people live as renewed persons, kept in the steadfast love of God. Expanding on the first blessing mentioned - God's pardoning grace - the Psalmist gives us one of the most vivid figures of speech found anywhere to describe what God does with our wrongs. Here is the marvelous surprise: God does not deal with us as we might expect to be dealt with. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requites us according to our iniquities. How often we get things out of focus. We grumble and complain. We are prone to look on the dark side, feeling we have gotten a bum deal. We luxuriate in self-pity and whimper while we nurse our wounds and rationalize our poor showing. But the reality is far different! God does not deal with us as we deserve. C.S. Lewis, in The Great Divorce, tells of a busload of folk from the grey, misty flats of purgatory who take a bus excursion to the borders of heaven to see if they might desire permanent residence there. One of the "tourists" meets a man known to him on earth who was tried and executed for committing a murder. The man is now a citizen of heaven. The visitor is amazed to find the murderer there. He cries out, "What I'd like to understand is what you're here for, as pleased as © Grand Valley State University �God is Easy to Live With Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Punch, you a murderer, while I've been walking the streets down there and living in a place like a pigsty all these years." The citizen of heaven tries to explain that he had been forgiven the crime and that both he, the murderer, and the man he murdered had been reconciled at the judgment seat of God. But the "spirit" from purgatory would have none of it. It was unjust, unfair! He keeps protesting that it is not right, and all he demands is his rights. "I've got to have my rights, same as you, see!" "Oh, no," the citizen of heaven assures him, "It's not as bad as that. I haven't got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours, either. You will get something far better." Thank God we do not get our rights. Thank God justice is not done. Thank God His grace is greater than all our sin. Will Campbell learned the heart of the Gospel the hard way one day. It was during the days of great tension and ugliness of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. A young seminarian and a black man were gunned down in cold blood by a Southern sheriff. Will and his brother were with a friend who would have nothing to do with the Gospel, when they heard the news. The friend put Will, himself a minister of the Gospel, on the spot. In effect, he said, "What will your God do about such an outrage? Can that sheriff be forgiven?" Will, his own heart broken and full of anguish, knew this was the acid test. Did he believe the Gospel? He answered, "Yes." So, the murdered and the murderer are alike loved by God? Yes. Then, what is this Gospel of yours? We are all bastards and God loves us anyway? "Yes," Will replied. That is the scandalous Gospel we believe. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities. This is the testimony of the whole of Scripture. He blots out our sins as a thick cloud. He casts them behind His back. He buries our sins in the depths of the sea. He remembers them against us no more. We remember our sins. We remember the sins of our neighbors. We nurse them, fume and fuss about them, burden ourselves with them, wallow in them. © Grand Valley State University �God is Easy to Live With Richard A. Rhem Page 4   But, God puts them away - forever. No wonder the Psalmist said, Bless the Lord, O my soul! How does He deal with us? With compassion! Like a parent deals with a child. But no earthly parent begins to realize the magnitude of God's compassion. The best of human parenting is only a faint reflection of the parental love of God. It gives us an image we can grasp and begin to understand. But God's Fatherly compassion surpasses our best insight and understanding. The Psalmist calls us to bless the Lord because of the way He loves us – human as we are. He knows how we were made. He knows full well that we are dust. Here is not only a beautiful statement about God, but here, too, is the charter of our humanness. In the Scriptures we find surprisingly that it is all right to be human. Does not this statement reflect the Psalmist's understanding that God loves us and accepts us in our very humanness? The Bible celebrates that humanness. In the eighth Psalm we read of both our smallness when compared with the cosmos and our greatness in that we were created a little less than God. In this Psalm we sense that the Psalmist believed that God fully understands us in our humanness. We are not God. We are not angels. We are human. To be human is to be finite, limited. To be human is to have to choose, to decide, to act on limited knowledge and insight. To be human is to struggle to find the balance between freedom and responsibility. To be human is to be part of the created order of the earth and to feel the tug of that which connects us to the earth and to be created in the image of God, made for and called to fellowship with God. To be human is to be a person in process, a pilgrim, a struggler. We have not allowed ourselves to be very comfortable in the Church being human. We do get down on ourselves. We condemn ourselves and we are harder on ourselves than anyone else and we are harder on ourselves than God is. Somehow we've gotten the message that it is not all right to be human. We just do not measure up. In the Church - in religion in general - there is a large measure of moralism. There is a strong stress on the "ought." There is the threat and warning about our shortcomings, the constant call to do more, to do better. There is that constant © Grand Valley State University �God is Easy to Live With Richard A. Rhem Page 5   pressure to perform and there is the equally constant sense of falling short. The "message" seems to be that it is not "OK" to be human. Dr. J. Harold Ellens gave a paper to a Christian Psychological Association some years ago in which he addressed the relationship of worship and emotional health. The whole paper is full of insight and greatly impressed me when first I read it. On our present focus, Ellens writes: Worship is the celebration of a feat accomplished and being realized. That fact is the historical datum certifying that God was uniquely in Jesus of Nazareth "reconciling the world unto Himself." The celebration of worship is the act and experience of taking profound and grateful account of God's demonstrated nature and behaviour: He is for us, not against us. Humans natively envision God as a threat. …It may well be that man's native view of God as a threat derives from the natural state of anxiety which seems to be coincident with self-consciousness. …Worship as the celebration of God's grace addresses itself essentially to human anxiety regarding God, self, and one's world of relationships. This follows directly from the fact that the Christian "good news" is the announcement of man's freedom from those threats - freedom to be and become oneself. The purpose of worship, then, is the achievement of emotional health and spiritual wholeness in the form of relief from destructive anxiety by means of the celebration of God's grace. Ellens stresses the fact that worship either incites and embodies experiences of forgiveness, acceptance and a desirable destiny, or enforces guilt, shame and bondage. Worship either frees or sickens. Speaking directly to the point I am making in this message, Ellens writes: The process of worship must provide a comfortable and safe arena for humans to deal with their real inadequacy to the responsibilities of life and the challenges of godliness, as well as their sense of inadequacy as humans. The two are usually quite different and the difference is often the dimension of man's dishonesty, self-deception and pathology including psychic conflict. Worship must provide opportunity and necessity for humans to face their real humanness without employing the typical pathological techniques of self-deception, deception of the community, or mechanisms of escape. Typical worship encourages rather than prevents such pathologies. However, when worship fails to lead people out of them, it cannot be healing. Where deception of self or the community is necessary or possible, freedom in God's grace is impossible. That is the setting for emotional illness, not health. Ellens continues: © Grand Valley State University �God is Easy to Live With Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Worship must provide such humans with the strength and safety to face the crushing reality of our personal and communal potential for envisioning sainthood, on the one hand, and our inability to produce sainthood on the other. It is not a new insight that man is at war with his self. It would be a new experience if worship consistently resolved that conflict in the peace of grace. ... To achieve a healing emotional response, liturgy must provide for honest, relief-affording resolution of the anxiety and ego-insult inevitable to our internal conflicts. This requires aiding persons, through worship, to realize and act out the fact that it is acceptable to be human and sinful. Worship must aid persons and the community to realize on the emotional level that that acceptability is precisely what divine grace and Christian graciousness means. There is much more that could be said on this point, but this is enough to indicate how in worship we should experience the Psalmist's insight that God knows how we are made, knows we are "dust" or "clay" – people in conflict, full of anxiety, loaded with guilt and a sense of inadequacy, needing the good news of an unconditional love and total acceptance of the God Who knows it all better than we do and has already handled our dilemma in the gift of Jesus and the grace which there came to expression. He meets our guilt with forgiving grace, our inadequacy with the total adequacy of Jesus, our weakness with the strength He provides, and calls us simply to trust Him that it is so and to rest in the abyss of His love. To catch a glimpse of such a God and such a redemption is simply to praise, spontaneously, irrepressibly. The Psalmist calls his soul to reflect on this good and gracious God and then he knows praise will flow. Praise cannot be coerced. C.S. Lewis was at first put off by all the calls, "Praise God," when first he became a Christian, until he came to realize that praise was simply the overflow of the enjoyment of the object of praise – in this case, the enjoyment of God. When we read a great novel or experience a great concert or see a beautiful sunset, we want to tell somebody about it. The fun of a good joke is sharing it. So is the praise of God. Lewis says praise is "inner health made audible." I'm sure he is right. Show me a person full of praise and I will show you a person healthy and happy. Some of us are praisers. Some of us are simply "chronic grumps." Again, praise cannot be coerced; either it is "felt" and thus will be expressed, or we remain numb and dumb. But we need not be fatalists, simply resigning ourselves to being "grumps," going through life groveling in the mire when we could soar with eagles. We can talk to ourselves; we can take ourselves in hand as did the Psalmist. We can become conscious of © Grand Valley State University �God is Easy to Live With Richard A. Rhem Page 7   the chronic posture of our souls and we can become self-conscious, reflecting on patterns that may be deeply ingrained. Rather than viewing a magnificent sunset and grumbling, "Well, another day shot," we can bask in a few moments of beauty. We can sense the cool, crispness of the autumn morning and remember this is our Father's world. We can feel the smooth softness of a newborn's cheek and revel in the wonder of a child. We can call upon ourselves to become conscious of the very gift of life and the resources for facing even the most difficult circumstances. We cannot contemplate the God Who "pardons, heals, redeems, crowns and satisfies" and not sense within the upsurge of emotion that finds expression in praise. Then with all creation and all the angels of heaven we can bless the Lord and experience the wellbeing of His grace and goodness, the God Who is easy to live with. Amen. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher 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 XV Scripture Text Psalm 103:13-14 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-0-19860831 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-08-31 Title A name given to the resource God is Easy to Live With 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 31, 1986 entitled "God is Easy to Live With", on the occasion of Pentecost XV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 103:13-14. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Covenant Forgiveness God of Grace Human Nature Nature of God Praise Psalms Unconditional Grace Worship