1 24 9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dca5b6012803d657d610ab5fbc57535a.pdf 3f33dfe5aa55610c41c235afad8bc53a PDF Text Text The Question: Q & Q, Not Q & A From the series: Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question Scripture: John 23:1-10, Luke 4:1-13 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany, January 17, 1999 Transcription of the spoken sermon My Epiphany series continues. The theme, "Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question," points to the vision of the Center for Religion and Life that we are inaugurating, as I announced last Sunday. That vision assumes a religious quest as intrinsic to human existence. That quest is triggered by the questions that confront our human awareness. The particular mark of our vision is that in our quest we uncover the questions that meet us in our human experience and that the clarifying of those ultimate questions is the purpose of the quest. As the title of today’s sermon indicates, at Christ Community we understand our human journey as one marked by Quest and Question, Q & Q, rather than Q & A, Question and Answer. I touched on this last week when pointing to the religious quest. Institutional religion has been in the Q & A model, not Q & Q. The very fact that a religious founding experience - such as Moses at the burning bush, or the life and death of Jesus – ever achieves institutional form is because answers are provided to the human questions. A picture is painted, a story is woven, a ritual develops to channel devotion, a way of living is prescribed, and a people is formed who shape a tradition and there emerges: Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam. If I were to put my finger on the significant transformations in my own faith understanding in recent years, one would be in the area of the nature of religion. I learned from my mentor Hendrikus Berkhof in The Netherlands 30 years ago that every religion has three aspects -a teaching or dogma; a ritual or form of worship; and, a moral code or way of life. More recently, I have come to understand that every great religious tradition begins in a founding experience - Moses at the burning bush leading to the Exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, Jesus’ life and death and the experience of his living presence still in the community. Professor Boyd Wilson, with us again for a few weeks, could relate such founding moments for all the © Grand Valley State University   �Q & Q, Not Q & A Richard A. Rhem Page 2   great traditions and he could go on to portray how those founding experiences led to the shaping of a tradition, a world view. Some of us are studying a work by Gordon Kaufman, In Face of Mystery, in which he demonstrates that a religious tradition, be it Christian or any other, is a creative, imaginative, human structure by which a people has gained orientation for life, a life-map for the human journey. Those life-maps answer the questions raised by our human experience, give a sense of meaning and purpose to human life, and reflect God’s being and intention. For me, that understanding has been liberating, for I have come to see our respective religious systems and institutional forms as human creations rather than Divine givens. This has been a great part of my freedom to examine critically my own tradition and to be open to the insights and values of other traditions seeing them not as false paths and a threat to the one true way, but complementary ways of responding to the Ultimate Mystery that is God. If my religion, the Christian religion, was the direct result of God’s structuring rather than human response to God’s revelation as the Ultimate Mystery of our existence, then I am struck with it so to speak, no matter what further unfolding of knowledge there is about the universe or further development of human history. Then I have a religious structure that arose in an ancient time as Divinely authorized but incapable of making sense of the exploding knowledge of the world, the human being and human culture. But, if I understand it as an authentic response to the experience of God in an ancient time with a developed story and developing tradition, then I can be part of an ongoing transformation of its insights and teachings. Then I stand within my religious tradition and seek understanding of the mystery of my existence before the face of the Ultimate Mystery that we call God. Then I come to realize that I must continue the quest because the questions are mine and I must live with them because that is the very nature of being human; we are historical beings. Our lives are lived in the unfolding story of history, which is part of the unfolding of cosmic history of billions of years of spatial dimensions beyond our capacity even to imagine. How will we find our way? Let me suggest that, given the nature of being human, that is, being historical, in movement into the future with further unfolding the constant experience, we can do no more than clarify the questions that drive our quest -Ultimate Questions – another way to describe religious questions, because when they are consciously faced, we are on the religious quest which is a quest for meaning. How, then, do we live in the dynamic movement that is our history? © Grand Valley State University �Q & Q, Not Q & A Richard A. Rhem Page 3   By faith, trust in God - trust which rests without knowing. It is not that we do not think nor that we are without knowledge which arises out of our thinking and experience. And we do not begin with a clean slate as though we are the first creatures to ask deep questions. But, it is precisely our human situation of being caught up in the stream of history that makes all our answers provisional, tentative, and open to critique. Faith is a gift and a choice. A gift - bestowed by the Spirit, but also a choice before the mystery of our existence. We are not dealing with that dimension of reality that is subject to verification through the scientific method. In light of experience, through serious thinking, a religious tradition develops and we are nurtured in it, find a place to stand within it, an attitude of trust grows and we find meaning, direction; we have a life-map which gives us a sense of orientation. We trust. We live by faith. But, knowledge grows, experience widens, new questions arise, and we bring new discovery and fresh experience to our religious tradition, causing that tradition to adjust to assimilate the new. Ultimate questions keep us on the quest. The quest raises new questions that challenge our belief system, forcing us to find a more adequate understanding of our human existence. There is an interesting dialogue going on at present in the Christian Church. Some weeks ago I mentioned an article in The Christian Century by the Sociologist of Religion, Peter Berger, who addressed the question of "Protestantism and the Quest for Certainty." Berger is a sociologist; he observes what is actually going on with people and social institutions. He expresses precisely what I have been trying to describe above - that history has brought us to a situation of pluralism where much that was taken for granted and never questioned suddenly no longer can be simply taken for granted because we become aware of alternative news and responses. That is our world. We are living with this every day. Recognizing there is within the human mind and heart the quest for certainty, at least on the most important question, there is tension set up in the human soul and we may be tempted to a radical relativism, even nihilism, denying any Truth accessible to human cognition, or, to fundamentalism and even fanaticism. References: Gordon Kaufman. In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology. Harvard University Press, 1995. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/48390cfb7bbaa87948a1a4968b2ff271.mp3 e47b2fd43102886009e43cc2970645e1 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 Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question Scripture Text John 23:1-10, Luke 4:1-13 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-0-19990117 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-01-17 Title A name given to the resource The Question: Q & Q, Not Q & A 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 January 17, 1999 entitled "The Question: Q & Q, Not Q & A", as part of the series "Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: John 23:1-10, Luke 4:1-13. Mystery Nature of Religion Religious Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c9245356d84ed98ff9659fd6c979a504.pdf dd9730e1f7dc5a95b2797f7a468305b5 PDF Text Text The Quest From the series: Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question Text: Micah 4:5; Matthew 2:1-2 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany, January 10, 1999 Transcription of the spoken sermon Since worship had to be canceled because of the weather last week, this is the first time we gather in worship in 1999, and I wish you a Happy New Year. The calendar is not all that important; we are on the threshold of the turn of the century and of the millennium, but, that really is no big deal, if you really stop to think about it, for the calendar is a rather parochial matter. It’s a human product; we’ve produced it and it’s a western Christian calendar. If you were in China, I suppose it would be the year 6000 or something. If you were in Jerusalem, last year you would have celebrated the 3000th anniversary of the city and I think for the Jewish people it’s the year 5,600 and something or other. I didn’t know where to find all that information, but it’s close. The point is, the year 2000 is no big deal. If it really were a big deal, it would have happened four years ago because there is a mistake in the calendar from when it was first put together. Anyway, what I’m saying to you is don’t get excited about going into the year 2000. Relax. Have a party. And don’t believe any of the rubbish that’s around; just don’t believe it. There are a few advanced human beings who I understand use computers - they may have a problem for a while. But, outside of that technology, there’s going to be no big deal at all. But the calendar does have this advantage: it reminds us that our life is involved in a movement and there’s nothing we can do about it. We can dig in our heels, we can fret, we can try all sorts of things to freeze the moment and hold it back. We can sing the song, "Stop the World and Let Me Off," but it won’t do any good, because time marches on and our human story marches on. We are historical people marked by the movement of time. Our days and weeks and months and years go on and the calendar’s turning. The calendar on the wall is a sign of the fact that time moves, we move, inevitably. And so, the calendar is an opportunity for us at this time of the year to take stock and to look to the future. In the Church, the 6th of January is the Feast of Epiphany which means the manifestation, the celebration in the Church of its conviction that Light has come into the world, that the child that was born who we believe was the Word made flesh, whose name in the Gospel of Matthew was Emmanuel, a name hardly ever used beyond that, and yet perhaps the finest name of all, that in the flesh of the © Grand Valley State University   �The Quest Richard A. Rhem Page 2   child, Emmanuel, God with us, that is the heart of our faith and that’s the heart of Christmas. On the Feast of Epiphany we celebrate the fact that in the child, God became human flesh and we have Light in the world, Light in the world for our ongoing journey. For that is the nature of our human existence - we are on a journey. Within us, deep within us there is a quest. We don’t pause often enough to acknowledge the quest. We probably don’t think about it very often, and then those moments intrude themselves upon us when we ask the ultimate questions, and we ask about the mystery of our existence before the face of the Ultimate Mystery - Who are we? And Why are we here? From whence have we come; whither are we going; and what in the world is God doing? We are people who have within our depths a question and a quest. It is the very nature of our humanity, and the quest that is endemic to our humanity is the religious quest. The questions are religious questions; they’re questions about the Ultimate, about meaning, about purpose, and there is that within our human nature that senses that we are on the way, that we are not where we are going, and that what we have yet experienced lacks completion and fulfillment. When we stop to think about it, we know that that’s the very nature of being human, that we are people on the way. We have a past and today we are able to have a sense of that past as no generations before us, recognizing that whole cosmic story of billions of years that emerged into a story of life, and then life at some point emerging into selfconscious life, some creature in its animality, in a moment becoming aware of itself and of the other, and at that moment, the universe became conscious, and we, humankind, are the consciousness of the cosmos, and it is that which marks us as humans that we ask those ultimate questions, that we are able to go back and to trace that long, long progression, that we become aware of ourselves at this moment and that we contemplate a future into which we are moving, a future uncharted that has surprises that we have not yet dreamed of. That’s really the nature of being human. To be human, I believe, is to be on a quest. And to be on a quest is to be asking the religious questions. Something within us, some yearning, some longing for some clue as to what this is all about, who we are, and what in the world God is doing. A beautiful statement written by C. S. Lewis entitled, “The Signature of the Soul,” found in The Problem of Pain, says very well what I want to say about that mark of our humanity as having a question embedded in its depths. C. S. Lewis writes, There are times when I think we do not desire heaven, but more often I find myself wondering whether in our hearts and our heart of hearts we have ever desired anything else…Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling of that something which you were born desiring and which amid all the flux of other desiring and passion, day and night, year after year, from childhood to old age you have been looking for, watching for, listening for. © Grand Valley State University �The Quest Richard A. Rhem Page 3   You’ve never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it, tantalizing glimpses of it, promises never quite fulfilled. But, if it should ever really become manifest, if ever there came an echo of it that did not fade away but grew louder and swelled into the sound itself, you would know it. Beyond all doubt, you would say, "Here it is. This is that for which I was made." We cannot tell each other about it; it is the secret signature of the soul, the incommunicable, unappeasable want, the thing desired before we made any conscious choices which we shall still desire on our deathbeds. To lose this is to lose all. The signature of the soul is the quest for meaning, for completion, for fulfillment, for some sense, some clue as to the mystery of our lives before the face of Mystery. That’s the nature of our human existence, and maybe the turning of the calendar, if it does nothing more, reminds us that we are a people on the way, living always with that deep question, "What is it all about? Who am I? Whence have I come? Whither am I going? And what in the world is God doing?" Micah speaks of a vision of another world where they’ll turn their weapons into farming implements and the nations will learn war no more, where Israel will walk in the name of its God and the nations will walk in the name of their God, and everyone will be unafraid, sitting under his or her vine and fig tree. That peaceful, serene setting that must be at the depths of the longing within us when we realize that what is cannot be all there is, that there must be something more, some other world, some new age. But, it was not only the Hebrew prophets who had such a longing, who had a sense of quest, for it is the symbol of Epiphany that a star aroused Magi, those mysterious astrologers from the East, to seek out the birth of one whom they felt signaled in the stars was destined for royalty, and they made their way to Jerusalem and then to Bethlehem and knelt before the child. The Church has, somewhat triumphalistically said, "You see, it was the beginning of the coming of all nations to the true God, to the true Light." Well, I would say rather, it is an indication of the universality of the longing of the quest for God, for truth, for reality. The journey of the Magi is simply symbolic in the way we tell the Christmas story of our conviction that we are on a quest for the living God, and the celebration of the fact that that God has caused the Light to dawn upon us, not to end our quest, but to whet our appetite, to dig more deeply into that quest, following the star, seeking to fill that hole in the soul that marks us as the restless ones who are ever on the move. On this first worshiping Sunday of the New Year, I’m really excited to announce the establishment of a new ministry at Christ Community. It is an adjunct ministry of The Center for Religion and Life. I have in my hands a brochure which you’ll all have in your hands before long. The Center for Religion and Life, which announces the coming in February and the first weekend of Lent, February © Grand Valley State University �The Quest Richard A. Rhem Page 4   19-21, the presence of John Dominic Crossan, who is, I think I can say without refutation, the world’s preeminent scholar in the research for the historical Jesus. John Dominic Crossan will inaugurate a lecture series in 1999 under the auspices of The Center for Religion and Life. He’ll be followed by Marcus Borg, the most popular writer and author in this whole historical Jesus quest. In the fall, we’ll have Amy-Jill Levine who is a Jewish scholar teaching New Testament at Vanderbilt University, and then perhaps the most controversial churchman in America today, Bishop John Shelby Spong coming to us, as the brochure says, to help us re-imagine Christian faith for the third millennium. This Center for Religion and Life has a logo, which is Q & Q, selected very deliberately, because today popularly you will see, "Q & A." What’s the question? This is the answer. And I think throughout the long history of the Church, Q & A would fit appropriately. What’s the question? We have the answer. Christ Community is going to inaugurate a Center for Religion and Life that will be marked not by Q & A, but by Q & Q, by Quest and Question, for we come to acknowledge, as I said a moment ago, that it is the very nature of our human existence that we are in movement, on a journey, and that within our depths there is a quest for meaning which is, I believe, the quest for God. We will honor that quest, seeking to help people clarify the questions, for to be human, to be honest is to live without absolute answers. Life is a mystery. Too often, for too long in the Church, we have promised too much. We have made premature closure on those Ultimate questions that drive our restlessness, and so we felt that it was time for a congregation to establish a Center where the quest can be honored and the questions sought to be clarified, the quest of our human existence, the questions that impinge upon our human existence, a Center where, as an adjunct to this total ministry, we can create a space, a forum, if you will, where those questions can be honestly pursued. Why? Because the Christian faith needs desperately to be translated in light of the explosion of modern knowledge. I am not being critical; I am stating a fact quite simply: The Church at large has never come to terms with the knowledge, the explosion of knowledge in the modern world. Why do it? Because our story comes out of an ancient world and an ancient framework which is not in any way to denigrate the truth that came to expression, simply to recognize that the structures within which the story was told are structures that have long since been put to rest while a whole new world has exploded, a world that needs to have the interpretation and the critique of the faith, but which also must critique the faith drawing from it new answers and new understandings and insights in order that faith and life may illumine each other. Why do it? Because the Gospel is good news, and it does need to be presented in such a fashion that it can connect with people of contemporary experience so that the Church doesn’t become a museum piece, lauding yesterday’s answers to today’s questions, but allowing the Gospel fresh expression through hard work, © Grand Valley State University �The Quest Richard A. Rhem Page 5   theological reflection, biblical study in order that we may find a way to speak good news into the future. Why Christ Community? Well, because we’ve been doing it for a long time here. You have been a wonderful congregation that has encouraged me to continue to think the faith, and Christ Community is a rather rare situation. Not many people with my passion and my interest go into the ministry or stay in the ministry. Not in the pastoral ministry. There are all kinds of places to go where one can think unfettered by the pastoral setting, but it has been who I am, but you have allowed me in this setting to continue to think and to think out loud on this stool, and we’ve always had a freedom here to think the faith, reflect on the faith, probe the edges. Why Christ Community? Because this is a most rare place where over a quarter of a century of theological reflection has been translated into preaching that has developed a community that is the laboratory by which the theology can be tested. You are the fruit of the theological reflection which has found expression in preaching, and there aren’t a lot of situations like this. But there’s another reason why Christ Community and that is that we have not only that tradition of free inquiry combining evangelical passion with intellectual integrity, but we also have a new burst of freedom and freshness. We, in our independent status, have no ecclesiastical pressures or obligations. We are free to think the faith as never before. I’ve had an interesting experience in the last year and I’ve mentioned it to you, I’m sure, in conversation, if we’ve talked about it. I’ve always felt I had a free pulpit here and you’ve been a wonderful congregation to allow me to indulge my habit, but I have today a freedom that I didn’t know I didn’t have, and that’s a fascinating experience. I have a freedom today I didn’t know I didn’t have. And so, while this is nothing new, really, we’re going to do it with a new intentionality and a new deliberateness and a new publicness. We’re going to do our best to create here an oasis where every question is honored, where there is no subject that is off limits, where in conversation, in community, we can think together in the presence of the mystery that is God. Why do it? It needs desperately to be done, and there aren’t many, either in academy or congregation, that are doing it. Why do it here? Because of the position of freedom that allows that kind of honest inquiry. Why do it now? I’m getting old. I don’t have long to go anymore. I have to get on it. If we’re ever going to do it, we’ve got to do it. I mean, if you want to do it with me, and I’d like to do it with you, so let’s do it together. Honoring the quest, clarifying the questions; breaking new ground, unafraid, because we really believe in the Good News, in the grace of God that has appeared in the Word made flesh who is the Light of the world, who beckons wise ones. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/37f08f1b5913669c88e7388e4ca19f47.mp3 f543154db5e7a11d12d3649f9b35eaed 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 II Series Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question Scripture Text Micah 4:5, Matthew 2:1-2 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Gordon Kaufman.In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology, 1995. 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-0-19990110 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-01-10 Title A name given to the resource The Quest 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 January 10, 1999 entitled "The Quest", as part of the series "Q & Q: The Religious Quest and Question", on the occasion of Epiphany II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Micah 4:5, Matthew 2:1-2. Epiphany Meaning Mystery of God Religious Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/edef04a75323de553ba042bdcbe9be9e.pdf 2d3d6fe277b1df9e8915da8937a528c3 PDF Text Text Carrying Coals to Newcastle Scripture: Luke 9:51-56; 19:41-48 Richard A. Rhem Fountain Street Church Grand Rapids, Michigan November 8, 1998 Transcription of the spoken sermon It is a pleasure and high privilege to be with you this morning. I am grateful to Bruce for his kind orientation and bringing me to this point. It is a privilege to stand here, and I do so with some fear and trembling, in spite of the fact that it is nearly forty years since my ordination and I have preached a sermon or two in those years. But this is not just any place, this is an historic pulpit and you are a people with a grand tradition. This is hardly a place where one would mouth banalities or come forth with trivial truisms. I come with some fear and trembling, not because I do not know that you are a gracious people and this a gracious place; you have been supportive and encouraging to me and to my people, and for that I would thank you very much. But, I do come with some fear and trembling, for this is always a very serious moment in which one would seek some word to address to a people engaged in the religious quest. I come carrying coals to Newcastle. Perhaps I should explain that a bit. There is, as some of you may know, a conversation that takes place on Tuesdays at Duba’s bar. A few weeks ago when I was wrestling with this moment, I said to an old intimate friend of mine, John Richard DeWitt, "If you were to preach at Fountain, what would you preach?" He laughed at the prospect. John Richard DeWitt is a classmate of mine from college and seminary and some few years ago he was called to become the pastor of the Seventh Reformed Church of Grand Rapids. At that time, I was serving my present congregation in Spring Lake and we were still affiliated with the Reformed Church in America and we had the distinction of being on the far left; he in Seventh Reformed Church had the distinction of being on the far right. The polls have been shaved a bit because both of us have been cut out by now. The reason that John Richard DeWitt sits at the table in Duba’s is because an older luncheon fellowship between Dr. Duncan Littlefair and Dr. Lester DeKoster had been going on for many years. And when my friend came to this city, the DeKosters became members of that congregation. Lester invited his pastor to the table. (Now, you see, Duncan was at the disadvantage. It was heavily weighted toward orthodoxy. But then my old friend invited me to the table. The scales were © Grand Valley State University   �Carrying Coals to Newcastle Richard A. Rhem Page 2   righted once again, although I had the sense that Duncan was doing quite well on his own.) But, that wonderful conversation at Duba’s was an occasion for me to say to my friend, "What would you preach?" I said to the table, "The only thing I can think of as a theme is ‘Carrying Coals to Newcastle;’ what do I have to bring to that people from whom I have learned so much, a people with whom I will spend the rest of my ministry trying to keep up?" Then my old friend, John Richard DeWitt, said, "Well, you know even Newcastle needs coals that are flaming." In that moment, of course, the sermon was born. Contrary to nature, the birth pains came afterward and have continued to the present. But, Coals to Newcastle - I, a guest in this pulpit, seeking to say something to you, a people engaged in the religious quest along with myself. I want to say very clearly in the beginning that I am conscious that I am bringing coals to Newcastle, for you have been a people for a long time on this quest. You have been a people for a long time who have been a voice in this community; you have been on the cutting edge, you have been prophetic and provocative. Thus, as I come and would say all of the things that are the passion of my life and ministry, I would only be repeating the things that have moved you and motivated you over many decades. I want you to know that I am conscious of that and that you have been for me and for many others a beacon. You have been a model of what a congregation ought to be, placed in the city as you are; I want to thank you for what you have been and express very clearly my respect for all that you are. I can perhaps demonstrate what I mean by that when I tell you a personal narrative that goes back forty years. In the irony of history and our human experience, it was forty years ago when my friend, John Richard DeWitt and I were students at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. We were a part of a quartet that might have been called The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We probably should have been caged up at the time, but, nonetheless, we were free to flaunt our impeccable orthodoxy. At that time my friend, John Richard, invited Dr. Duncan Littlefair to address the student assembly one evening during the year. Well, he came, and he was the adversary, he was the enemy we allowed within the camp. He was fascinating, brilliant as always, and terribly threatening. But, I was quite sure that I had managed to escape the evening without damage; I was invulnerable at those times. I had many answers, not having yet confronted the questions. It was shortly after I returned to Spring Lake in the early seventies that I was invited to be the speaker at an insurance seminar. I was some kind of a visiting fireman. I don’t know why I agreed to do it, but I told them everything I knew, and some things I only suspected. During one of the coffee breaks, my wife, Nancy, came up to me with a bit of a smile on her face with a distinguishedlooking gentleman, and she said to me, "This gentleman has just paid you a © Grand Valley State University �Carrying Coals to Newcastle Richard A. Rhem Page 3   compliment, I think." I said, "Oh, what was that?" And he said, "Well, I told your wife that any day you could step into the pulpit of Fountain Street Church." Sometime after that, I think still in the seventies, Nancy and I came and worshiped with you. I remember the day vividly. Dr. Duncan Littlefair was in this pulpit. The title of the sermon was "Honk If You Love Jesus." The text was Matthew 11:28, "Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." And Dr. Littlefair proceeded with all of his brilliance to contradict the text. He said, "There is no one out there, you are on your own." He decried the weakness of so much sick religion. Well, it was a bit unsettling to me, I must admit. But, then, before we left the service, the choir intoned those words, "The Lord bless you ..." and I thought, "Oh well, it’s all right." But then, after some years, I was invited to be a Professor of Preaching at Western Theological Seminary and I wrote an article about the extent of God’s grace, wondering out loud and in print whether or not the embrace of God’s grace might not embrace the whole human race. I found that I wasn’t simply the pastor of Christ Community Church, but I was now a seminary professor and seminary professors don’t think out loud, let alone dare to utter such a truth. I stepped aside rather than bringing down the roof, but as I left the seminary and returned to my home base, I said to my leadership and to my team members, "I must not be less radical; I must be more radical." I said to a trusted colleague of mine, "Christ Community must move toward Fountain Street," and he said to me, "You’re in enough trouble, don’t say that publically." But, I knew it, you see, I knew it ten years ago and I have watched you and I have admired you, I have respected you and I have learned much from you. I say this to you, not simply to tell you my personal narrative, but to remind you that you are being watched and you never know who is watching and you never know the impact of the integrity of your life and what it will mean to those who with you are on the religious quest. So, I carry coals to Newcastle quite self-consciously and I do it in order to remind you that what you are and what you have been is critically important. The world needs you, this community needs you, the whole church needs you. But, I say those things to you not simply that you might relax and rest on your laurels. Let me read a statement from Martin Luther: If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. To be steady on all battle fronts besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point. Luther would indicate that we may be doing well all across the board, but if we have not located that one point where the battle is raging, where the fire is raging, © Grand Valley State University �Carrying Coals to Newcastle Richard A. Rhem Page 4   we will not be faithful; rather, we will be a disgrace. It is not enough once to have a vision. It is not enough to have been relevant and pertinent and powerful in the past, for it is always now and it’s always today in which we must discover that point at which the battle is raging, those things to which we must address ourselves if we would be true to our vision and faithful to our dreams. Where is the battle raging today? Well, I don’t really need to tell you. You can read it every day in your newspaper and view it on the television news. Jerusalem, the holy city, the cradle of three great religious traditions, where even this week violence, terrorism and death reign. Where people who profess to worship the same God are at the respective extremes, killing each other; where the fundamentalisms of Judaism and Islam clash. Where does the battle rage? It rages in Wyoming where a young man is strung across a fence as a sign post and a marker of that paranoia, fear and hatred that would say, "This is what we have in store for you if you are gay or lesbian." Where does it rage? It rages just down the road at my alma mater, Hope College, where the chaplaincy office advocates a position that condemns a positive response to the pluralism of religion, the recognition of the value of the respective traditions. At my old alma mater, exclusivism is being promoted in its sharpest form. Those are but symptoms, you see, for underneath, and this is my point, underneath, the greatest peril to the world, to its peace and its well-being are the respective religious fundamentalisms that are fueling the fears of people and unleashing their animal nature that result in the terrorism and the violence and the death that mark our globe every moment of every day. Where is the battle raging? It is raging in a kind of absolutist and dogmatic religion that is blind to its own meanness and narrowness, that identifies itself, its sacred book, its sacred tradition, its sacred persons with the Absolute itself, that has no sense that it is but a human response to that ultimate Mystery that pervades our lives and embraces us in a grace, and that sees its mission to promote its own particular point of view, no matter what the cost. I believe that’s where the battle rages today and I am again bringing coals to Newcastle because you’ve heard it from this pulpit for decades. But religion has never been more powerful; it has never been more volatile; it has never been more dangerous than it is in our day. And so, while I realize I am carrying coals to Newcastle, I would say to you, "What do we do about it?" We might abandon religion, wash our hands of it, shake the dust from our sandals. I’d like to do that. I cannot believe in the bigotry and the bias and the prejudice and the fueling of violence for which religion is responsible. There are times when I am so ashamed of it, I would like to leave it altogether, and I imagine you have been there, too. © Grand Valley State University �Carrying Coals to Newcastle Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Or, we might not abandon it. We might remain in it, but only in our little enclave, congratulating ourselves that we have long since left such darkness and with a kind of enlightened superiority look with disdain on those whose religious passion is misdirected. Or, we might see it as simply another social relationship, lacking all passion and significance. But, how can we? In this city where you have set such a grand tradition, the dangerous religious exclusivism to which I have referred is being preached in the majority of the pulpits at this very hour. The enlightenment that you have enjoyed over the decades has not penetrated one whit. There is still an exclusivism and a dogmatism and an absolutism which has put the whole creation in danger and is a detriment to human well-being. Well, what will we do about it? We won’t go on a social crusade. We won’t gird up our loins and march off to battle. We had better wait first, in moments like this, in an environment like this, in the attitude of prayer, allowing the Spirit to seep deeply into our being. We must be something before we do something. Let me hold up before you the model of Jesus who set his face to go to Jerusalem. It was precisely his recognition that the collusion of religion and politics was an oppression to the people that set him on his course. He set his face to Jerusalem. On the way, they went through Samaria. There was hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans and the Samaritans wouldn’t receive him. His own disciples said, "Should we call down fire from heaven and consume them?" And he said, "My God, you don’t know what spirit you’re of, for I have come to heal humanity, not destroy it." And then he came to the city and as he looked at that golden city from the crest of Olivet, he began to weep. It was anguish, anguish wet with tears. He cried out that great lament, "If you ... had only recognized ... the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes." He could see it; he knew it. With frustration, with anger, with compassion, he entered the city and the very citadel of religion and he cleansed the temple of its bartering and its business and called it again to be what it was intended to be - a house of prayer for all people. This is why I follow the way of Jesus - not because he is some Divine Intruder invading our time and space to effect some miracle cure for our frail and flawed humanity, promising us some bliss in another world at a future time, not because he is some Savior figure of a Salvation cult. No, rather, that in that life, in that face set steadfastly toward Jerusalem, in those tears shed over that Holy City, I see the loving anguish, the passionate concern that bespeaks one who cares deeply, one who is angry with human arrogance and gracious with human weakness. I see his intolerance of human systems of domination and oppression, religious, political, economic and social. I see his awareness that it is religion gone awry that nurtures prejudice and fosters ignorance, that hides injustice in a cloak of piety while exploiting human fears and weakness to support institutionalized religion which so subtly becomes a facade behind which to hide © Grand Valley State University �Carrying Coals to Newcastle Richard A. Rhem Page 6   vested interests and reactionary forces seeking to maintain the status quo which means a societal system protecting privilege, deaf to the cry of the millions who live a less than human existence. I set before you Jesus, with all of his compassion for human weakness, in all of his anger at human dominance and oppression. I set before you one who set his face to go to Jerusalem and confronted the principalities and powers, the demons of his day. He found where the battle was raging and, after steeping himself in the presence of God, set forth to act. That is the fiery coal I would bring to Newcastle. I have no quick fix, I have no easy answer, but I’ll tell you this - a comfortable and complacent liberal religious experience will stand by while the world goes to hell and by God, we can’t let it happen! I set before you a model whose way to follow and in whose steps to walk will bring us to that point where the battle is raging. May the Spirit give you restlessness in your rest; enough humor to keep you humble, enough grace to keep you going, and joy in your journey. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4f2fcccfb42d10740d290ad43d18217c.mp3 c6ff30e2ee6b685b270284a6aecd4203 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 XXIII Scripture Text Luke 9:51-56, 19:41-48 Location The location of the interview Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, 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-0-19981108 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998-11-08 Title A name given to the resource Carrying Coals to Newcastle 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 November 8, 1998 entitled "Carrying Coals to Newcastle", on the occasion of Pentecost XXIII, at Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, MI. Scripture references: Luke 9:51-56, 19:41-48. Inclusive Religious Quest Way of Jesus https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/dedef21f77bfe5535f425a703d987a4e.pdf 86ead1cdcb67145c08cba3516911538f PDF Text Text The Church: Has It a Future? From the series: The Church: Critical Questions Text: Matthew 7:4; 31:31; Matthew 23:37-38 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan October 4, 1998 Transcription of the spoken sermon It is the month of October, and being the son of the Reformation, the month of October always makes me think about the church and I have often in the fall season reflected on the nature of the church, its mission, and its function. I want to do that again this year in October, raising critical questions about the church and, in November, talking about the nature of the community that is the church. I do so this year, perhaps particularly, because I am anxious that we should think together about the nature of the church, the church’s future, a future that cannot be taken for granted, ever, but certainly in this congregation as we go into a new church year with a status of independence, somewhat unusual because most of the time, most of the church is interconnected. Not that we are outside of the body of Christ. Nonetheless, we have a particular situation, a circumstance, I believe a particular opportunity, but we ought to be about it intentionally and thoughtfully. And so, if you would for a few weeks just think with me about the church and, this morning, The Church: Has It a Future? I think I can answer that immediately - of course it has a future, but I would also respond to that immediately by saying it will not be the nature of the church as it has been in the past, I believe, as we look into the future. There will be some significant transformations, I’m quite sure, and I do believe that we can be a part of that movement toward a creative newness, which I would hope we would find ourselves engaged with. Think with me, then, for a bit about the church and perhaps the future shape. Maybe that would be a better title. The kinds of things that will be true, increasingly, as we move together into the future. I cannot help but remember the couple of weeks that some of us traversed the European continent. Every place you go, there is another church or another cathedral. There are those who have accused me of leading ABC Tours - "another bloody church." But, we seldom miss one. When one is on the European continent, one is impressed with the fact that those spires that ascend heavenward all over that continent bespeak an age of faith. There was a time when the European culture ,which has become so thoroughly secular, was marked by faith, Christian faith, to be specific. Those magnificent sacred spaces, © Grand Valley State University   �Has the Church a Future? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   still awesome upon entrance, taking your breath away, making one realize the function of sacred space, of the aesthetic that is able to reach the depths of our being and draw out that attitude of worship, causing us for a moment simply to be still. In one such moment someone said to me, "Whatever else one can say, one would have to admit that was a day when somebody really believed in God." They say you can determine the nature of a culture by its architecture, and that certainly is true of that European scene as it reflects those centuries in which faith was dominant and great cathedrals were raised to the glory of God. I suppose our own day would be marked by the glass and steel skyscraper of the commercial world, the business world. Ours is a different age. But, there was a time when in every village, in the most prominent location, there stood the church as a symbol of that faith in God that was as solid as the rock on which the church was built. But one cannot traverse that continent today without the sense that, when one enters those magnificent spaces, one is in the environment of the museum. That is not to say that there are not still godly people gathering in worship, but one does have the feeling that many of those beautiful edifices are more now a place where tourists come and light candles and stay a moment to pray, rather than being the cutting edge of the society over which the spire dominates. And so, one recognizes the fact that with religion and with now specifically the church, there are periods of ebb and flow and that to raise the question about the future is significant, it is important. I read an article some time ago about some of these buildings in The Netherlands. When a building has served as a place of divine worship, there is a general recognition, even for those who have no affiliation or participation in that act, nonetheless some feeling that such a building, such a place ought to be used appropriately when its function is no longer needed in the community. There are a lot of such buildings in The Netherlands, for example. So, how do you find a use for an old church? How do you use a place with dignity that once was a house of worship but no longer functions in that way? What of the future of the church? What of the future of this congregation? As I was thinking about this a month or six weeks ago, and put together this present series, I received an issue of The Christian Century that had an excellent article in it by Peter Berger. Peter Berger is a Lutheran; he’s a sociologist; he’s been one of the most acute observers of the religious scene, and he writes an excellent article, which was precisely what I had been thinking about, entitled "Protestantism and the Quest for Certainty." He raises the question whether or not the church can survive and have a future if it must live with less than absolute certainty in matters of faith. His answer is "Yes," but not to be taken for granted. In his analysis of the present situation, he says in our world, which is marked by pluralism, there is the interfacing of cultures and religions such as formerly was not the case. Formerly, in previous generations, people could live pretty much isolated in their own communities. People were socialized pretty much the same © Grand Valley State University �Has the Church a Future? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   way and, where there is a stable community and a stable tradition and a relatively homogenous population, you have a lot of things that are very important about life that are simply taken for granted. Peter Berger plays on that phrase, "taken for grantedness." Much of life is taken for granted, and that’s not all bad. It simplifies life a bit. You don’t have to think about every action. You don’t have to make a decision every time you make a move. There are things one takes for granted. But, in the arena of religion, the pluralism of our times, the presence of the great religious traditions in our own communities means that, in terms of our religious faith, we can no longer take it for granted. We simply know that there are other options. There are other people who evidence the fruit of the Spirit who believe differently, who act differently than we do, and whenever that happens, when you come into a situation that is genuinely pluralistic, that taken-for-grantedness is obviously undermined. One has to begin to think about what one believes and how one behaves and how one values, etc. Peter Berger says that’s our situation. He quotes the philosopher John Dewey, who speaks about a quest for certainty, and recognizes that it is endemic in the human heart, in yours and mine, that we do seek certain certitudes, certain securities. I like to use the phrase, "lust for certitude." Some things we want to know absolutely. We want to be able to say, "Here I stand," and we don’t want to waffle all over the place. Religion and the church as the bearer of religion have fed into the human desire and quest. It’s simply quite normal, but I think the disservice that the church as a religious community has visited on its people is to give the impression that it’s possible to live with absolute certainties, failing to point out that it is the very nature of our human existence that absolutes are denied us. We are in the stream of history; our lives are marked by change, by development. The future is open, and it is impossible to freeze, absolutize church structures, liturgical forms, creedal formulations, and consequently, we live with a tension, a tension that stems from our quest for certainty and the reality of our human situation which denies us certitude. I happen to think that the church has played into that lust for certitude and promised what it really cannot promise honestly, and that what we ought to do, what we must do, rather, is help our people learn to live by faith where those absolutes are unavailable. But the question is, can such a church have a future? Can such a community face honestly the human situation and survive, refusing to play into that which has motivated so much religious activity, that quest for certainty and security which, once again, I must say I think is simply not available in our human situation? Well, Peter Berger in this very fine article says the very heart and center of the Protestant movement of the 16th century Reformation was the refusal to absolutize any human structure, be it the structure of the church, or be it the structure of the faith, or even be it the Bible as the infallible, inerrant word of © Grand Valley State University �Has the Church a Future? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   God. Anything that a human hand has touched is denied absoluteness. That was the insight of the 16th century. The nuance of the word Protestant is negative, like protest, as being against. But, as a matter of fact, in the 16th century the Protestants were protesting. Pro is for. Calling for something, so that out of that 16th century movement, at its heart, which was already denied by the 17th century, there was a recognition that there is always a danger to absolutize human forms and structures and institutions, and freeze against the future, and try to create a situation of taken for grantedness, and I have to tell you there’s no such place. My question is: Can a congregation survive where there is that kind of honesty up front that denies you the certainty for which your soul longs? But, in taking that position, I am being true to my heritage, because the essence of the 16th century was that the church was being reformed according to the word of God, and always being reformed, and there was no point, no creed, no structure that could ever finally be absolutized. That’s what the whole thing was about, because there was an explosion in the 16th century because churches do what churches do. It happened in Jeremiah’s day. They thought, as long as the temple was sitting in the midst of Jerusalem, everything was going to be hunkydory. And so, the prophet comes. How does God speak to Jeremiah? I don’t know. Middle of the night, or did he just overeat the night before and have indigestion? Anyway, he stands on the church steps on the high holy day and they’re coming to worship and he says, "Don’t trust these deceptive words, ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord is this.’ Do you think you can just go out and live any old way you want to live, denying the justice and the compassion that God requires, and everything will be just fine because the temple is standing? Not on your life." Oh, Jeremiah’s got a story. What a story. I can’t go into it, but they call him the weeping prophet no one ever heeded. Finally he lost his life, but he wasn’t alone. And Jesus, in his controversy with the religious leadership of his day, confronting them with the best in their own tradition, and yet recognizing that it would be true of him as it was true of Jeremiah. Jesus said to the religious leadership of his day, "You’ve always done it. You’re simply the children of your parents who have shed all that righteous blood down through the centuries. The prophet, the one who dares shake the foundations, the one who dares to tell the truth, the one who refuses to cotton to that lust for certitude where certitude cannot be found, that one who will give answers knowing more than one can know." Jesus says, "I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not." So, Judah went into exile. The Jesus movement split off from the Jewish movement. The Reformation was a rending of the body of Christ because institutions will not live in the light of reality, which is a non-absolute posture in all of life. That’s the nature of human existence. I’m sorry to deny you the kind of security and certainty you would want, but if I would give you security and © Grand Valley State University �Has the Church a Future? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   certainty in this human pilgrimage, I would be giving you something that is not possible. You, rather, have to learn to live by faith. Sola Fidei; Luther, one of the cardinal planks - By faith! There’s no church that’s absolute; there’s no doctrine that’s absolute; there’s no book that’s absolute; there’s only God Who is absolute and God is Mystery and we trust by faith, we lay hold of God. Colette prays a moving prayer that touches us deeply and recognizes the infirmities and the fragility and the tragedy and pain of our human existence, and then the choir sings, "All will be well. All will be well; all manner of things will be well," quoting Julian of Norwich who is quoted here regularly and will continue to be quoted here. Eventually we’ll sing it, as well. All will be well. All will be well; all manner of things will be well. I believe that. I live in faith; I trust that, but in the meantime, I don’t know. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know about the next decade or the next century or the next millennium. I have to live, trusting, trusting. The Protestant Principle, said Paul Tillich, refuses to absolutize anything human - church, state, culture, social, whatever. We are pilgrims, we are on a journey, the future continues to open up, we move toward it, trusting, without that kind of certainty that we would so love to have. I’m thinking about all this, and then I’m reading this article and Berger says, "How can one build institutions on such a fragile base?" I said, "Peter, you tell me. How can you build institutions on such a fragile basis?" Don’t viable institutions require a strong foundation of taken for granted verities? Require representatives who exude self-assured certainty? Let us assume that over time it is difficult to fake this, and we must ask, if one constructs institutions on the basis of the sort of skepticism that the Protestant Principle implies, will these institutions not be extraordinarily weak, associations of individuals with no deep commitment? Can such institutions survive? I want to say, "Peter Berger, you’re reading my mind." Do you know what sells in Peoria? Do you know where the vitality and the strength and the resources are in the religious world? They are in places where there is absolute certainty, where there is promise without qualification. Where there is triumphalism. Where there is reveling in this victory and triumph of God that makes all things well. They’re flourishing, folks, and my question to you is not whether we will flourish, but simply whether we’ll survive. Can an institution that is deadly honest with the human situation, simply trusting God, survive? Peter Berger says, "Yes," but he said there will be a difference. You can believe a lot of the same things, but you hold them differently because you know there are other options, and you know that you have intentionally decided to be here, and that you have deliberately embraced a certain faith and posture, and that you are an association of voluntary members. There’s no coercion. Nobody forces you. No peer pressure. No community pressure. Just plain saying, "That’s what I believe, and I can live with that kind of uncertainty because underneath it is a deep trust © Grand Valley State University �Has the Church a Future? Richard A. Rhem Page 6   in God that will enable me, come triumph or tragedy, light or shadow, radiant sunshine or the dead of winter, to prevail. In 1972, a man who was working for the National Council of Churches named Dean Kelly, wrote a book, Why Conservative Churches are Growing. This was 1972. I had been back here about a year. Kelly was observing, as Peter Berger, sociologically, phenomenally, the church scene, and he asked why conservative churches were growing, that is, churches with a very rigid creed and a very rigid social code, (you do this and you don’t do that), and a series of demands, (you’re here on Sunday, Wednesday night, you tithe your income), etc., etc. Why, he said, are conservative churches marked that way growing? He said, "As a matter of fact, they are the churches that are growing," and he has been proven to be at least partially right. In 1972 I took that book into the pulpit in that little sanctuary over there and I held it up and I said, "Folks, if Dean Kelly is right, we are doomed, because I am trying to do something that is absolutely opposite, diametrically opposite from what he says works." So, if we’re in trouble, it was intentional, and it’s the only way, it’s the only way that I can be a part of any church in the future. An honesty, a trust, and that’s all there is. So, let’s keep thinking about it. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fd60ddece2cf83937ac2a19a0f9c8454.mp3 82144e330a9ba21a45ec16887bb490bb 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 XVIII Series The Church: Critical Questions Scripture Text Jeremiah 7:4, 31:31, Matthew 23:37-38 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-0-19981004 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998-10-04 Title A name given to the resource The Church: Has It a Future? 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 October 4, 1998 entitled "The Church: Has It a Future?", as part of the series "The Church: Critical Questions", on the occasion of Pentecost XVIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Jeremiah 7:4, 31:31, Matthew 23:37-38. Nature of Religion Prophetic Voice Protestant Religious Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bdfd6929f469b9879237b6dec7866225.pdf 268c849bddaf0a8f91cdde2291f53b3c PDF Text Text Do I Need Religion? From the series: Can I Honestly Believe? Text: Psalm 8:1; Psalm 42:2; Acts 17:22 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan July 12, 1998 Transcription of the spoken sermon I announced a summer series in a recent Courier entitled With Heart and Mind United. I cited a sermon from 1984 with that theme. In that sermon, I pointed back to my return to this congregation in 1971 when we determined to be a congregation marked by intellectual integrity and evangelical passion. We have been on such an adventure of faith now for over twenty-seven years. When I determined the series theme for this summer, it was not a case of conscious recycling; rather, it was a determination to do once again what we have been engaged in over all these years - to understand the faith we profess and live, to bring our experience of God, of the sacred, the Holy, into connection with the whole reality of our human experience. Working over that theme, I have named the series Can I Honestly Believe? By that I mean, can I as a person at the end of the twentieth century, aware of the universe of which I am a part, still believe in God as Source, Guide, and Goal of all that is, to paraphrase St. Paul? Faith, religious awe, worship and devotional practices arise from our depths, not from rational analysis; we will never by exercise of our reason be able fully to explain the human experiences of the Mystery we call God. In a 1917 classic study of religion, Rudolf Otto wrote on the idea of the Holy, the description of the experience of the Holy or a God as the ganz andere, the wholly Other, that mystery beyond that breaks through to us but, breaking through to us, making us unalterably aware of the reality in the presence, remains the hidden one, the hidden mystery. The religious experience, Otto describes very, very wonderfully when he says, it is ... the feeling that remains where the concept fails. It is an experience that transcends the possibility of conceptualizing it, articulating it, putting it into idea form. But, put it into idea form, we will. We seem to have to do that. We will try to understand. The understanding is never the same as the experience in itself, but © Grand Valley State University   �Do I Need Religion? Richard A. Rhem Page 2   being human as we are, rational creatures, reflective, self-conscious, we will inevitably think about and seek to bring to expression at least in some symbolic form that which will point beyond itself to the experience that has broken in upon us. That seems to be the universal human experience, and that is the origin of religion. Religion has at least these three basic components: There is that which is believed, or the doctrine. There is the mode of worship, devotion, practice, the ritual, the liturgy, which seeks to be an expression, an action that gives expression to the idea. And then, there is the drawing out of the implications of the experience for daily living, or ethics. So, doctrine or theology, cult or worship, ethics or morality - that’s the nature of human religion. I have said this before a number of times, but I’m going to say it again until you wake up in the middle of the night and repeat it to yourself - religion is a human, creative construction. Religions don’t fall out of heaven full-blown. We make them up. Not arbitrarily or capriciously, but we make them up in response to the in-breaking of the sacred or the Holy or God, the experience that is still there when the concept fails, but the experience that drives us to seek to articulate the nature of it. We construct our human religion in response to the in-breaking of the mystery that is God. Therefore, and this is critical, the knowledge of the world, the universe, the human being and society, in a word – the worldview, because it provides the framework of human religion and will from time to time move beyond an earlier understanding, will leave the religious structure, imagery and symbol with a framework that no longer makes sense. For a time the religious community will do a translation - the three-storied universe heaven earth hell is translated into modern cosmology with meanings spiritualized. But, at some point, a symbol system breaks down and it no longer speaks, it can no longer point beyond itself to the Ultimate. Then one must decide - either to chuck religion as nonsense, or to recognize that an outmoded structure does not spell the death of God. Edward O. Wilson, in his recently published book, Consilience, talks about his experience as a good Southern Baptist lad who went through the evangelical experience of conversion and all the rest, but having a curious mind from the © Grand Valley State University �Do I Need Religion? Richard A. Rhem Page 3   beginning, eventually went off to school where he says, "I chose to doubt." Then, in his distinguished career as a biologist who recognized the place of religion in people’s lives, he recognized the importance of religion in giving orientation, in giving meaning, significance to life, and so forth. But he also recognized that he was one person who could not continue to understand reality as continually being unfolded in our presence before the pursuit of the natural scientist and still somehow or other believe that there was a literal anchoring of conceptuality back 2000 or 3000 years. He refused to believe that the final revelation of God was put in stone by an agricultural culture 2000 years ago at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. He experienced cognitive dissonance. Wilson raises the interesting question whether science, the examination and exploration of reality, may not be a continuation of "Holy Writ," only on better tested ground. He suggests the data of scientific investigation may play the role that once revelation played in religion - satisfying the religious hunger to know one’s place in the universe. So far, the theory of everything has eluded even the great intellects of an Einstein and a Hawking. And if one day the unity of knowledge becomes a reality, even then one will have to choose whether or not behind it is still the Mystery that manifests itself, yet remains hidden. The questions we will be asking this summer are questions that arise because our religious system, its imagery, symbol and conceptuality derives from another time, based on an outmoded worldview. Therefore, in Wilson’s terms, there is widespread cognitive dissonance. Many have simply given up religious faith. Some of us struggle to bring religious experience into meaningful conversation with our present knowledge of the world. That is my challenge for this summer season. But, the question arises: Do I need it? - Not if my religious practice was only a way to please a God Who might condemn me to eternal punishment. - Not if I practice religious devotion just to cover the bases, just in case ... I read last night again The Grand Inquisitor, by Dostoevsky. Chilling, chilling! Jesus appears in Seville, Spain, during the time of the Inquisition. They had just burned 100 heretics at the stake and Jesus appears before a crowd of people and the Cardinal, the church ecclesiast, sees him, has him thrown into jail, then goes to speak with him, and tells him how the freedom of which Jesus spoke and for which he gave his life cannot be handled by the people. The people need authority. They live by miracle, mystery, and authority. Let them submit. Let them be slaves, simply obedient, unthinking. Give them bread. That’s what the © Grand Valley State University �Do I Need Religion? Richard A. Rhem Page 4   masses need, not the freedom of spirit of which Jesus spoke and incarnated. And then the Cardinal says, after Jesus refuses to respond, but only arises and plants a kiss on the wizened old face, the Cardinal says, "Get out! Get out and never return!" Well, we don’t need a lot more of that religion, even though there’s a lot of it alive and well on Planet Earth. But, do we need it? No. No, not absolutely. But, I think that there’s a loss without it. There’s a loss to our humanity and a loss to world community. The scripture lessons were read to indicate different experiences of God. I’m used to watching the sunset. It’s been magnificent, but Friday morning I had to take Nancy to the airport early and I caught a sunrise. Huge, flaming globe just over the horizon. I said, "My goodness, it comes up like it goes down!" I’m not a morning person, but the sunset or the moon, the stars say, "O Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name in all of the earth. When I consider the stars, the moon, the wonder of it all, I say how small am I." The sense of humility and smallness before the vastness, the wonder of the world. But, I am a little less than God! How can I give expression to that in a secular fashion? What if I can’t sing? What if I have no song, no songwriter, and no one to whom to sing? Or, in life’s anxieties and depression, the hunger for God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Or, like Isaiah, to come someday and to have the place filled with smoke and to hear the rumbling and to be encountered by the mystery, the fascinating and terrorizing mystery and to feel one’s own guilt and uncleanness and unworthiness, and then to hear the word, "You’re cleansed. Your sin is forgiven." And to be commissioned to significant living and service. You don’t need religion. But I believe that to fail seriously to engage, to practice, to be observant is a very great loss and leads to a truncated human experience and a distortion of all that we’re intended to be. Paul said to the Athenians, "You’re really religious. There’s an idol to an unknown God just in case you missed one." I don’t need that kind of religion. But, yesterday I had the privilege of being invited to the Bar Mitzvah of the son, David, of Rabbi Alan and Anna Alpert, and in that Jewish community again, on Bar Mitzvah day, which is high celebration, I felt the warmth, I felt the solidity of family and of community. I regret that I wasn’t born Jewish because it’s not like being born a Christian where you have to keep worrying about becoming one, where you have to get converted, you have to keep wondering if you’re in or out. A Jew is just a Jew! Can’t do anything about it. So, they celebrate, and those who are observant, who are serious, celebrate it in wonderful warmth of community. And there’s something more there than just good friends and family ties. It is in the presence of a Mystery that here and there, now and again, has broken in upon us, creating awe, wonder, gratitude, drawing forth worship, enhancing our humanity and nudging us toward the things that make for peace. You don’t really need it, but you’ll miss a lot if you don’t have it. © Grand Valley State University �Do I Need Religion? Richard A. Rhem Page 5   APPENDIX . . . I found it a wonderful feeling not just to taste the unification metaphysics but also to be released from the confinement of fundamentalist religion. I had been raised a Southern Baptist, laid backward under the water on the sturdy arm of a pastor, been born again. I knew the healing power of redemption. Faith, hope, and charity were in my bones, and with millions of others I knew that my savior Jesus Christ would grant me eternal life. More pious than the average teenager, I read the Bible cover to cover, twice. But now at college, steroid-driven into moods of adolescent rebellion, I chose to doubt. I found it hard to accept that our deepest beliefs were set in stone by agricultural societies of the eastern Mediterranean more than two thousand years ago. I suffered cognitive dissonance between the cheerfully reported genocidal wars of these people and Christian civilization in 1940s Alabama. It seemed to me that the Book of Revelation might be black magic hallucinated by an ancient primitive. And I thought, surely a loving personal God, if He is paying attention, will not abandon those who reject the literal interpretation of the biblical cosmology. It is only fair to award points for intellectual courage. Better damned with Plato and Bacon, Shelly said, than go to heaven with Paley and Malthus. But most of all, Baptist theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God? Might the pastors of my childhood, good and loving men though they were, be mistaken? It was all too much, and freedom was ever so sweet. I drifted away from the church, not definitively agnostic or atheistic, just Baptist no more. Still, I had no desire to purge religious feelings. They were bred in me; they suffused the wellsprings of my creative life. I also retained a small measure of common sense. To wit, people must belong to a tribe; they yearn to have a purpose larger than themselves. We are obliged by the deepest drives of the human spirit to make ourselves more than animated dust, and we must have a story to tell about where we came from, and why we are here. Could Holy Writ be just the first literate attempt to explain the universe and make ourselves significant within it? Perhaps science is a continuation on new and better-tested ground to attain the same end. If so, then in that sense science is religion liberated and writ large. Such, I believe, is the source of the Ionian Enchantment: Preferring a search for objective reality over revelation is another way of satisfying religious hunger. It is an endeavor almost as old as civilization and intertwined with traditional religion, but it follows a very different course — a stoic’s creed, an acquired taste, a guidebook to adventure plotted across rough terrain. It aims to save the spirit, not by surrender but by liberation of the human mind. Its central tenet, as Einstein knew, is the © Grand Valley State University �Do I Need Religion? Richard A. Rhem Page 6   unification of knowledge. When we have unified enough certain knowledge, we will understand who we are and why we are here. If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable. The ancient Greeks expressed the idea in a myth of vaulting ambition. Daedalus escapes from Crete with his son Icarus on wings he has fashioned from feathers and wax. Ignoring the warnings of his father, Icarus flies toward the sun, whereupon his wings come apart and he falls into the sea. That is the end of Icarus in the myth. But we are left to wonder: Was he just a foolish boy? Did he pay the price for hubris, for pride in sight of the gods? I like to think that, on the contrary, his daring represents a saving human grace. And so the great astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar could pay tribute to the spirit of his mentor, Sir Arthur Eddington, by saying: Let us see how high we can fly before the sun melts the wax in our wings. Edward O. Wilson. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Vintage, first edition, 1999. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c556fae286f8b082232fe1d616637d9f.mp3 45bf0dbd3358e49fbf9b439bb93e4aaf 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 Series Can I Honestly Believe? Scripture Text Psalm 8:1, Psalm 42:2, Acts 17:22 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, 1999 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19980712 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998-07-12 Title A name given to the resource Do I Need Religion? 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 12, 1998 entitled "Do I Need Religion?", as part of the series "Can I Honestly Believe?", on the occasion of Pentecost VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 8:1, Psalm 42:2, Acts 17:22. Critical Thinking Nature of Religion Religious Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6b9380d9f151674aab6496812d91858d.pdf cf5e0cee8926ae7ab201596357bb60a3 PDF Text Text Mystery’s Face and Flow Trinity Sunday Text: Job 23:3; 11 Corinthians 4:6; and, John 14:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan May 25, 1997 Transcription of the spoken sermon It is Trinity Sunday; the Sunday after Pentecost, and it's the time when we focus on God. It is God Who brings us together week after week, and we have many things about which to think and speak together. On Trinity, however, we go right to the core, to God, and to focus on that conception of God which has been shaped by the Christian tradition and has, indeed, shaped the Christian tradition, that conception of a Triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, One God blessed forever. God in the modern period has become a problem, and although high percentages of people affirm their faith in God, in the intellectual centers of reflection and deep thinking that eventually impact popular opinion, God has had hard times in the last two or three centuries. We no longer simply take for granted the existence of God, and the nature of God has been thought about a good deal. The religious quest will always be there. But, God has become a problem. That statement of the problem was probably set forth as profoundly and as critically as anywhere by the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach. You've heard me refer to Feuerbach, on occasion, over the years, because his critique of the idea of God goes to the heart of the matter. It is his idea that God is the projection of our human needs unto the screen of reality, after which we bow down and worship, that God is the consequence of human need and that God is a human construction or a projection. It is certainly true that when we ask about God, we are asking about ourselves. The questions about God are really questions about our own existence. Whence have we come? Whither are we going? And in the meantime, what is the meaning of it all? Is there any purpose? Is there any direction? The human situation is fraught with peril. We are threatened creatures; our human existence is perilous. At any moment we well know that we could be wiped out. We stand at the side of those we love, helplessly seeing them die. We, ourselves, are vulnerable to a medical diagnosis at any time that could be fatal. The human condition is one of contingency; it is a perilous life we lead, and the religious quest is quite a natural quest after some anchor, some place to stand, some place of comfort, some place to rest the soul. And so, when Feuerbach said © Grand Valley State University   �Mystery’s Face and Flow Richard A. Rhem Page 2   that God does not exist except as we have created God and objectified God and constructed God out of our own human needs, he was putting his finger on something that was true. He was roundly criticized, of course, and the Church rose up with great defensiveness at such a suggestion, that God is a human creation. Feuerbach, nonetheless, had looked at the human person and the human situation, had sensed the fearfulness and the anxiety and the fragility of human existence and detected within the human person a kind of weakness that longed for some strong source of support and comfort and strength. Feuerbach's mistake, which is a mistake all of us often make, was to absolutize his claim, that is, that God is nothing but... To say that God is nothing but the projection of human need is to say too much. But, his insight is telling and you must be aware, as I am, of that which goes on in your own soul and heart and you must observe as I do all about us those for whom God is a crutch, a safety blanket, a security measure. God, for many of us, is the God we need. But, that's not all there is to say. I point that out because we are downstream from that movement of modern atheism. From Feuerbach came Freud who said that religion is an illusion, Marx, who said that human life is nothing but economic determinism, Nietzsche, who said all is nothingness. The nihilism that is laced within contemporary society is the consequence of that conception of things that has ruled out God, that conception of a Feuerbach who saw so much of human need projected into God that he simply wiped God away. But, as Nietzsche said, God is dead, and everything is permissible. And I would say that the 20th century is probably a good example of the fact that, when God is dead, anything is permissible, and very soon the fabric of society begins to unravel. Karen Armstrong, in her lecture a couple of weeks ago, spoke of the future of God, and she alluded to the contemporary atheism that pervades the lives of so many, even though they might answer a Gallup Poll, "Oh, yes, I believe in God." But there exists a practical atheism, living without any engagement or any regard to God. Karen Armstrong, said we are in one of those periods of history when we are simply waiting in the darkness for some future image to arise. But atheism, she said, is not to be feared, for it is not a rejection of God, but it is a rejection of inadequate conceptions of God. And so, we are in this present darkness, waiting, confident that there will yet emerge that understanding of God that can call forth from us worship and commitment to the ways of love and of justice. We have had inadequate conceptions of God. We have archaic, naive and primitive ideas of God, which we have not updated with everything else that we know in our world. With all of the explosion of knowledge, we have not done much with our idea of God. Yesterday it was a nice day and I was beckoned out of the loft to contemplate God. I went out on the bluff to soak up a little sunshine, thinking that I could think there or not think at all there, and lo and behold, God got me there, too, for © Grand Valley State University �Mystery’s Face and Flow Richard A. Rhem Page 3   as I sat down there was a little table in front of me, one of those little, low tables. It was made of slats of wood and those slats of wood had little spaces between them, and as I contemplated the table, there was an ant. So, I will now tell you the story, "The Ant and I." The ant went all the way up one board to the corner, and then he made a left turn and went down the short side and got to another corner, came all the way down the long side, came to the corner, went up the short side. And I thought, "Now, what will you do? You've been all the way around the perimeter. Now, what will you do, little ant?" He did it all over again. Got to every crisis point, made his turn, in his case, always the left turn, and got back to the starting point. And then one time, as I was about to drift off, he came to the edge and he went down and he found the supporting board underneath which created a bridge for him to get to the next board. He came up on the next board and then he went all the way down on the board, across, all the way up, down, and he did that several times. And I thought, "You know, ant, you ought to give me some interesting plot to follow because I don't have time just to watch you continue to traverse all these boards." But, then I realized that God had placed me there in order to contemplate God, not the ant, for my contemplating the ant is that old image of God that we've grown up with that has come to us out of an ancient past where there was a heaven and an earth and the waters under the earth, the three-storied universe, where God was a being on the throne "out there," in heaven somewhere, and we were here, and God, although totally apart from us, would come down into our history and affect circumstances and then return back to heaven. I thought to myself, if I contemplate the ant, I am like that childhood idea of God which I had. Here I am, totally unengaged, just a spectator, observing. Now, I thought to myself, I could take a piece of dune grass and I could wiggle it in front of the ant, seeing whether or not I could influence the pattern of its peregrinations. But, I didn't do that. Then I thought to myself, I could crush that bugger! But, I didn't do that. And then I thought, I could help him. I could save him; I could redeem him from his dilemma. He is on the surface of a table and the poor dear really is trying to find the sand. He's trying to find the sand where there is sustenance, where there is community, where there is home. He's trying to find his brothers and sisters. I could actually pick him up and put him down on the sand. I didn't do that, either. When I left him, he had gone down into one of those deep valleys between the boards, he was down on that foundation piece which probably was a deep, dark valley of the shadow of death for him. I was half-tempted to pick him up and put him down, but I thought, "No, I think I'll just leave you there." Then I thought to myself, "I am like my old image of God, sovereign, absolute. I can do what I will with that ant. I can crush the ant. I could redeem the ant. I could observe the ant. I could get engaged with the ant. But, I'm totally apart from the ant, even though I have the prerogative of getting involved with it, but I live a separate existence far superior and beyond the ant." © Grand Valley State University �Mystery’s Face and Flow Richard A. Rhem Page 4   That's the God I learned in Sunday School. How about you? And then I thought to myself, "That isn't the God that makes sense of my universe at all today. That's not how I understand human existence, the world, the cosmos." Oh, I understand how that old system worked and if we wouldn't be literal about it all, it would still work for us because it tells us, according to Paul, of God Who said, "Let light shine out of darkness." In other words, the Creator God Who, in the fullness of time, shined into our hearts the light of the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And Paul, in his writing to the Corinthians, was talking about the fact how we even look at that mirror of Jesus mirroring God, and how we, as we contemplate that image, are changed into that image by the Spirit of God. So, I see what Paul meant. In the biblical material, I can understand that God, the incarnation of God, the Spirit of God shaping me into the image of that incarnate One according to the purposes of God. Or, as John witnessed, really quite simple. Jesus said, "I'm going to leave you." Thomas said, "We don't know the way." Jesus said, "I am the Way. I am the Truth. I am the Life. No one comes to the Father but by me." Phillip said, "Ah, I've been wanting to talk to you about that. Just show us the Father and we'll be satisfied." It's that deep longing. I don't sense that Phillip was in any particular crisis. Job was in a crisis! Job said, "Oh, that I knew where I might find him!" In the midst of his burning anguish, Job was in a crisis, with the problem of suffering and of tragedy in the world that has wrenched that cry out of the human heart down through the centuries. Phillip? Phillip's just, well, still longing, though. He said, "Just show us the Father. Oh, if I could just know, if I could just see." Jesus said, "Look, how long have I been with you, you still don't get it. You see me, you see the Father. There's no other access. There's no other map. There's no other possibility except as you behold God in my face." So, Paul saw God in the face of Jesus. John saw in his witness to Jesus, God in the face of Jesus. I can understand that. But then, as I was thinking about the inadequacy of my King of the Universe model over against the ant, I realized that that old model wouldn't work anymore, because that table is not just a thing. That table is dammed up energy, because we know that for 15 billion years it has been a cosmic river of energy expanding time and space as it moves, and we know that that table is simply energy, for a time coalesced, gathered into material, but that material can as well be transferred back into energy because energy and matter are interchangeable; they're all one reality. It is not as though I have a life other than that ant; the life of the ant is the life in me, as well. It is God's Spirit, God's breath that enables the ant to live and me to live, and I am just a cut above © Grand Valley State University �Mystery’s Face and Flow Richard A. Rhem Page 5   the ant in that I am conscious of the ant and the ant is not conscious of me, but consciousness is that uniquely human capacity. But, the human, although having that consciousness, that self-awareness, that ability to observe the process, is not apart from the process, for that table and that ant and my body are all one reality, and all of it alive because of God. Nothing exists except God's Spirit, God's breath, God's enlivening presence. So, I have to do away with that old King model of a God, "out there" ruling, some sovereign Absolute Who can dip down, Who can save or damn. I have to get God, somehow or other, into the reality of my world, to see that my world is because God's breath is or God's Spirit is, and behind and beyond that cosmic drama there is a mystery, a mystery that we cannot fathom, that totally Other, that wholly Other, totally transcendent, Ultimate Mystery that is the Source. I don't know how to say anything more. And even to say that is an article of faith. There's no empirical proof that there's any Source! But, I cannot believe the marvels and wonders of the cosmic drama, except I think of a fountain of creativity that continues to pour forth and that the cosmic drama itself continues to be laced with that creativity as that develops in all of its diversity in a thousand directions with possibilities unlimited. But then, I think to myself, "So I have an Ultimate Mystery. But, what is the nature of that Mystery other than a creativity. And I have a cosmos of tables and chairs and bricks and bodies and everything existent, and all of that diversity what does it mean? What is the nature of the Mystery? And what is the meaning of the manifold diversity of my reality? And then I see a face. I see the face of Jesus. And suddenly I'm back at an old Triune God. Suddenly I see the Trinity with new eyes. Suddenly I see the Ultimate Mystery totally hidden from us, but totally present in all that is, defined in a face, the face of Jesus. That enables me to have a sense of the nature of the Mystery, to sense that that Mystery which is creativity is driving things toward an order of love and justice, because if that face, that representation in history, that concretization, that incarnation - if that incarnation of Jesus is really a reflection or a mirror of the Mystery, and as I reflect on that reflection in the face of Jesus, if I am being thus shaped like Jesus, then perhaps it is the intention of that whole cosmic drama that there be those who be human who are thus shaped, who are joining in those currents that lead to justice and to love. Suddenly I have a three-pointed God again. I have the Ultimate Mystery, the Source of it all; I have the enlivening presence of God in all that is, and I have a definition, I have a specificity, I have an image, an icon, a concrete shape that calls me to meaningful living. The way of Jesus. The way of justice. The way of compassion, moving, moving, I trust and hope, to the Kingdom of God, Shalom, the Cosmic Harmony in perfect pitch. © Grand Valley State University �Mystery’s Face and Flow Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Now I have a sense of my whence, although I cannot penetrate the Mystery. I have a sense of my aliveness, thanks to that breath, wind, Spirit that's been flowing now for 15 billion years, and I have a marker, I have a way, I have a face, and it's because of that face that we gather here, lost in wonder, love and praise, before the Mystery, and go out of here to live a certain way. My economic decisions are not just economic decisions. They are economic decisions that I make in light of my call to follow Jesus. My political decisions are not just arbitrary political decisions; they are decisions that I make in the light of the face that I see. The total way that I am is not arbitrary. It is a way of commitment, following the one whose commitment led him to death and resurrection, by the Spirit, moving, moving toward that final Kingdom. In the light of all that we know about that cosmic river of energy that now and again is dammed up into material stuff like chairs and tables and bodies, I can't believe that, caught up in that process, I still need three points of light, or a Triune God, or a God creatively present, concretely representative of that life to which I am called. The Church is a place where we gather where all lobbying ceases, all selfish ambition comes to an end, all personal advantage ceases as we commit ourselves to the cause of the Ultimate Mystery Whose clue we've found in a face. It's just as simple as that. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f5ee153b1d90bcd0f4e5fe453500b75f.mp3 f8469e813eebb54263761fe5fcf98317 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 Trinity Sunday Series A Cosmic Symphony Scripture Text Job 23:3, II Corinthians 4:6, John 14:9 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19970525 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1997-05-25 Title A name given to the resource Mystery's Face and Flow 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 May 25, 1997 entitled "Mystery's Face and Flow", as part of the series "A Cosmic Symphony", on the occasion of Trinity Sunday, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Job 23:3, II Corinthians 4:6, John 14:9. Justice Love Mystery Nature of God Religious Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a1538acda4e7feab9dd8bfb95525d923.mp3 e84c8740e522541c21d685bdee6c5f58 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. Scripture Text Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, John 3:1-10 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-0-20050828 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005-08-28 Title A name given to the resource A Shared Yearning & Journey - The Religious Quest 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 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 28, 2005 entitled "A Shared Yearning & Journey - The Religious Quest", at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, John 3:1-10. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives personal journey Religious Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bce7b21efd31010267de1b0949310078.mp3 bbb35eb6020655876fbcfb4de6ab0a9f 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. 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-0-20050821 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005-08-21 Title A name given to the resource Arrogant Claim & Impossible Demand - The Peril of Religion 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 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 21, 2005 entitled "Arrogant Claim & Impossible Demand - The Peril of Religion", at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives personal journey Religious Quest https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d85789e244e1d853d811bba7a338c644.mp3 088316d95909dd822e525487a1c985db https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/be79f3944321cbedd9552dc892819a98.pdf 1bea416d9e4f826ed30a177be1f8b9df PDF Text Text God, For Whom Humankind is Groping Text: Acts 17:22-23 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany III, January 22, 1989 Transcription of the spoken sermon Men of Athens, I see that in everything that concerns religion you are uncommonly scrupulous. ... What you worship but do not know - this is what I now proclaim. Acts 17:22-23 The season is Epiphany, the word is manifestation, the light has dawned. Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world.” We've just celebrated that the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and John says, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth.” Jesus in human flesh. We look into the face of Jesus and we see into the heart of God, and the great truth of the season of Epiphany is the fact that the Light has come. The Light has dawned in our world of darkness; the Light is shining, and the darkness will never overcome it. Epiphany, a season of manifestation, and the good news is that, in the face of Jesus Christ, we have an insight into the very heart of God. That wonderful truth which we celebrate annually is celebrated in this season as a truth that is to be shared with the nations, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ that begins with the Incarnation of the Word concludes with the Resurrection and the Great Commission which says to the Church, “Go into all the world, to all nations, preaching the Gospel, telling the story of Jesus.” And Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” So, the Christian faith has always been a missionary faith. It has always been a people with a mission. It has always been the calling of the Church to share the good news because the Church believed that in Jesus Christ, in that particular and localized revelation of God, there was the manifestation of a worldwide mission and a universal purpose. In that little, narrow line of Israel's history, and in that event that is centered in Jesus, the Church always understood that what God was about was not simply Israel, and not simply events of that localized community gathered around Jesus, but what God was doing in Israel and in Jesus was something that had the world in mind, that the purpose of God was to bring Light to the nations. So, we have that particular story with its universal © Grand Valley State University   �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 2   impact and Epiphany is the season in which we celebrate the fact that Light has come into the world, and we hear that call to be Light to the nations. The whole New Testament is really the response of that early Christian community to its conviction that, in Jesus, the one True God, the Creator of the whole of Reality, had become clearly focused. Paul is converted, and Paul becomes the great Apostle to the Gentiles. The major bulk of the New Testament is simply the story of how Paul took this message of Jesus and the Resurrection and began to go to the world. In his heart there was a yearning to reach earth's farthest bounds. He wrote letters to the congregations that he founded, constituting a large portion of the New Testament, which is the story of the expansion of this Christian movement flowing out of the wake of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So, we stand in that great tradition that has found, in the face of Jesus, the heart of God, the good news that is to be trumpeted to all people everywhere. Today we find Paul in Athens. Now, if that isn't spectacular! Athens! I've been to Athens. It's still impressive. The very ruins of Athens speak of another age and another day. There are few places on earth that can compare with Athens. Maybe Rome, eventually, and certainly we would say Jerusalem. But, when you say Jerusalem and Rome and Athens, you've said about all there is to say about Western civilization. I am parochial in that I don't know much about the great Eastern civilizations, but I know that Athens was that place where in 500 B.C., in the Golden Age of Athens, there were philosophic discussions which still today are as relevant and meaningful as they were then. Someone has said that all of Western philosophy is but a series of footnotes to the dialogues of Socrates and the writings of Plato and Aristotle. It was an amazing phenomenon. And there's Paul in Athens, at the Areopagus, at the very center where the Council met and ruled the city. There's Paul, 500 years after the Golden Age of Pericles, Plato and Socrates but, nonetheless, Athens was still the place where they loved to discuss, to dialogue, to debate. You don't get a very positive picture from Paul in his account in the 17th chapter of Acts. With all of the magnificence of the temples and statues and the artwork, I'm disappointed with Paul, frankly. He looked at it all and got disgusted. I just wish he could have said, “Wow.” But, he was so fanatically concentrated on Jesus that he came to that city and he saw it all and he saw it as a manifestation of a human hunger for God, totally covered with darkness. And so, he went to the marketplace and up and down the streets and in the synagogue where a few Jews were gathered, and to everybody to whom he spoke, he spoke of Jesus. Finally they said, well, why don't you come right up to the Areopagus itself and we'll hear you out. Athens was always open, looking for a new idea. What a moment. What a moment. What an audacious person this Paul was! He is at the very center of civilization, of culture, of education, of enlightenment, and he's not intimidated! He's not even impressed. He's got something to tell Athens that Athens never dreamed of. © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 3   He begins to preach. Thank God he was sensitive in relating positively to his audience. He commended them. He said, “I see that in things religious you are uncommonly scrupulous. You folks are serious. Everywhere I see the manifestations of a religious quest or hunger.” Good preacher that he was, he had in his introduction something to hook them from which to move on into his message. He said, “I saw a statue with an inscription to the unknown God.” The Athenians were uncommonly scrupulous. Just in case there was a god they might have missed, so that he wouldn't be miffed, they raised a statue to the unknown god. Paul says (now, this is audacity), “This unknown god whom you worship, I proclaim!” Wow! Now, there's confidence, there's courage, there's certitude. Do you get the picture? This is Athens, folks. This is the Areopagus; this is the center of enlightenment, and here is this Apostle of Jesus daring to stand there and to say what you are searching for and don't know I proclaim. He went on to say he was talking about the One true God Who created the heavens and the earth, the One true God Who couldn't be visualized by something created with human hands, by human imagination; the God to Whom we can give nothing, but Who is the giver of all things; the God Who breathes life into all life, the source of all reality. This God, Paul says, “In whom we live and move and have our being,” quoting some stoic philosophical thought, “I proclaim.” Quoting one of their own poets, “We are God's offspring,” he preaches the God of Jesus. This God Who is the Fountainhead of all Reality, this God I proclaim to you. This God, Who is responsible for all that is and all life, this God has now at this critical moment in human history and in the whole cosmic drama, revealed Himself in the face of Jesus, and this God will now call all peoples to account. The time of ignorance, the times gone by, God in His forbearance, has overlooked, but He calls all people now to repent, that is, to change their mind and change their thinking, to open up to the truth. And He has demonstrated the certainty of it by raising Jesus from the dead. Paul, starting with the statue to the unknown god, moving to the Creator of the heavens and earth, ends up preaching Jesus and the Resurrection. There was quite a stir. There were those that mocked and laughed, but some believed. There was a little Christian community that was founded in Athens. Paul, convinced that the one true and Eternal God had now shown the light of the revelation of Himself in the face of Jesus, dared to go right into the lion’s den and proclaim Jesus and the Resurrection. That's really something. It is really a dramatic moment. I stand in awe of Paul. I would feel my own knees knocking. But, he did it, and what he did is still our calling to do, because it is our conviction that the Creator God has given life and light to the world in Jesus Christ, and this good news needs to be shared with people who are thrashing about in all sorts of human bondage, darkness, superstition, fear, and guilt. There is good news to tell; the Light has come. Jesus reflects the very heart of God, and God is good and God is full of grace, and God has a purpose to redeem the world. That's why the Church has always been a missionary enterprise, © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 4   because there is this marvelous message to proclaim. And God knows in our day, too, this message needs to be proclaimed. Our day of enlightenment, our day of advanced scientific understanding and amazing technological breakthrough is still searching for this word. The moon was out last night, and it shone in all of its brightness. The lake was absolutely silver, awash with light, the waves dancing in the moonlight. I looked out of my window and I saw that big silver thing hanging there and it looked like I could almost touch it. I thought, you know, had I been a part of NASA, I would have planted my rocket on my bluff and then shot straight for it. How did they figure out that you can't just go right to the moon? It blows my mind. I'm out of my realm. It seems like you could just keep steering your rocket right toward that moon, but I guess it doesn't work that way. This amazing, wonderful, fantastic world. This age of which we are a part has put a person on the moon. This world still needs to know about the God revealed in Jesus. I have made a great discovery that occasionally to the seminary, even to the seminary, comes a brilliant mind. I had one manifest himself to me, one of my students whose sermon I will now cite. Preaching on this text, he said, You may be saying right now, “What does this have to do with Acts 17:1628?” Well, to be honest, it has everything to do with how we read and understand, and then eventually proclaim, the message of the gospel. We still operate in a Newtonian world, an ordered world. But our children will grow up in a Quantum universe, where the underlying principle of reality is that of randomness and uncertainty. These principles are not wild, unproven theories. Breakthroughs in Quantum Physics have led to the development of semi-conductors for your computer, satellites for your cable system, and of course, the worldwide nuclear arsenal. What Acts 17:16-28 has to do with this is that Paul's speech places our view of God where it should be. We are not Stoics, or Epicureans, but modern Quantum theorists. Our worldview must be placed within the context of Acts 17. Paul speaks to us now as clearly as he did to the Athenians of the first century. God must be present in our lives as a firm reality amidst the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, the observer-determined reality, and a world teetering on the edge of destruction. Our physics has opened up our minds to the awesomeness of creation. In our theories we can either see a Cosmic Christ, or a cosmic emptiness. Paul says to the Areopagus, 'God ... is not served by human hands.' God is the bedrock of our existence. To Bertram Russell and countless other modern intellectuals, the universe only reveals an UNKNOWN GOD. The secular physicists search for God in their theories, hoping to find Him conforming to their preconceived ideas. The Athenians, likewise, sought after God, but in their endless philosophical debates. We, as modern Athenians, must see © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 5   God, not as some vague force, but as the fountainhead of all creation, the necessary being, the one independent being in all of the cosmos. We must, therefore, listen to Paul's words, not pretending to be first century Athenians, but remembering that we are twentieth century Quantums....’” And then he rewrites the text of the morning; he imagines a great seminar somewhere in some Hilton Hotel with sauna and indoor pool and all, a gathering of the world's greatest scientists and physicists, and he imagines old Paul coming on center stage and these are Paul's words to such a twentieth century gathering: “'Men of science, I perceive that in every way you are very important, very scientific. For I observed the objects you worship. I saw a telescope, a particle beam accelerator, a copy of your scriptures, The Scientific American. I also found a monument to the future and its potential achievements; it was made of the finest marble and I stood in awe of it.' The little man coughed and continued, 'Gentlemen and ladies, I will tell you the future. I will tell you what you seek for, what you hope to find. For, in this scripture I read of a theory called TOE, or the Theory of Everything. In it you state that God will be discovered as the source of this TOE. But I will proclaim to you that this God is here, today, among you. This God made the world and everything in it, and He needs none of you to explain or to discover Him. He made the world and set the courses of history in order that people like yourselves should yearn to seek after Him. You do seek after Him, but I will end your search. For we are His offspring, and we must realize that He is not like our theories or our art, but is Spirit. He is everywhere, but He is also here. His name is Jesus Christ.' At once there was a loud commotion, scientists were all grumbling at once and shifting in their chairs. They were saying that God was dead, and that Jesus was proved to be a hoax in the last AMA Journal, etc. Finally, the chairperson called for order and forced the man off the stage. They jeered and mocked the man, but some of the scientists followed him out.” Well, I sat enthralled with that sermon because that young man, whose name is F. Scott Petersen, was able to speak Jesus Christ in the context of contemporary Western civilization with all of the effectiveness of Paul in the Areopagus. Now, that's what preaching is and that's what the Christian mission is - to say to the world in all of its wonder and all of its fantastic potential and all of the marvel of this age of which we are a part, with all of the ingenuity in which we stand in awe, to the human mind, the imagination - to say to it all, “God is the fountainhead of Reality and can be known through Jesus Christ our Lord.” That's only one side of the contemporary scene. The other side is even stranger to me. The other side is the side of religion. Charles Colson, in his most recent book Kingdoms in Conflict, writes in the first chapter an imaginary scenario. The Christian Religious Right walked out of the Republican Convention in 1992 © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 6   because their needs were not being serviced. But in the succeeding years, the gulf was bridged, the wound was healed and a Christian Right candidate, a marvelous professor from Baylor University, a good Southern Baptist, was the candidate for the presidency and was elected. This gentleman no sooner took office than it was discovered by the CIA that the Likud Party in Israel, the conservative party, having been unable to find a coalition partner in order to form a government, finally had found in a radical Right minority group a willingness to join. The condition of this radical minority party was, however, that the temple of the Rock, the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim mosque, the most sacred shrine be bombed and taken over by Israeli troops, commandos specially trained. And this little party was also training priests who could institute the rituals of the Old Testament sacrifice because this little group believed that until the Temple Mount was reclaimed and the temple was rebuilt and the sacrifices restored, the Messiah wouldn't come! Well, the scenario, as Colson puts it together, has this president hearing this and thinking, “This is it! Russia will come from the north; the troops will meet in the valley of Armageddon, and I will be the president at this cosmic point in human history.” So, rather than acting like a president should act, and doing what a president has to do in order to forestall that kind of internal maneuvering within Israel itself, he waits and waffles until it actually happens. The commandos of this little minority party blow up the Dome of the Rock and then, of course, the chapter ends. Colson says, in the footnote, “I've made this up, but the statements that I've quoted I quote from public figures out of the press.” And I wouldn't even be so impressed by that opening shot of Colson had I not recently heard Martin Marty, the person par excellence with his finger on the culture and religious development and history of America, say recently, that World War III will erupt and be ignited by the fanaticism of religion in our world today. Colson says not since the Crusades have religious passions and prejudices posed such a worldwide threat. If not through a religious zealot or confused idealist whose finger is on the nuclear trigger, then certainly by destroying the tolerance and trust essential for maintaining peace and concord among people. Friends, this world is a world that can land a person on the moon, and has a space vehicle going out to Mars. This world in which we live is a world so fantastic that our forefathers would not have believed it. And it is a world that is so screwed up spiritually, that it is falling for every kind of superstitious myth and cult, and even satanic worship. This is a world where the great religions in a worldwide resurgence are standing toe to toe and where there is a fanaticism that has groups in all religions ready to go to war, whether Christian Fundamentalists, or Islam Fundamentalists, or some other. This world in which we live is a world that needs to know that the one God Whom all people are searching for and groping after has indeed come to us in Jesus Christ. Does it matter whether we tell the story? Does it matter whether or not we © Grand Valley State University �God, for Whom Humankind is Groping Richard A. Rhem Page 7   share the good news? Is there anything incumbent upon us who stand in the great tradition of Light and Life? I would say there is. The world is at stake. We believe that, in the face of Jesus, we've seen into the heart of God, and we believe it's true. It doesn't mean that we believe that God has no concern for all of the rest of humankind. It doesn't mean that we should be so narrow and closed and dogmatic that we do not think that God has made God's self-known beyond the limits of Jesus Christ. It doesn't mean that we cannot have our own insights deepened and our viewpoint broadened as we enter into genuine dialogue and encounter with those who are also seriously groping after God in their own way. It doesn't mean that we will not be willing to enter into genuine dialogue, which means a willingness to change and to adopt and to adapt and to deepen and to broaden; all of that is true. But, it does mean that we have something very important to bring to the party. We have Jesus in whom we believe God has most fully revealed God's self. So, I wish somehow we could reclaim the fire and the passion and the fervency, the urgency and the certainty, the assurance of Paul in Athens. It is a different world, but that same kind of rootedness in Jesus we have. In confidence, not fear; with openness, not defensiveness, we can bring Jesus, the Light of the World, to the discussion, perhaps ourselves coming to see, in the dialogue, dimensions of Jesus we've never even seen before, therefore, being transformed ourselves, we will but share with this wonderful, crazy world, our conviction that God, the source of all, is the goal of all, and that in Jesus Christ our Lord, God is about reconciling all things to God's self. What a message! What a task! © 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 Scripture Text Acts 17:22-23 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-0-19890122 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989-01-22 Title A name given to the resource God, For Whom Humankind is Groping 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 January 22, 1989 entitled "God, For Whom Humankind is Groping", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 17:22-23. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Apostle Paul Epiphany God of Grace Interfaith Nature of God Religious Quest Revelation