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Baptism: A Sign of Belonging
Text: Genesis 17:7, 13; Acts 2:39
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost IV, June 19, 1994
Transcription of the spoken sermon
"I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you
throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your
offspring after you... So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting
covenant.” Genesis 17:7,13
"For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away..." Acts
2:39
In his best selling book, Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore deals with the spiritual
emptiness of contemporary society. Thomas Moore writes not fluff. It’s a heavy
book, and he has expressed his amazement that it found its way on to the New
York Times hard cover Best Seller List, and now continues some 21 weeks on the
paperback Best Seller List. Obviously, Thomas Moore has touched a nerve in our
contemporary human experience. He says what all of us know down deep, that
we have no depths, that we have neglected our soul, that depth-dimension of the
human person.
He gives us two images of our contemporary life. The first is fast food: fast food
rather than the ritual of dining. The gathering of the family around the table to
share a meal is an experience becoming more and more rare in our contemporary
experience. And the second image: rather than reflective commentary and news
analysis, journalism becomes sound bites. Fast food and sound bites. We live at
an accelerating pace. Technological breakthroughs create new horizons for
human experience. We are whirling on a planet spinning out of control and our
lives show it.
Perhaps Thomas Moore is right that what is missing is the very kind of thing we
are engaged in here—a regular appointment. We gather in this sacred space with
all of its associations of experiences past: its furniture, its whole setting, the
environment, the feel of this moment. For so many of our contemporaries there is
no longer a regular appointment like this. And even for us, increasingly it
becomes an option when Sunday morning dawns. In my earlier ministry, I did
© Grand Valley State University
�Baptism: A Sign of Belonging
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
everything I could get you to come to church, not only on Sunday morning, but,
God forbid, on Sunday evening too. The whole day shot to heaven. (Laughter) I’m
afraid I probably did so because of certain ego needs. I was fooling myself saying
that what I really wanted was God's people to hear God's word when I really
wanted God's people to hear God's word through me. And, beyond that, if I had
to be there, by George, they ought to be there too. So there was, in a previous era,
some imposition of guilt, and a bit of manipulation.
But, I am older now, as must be self-evident, and I wouldn't lay that on you.
That's a heavy obligation. Now I would say to you, "You need to be here." You
need to be here, not just occasionally, once in a while, willy-nilly. You need to be
here because your soul needs what happens here beyond whether or not the
sermon was scintillating, or suffocating. You need to be here to open your soul to
something beyond the ordinary and the humdrum, the rapidity of the days that
fly by. You need to be here because the soul needs to be nourished, and it is at
appointments like this where there are certain ritual actions and there are certain
words and formulas, that touch us, not necessarily rationally, intellectually, but
down in our depths.
We need to be here on a week like this, when Peter relays all those who have just
been in the hospital, the birth and death of an infant, the birth and complications
of another infant, the death of an aged saint, the celebration of marriage, the
celebration of baptisms – all of these things in the mix of human experience. In a
week like this, dear God, don't we know that we don't have stamina enough to
make it on our own without that connection to a world beyond that which is time
and space and manageable?
Maybe a symbol of our contemporary society is O. J. Simpson. The whole nation
was glued to their television sets in that bizarre Friday night tale as it unraveled,
watching with apprehension one of the highest profile persons in the nation, with
friends saying, "Oh, I talked with him and he seemed himself." Yesterday in the
Detroit Free Press, was a column by Mitch Album. He pointed out that here's this
person whose face everyone recognizes, who has achieved larger than life status:
our hero, fantastic gifts, great accomplishments. Then, if the charge is true, in a
moment of passion he erupts in violence, which results in a murder, which shocks
the nation in its brutality. Yet as Mitch Album says, "Did you know him? Nobody
knows him. Nobody knows nobody." We live with the facade with which we
engage one another. But who knows the raging storm within? And O.J. Simpson
is not unique. He is a symptom. It is happening every day with lesser known folk,
so less is known about it. But the rage lies within people who do not know who
they are, or whose they are.
That's why a morning like this is so important. That's why what transpires at this
baptismal font is so important. For baptism is the Christian Church's sign of
belonging, belonging to that community of faith that stretches back into Israel's
history – that community which gathered around Abraham and Sarah, which
© Grand Valley State University
�Baptism: A Sign of Belonging
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
became Israel, from which Jesus issued, the One who was crucified, risen,
ascended, and gave his Spirit. The Spirit of God breathed in the midst of that
people who were gathered around that story and who were marked with a new
sign, a sign of baptism. Water is the sign of the cross—a sign that one is a child of
God.
I have a friend, a colleague of mine in seminary who, in groups where one had to
introduce oneself, the groups we often squirm thinking about, would always say
his name and then he would add, "Child of God." Name, "Child of God." Who are
you? Dick Rhem, Child of God. Who are you? Your name, Child of God.
So we baptize. We bathe it in prayer because this ritual action which stretches
back across the centuries and puts us in touch with that whole community of faith
past is an action in which God is the actor. God is the agent and we simply are the
instruments, by which the gift of God's breath, God's enlivening breath, wind
Spirit, is received by the child. The most dramatic, most vivid example of grace in
the Church, is that passive receptive child receiving the sign, the mark of grace, of
eternal love, of covenant, binding one to the eternal God, a binding that will
never, never be broken. What happens? Who knows. But in obedience we
mediate the sign, believing that God is the actor.
We do it differently than ten years previous. I came into the ministry along with
the elders, understanding that baptism needed to be requested and sometimes
granted, and perhaps sometimes not granted if those who requested had not
proven their faithfulness. How wrong that is, you see, because baptism is not the
Church's gift to be given to those who merit it. Baptism is a sign that God gives to
a child on the basis of God's promise, "I will be your God and a God to your
children." We used to gather parents here and would say, "Do you ... will you ...
do you promise?" and then baptize the child. Then I heard in St. Pierre's
Cathedral, the home church of John Calvin, how it was reversed. The baptism
was performed and then the parents were given opportunity to answer such
questions. I knew immediately that was right. Baptism is God's gift; God is the
actor. It is pure grace and, in the light of that grace, one says, "Oh, yes I will, with
all my heart." Of course, in the light of all of that.
Maybe I can make it clear by a comparison. Sometimes comparisons help us to
lift up certain dimensions. No criticism of the Baptist Church. Thank God for all
good Baptists everywhere. But the Baptists also recognize and have increasingly
felt the need of some kind of ritual for infants, even though the hallmark of the
Baptist communion is that one must say that one believes and then be baptized
so that baptism is an adult affair. Now increasingly in Baptist churches there are
dedication services. Do you see the different nuance? Here God is the actor and
the parental response is response to God's initiating grace. In a dedicatory service
the focus is on the human person’s act of dedication. It is a different spin. It is a
different nuance. I prefer it this way—all of God. All of grace. Pure gift. That
which moves then in response of worship and adoration and following in the way
© Grand Valley State University
�Baptism: A Sign of Belonging
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
of Jesus. Marked, belonging by God's choice. God's gift, so that when the bottom
falls out and the roof caves in and the foundations shake, and it seems that
darkness will overcome us, we can do as Martin Luther used to do in those
moments of deep temptation and despair. He would cry out, "I have been
baptized."
Baptism is not a sentimental ceremony for little infants in arms. It is a gift of God
that marks us throughout all of our days, so that come what may one is able to
say, "I have been marked," with a sign of love, by a God that shall never let me go.
Thank God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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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 IV
Scripture Text
Genesis 17:7, 13, Acts 2:39
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19940619
Date
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1994-06-19
Title
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Baptism: A Sign of Belonging
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 19, 1994 entitled "Baptism: A Sign of Belonging", on the occasion of Pentecost IV, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 17:7, 13, Acts 2:39.
Baptism
Community of Faith
Faithful God
Pentecost
Ritual
Worship
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PDF Text
Text
Eucharist: Memory, Presence, Hope
Pentecost V
Text: Deuteronomy 16:1; I Corinthians 11:24; Mark 14:22, 24
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
June 26, 1994
Transcription of the spoken sermon
"Observe ..by keeping the Passover... The Lord your God brought you out.." Deuteronomy 16:1
"Do this in remembrance of me." I Corinthians 11:24
"Take, this is my body... This is my blood of the covenant" Mark 14:22,24
In the first service there was a young pastor who is between assignments. He is
on his way to a new assignment and he stopped here for Sunday morning
worship. He said to me, "I've heard a lot about this place and I wanted to stop
before I left." He said, "It’s strange the things you hear. I heard that you preached
in a rocking chair." (Laughter) "Well," I said, "it sort of has that effect on the
congregation, but I always use this stool." (Laughter)
We had a reading from the Old Hebrew Scriptures regarding the institution of the
Passover, at least an instruction to keep the Passover, one of the great feasts of
Israel to celebrate their deliverance from Egypt in the Exodus. We read the
account of the apostle Paul, probably the earliest Christian account of the
celebration of the Lord's Supper, or Communion, or the Eucharist Feast, and we
read the institution itself in Mark's gospel. If I were to read a contemporary
lesson I would read from one of our own who wrote to me recently,
"As I listen to the minister retell the Last Supper story and present the
bread and the cup heavenward, I become drawn into a place of wonder
and awe, a holy place where I may begin to experience a little bit of God in
my own life. My head stops being in charge, and for those moments I
become a child again, a child who has been allowed a glimpse of the
heavenly. I feel infused with the love and, for just a fleeting moment, the
understanding of God. It is the holiest of moments for me. My fellow
participants become at the deepest level my brothers and sisters in Christ
in an almost tangible way. I have yet to participate in a Eucharist
celebration at Christ Community with dry eyes. For a brief time on those
Sundays I am able to let go of my head, of my intellectual faith and
questions and doubts, and experience faith on a deeper level. It is a level
© Grand Valley State University
�Eucharist: Memory, Presence, Hope
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
that is more enriching and rejuvenating, a nourishing faith that can
sustain me throughout the week."
Would that that would happen to each of us every time the table is set. In this
congregation the table is set every Lord's Day at the early service, and from time
to time at the second service as today. It is an experience of the presence of God
that comes in a unique fashion through the elements of bread and wine.
We look at the sacraments now because it is the season of Pentecost. I want to
connect participation in Eucharist with the Spirit of God because without that,
participation in itself can become empty ritual. But bathed in prayer and received
in faith, it becomes a means of grace. It becomes a moment of encounter. It
becomes experience.
Last week at the baptismal font, there was prayer for God to breathe through the
water. Today, if you followed the liturgy, there was the invocation of the Holy
Spirit to make this bread and this wine the body and blood for us; to enliven the
material with the spiritual—God's Spirit or God's Wind or God's Breath—Wind,
Spirit, Breath—the Hebrew word RUACH, which means wind or spirit or breath,
which is tangible, which is energy, which is energizing. Jesus said, the wind blows
and you don't see it, but you see the tree and the leaves waving because there is
an energy there. So in our Christian experience, in any religious experience that is
genuine experience of God, it is the breathing of God. It is the present moment,
the reality of the living God in our experience.
The one who writes to me is fortunate, I believe, for she was raised in the Catholic
tradition where there was developed a hunger for the sacraments. The elders in
Geneva in the 16th century knew that the sacrament had become a routinized, too
often mechanical magical ritual, and so they instituted a practice that has
continued in the Reformed tradition to the present. In our tradition, according to
our Rules of Order, it is a quarterly celebration—four times a year. As you have
heard me say many times, what actually happened is that the good intention to
make it special has backfired in that it has become optional. You cannot develop a
taste for the Eucharist, taking it four times a year.
The opening word of the Old Testament lesson was "Observe," and that word
observe or observance is often connected with religious ritual. Thomas Moore
says in The Care of the Soul, that we are "to observe our soul," we are to become
attentive to ourselves, we are to become aware of ourselves. What's going on in
us? What are we thinking? We are we feeling? What are we experiencing? Take a
step back, reflect on ourselves. Be self-reflective in order to understand what's
going on in us. Awareness or attention. To observe. The serve in observe is an old
word that comes from tending sheep. It is as though we were tending our soul.
But that word then goes with the practice of religious rituals too. We observe
Holy Communion. We observe the Sacrament of Baptism. And in the
observation, something happens to us if that observation becomes a part of us.
Not if it’s an incidental observance, once in a while, but if it is a regular keeping, a
© Grand Valley State University
�Eucharist: Memory, Presence, Hope
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
regular observance, it begins to shape us. You don't have to observe Christmas.
You can be Scrooge. You don't have to trim the tree and hang the socks and wrap
the presents. You don't have to do any of that. You could just come to church.
That's what it’s all about. But if you don't trim the tree and hang the socks, and
delight the children, your Christmas will indeed be a kind of Scrooge-like
experience. But, if you trim the tree, and wrap the presents, and create the aura,
if you observe Christmas, you will experience Christmas. The world becomes a
softer place at Christmas. Miracle of miracles. Year after year. There is something
in the observing that washes over us and shapes us and forms us. It is no different
with the celebration of the Eucharist. In the observing of it there is a forming in
us. As my correspondent said, "For a moment the mind, the brain stops, and I am
open to pure experience—a kind of depth moment, a holy moment. A fleeting
moment of knowing God's presence." Eucharist is commemorative sacrament.
That is, we do it again and again and again. We do it in regular fashion in order
that that to which it points might be brought to us again and again.
Baptism is an initiatory ritual. Once is enough—marked as belonging eternally.
One baptism, but many feasts at the table of our Lord. The background of that
was just like Israel's experience. That sacrament of Baptism parallels the sign of
circumcision in the old experience of Israel. And this table parallels the Passover
Feast. It was a feast that Israel celebrated annually in order to remember and to
hope, and in the meantime to experience the presence. The instruction to Israel
was that they were to eat in a fashion that would remind them of that night when
they were delivered from the bondage of Pharaoh's Egypt, when with a mighty
hand God set them free. They were to roast the lamb and they were to eat bitter
herbs so that they would remember the years of affliction—remember that from
which God has sprung them free. And in the contemporary celebration of that
feast, still in the Jewish tradition, as Rabbi David Hartman in Muskegon said
recently when he told about the celebration of the Seder in his own family, the
little children would watch until after the meal when he would pour the cup of
wine for Elijah and they would say, "Daddy, will Elijah come?" And he would say
"Sh-h-h-h, listen. Maybe he will come. Close your eyes. Is he coming?" And when
his children would say, "Daddy, if he would drink our cup at our Seder feast, at all
the Seder feasts he wouldn't be able to walk." To which the Rabbi said, "If you are
the prophet Elijah you could handle it, you could handle all the chalices of all the
Seder feasts." During the Passover celebration the door is always open, and the
youngest child is sent out to the open door to see if Elijah is coming. Fantasy? Did
you ever put cookies and milk out for Santa Claus? You see, children know that
when he stops by on Christmas Eve he will have a snack and maybe be generous.
Fantasy? Yes, like pouring the cup for Elijah, because we need to live with hope
and expectation. The cry of the Jewish family is, "Next year in Jerusalem!" I
wonder what it was like the first time that the Jews actually returned to Israel and
a family sat down for their Seder meal, when after all those years they had said,
"Next year in Jerusalem." Doesn't it give you goose bumps to think of it?
© Grand Valley State University
�Eucharist: Memory, Presence, Hope
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Do you think that anything is afoot in the world? Is God doing anything in the
world? Do you live with any kind of hope? I don't know how it will happen. Jesus
said," I won't drink this again until I come in the kingdom." Obviously he thought
he was on the edge—at the end. He wasn't, was he? Here we are two thousand
years later. Paul said, "We will not all die but certainly will be changed." Paul
expected that. It hasn't happened now, but Jesus has risen; that's the first fruits.
The first seeds have been planted, and the harvest would follow very soon. It
hasn't happened. Jesus was wrong, Paul was wrong, Wrong in terms of the
immediate end of things, but not wrong in the ultimate set of the heart, which is
of hope and anticipation. Believing that whenever, however this God who has
been in our past, this God who has met us in the past, intervened in our life, came
to us, was the Word made flesh in Jesus. This God is the God of our future, the
one from whom we have come, the one who has come to us, the one to whom we
go, the one who is coming to us.
And, in the meantime, in this in between time, the God who is with us.
Breathing— breathing—breathing through water that marks us as belonging.
Breathing through bread that becomes body. Breathing through wine that
becomes blood. It is all so wonderful. It is a great pageant. It is a great way to
live—between memory and hope. Sustained in the present moment. Mind shut
down. Just open so that, even if just for a fleeting moment, I might be present
with God and God present to me.
Well, did it happen this morning? It doesn't always happen. It is not something
that is automatic. It is not something that is magical. But, did it happen this
morning? Was there a taste of bread and wine that said to you, "God has been
gracious. God will be gracious. God has marked me. God will enfold me. And even
now, dear God, I know here, face to face, now in bread and wine, but one day with
unveiled face we shall behold God and we shall be made like God for we shall see
God as he is." Beloved by God. What manner of love with which we have been
loved that we can be called the children of God? "And of such we are now and it
doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when he appears we shall be like him
for we shall see him as he is." Between memory and hope, just now, just a fleeting
moment, I know the reality of the presence of the Living God. Thank God.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d308f28ea7a6b638a85b0959abd42bba.mp3
3f48f377e5f3d1f2305e8b5d37281c2d
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 V
Scripture Text
Deuteronomy 16:1, I Corinthians 11:24, Mark 14:22, 24
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-0-19940626
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1994-06-26
Title
A name given to the resource
Eucharist: Memory, Presence, Hope
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
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 June 26, 1994 entitled "Eucharist: Memory, Presence, Hope", on the occasion of Pentecost V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Deuteronomy 16:1, I Corinthians 11:24, Mark 14:22, 24.
Awareness
Grace
Pentecost
Presence of God
Ritual
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bda6a4b45698b095485abf46aad7b60f.pdf
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Text
Memories With a Future
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
August 1, 1993
Transcription of the spoken sermon
"I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between
me and the earth.” Genesis 9:13
"This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me…This cup is the
new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of
me.” I Corinthians 11:24-25
I have a new book. It’s entitled The Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore. It is a
recent publication and it has made the Best Seller list which, I think, is unusual
for a book about the care of the soul. Thomas Moore is not writing necessarily
from the Christian perspective. I don't know really where he stands there, but he
is writing about the malaise of the 20th-century human person whose soul lacks
depth, or who is rather soul-less and, therefore, gets caught up in all kinds of
addictions and obsessions, and violence, and has no depth dimension to his or
her person. Moore is a psychologist and he says that no longer can we afford the
luxury of a bifurcation between psychology as a secular science and spirituality as
a religious dimension, that really the health of the human person involves that
depth dimension of soul. We must care for our souls. One of the things that he
suggests is that we simply must observe, pay attention, attend to our lives, our
soul, our moods, to just what's happening in us, our responses, our attitudes, and
our spirit.
Thomas Moore makes an interesting connection with our celebration this
morning, because he speaks of ritual observances. He notes that the word
observance has within it serv (s-e-r-v), which in the original from which the word
is derived had to do with the tending of sheep. So an observance is really a
tending of the dimensions of the soul. Moore says it is important that we engage
in ritual observances - that ritual observances have a way of forming us in our
depths. When I read that, I recognized that there is a part of me which is so
under-developed. I am about 98% head. I am always thinking. And I am always
trying to understand. That's a reflection of my tradition, which has nurtured me
in biblical story and faith meaning, the Catechism, the structure of the faith. In
recent years I have been recognizing that there is a sacramental dimension to
Christian experience that was not well developed for me, and I have been groping
© Grand Valley State University
�Memories With a Future
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
for that, to find that depth dimension that doesn't denigrate the mind, doesn't
eliminate the importance of understanding, but is able to get to the heart and to
the primal core of our being. That's what ritual does.
We have never done ritual very well. My whole tradition, my whole experience
has not had an appreciation for the spiritual shaping, the spiritual formation of
ritual observances. As I reflected on that I thought, that is what we are about
when we come to gather around the table of our Lord. We have tried so hard to
understand the relationship of bread to body, and wine to blood, and what
actually happens. What is that transaction of bread and wine to us, received in
faith and in the spirit? I recognize again my flaw, which is always trying to
understand rather than being able somehow or other to turn off my brain, even
momentarily and experience , and in that ritual observance to be shaped and
formed.
Then I came across a phrase that became a window for me - really a wonderful
illuminating moment. One would think at this advanced age that one had thought
every thought possible, and come across every possible combination of
explanation of what this experience is all about. But then I read this phrase from
Walter Bruggeman in one of his Old Testament studies: "Memories With A
Future." Suddenly that juxtaposition of words just struck fire for me. "Memories
With A Future." Sometimes words juxtaposed, put together in unusual fashion
can bring flashes of illumination. “Memory” refers usually to the past, to
memories of pleasure or of pain. And we think of the future, which we move
toward with anticipation, either of desire or of hope, or of dread. But to think of
"Memories With A Future," suddenly I said, "That's what happens in the
sacrament when Jesus invites us to remember him and in that remembering to
experience his presence and to appropriate again that future that he promised
us." Suddenly, past and future intersect this present moment in the sacramental
participation.
"Memories With A Future."
Now memory can be employed negatively. In the opening verses of Psalm 137, we
certainly can identify with the exile from Jerusalem, a captive in Babylon, his
tormenters saying, "Sing us a song of Zion." He says, "My heart is broken. How
can I sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Then he vows, "If I forget thee O,
Jerusalem…may my right hand be cut off." And then, that triggers a response of
vengeance. Were you surprised that I read the Psalm through to the end? Where
he would delight in having the little ones dashed against the rock? Certainly a
holy, unworthy emotion. Were you amazed perhaps that it should even come to
expression in the scripture? Ah, but it is a very human emotion. Very common,
and of which we are all capable. Twist the soul, oppress, torment and there is that
response - vengeful, hateful, seen all too often in our own world today. Bosnia
Herzegovina, those ancient feuds becoming the alignment of religious group
against religious group. The Middle East - Israel, Lebanon, Syria - Jew, Muslim.
© Grand Valley State University
�Memories With a Future
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
Psalm 137 causes us to cringe at the image of little ones dashed against the rock,
because we recognize that it is a part of us. This is also a self-destructive use of
memory.
But there is a positive use of memory and that is that to which Jesus pointed
when he said, "Take this bread. Remember me. Take this cup. Remember me
until I come." The old communion liturgy had all those dimensions in it. A feast
of remembrance, of communion in the present, and of hope. A sacrament is the
intersection of the past and the future, and the present moment of participation.
And the participation, the ritual observance repeated, repeated, repeated. Ah, in
my tradition, in my growing up, I was taught that that repetition was merely
ritualism. What my tradition and what I never recognized was that it is in that
very repetitious observance that I am shaped down here , in the gut, and we
become a community shaped around the memory that has a future, a memory of
Jesus the way he was, the life he lived, the death he suffered, the resurrection he
experienced, and the Shalom to which he calls us. "Memory With A Future." The
past event always aimed toward that consummation of all things “when every
knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God."
God's people have always been nurtured by signs, by ritual observances. The
earliest sign in the biblical narrative was the rainbow. After the flood, a judgment
on a perverse world, on creation gone awry, the Creator says, "Never again. Never
again." The change was not in human nature. The change was not in the creation.
The change was in the Creator. "Never again," God says. "Never again will I
destroy it all. Never again. I enter into covenant faithfulness with all the earth
and with every living creature." This is the earliest covenant. This covenant is
broader than the covenant with Abraham. This is the covenant of God with the
whole creation, God saying, "I will never abandon it. I will never let it go, and I
will set my bow in the cloud and when you see my bow in the cloud I will see the
bow and I will remember, and you will know that I will be faithful." Isaiah 54
references Noah and the bow, and then the prophet sings, "The mountains may
depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love will not depart from you.
The covenant of my peace will not be removed, says the Lord who has mercy
upon you." The rainbow triggered in the poet the deep assurance of the steadfast
love and faithfulness of God. The rainbow triggered a memory still potent for the
future.
Some of you know that, a little over a month ago, I conducted the funeral service
for a beautiful little angel twenty-one months old. The reason that I conducted
the service at the Spring Lake Presbyterian Church was the fact that Reverend
Anderson is new there and didn't really know the family, and the grandmother of
the little child, whose name was Paige, was a childhood friend of Nancy, and they
continue friends to this day and we had become friends as couples. The mother of
the little child was a school friend of Lynn, so because of our intimate connection
with the family I was asked to do the service. I met with the family the day before
the funeral and they manifested remarkable faith and trust in God. They live in
© Grand Valley State University
�Memories With a Future
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Wisconsin where little twenty-one months old Paige scooted away, as a child will,
and got to an open gate of a neighbor's pool and under the solar cover and died.
They had a service in their own community, but because of their connections here
they wanted a service here in this community. As I sat with them they told me
about their trip from Wisconsin to Grand Haven. It was a Saturday night; in fact
it was June 26, and on that Saturday evening as they drove in their van with a
casket on board, they drove into a rainbow. The rainbow arched the highway.
Their little seven year old, Megan, who is a bit of a mystic, who knew long before
the doctors knew that her "Mommy" was carrying twins, said, "Look, Paige is
painting rainbows." For a moment there was a double rainbow as though a
second one for the twin.
They told me this story and asked me about the connection with the biblical
story, and I said to them, "It is the oldest sign in creation of the faithfulness of
God." I used it for the funeral meditation, the sign of God's covenant faithfulness
in the midst of their loss and pain, that God would be with them and was with
them. The sign of a rainbow, which forever after for them will trigger a "Memory
That Has a Future.
Last evening I called Ron and Patrice Frantz to tell them that I would tell that
story, wanting them to be prepared as they came to worship this morning. Just
before Elise Joy died last fall, having been born a twin with her sister Leigh, and
having continued complications, but developing into a blooming delightful child
of her own person, just before she died with no premonition at the time that she
would die, Patrice took the two girls in her arms to the window of their home
overlooking Lake Michigan where there was a beautiful rainbow.
Patrice said to me, "Is that a sign?" I said, "That is a sign." And I used this
scripture for Elise Joy's funeral, where we celebrated the life, however brief, of
Elise Joy. Then Patrice said to me, "I cannot believe that you called. We were just
talking about you." In a rather emotional weekend after attending an annual
conference where Elise had been with them last year, they experienced the loss of
her presence this year with people who hadn't known that she had died. And,
therefore, all of the freshness of that loss was brought to the surface again. Then
on the way home they stopped at the cemetery for the first time to see the
gravestone. There was something about the stone that they wanted to ask me
about, so they had been talking about calling me. Then I said, "This is why I am
calling . . ." Patrice said, "Can I tell you one more thing? Not an hour ago Leigh
went to the box that still has Elise's toys and took out a music box and brought it
to me and I wound it up, and it began to play "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."
Does God send God's angels to sustain and keep us? Does God keep God's
promises of steadfast love and faithfulness? Every time Ron and Patrice or Sarah
and Morrey, whose twins were born near each other in time, both of which now
have one treasure in heaven, every time they see the rainbow they will have a
memory that will bring tears, but through the tears will shine a hope that sees
beyond the years to that time when we shall be gathered all together in the
© Grand Valley State University
�Memories With a Future
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
presence of the Lord. For Jesus said, "Remember me and know that I go to
prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again
and take you to myself, that where I am there you may be also. Because I live, you
too shall live.
The seer on the island of Patmos had a vision in which he saw a new heaven and a
new earth, and the dwelling of God with God's people. He said, "Behold I make all
things new. I will wipe every tear from your eye and there shall be no more crying
or pain, nor death any more. For the former things have passed away."
This morning you are invited to take bread and cup, and to remember. But the
memory of that one in our past has a future – of a time when we shall be gathered
at the banquet table of our Lord. Come then. The Master is here and calls for you.
All things are ready.
© Grand Valley State University
�
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7efe20ba5718aa083b99ffc833daaf7a.mp3
dbc3a9436e29c226937dab87046d5efb
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
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Event
Pentecost IX
Scripture Text
Genesis 9:13, I Corinthians 11:24-25
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Thomas Moore, The Care of the Soul, 1994
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/.
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KII-01_RA-0-19930801
Date
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1993-08-01
Title
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Memories With A Future
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 1, 1993 entitled "Memories With A Future", on the occasion of Pentecost IX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Genesis 9:13, I Corinthians 11:24-25.
Ritual
Sacrament
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ca4aefcf978a1672a77c9a56d34d3172.mp3
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a08e728c9a3a7c7c52846f80d75597f3.pdf
fa0483f0fd753c11e9fef7dc23cf0b20
PDF Text
Text
One Church, One World – Always in Transition
World Wide Communion
Text: Jeremiah 1:9-10; Acts 5:39
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost XVII, October 4, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
...I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Jeremiah 1:910
...if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them - in that case you may even be found
fighting against God! Acts 5:39
Time Magazine comes to my rescue again. This is a special issue, fall of 1992 –
“Beyond the Year 2000 - What to Expect in the New Millennium.” It is a very
interesting issue, which deals with some futuring prognostication of where things
will be in century 21. It reminds us that we are in the stream of history. Our lives
are enmeshed in history, and there is no way we can extricate ourselves from it.
We are moving toward century 21 - one day at a time. And, as that hinge point of
history comes about, we will celebrate not only the entrance of a new year and a
new decade, but a new century and a new millennium. We are in the tide of
history and we will move with it - whether we wish to or not.
I remember a couple of decades ago a popular song that expresses our human
resistance to the inevitability of change and movement. The words went
something like this: Make the world go away. Take it off my shoulders. Say the
things you used to say, and make the world go away.” We imagine that the
Golden Age is behind us. We delude ourselves with the thought that in a former
day things were neater, finer, manageable, somehow together. In the midst of the
ambiguity and the chaos of our present existence, we long for someone to make
the “world go away.” For someone to “say the things they used to say.” But to no
avail, for we move in history - whether we wish to or not. And how does one keep
one’s balance? How does one keep a sense of who one is? And to whom one
belongs? And what one is called to be and to do? In this inexorable movement of
history, open-ended toward the future, how do you find your way?
Well, let me suggest that, because we are enmeshed in history, we must be
immersed in ritual. I have been hammering away at that - the sacramental
© Grand Valley State University
�One Church, One World, in Transition
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
character of the church. Last week I said that it is the experience of worship that
is the medium of traditioning. And don't you think I was excited to have my
prejudices confirmed when I read the article entitled “Kingdoms to Come,” by
Richard Osling? He is the Religious Editor of Time who prognosticates about the
future of religion 100 years hence. Of course, he is imagining, making a guess
how it will be. And we will probably not be around in order to see whether he was
right. But listen to this paragraph:
Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy with their emphasis on ritual are well
suited to a world in which few people bother to read. Theology is a dying
art. School children are ignorant of the Bible and hence the rest of their
spiritual heritage. The Post Literate Era has been especially difficult for
Protestantism which depended so heavily on rationalism and reading.
Although old style Protestants are shrinking in numbers, they retain
outsized influence because so many of them remain book readers and are
thus, inevitably, leaders of the economic ruling class on all continents.
He is saying what I said last week that – in the case of the Roman Catholic
Church under oppression in Eastern Europe - it was that implicit faith, it was that
spiritual formation at the core of a person that only comes through immersion in
ritual, in the worship that becomes mindless because it is so much a part of our
depths. It is that that enables us to maintain the tradition and to keep the
tradition alive.
Now, I will qualify to say that I am not going to stop thinking or reading or
preaching. I don't think one has to do one or the other. I will acknowledge also
that ritual can become mindless in the sense of empty, thoughtless, meaningless,
and that it can be a manipulative tool. But I will come back to my thesis that I
have been sharing with you more and more over the last year or two, and
especially in the last months, that it is the sacramental character of the Church ritual – that acts out what we believe, that will allow us, in the midst of the rush
of history's inexorable movement, a sense of identity. It can enable us to know
who we are and give us a vehicle by which to tradition the rising generation in
their enmeshment in history. We need the immersion in ritual in order to
continue to be who we are.
Now I will also say that the only way that it is possible, in the stream of history, to
remain the same is to continue to change. To do the same things, we must do
things differently. The thing I love about this congregation is the openness to
make those changes as time moves and as history unfolds. In order to do the
same thing, a willingness to do things differently. There is more on the fork of
this congregation this morning than most churches could handle in a decade.
In a few moments we will ordain our Eucharistic celebrants, a new class that has
been called and trained and equipped to share the sacrament with you. I can
remember the day that the idea dawned on us (not knowing at the time that there
were other traditions that had been doing it for a long time!). Colette and I were
© Grand Valley State University
�One Church, One World, in Transition
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
talking about the children. We so wanted them to be receptive to the tradition of
weekly Eucharist. Yet the 8:30 a.m. service wasn't really doing it. Parents didn't
often attend that service with their children. There was a realization that if it was
really going to happen for them it needed to happen in their Worship Centers. In
order for that to happen, their teachers would need to be prepared. And suddenly
the idea just dawned in a moment of insight. Intuitively we knew that it was right.
The consistory approved it and we have tested it for a year. Now they have given
us unanimous approval to continue.
So again this morning we will ordain a new group of people whose life will be in a
special way committed to the sacraments of the church. And as the eucharist
liturgy is experienced this morning, the children remain here, in order that they
may connect what we do here with what they do in their Worship Centers weekly,
in order that when they come to their own years of discretion and adulthood and
responsibility, they will have been exposed there and here, to the power and
meaning of sacrament in the midst of worship. Traditioning them in the context
of worship where the heart, the being, is open to all and to the wonder of God.
Not a rational, intellectual, pedagogical, didactic attack on them week after week,
but the invitation to come and to worship. To hear the story, yes, but to hear the
story in a way that brings it into their present experience - moves them at their
deepest level.
If you want one more reason to congratulate yourselves on a morning like this
where we do these innovative things, come at 11:30 when a new form of
governance will be suggested to you. In order that this large and dynamic
institution may continue to do the same things it has always done, it is going to
have to do things differently. It is always incumbent upon us to move with
history's flow and in order to do the same thing we must keep on changing. We
hate it. Often we resist it. There is something in us which would love to have all
the loose ends tied up. The Word of God has always been addressed to those who
would absolutize that which is only relative. To make absolute something which
is only temporary is to fall into idolatry.
The prophets had always to come to Israel. God said to Jeremiah, “Speak to my
people.” Jeremiah said, “Not me.” God said, “Yes, you. I touch your lips. Now go
and uproot, pull down, destroy.” The Word of God destroy? The Word of God
uprooting? The Word of God pulling down? Yes. Pulling down our idols.
Shattering our systems, our comfortable ways of being and doing. The Word of
God always comes as a word of judgment in order that grace may come. In order
that that word may also plant and build. A classic instance of how God's people
always block themselves against the newness of God's spirit is the fact that the
Jewish authorities rejected the Messiah and crucified the Lord of Glory.
Oh I wish there had been enough Gamaliel's around. In the wake of the
resurrection Jerusalem was being turned upside down. With apostolic witness,
Gamaliel said to the Sanhedrin, “Look, why are you so overwrought? Why do you
© Grand Valley State University
�One Church, One World, in Transition
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
feel so self-important that the whole world is somehow or other in your hands?
Remember Thadeus? Well he was quite a number, but he didn't last long. Do you
remember Judas, the Galilean? He had a thing going but it came to nothing.”
Gamaliel said, “My friends, if this thing is of human origin it will fail, but if it is of
God, you'll not be able to overthrow it. And you might even find yourself fighting
God.” Oh, that there might have been more Gamaliel's in the history of the
Church when the Church fell into idolatry, making absolute what is only relative,
wanting something to be eternal which was only for a certain time. Oh that the
wisdom of Gamaliel might prevail in the Church as it negotiates the future and
moves toward century 21.
There is a way that we can remain faithful and solid and certain in the midst of all
the uncertainty. But it is not the risky word of the preacher. It is bread and cup,
and water and oil: concrete vehicles of Grace that will allow us to negotiate
uncharted waters, to take on any storm, to face any confusion, and to be able to
say, “Nevertheless, this bread and this cup speak to me of God's forever neverending love.” These sacraments nurture deep within us a fundamental trust, an
implicit trust - in God, in God's Grace, in God's presence with us, in God's Spirit,
shattering our forms and renewing our lives: bread, cup, water, oil: sacramental
signs which point to God's foundational love deep down in things. So that we can
know, come what may, that all will be well - and all will be well, and all manner of
things will be well. Trust God. Eat. Drink. Trust. All will be well.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost XVII
Series
Worldwide Communion
Scripture Text
Jeremiah 1:9-10, Acts 5: 39
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
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KII-01_RA-0-19921004
Date
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1992-10-04
Title
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One Church, One World - Always in Transition
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 4, 1992 entitled "One Church, One World - Always in Transition", as part of the series "Worldwide Communion", on the occasion of Pentecost XVII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Jeremiah 1:9-10, Acts 5: 39.
All Will Be Well
Church
Ritual
Sacrament
Tradition
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/39e533cd45398b78f216a0178bfb2527.mp3
6346c76b6e7c50d968d6fce73f44bd53
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4209f38b3a6152f6023717a1cfe3bae5.pdf
200a1bc876d22ac465af5ddad7570e9d
PDF Text
Text
Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic
From the sermon series: No Stained Glass Saints
Text: I Corinthians 9: 22-23
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
November 23, 1986
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Brilliant, educated, passionate, Paul is certainly one of the towering figures of all
time. With him, perhaps we have come too far in this series; maybe he deserves
to be set apart, far removed from the likes of us ordinary mortals. Perhaps here
we have met the classic "Hero of the Faith." But before I yield the point too
quickly, let us review this Apostle and let him speak for himself.
This series ends with Paul. With him as with all the others, the purpose has not
been to deflate, to puncture, to destroy the image commonly held. It has been
rather to see that the Bible is not a history of extraordinary individuals, of
persons of religious genius or special holiness of life which made them fit
instruments for the effecting of God's purposes. Rather, the biblical story is God's
story, the record of what He has done and is doing in our history through
ordinary people, people like you and me.
To set up biblical characters as almost super human in their faith and devotion,
as models of faith and virtue and then to say, "Go thou and do likewise," is to turn
the Bible into a moralizing textbook on human conduct rather than the story of
God's gracious purpose worked out through common, rag-tag humanity.
Frederick Buechner credits his Old Testament professor, James Murlenburg,
with giving him this insight:
What I began to see was that the Bible is not essentially, as I had always
more or less supposed, a book of ethical principles, of moral exhortations,
of cautionary tales about exemplary people, of uplifting thoughts - in fact,
not really a religious book at all in the sense that most of the books you
would be apt to find in a minister's study or reviewed in a special religion
issue of The New York Times book section are religious. I saw it instead as
a great, tattered compendium of writings, the underlying and unifying
purpose of all of which is to show how God works through the Jacobs and
© Grand Valley State University
�Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic
Richard A. Rhem
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the Jabboks of history to make himself known to the world and to draw the
world back to himself. (Now and Then, p. 20)
A biblical scholar, James Sanders, makes the same point convincingly. He writes,
The Bible ... provides very few models of morality. An honest reading of
the Bible indicates how many biblical characters were just as limited and
full of shortcomings as we today. It would seem that about seventy-five
percent of the Bible celebrates the theologian ... God's providence works in
and through human error and sin. The Bible offers no great or infallible
models, no saints in the meaning that word has taken on since biblical
times - nearly perfect people. None! It offers indeed very few models to
follow at all except the work of God in Creation and in Israel in the Old
Testament and the work of God in Christ in the New ...We need to read the
Bible honestly, recognizing much of it celebrates God's willingness to take
our humanity, our frailty, and our limitations and weave them into his
purposes. God's grace is not stumped by our limitation... (God Has a Story
Too, p. 22F)
Now, to Paul: does he confirm the thesis of this series? I suggest that he does. He
is the Apostle of Grace par excellence. To say that is to focus on his never dying
amazement at the grace of God that embraced him, forgave him and transformed
him. I have set the focus on Paul with the title "The Mellowing of a Fanatic." A
fanatic is a person affected by excessive and mistaken enthusiasm. It speaks of
one possessed by a deity or a demon, making one unreasoning.
Paul was richly endowed in mind and spirit; of that there can be little doubt. He
had the advantage of Roman citizenship, of the best of rabbinical education. But
for all that, he was a person possessed by a narrow, rigid and mean fanaticism. As
he humbly confirmed,
I persecuted the church of God.
We know his story well but I think most of our reflection on it has been on the
dramatic conversion he experienced on the road to Damascus - that is a thrilling
story and the response he made to the grace he received is even more thrilling.
But the story is so dramatic because of what Paul was prior to that encounter with
Christ.
Paul was religious in the worst sense of the word.
Religion made him moral, but it did not make him good; rather, it made him
mean, narrow, bigoted. Paul was a Pharisee, a scrupulous observer of religious
rules and rituals. He was a legalist with no sympathy for those of lesser zeal and
devotion to the law. He was a driven person knowing no deep assurance and
inward peace, and his own enslavement to the "performance principle" made him
© Grand Valley State University
�Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
coercive in his dealing with others. The self-doubt and anxiety he knew were kept
under and masked over by his belligerence to those who differed with him.
He testifies against himself that, when followers of Jesus, followers of the Way,
were hailed into court, he voted for their death. Telling his story before King
Agrippa, he confesses,
It was I who imprisoned many of God’s people by authority obtained
from the chief priests; and when they were condemned to death, my vote
was cast against them. In all the synagogues I tried by repeated
punishment to make them renounce their faith; indeed my fury rose to
such a pitch that I extended my persecution to foreign cities.
Acts 26:10-11
Not a very nice person. Not a person one would choose to deal with. Religion did
its worst work on Paul. It made him mean and bigoted and, when such a spirit is
combined with giftedness and passion, we get a very dangerous kind of person.
That is why I hope we never get a president from the ranks of the religious right.
Sincerity is not enough. Paul was sincere. Being a worshiper of God is not
enough. Paul was a devout Jew. I do not question the sincerity or Christian faith
of the vocal fundamentalist crowd in our day, but I fear their spirit even if it is
lacquered with smiles and cited with smooth speech. A person who is certain he
has hold of the Truth and is convinced he is God's warrior is terribly dangerous.
More crimes have been committed, wars waged and havoc wrought by such
persons than by any other sort. Paul was a fanatic and fanatics are dangerous.
Paul never got over the damage he had done. Perhaps that is why he never
wavered from the grace principle. He knew it was by grace and grace alone that
he was saved. He knew there was no way he could repair the damage and rewrite
the past. It was done. Only grace could set him free from the horror of what he
had done.
Listen to his own testimony and hear the deep humility that clothed him from the
moment he met Jesus. Writing in an early correspondence to Corinth, he tells of
the appearance of the Risen Lord to him:
Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the
least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the
church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am… I Corinthians
15:8-9
In a later letter to the Ephesians, he wrote,
Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace
which was given to me by the working of his power. To me though I am
the very least of all the saints, this grace was given… Ephesians 3:7-8
© Grand Valley State University
�Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Finally, in the First Letter to Timothy, he writes,
The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners. And I am the foremost of sinners; but I
received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ
might display his perfect patience…I Timothy 1: 15-16
One can sense a descending scale of self-valuation from least of the Apostles to
least of the saints to chief of sinners. And as one reads those passages, one senses
that this is no over-pious, false humility. This Paul was not through conversion
reduced to a pious pansy of a person. There is a ring of Truth, an authentic note
that strikes one. Paul is not out to impress those to whom he writes. This is how
he really felt. He never lost sight of that from which he had been delivered, that
which had been forgiven him, that grace that embraced him and set him free
from the guilt of his past and the bondage of that narrow religious legalism that
had enslaved him.
The good news of our reflection on Paul is the radical transformation of this
person from legalist to champion of grace,
from persecutor to Apostle,
from rigid, narrow fanaticism to graciousness and love and freedom.
I could take you many places in Paul's writings to demonstrate the
transformation of his character, but since we have begun by detailing the
fanaticism that led to coercion and persecution of the Church, let me point you to
the new Paul who became the model of flexibility and freedom.
Indeed, I have become everything in turn to men of every sort, so that in
one way or another I may save some. I Corinthians 9:22
The context is a discussion about Christian freedom, about whether it is right or
wrong to do this or that. The specific question was about eating meat that had
been offered to heathen gods. Without trying to explain that issue, let me simply
give Paul's answer - It really doesn't matter. You have permission. But if it
bothers your brother, don't do it. Always act in a sensitive, loving manner over
against your weaker brother.
Paul then demonstrates his principles in his own life and ministry. He asserts the
basic fact - "I am a free man and own no master." But because of Jesus Christ and
the call to ministry, Paul declares, "I have made myself every man's servant, to
win over as many as possible." He then goes on to explain that the context of his
ministry on any given occasion determined his manner of life.
© Grand Valley State University
�Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
Evangelizing Jews, he became like a Jew. Evangelizing Gentiles, he became like a
Gentile. To the weak, he became weak. He did whatever was necessary in order to
share the gospel and bring persons to faith in Jesus Christ.
We can find this documented in the Book of Acts. In the 16th chapter, Paul meets
the young Timothy and wanted him to accompany him on his mission. His
mother was a Jewess, his father a Gentile. Paul had him circumcised "out of
consideration for the Jews who lived in those parts." This is the Apostle who
argued strenuously that circumcision or uncircumcision count for nothing. This
was not a matter of legal necessity, of salvation. Paul did what he did so as not to
offend in a matter that did not really matter.
Again, in Acts 18:18, Paul himself takes a vow, shaving his head, not of necessity
but because he desired to undergo a spiritual discipline for his own good.
On one of his visits to Jerusalem, he came to see James, the Lord's brother and
head of the Jerusalem Church. James pointed out that there were thousands of
Jews who had received Jesus as Messiah, but continued in their Temple worship
and religious ritual. They had heard rumors that Paul taught the Jews in the
Gentile world to turn their back on Moses. Therefore, to put the rumor to rest,
James suggested Paul undergo ritual purification in the Temple along with four
men undergoing that ritual at the time - even paying their fee (or making their
offering). Paul did. From these instances, we can see how consistent the words of
our text are with the actual conduct of the Apostle.
All things to all people in order to win some.
Such flexibility is remarkable and it is rare, especially in religion. We all get
ideologized bias, whether in religion, politics, economics, or whatever field of
discourse we engage in. Paul's flexibility was founded on his freedom and his
freedom flowed out of his experience of grace.
Paul was set free by grace. Christ died and rose again. Paul died with Christ. Paul
rose with Christ. Paul was free of every human structure, ritual, law, custom and
institution – he was a slave to Jesus Christ and that enslaving was perfect
freedom. The freedom of grace relativized every other duty or claim upon him.
Paul never wavered from the Gospel as it had been revealed to him and in his
Galatian letter he insists it was given him by revelation. On the principle of grace,
Paul would not compromise. He took on Peter and admonished Barnabas when
they withdrew from Gentiles at table when Jewish Christian leaders from
Jerusalem arrived in Galatia. He stood on the grace principle. But standing there,
he was able to move with freedom, to deal with flexibility. His overriding passion
was not his own ease or power or success but the setting of all persons free, free
from religious superstition and constitutional oppression, from the manipulations of religious or political leaders, free to become fully human, fully alive
in the grace of Jesus Christ.
© Grand Valley State University
�Paul: Mellowing of a Fanatic
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
Thus he remained a person of passion and deep commitment, but now to the one
thing needful – the gospel of grace – that turned him from a hardnosed fanatic to
a gracious apostle of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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Sound
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
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Event
Pentecost XXVII
Series
No Stained Glass Saints
Scripture Text
I Corinthians 9:22-23
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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KII-01_RA-0-19861123
Date
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1986-11-23
Title
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Paul: The Mellowing of a Fanatic
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 23, 1986 entitled "Paul: The Mellowing of a Fanatic", as part of the series "No Stained Glass Saints", on the occasion of Pentecost XXVII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Corinthians 9:22-23.
Apostle Paul
Freedom
Gospel of Grace
Grace of God
Ritual
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2f5dbeea1e8e116d5a62918554c69200.pdf
11c2508024f7c570f806f2af36093130
PDF Text
Text
Religion: Binding or Setting Free
From the series: Moving On To Maturity
Text: Isaiah 46:3-4; Ephesians 1:17-19; Matthew 23:15
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 18, 1999
Transcription of the spoken sermon
I hope you got up this morning and said, "Ah, Sunday. We get to go to church." If
you got up and said, "It’s Sunday; we have to go to church," I hope you feel a little
guilty for about five minutes, but not much longer than that.
Religion ought to be an experience of joy and liberation, and Sunday worship
ought to be the crown of it all, the time when we find inspiration and
encouragement and new reason to live zestfully. I find that what I am dealing
with this morning pops up on my chart quite often. The fact that religion ought to
be a source of freedom. I would like to be known as the singer of the song of the
soul set free.
Some Lents ago I preached a rather strange sermon, admittedly; it was a sermon
about the insurrectionist that was crucified with Jesus. Now, not the good one,
you know. Everybody preaches on the good one. After all, the good one pleaded
for mercy in the end and got this wonderful promise from Jesus. But I preached
on the one that remained belligerent, cursing through his teeth to his last breath,
finding therein something I thought rather heroic. I suppose because of my own
Libertarianism and contrariness, perhaps. But I thought it was probably not
biblically accurate, but interesting. However, someone got really angry with me
about that and came in to see me, and said to me, "All you preach is freedom and
grace and in my work, I find out that what people need are rules and guidance
and discipline." And it was a moment of awakening for me. I think I didn’t react
defensively, I just smiled and I said, "Well, they won’t get it from me." And it was
a moment of awakening wherein I recognized that I am not a complete preacher.
No one has ever accused me of balance. I think balance is boring, and balance
ends up in making no point deeply, and I can’t be everything. I have been shaped
in a certain way and had certain kinds of experiences, and that has enabled me to
put my finger on what I discern is a very important niche to be filled - that is to
seek to save people from religion, to set people free, free from religion, especially
religion. And I have been doing that now for a long time and as this morning we
continue in this series, "Moving On To Maturity," I simply want to say what I’ve
said here many times but find that it needs to be said again and again because
© Grand Valley State University
�Religion Binding or Setting Free
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
there is something intrinsic in religion that tends to bind and cripple the human
personality rather than setting a person free. So, this morning, let me say I am
the herald of good religion that releases and sets free, and I would speak a word
against that religion that binds the soul and becomes a burden to be borne,
because there is a lot of religion that way.
We need to recognize how religion arose in the first place. It didn’t just drop
down out of heaven, and it is not something that God gave to us, but it is
something that we have created in our attempt to respond to God in the early
beginnings of what we call the human, the beginnings of consciousness, of selfconsciousness. There was the growing awareness of one’s existence, how fragile it
is, how perilous it is, and inevitably with the emergence of the human come
questions of meaning and of purpose. From whence have we come and whither
are we going, and what is the meaning of it, anyway? Life with its passages and its
perils is not easy to negotiate, and in the early dawning of human consciousness
these deeply existential questions began to be asked, and then someone saw a
bush that burned and wasn’t consumed. Someone entered the temple and it was
filled with smoke and the pillars of the temple were shaking. Someone looked at a
man and said, "The Lamb of God." Someone was going on the road to Damascus
and a bright light encountered him and a voice spoke to him. In our own
tradition, but we could duplicate that in all the great religious traditions, there
was someone sometime who had some kind of experience and, to the extent that
that experience spoke to the reality of his or her situation, and to the extent that
as it was shared, it resonated with the experience of others, there was a gathered
community and then a gathered community that became a tradition, and that
experience was reduced to a teaching and a ritual through which one worshipped
and a way of life. And so, we have the great religions that are based on a founding
experience and have taken on a certain institutional form, and those great
religions continue to serve people as life maps, to give orientation, to answer
those alternate questions of life as we live in the mystery of our existence before
that Ultimate Mystery that bears us. That’s the nature of religion.
If you were here in May when we welcomed our eighth graders into the
continuing pilgrimage of faith, you heard me say to them that all we could give to
them was secondhand religion and that really is what institutional, traditional
religion is - it’s secondhand religion, and I quoted a statement of William James
in his Varieties of Religious Experience, where he said, "Such an ordinary
religious person, his religion has been made for him by others, communicated to
him by tradition, determined to fixed forms by imitation, and retained by habit."
And that’s really true, when you think about it. There is the experience that
someone else had. There’s the tradition that conveys it. There is the form by
which it is fixed by imitation or repetition, and continued by habit. So, most of us
are what we were born to be; we are within the tradition and that understanding
with which we were born and nurtured, and our religion secondhand. Now,
hopefully it becomes the occasion for fresh experience, for firsthand experience.
But, institutional religion is, after all, a commodity which inevitably tends, in its
© Grand Valley State University
�Religion Binding or Setting Free
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
institutional forms which are necessary, it tends to become a burden rather than
that which lifts the burden. It tends to become another obligation for which we
feel responsible and it becomes burdensome.
Second Isaiah, with the Jews in exile in Babylon, gives us a marvelous picture of
religion that has become a burden. Baal and Nibo were the chief gods of the
Babylonians and the Jews in exile would see on New Year’s Day the grand
processions of the images of the gods, down from their pedestals, taken on
parade around the walls of the city. The problem with the Jews in exile was that it
seemed to them that these gods must be the chief gods because where was their
God? They were in exile; they were in captivity. So, the prophet has to remind
them that their God is the creator of the heavens and the earth. He has to have
them remember who their God really is, and in drawing this picture with a little
satire and humor, he pictures the images of the gods being taken from their
pedestals and put on beasts of burden and carried out of town, not in a New
Year’s feast, now, but because the enemy is at the gate and what they’re trying to
do is save their gods. Now, if you don’t get a little laugh out of that, you see, their
gods are going into captivity; they’ve got to rescue their gods! For gods’ sake, they
have to take care of their gods! And the prophet says to them, "Look at them,
carrying off their gods in order that they not be taken into captivity and their
images can’t say a word, they can’t save, they become a burden to be borne." And
then, in contrast to that, he sets forth these words from the Lord, "Listen to me, O
house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne
by me from your birth, carried from the womb, even to your old age, I am God.
Even when you turn gray, I will carry you. I have made and I will bear. I will carry
and I will save."
God is not a god that needs to be rescued or a burden to be borne, but a God Who
carries, a God Who lifts, a God Who rescues, and a God Who saves.
Now, we can laugh at the silly Babylonians for putting all that stock in those
images that they put on beasts of burden. Can’t you see the idols sort of tipping
off because the poor, old beast can’t handle it and the idol’s nose is dragged in the
dust as it’s going out of town in order to be rescued. And we can laugh at that,
and the prophet intended this satire to be biting, but our religion so easily
becomes that. Take, for example, the Church. Ask me about the Church. It’s not
so easy to keep the machinery going; it’s not so easy to keep the budget up to
snuff, and then all of the programs of the church - how many pulpit
announcements don’t jerk you just a little bit, add just a pinch of guilt? And if you
didn’t get up this morning and say, "Oh, thank God it’s Sunday; I get to go to
church," maybe you were saying, "Oh, what a beautiful summer day. But, I
suppose we’d better go to church. There was poor old Dick slaving all Saturday
and he’s going to sit on his stool and nobody there, we’d better go." There’s so
many good people who support religion for all the wrong reasons. I’ve known a
lot of good church leaders that way. They remind me of what Mark Twain said, "A
good man in the worst sense of the word." Think about that.
© Grand Valley State University
�Religion Binding or Setting Free
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
I do thank God for responsible people and serious people and people who bear
the burden in the heat of the day and who keep it going, but I have to tell you - it
can turn religion into a burden and it misses the intention. It makes religion an
end in itself rather than a means to the end of setting the soul free and finding a
way to sing and shout and dance. Religion is a means to an end, it’s not an end in
itself, and when it becomes organized and institutionalized and established well,
it becomes something that has to be kept up. Just look around us today - all the
stuff about religion in the newspaper, about plastering the Ten Commandments
on every wall in the schools and in the courts. We want to have children pray in
school. Why? Not because we’re so concerned about the spiritual life of people,
but rather because we are afraid the morality of the nation is unraveling and we
have to keep the Ten Commandments up there, and we’ve got to get children
praying and we have to expose them to all this. We have to utilize religion in
order to keep society from disintegrating and that makes religion oppressive; it
uses religion; it makes religion a tool, and it sours us. Religion used for any other
purpose than the worship of God, dancing before God Who sets the soul free, is
bad religion, good for family values, good for community values, good for
maintaining the civilization in the West, and all of that misses the point, and all
of it abuses and misuses religion, and all of it makes religion a burden to be
borne.
In the Church, my philosophy over the years of programming has been do only as
much as you have to. I never try to scratch where people don’t itch. The things
that will meet human need are the things that will be supported, people will be
there. Otherwise, you have an elaborate program and you plead with people to
participate in these good things we have prepared. The whole society today is
organizing all kinds of good things for me to do that I don’t want to do. I don’t
need to do them, and the Church can be as guilty, and maybe more guilty than
any other social organization in providing all sorts of "stuff." It becomes a
burden, and the more serious you are, the more conscientious you are, the more
you are inclined to support this project. It’s like the PTA - everybody ought to
support the PTA, everybody ought to support the United Fund, everyone ought to
support Boy Scouts in America, everybody ought to support the Cancer Drive,
whatever drive there may be, and, for God’s sake, we ought to support the
Church. A community needs a church. It makes for a good community. It just
makes for better people. All such reasoning misses the point completely. We
imitate the Babylonians hoisting their gods off the pedestals onto the beasts of
burden and trying to guide them and keep them from falling, trying to get them
out of town so the gods can be saved. I don’t think anyone here is into that kind of
religion, but if there is, you really need a sabbatical - get cleansed of it or you’ll
never be able to enjoy God. If your religion is heavy with obligation under the
tyranny of ought, the musts, and the shoulds, you are burdened.
Jesus certainly knew that. When I read the 23rd chapter of Matthew, as other
Gospel passages of conflict, I always want to say the controversy is probably
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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between Matthew and those he was in conflict with rather than reflective of Jesus
in his time. However, certainly Matthew was reflective of the spirit of Jesus and
the intention of Jesus, and one of the reasons that Jesus got into such serious
trouble was that he didn’t support that kind of institutional religion that had
become a burden, and in the 23rd chapter of Matthew we read, "You bind heavy
burdens on people that they cannot bear and you don’t yourself." He said the
scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat so when they teach, they are teaching
you Moses, the Mosaic tradition, that’s fine. But, don’t do as they do." And in the
conclusion to that chapter he says, "Woe to you. You go all over the world and
make a proselyte and once you have a proselyte, you’ve made him twice over the
child of Hell, binding heavy burdens on people, trying to make them religious and
all of it turns upside down what it’s really all about, which is setting the soul free."
Jesus was so strong against the conventional wisdom of his day that put people in
their places and through their paces, and he violated all of the taboos in the
interest of people with that sense he had of the graciousness of God.
What we do with bad religion is scandalize God. What kind of a God is it,
anyway? A stern, demanding parent who created us and then keeps us in our
adolescence, treating us as naughty children. The biblical paradigm of paradise
and fall adds to that. We’re guilty sinners. Are we guilty sinners? Well, let’s go to
Kosovo, or let’s look into our own heart. Of course, we are. But, not because we
have fallen from some pristine perfection, but because we are still clawing our
way out of the jungle, and we haven’t made as much progress as we should have
made. But, I will tell you what - that stern, demanding father doesn’t help any.
Rather, it binds us in our rebellion and it keeps us in our immaturity.
God is for us! This is what Paul was trying to say. If I had more time this
morning, I could have read the whole first chapter of Ephesians, those first
fourteen verses fairly soar as Paul talks about the eternal, everlasting grace of
God, His loving us, knowing us before the foundations of the world and working
things out according to his purposes. A grand, grand passage. And then Paul
comes to address his people in Ephesus personally, where he says, "I pray for you
that God will enlighten the eyes of your understanding, that the inner being will
be illumined that you might come to know what is the hope to which he calls you.
What are the riches of the inheritance which is yours, what is the power available
to you, the very power and resurrection." Paul says, "Oh, I hope you’re getting it. I
pray to God that He will help you to see it." You see, Paul was the one who had
that pounding vision; Paul had his soul on fire and he said to these people, "It’s so
grand, the grace of God is so big, so rich, so wonderful! I hope that you have come
to see it."
When religion is used as a means for everything else other than dancing before
God , it becomes a burden to be borne rather than a gift to be celebrated, and it
binds the human soul rather than setting free.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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I want to say this clearly this morning - there are religious observances that are
important and helpful. Talking about religious observances, which I’ve been
rather hard on this morning, C. S. Lewis said, "When we carry out our religious
duties, we are like people digging channels in a waterless land in order that when
at last the water comes, it may find them ready. There are happy moments, even
now, when a trickle creeps along the dry beds, and happy souls for whom this
happens often." Obviously I know that there are certain religious observances
that we go through and sometimes going through them, there’s no electric shock,
no lightning strikes, but we do have a pattern of religious life, and we do that
because we know that, now and again, here and there, there will be a trickle of
water, fresh breath, new insight, deep resting in grace. And so, we keep coming
and we keep opening ourselves, and we keep practicing. But, all the time we know
it’s not to keep the community healthy or the nations sound or our accounts
square with a stern, demanding God, heavenly parent. But, we do it because now
and again we’ve tasted grace. We know the taste of cool, running water, and we
long more and more to be lifted by that experience.
There was once a pastor who had a little boy who used to come down from the
parsonage to the study on the parking lot here every morning to say to his father
who was the preacher, "Daddy, what day is it?" The father would say, "Tuesday."
"Oh, good."
He would come down again, "Daddy, what day is it?"
"Thursday."
"Oh, good."
"Saturday."
"Good."
"Sunday."
"Ahhhh," and he would go into a wailing temper tantrum. Sunday; ugly Sunday.
Well, God has a special grace for preachers’ kids, and the preacher was a stern
father and a demanding heavenly parent type and he broke the child’s will and
the child eventually came to church. But that story always amused me because I
think it reflects the experience of many of us growing up. Sunday. Church.
You don’t have to come, but come when you need to. Come, like digging up
channels in a waterless land, and just maybe, just maybe there will be a trickle of
water. And, if it’s rules and guidance and structure that you need, check down the
street. But, if you need a shot of grace, I’ll see you every Sunday.
© Grand Valley State University
�
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Interfaith worship
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Pentecost IX
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Moving On To Maturity
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Isaiah 46:3-4, Ephesians 1:17-19, Matthew 23:15
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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Religion: Binding or Setting Free?
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 18, 1999 entitled "Religion: Binding or Setting Free?", as part of the series "Moving On To Maturity", on the occasion of Pentecost IX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 46:3-4, Ephesians 1:17-19, Matthew 23:15.
Presence
Religion as a Human Construct
Ritual
-
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637046f9eef2bdac084bde8fe4c27219
PDF Text
Text
The Celebration of Life and Death in Community
All Saints’ Day Service
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-13; Romans 14: 1-9; John 14: 1-3
Richard A. Rhem
Above and Beyond Banquet Hall
Norton Shores, Michigan
October 31, 2010
Prepared text of sermon
Bonds of friendship and shared memories of rich experiences of gathering in
inspiring worship services continue to beckon us to evenings like this, gatherings,
as I playfully suggested this past Spring, might be called “The Church of the Holy
Seasons” or “The Community of the Holy Seasons.” Here we are again celebrating
a Holy Day in the church’s liturgical calendar – All Saints Day.
As I have indicated in a previous All Saints celebration, in my first incarnation as
a Dutch Reformed Domine, I would be speaking about the Reformation of the
16th century when the Protestant movement was born, breaking away from the
Roman Catholic Church. But I have undergone a major shift in my understanding
and you with me – a shift not from the great central Reformation theme of God’s
grace in Jesus Christ, but a shift in how the gracious God is celebrated in the
Church’s worship.
This is “old hat” for you now. Nonetheless I keep gaining a deeper perspective on
the change we experienced from the intellectual nature of classic Reformed
worship to the sensual aesthetic liturgical drama of Catholic worship which, in
large measure, we adopted.
As I was musing over this evening’s meditation, for some reason I recalled the
book by Hans Küng, Does God Exist? It was published in 1978. Prior to that Küng
had published On Being a Christian (1976). It was a blockbuster on the continent
– a most unusual occurrence since books of theology were not in great demand in
Europe at the time. But Küng touched a nerve in post-Christian Europe. He
prefaced his work thus:
“This book is written for all those who, for any reason at all, honestly and
sincerely want to know what Christianity, what being a Christian, really
means. It is written also for those who do not believe, but nevertheless
seriously inquire; who did believe, but are not satisfied with their unbelief;
who do believe, but feel insecure in their faith; who are at a loss, between
belief and unbelief; who are skeptical, both about their convictions and
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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about their doubts. It is written then for Christians and atheists, Gnostics
and agnostics, pietists and positivists, lukewarm and zealous Catholics,
Protestants and Orthodox.
Even outside the churches, are there not many people who are not content
to spend a whole lifetime approaching the fundamental questions of
human existence with mere feelings, personal prejudices and apparently
plausible explanations?
And are there not today also in all churches, many people who do not want
to remain at the childhood stage in their faith, who expect more than a
new exposition of the words of the Bible or a new denominational
catechism, who can no longer find any final anchorage in infallible
formulas of Scripture (Protestants), of Tradition (Orthodox), of the
Magisterium (Catholics)?
These are all people who will not accept Christianity at a reduced price,
who will not adopt outward conformism and a pretense of adoption in
place of ecclesiastical traditionalism, but who are seeking a way to the
uncurtailed truth of Christianity and Christian existence, unimpressed by
ecclesiastical doctrinal constraints on the right or ideological whims on the
left.
This is not to say that what is offered here is merely a new adaptation of a
traditional profession of faith or even a miniature dogmatic theology with
the answer to all old or new disputed questions; and it certainly is not an
attempt to propagate a new Christianity…. The present work is simply an
attempt by someone convinced of the cause of Christianity, without
proselytizing zeal or theological lyricism, without stale scholasticism or
modern theological Chinese, to produce a relevant and opportune
introduction to being a Christian…
It is an attempt in the midst of an epoch-making upheaval of the Church’s
doctrine, morality and discipline, to discover what is permanent: what is
different from other world religions and modern humanisms; and at the
same time what is common to the separated Christian churches. The
reader will rightly expect us to work out for him in his practice of
Christianity, in a way that is both historically exact and yet up to date, in
the light of the most recent scholarship and yet intelligibly, what is
decisive and distinctive about the Christian program: what this program
originally meant, before it was covered with the dust and debris of two
thousand years, and what this program, brought to light again, can offer
today by way of a meaningful, fulfilled life to each and every one. This is
not another gospel, but the same ancient gospel rediscovered for today…”
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Reading that preface again, I’m not surprised that it became a best seller. I used
the book for a year-long study class. For me it was a marvelous review of my four
years of study at Leiden with Professor Berkhof.
Amazing scholar that he is, Hans Küng came out two years later with another
work, this one not 600 pages as On Being a Christian but rather 700 pages, titled
Does God Exist? This text I also used for a year-long study class and it is this
work that came to my mind as I was thinking about my meditation for this
evening. You will be relieved to know that I’m not going to give you a review of
Does God Exist? But it came to mind because of two other books I’ve been
dealing with over the summer. If you have attended the Ganges gatherings you
are aware that I have spoken about Karen Armstrong’s latest work, The Case for
God, and Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s Fingerprints of God. They work well
together and complement each other, Karen Armstrong’s book dealing with the
God question more academically covering the history of theology, while Barbara
Hagerty records her own personal quest giving a review of the latest brain
research into spiritual experience and abundant recording of the spiritual
experiences of persons who have had mystical experiences or near-death
experiences, persons, that is, whose lives have been touched by another
dimension beyond our ordinary space-time world.
Hagerty’s accounts confirm the major thesis of Karen Armstrong that God cannot
be found at the end of a syllogism or complex rational deliberation but only in the
practice of the presence of God, that is in the actual engagement in spiritual
exercise, in community worship, in liturgy, ritual and sacrament, in personal
devotion and meditation.
Karen Armstrong contends this was always understood until the modern period
beginning in the 17th century with the rise of the natural sciences and the
scientific method of empirical research. Previously, human reason had coexisted
with mythical thinking – in Greek, logos and mythos – and together enabled
humankind to negotiate the human journey. Both had their place; both had their
function. She explains,
Logos was essential to the survival of our species. But it had its limitations:
it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life’s
struggles. For that people turned to mythos or “myth.” Myths…were really
focused on the more elusive, puzzling, and tragic aspects of the human
predicament that lay outside the remit of logos. (p. xi)
I review this because with Armstrong and Hagerty so much on my mind, the work
of Hans Küng flashed in my mind for it is in his Does God Exist? that I was
prepared to embrace and affirm the two recent works. As stated above,
Armstrong points to the modern period as the time of putting the existence of
God in question. Küng documents that claim opening with a section entitled
“Reason or Faith” in which he weaves the development of modern atheism. A
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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section, “The New Understanding of God,” is followed by a section entitled “The
Challenge of Atheism.” It is this section that came to mind in my musings. The
subdivisions paint a clear path:
I.
II.
III.
God – a projection of man? Ludwig Feuerbach
God – a consolation serving vested interests? Karl Marx
God – an infantile illusion? Sigmund Freud
The next division is entitled “Nihilism – Consequence of Atheism.”
And there you have it! Küng's road map to Nihilism was burned into my brain
and the structure of Küng’s work jumped out at me. In discussing it with a
colleague, the image of a capital V came into my mind. Beginning at the top of the
left leg, I put Feuerbach because, while he did not initiate the modern discussion
of God, he was a major contributor with his idea of God as a human projection –
“Consciousness of God is self-consciousness; knowledge of God is selfknowledge.” (L. Feuerbach, Wesen des Christentums, p. 51, English translation,
p. 12). There exists no objective counterpart to our thoughts of God; theology has
become anthropology.
That fundamental move was assumed to be true by those who followed him –
Marx and Freud – and the end of that left leg of the V, ending at the vortex is
Nietzsche and Nihilism.
Nihilism, the term comes from the Latin nihil, nothing. Without dealing with this
at any depth, I only point to the general idea associated with nihilism, namely,
that life is without objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value. Nihilism takes
various forms – moral nihilism – morality does not exist as something inherent
to objective reality; existential nihilism – life has no intrinsic meaning or value, is
without purpose or significance. No more need be said as already it is obvious
that such pessimism, affirming only emptiness, meaninglessness, and
nothingness is the conclusion of the movement of modern atheism.
Nietzsche was a towering figure – brilliant and sensitive. He was not pleased
where the project of atheism took him. His famous cry, “God is dead” and “we
killed him” was not a triumphant acclamation but a despairing realization that
now “everything is permissible” because the whole foundation of Western culture
had been undermined.
Having reached the bottom of the downward movement of modern atheism in
Nietzsche’s nihilism, Hans Küng seeks for a way to move up the right leg of the V.
How can one move beyond the abyss of atheism’s end in nihilism toward
purpose, meaning, value grounded in reality? Küng begins building in a major
division, “Yes to Reality – Alternative to Nihilism.” He contends there are
fundamental alternatives:
© Grand Valley State University
�Celebration of Life and Death
Richard A. Rhem
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We can say yes or no to uncertain reality. Such a fundamental decision and
fundamental approach always involves a risk…Reality itself does not extort
a Yes or No, a positive or a negative fundamental attitude…should I, then,
surrender myself to what is not obvious, demonstrable, calculable?
This is really a matter of trust or mistrust, in which I stake myself without
security or guarantee. We may paraphrase the verb “to trust” in a variety of
ways: either I believe reality sustains me and I trust it – or not; either I
commit myself in principle to reality and rely on it – or not; either I regard
reality therefore as trustworthy and reliable – or not; either I express my
trust in reality – or not.
Whatever way this fundamental decision goes, whatever kind of
fundamental attitude is adopted, it is inescapable. Man is free. But he is
not free to be free: “You must wager. There is no choice, you are already
committed,” said Pascal. Jean Paul Sartre says that man is “condemned” to
freedom, while others say that he is “called” to freedom…. in the long run
it is impossible to remain undecided in regard to reality…. And not to
choose is itself a choice…. In this vote of confidence, abstention means
refusal of trust, a vote for mistrust. (p. 438f)
It is beyond the purpose of this meditation to develop Küng’s presentation of
fundamental trust which he affirms “means that a person, in principle, says Yes
to the uncertain reality of himself and the world, making himself open to reality
and able to maintain this attitude consistently in practice.” (p. 445) But I set it
forth to point out that for Küng this is the pivot point from which he will build the
whole structure of trust in Reality, in God, and in his case, the Christian God
revealed in Jesus Christ.
Why do I stress this starting point for the building of a structure of trust in God?
Precisely because this is the only option for us human beings whose whole
existence has come under the scope of critical rationality that seeks empirical
verification, scientific proof for all claims regarding reality. It is beyond my
purpose to show, as does Küng, that there is a “faith dimension,” an “intuitive
hunch” and model building even for those engaged in the respective scientific
areas of research. It is enough for me to make the point as strongly as I can that
Küng’s alternatives point to our human situation: either I express my trust in
reality – or not.
For me, the critical factor here is Küng’s extensive, intensive examination of “the
God Question” which has emerged in the modern period as Karen Armstrong
points out in The Case for God. She declares it; Küng documents it. She contends
it is only in the practice of the presence of God – in meditation, liturgy, ritual,
prayer – that God is revealed to us. And such practice emanates from a
fundamental trust, not from a reasoned proof for the existence of God, let alone a
God to be trusted, worshiped, and loved.
© Grand Valley State University
�Celebration of Life and Death
Richard A. Rhem
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As I reflect back on my own journey, which was lived out very publicly in your
presence, I realize how intensely I struggled to reason as far as reason would take
me – no doubt, often to your despair. I remember well the comment someone
made not so many years ago – “Why all his questions? At his age shouldn’t he
have answers rather than questions?” I was never content to rest on “the tradition
teaches,” or “the church teaches,” or, “the Bible says.” And because we never took
the faith structure on authority but probed as honestly and diligently as humanly
possible, I am ready to own that my whole life project is founded on a wager that
carries risk: a fundamental trust in Reality, in God, the God I see revealed in the
face of Jesus Christ – not the only revelation of God but my window to the
Sacred, the Holy, the Mystery that is God.
I know you do not demand such strenuous effort on my part; it is an inner
demand to which I respond. But I know I could as well simply declare the biblical
word which is our storybook. So often I turn to the poet who penned Ecclesiastes,
one of the wisdom writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. The writer is so human in
his wonderings, in his questions. For everything there is a season – a time we are
born and a time we die, but he wonders – is that all there is?
St Paul was sure there was more – for, in dealing with a practical issue regarding
differing views of religious practice in the 14th chapter of Romans, he declares
what for him was the ultimate truth, the last word as it were –
We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we
live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live
or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived
again, so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
(Romans 14: 7-9)
And then again from the Gospel of John, words purportedly from Jesus himself
though I doubt that – it matters not. The fact is they found expression because of
the impact of Jesus in life and death and presence beyond death made on the
early Christian community –
…I go to prepare a place for you…and if I go and prepare a place for you, I
will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may
be also.
(John 14:3)
That is the biblical message – the wondering of the Hebrew poet, the assured
declaration of the convert to Jesus Christ, St. Paul, the comforting assurance of
the Gospel. It is in our being shaped by such scriptural affirmations that
confidence is built and spiritual formation results in confident living and dying,
living and dying marked by fundamental trust.
© Grand Valley State University
�Celebration of Life and Death
Richard A. Rhem
Page 7
A recent book to which I have referred of late that has impressed me deeply is
entitled Fingerprints of God by Barbara Bradley Hagerty. I am impressed with
her work because she does intensive research and asks all the tough questions
that a sceptic might raise. Her own witness as to what put her on the trail of
research into the God question is,
…I could not keep the questions at bay. Is there another reality that
occasionally breaks into our world and bends the laws of nature? Is there a
being or intelligence who weaves together the living universe…? In the
end, my questions boiled down to five words: Is there more than this? (p.
6)
And after her long trail of exposure to all kinds of human experience that claimed
some brush with the beyond in our midst, Hagerty concludes,
I end with the question that launched my journey: Is there more than this?
Yes, I believe there is, and the new science of spirituality buttresses my
instinct. Science is showing that you and I are crafted with astonishing
precision so that we can, on occasion, peer into a spiritual world and know
God. The language of our genes, the chemistry of our bodies, and the
wiring of our brain – these are the handiwork of One who longs to be
known. And rather than dispel the spiritual, science is cracking it open for
all to see. (p. 284)
Her final sentence:
We have all about us the fingerprints of God. (p. 285)
A different kind of investigation than the rigorous philosophical theological
overview of Hans Küng, but very significant as a contemporary witness to the fact
that the God Question does not die away and even the latest science and
technology is called in service of the quest.
The December 31, 1999, issue of The Economist magazine ended as did every
issue with a page marked “Obituary”– each issue taking note of the death of some
prominent figure. This particular issue, called “millennium Issue” had as its
subject God. A painting on the page, an artist’s rendering of God, had written
beneath it in bold letters, “After a lengthy career, the Almighty recently passed
into history. Or did he?”
A decade later, Barbara Hagerty finds the fingerprints of God everywhere, not
only in human experience but even in scientific research. The stories she tells of
those who witness to an encounter with another dimension are not insignificant.
As I was deciding on my meditation for this All Saints observance, I became
aware of a Clint Eastwood movie just released entitled Hereafter. A review in the
© Grand Valley State University
�Celebration of Life and Death
Richard A. Rhem
Page 8
October 18, 2010, Newsweek by David Ansen speaks of Eastwood’s “squinting” at
the afterlife (p. 50). He writes,
Clint Eastwood flirted with the supernatural in his allegorical Western
Pale Rider, but nothing in his career prepares us for his haunting and
haunted Hereafter, a bold, strange, problematic investigation into the
nature of the afterlife. At 80, he continues to throw us curves, abandoning
the safety of genre for an unconventionally structured story about
mortality, loneliness, and the relationship between the living and the dead.
The movie has a triple thread – three personal stories are woven together finally
in a very moving affirmation of Hagerty’s conclusion that there is something
more. In a portrayal that could well have been one of Hagerty’s stories, in the
reviewer’s words:
Caught in the tsunami is the first of the three characters whose fates
Hereafter follows, a French television host (Cecile De France) who dies in
the storm and then miraculously comes back to life. But her glimpse of the
beyond makes it impossible for her to reenter her old life as a Parisian
celebrity; instead, she becomes obsessed with writing a book about the
eerily similar after-death experiences others have endured, a pursuit that
costs her credibility in the eyes of her sophisticated friends. As her
unhappy publisher notes, it’s a topic more suited to the American market.
The second strand is played by Matt Damon who has the gift (he calls it a curse)
to communicate with the dead, a gift/curse from which he tries to escape. The
third story tells of a young boy whose twin brother is killed in an accident – a loss
from which he cannot recover until the medium puts him in touch with his
brother who counsels him to move on with his life. This happens in London
where the child recognizes him and “knows” too that the medium who purchases
the book of the journalist has made a “connection” with her. It is all very quiet,
sober and reverent. The reviewer comments, “What keeps us rapt are the
mysterious and provocative questions Hereafter raises, questions that Eastwood
and Morgan (screenplay author) know can’t be definitively answered.
Clearly, at this point in his life, questions of mortality aren’t far from
Eastwood’s mind, and you can feel his identification with these characters,
whose encounters with death both separate them from the rest of the
living and give them a sense of urgent purpose. Damon, with his
understated but deeply felt performance, and the wonderfully versatile De
France supply the movie’s aching soul. And Eastwood keeps it honest.
Hereafter confronts a topic that could have descended into mawkish,
mystical hokum, but not in Eastwood’s no-nonsense, uncynical hands. He
looks at death, and beyond, with clear, open, inquisitive eyes.
© Grand Valley State University
�Celebration of Life and Death
Richard A. Rhem
Page 9
Last evening Nancy and I viewed the film. I realize I take in something like that
perhaps differently than most people. I’ve immersed myself in the God Question
and “Is this all there is?” “Is there something more?” I think about little else. But
I must say I was deeply moved by the movie. Barbara Hagerty’s closing sentence
would be a fitting summary of the film as well: “We have all about us the
fingerprints of God.”
We have become aware recently of the tragedy of the suicide of young persons
bullied because of their sexual orientation. In response to such tragedy there has
been launched on the Internet a project that addresses the issue and tries to give
hope and confidence to young people caught in the despair of alienation and
suffering. It is called the “It Gets Better” project.
Here we are again, another All Saints Day celebration. We celebrate life and
death in community – the hymn “Borning Cry” was deliberately chosen you
understand – The Good and Gracious God – there at our borning cry, there the
day we were baptized watching our life unfold – childhood, adolescence, intimate
relationship, middle age, and when evening gently closes in and we shut our
weary eyes, I’ll be there as I have always been with just one more surprise.
Not simply because the church teaches or the Bible says, not with arrogant
dogmatism that masks insecurity, but with deep fundamental trust, I do believe
this is not all there is. There is more to come. In no way do I imply thereby that
life here and now is not good, a gift, a grace to be valued and savored. As a
community we have come to love and live by Julian of Norwich’s affirmation:
“All will be well, all will be well; all manner of things will be well.”
The toast I learned from Duncan Littlefair – To the wonder, miracle, glory and
joy of life! – is the way I’ve come to live my life. It is very good and, on this All
Saints Eve, I suggest - it will get better!
References:
Karen Armstrong. The Case for God. Thorndike Press, 2009.
Barbara Bradley Haggerty. Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of
Spirituality. Riverhead, 2009.
Hereafter. Director, Clint Eastwood; Producer, Steven Spielberg, 2010.
Hans Küng. On Being a Christian, 1976; Does God Exist?, 1978.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
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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
All Saints Day
Scripture Text
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, Romans 14:1-9, John 14:1-3
Location
The location of the interview
Above & Beyond Banquet Hall, Norton Shores
References
Karen Armstrong. The Case for God, 2009.
Barbara Bradley Hagerty. Fingerprints of God:The Search for the Science of Spirituality, 2009.
Hereafter. Director Clint Eastwood, 2010.
Hans K
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
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KII-01_RA-0-20101031
Date
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2010-10-31
Title
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The Celebration of Life and Death in Community
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 31, 2010 entitled "The Celebration of Life and Death in Community", on the occasion of All Saints Day, at Above & Beyond Banquet Hall, Norton Shores. Scripture references: Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, Romans 14:1-9, John 14:1-3.
Format
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application/pdf
Meditation
Practice of Spiritual Faith
Ritual
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fb805c9ca2cacd95423a5ea24355938e.mp3
9ef5c45afba0ecbf5da7f678efe4ea63
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9d39a18bb345c4e941570591532f03df.pdf
cd839c4cebd5d84356021d26aadb4115
PDF Text
Text
Worship: The Medium of Traditioning
Text: Psalm 137:4; I Corinthians 11:26
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost XVI, September 27, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? Psalm 137:4
For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes. I Cor. 11:26
On those rare occasions when I get to worship in the pew I like to look at the
order of worship, and particularly the scripture lessons. I try to figure out why
that Old Testament lesson with that New Testament lesson, and why those two
lessons with that sermon subject. I wonder what kind of rabbit the preacher is
going to pull out of the hat today. Sometimes I can figure it out and sometimes I
am surprised. But, if you had done that today, I don’t suppose you got that far.
You probably did not get beyond the Old Testament responsive Psalm? “Crushing
little ones against the rock and rejoicing in it.” Did you get beyond the final verses
of Psalm 137? Did it shock you a bit or did you miss it? How could you miss it?
No, you didn’t miss it. Did you say to yourself, “Is that in the Bible?” Did you say
to yourself, “Is that the Word of God?” Well, let me put your fears at rest. That is
not the Word of God.
I am not going to talk about those verses, but I can’t use Psalm 137 without at
least addressing those statements. I wondered whether to even use them in public
worship, but then I thought perhaps it could be an occasion to deal rather
honestly with some of those expressions in Scripture that seem to us to be so far
from what we have learned in Jesus Christ.
Those two verses are venomous statements of anger and hatred. And the
expression “crushing little ones against the rock and rejoicing in it” is so crude
and brutal as to hardly be conceivable. So let me say a couple of things about it.
The first thing I am going to say is that it is in the Jewish song book, and the song
book, The Psalter, is the expression of the deepest human emotions that are
offered in the presence of God. There is a wonderful honesty about Jewish
religion. The Old Testament is healthy in its honest statement of the human heart
and the expression of human emotions. I want to suggest that if you can not
identify with the intensity of the anger and the hatred that come to expression in
© Grand Valley State University
�Worship: Medium of Traditioning
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
that Psalm, it may be that you don’t really know yourself, because what comes to
expression there is a potential expressible by any one of us - if we are sufficiently
abused, devastated and defiled. That expression of hatred is an honest human
emotion. Not infrequently, I have people come to me and confess their anger or
their vengeful feelings, or even their feelings of hatred - they feel guilty about
having those emotions. I say to them, “You cannot be guilty about what you feel.
You don’t determine what you feel. What you feel you feel. You can’t think it
away.”
The healthy aspect of the Jewish relationship to God is that ability to bring the
darkest emotion into the presence of God and to leave it there. Maybe the
Psalmist of Psalm 137 was healthier and had a more wholesome relationship with
God than most of us do. It is a bone-chilling statement, but it is an expression of
the depths of which we are capable of feeling. What we feel can only be denied
with dishonesty. And why be dishonest in the presence of God? What better way
to be freed from the paralysis of such hatred than to bring it to expression before
the face of God? So I want to say that this is not the Word of God, that it is a
human word of response to God. That’s what the Bible is anyway.
In the earlier years of my ministry I never would have dared touch that Psalm
because I would have thought that I would have to justify it somehow or other as
being a legitimate statement. I can’t do that. It is human word. It is an intense,
passionate, human word spoken to God. I should say, too, it’s 180 degrees from
what we learn in Jesus. Jesus radicalized his religion, the religion of his Jewish
tradition, when he said, “Love your enemies.” Jesus modeled it out on the cross
when he said, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” So
don’t hear me justifying that statement as appropriate, but hear me saying that
sometimes human beings can be so debased and dehumanized that there arises
that kind of vengeful intensity.
The thing that triggered this statement was that the tormenters, the Babylonians,
who had taken them from their land and from their holy city and from their
temple, had brought them to Babylon and said, “Sing us a song.” We read that in
the death camp in Trablinka during the Holocaust, the Nazi guards made sport of
the Jewish prisoners, having them sing a little Jewish ditty and do a little dance.
Well, these devastated people said to the Babylonians, “We cannot sing God’s
song in a foreign land.”
And that’s really why I chose this Psalm. There is a vivid image of their hanging
up their harps on the willow tree by the riverbank and saying, “No, here, we can’t
sing.” The Jew was so formed and shaped and determined by the life of worship
that happened at Jerusalem and in the temple that to think of bringing the songs
of Zion out of that context was unthinkable to them. They couldn’t do it. So, in
that vivid image, you have the sense of the holiness of the place and the
rootedness of the Jew in that temple where the presence of God was. It was in the
worship life, in the great festivals, and the annual events and the offering of the
© Grand Valley State University
�Worship: Medium of Traditioning
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
sacrifices through the priesthood in the temple, in the holy place where the name
of God dwelled that the heart of the Jew dwelt. In Babylon they couldn’t sing.
They loved Mount Zion.
Another Psalmist said, “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the house
of the Lord.” The Psalmist of Psalm 42 says, “Why art Thou down cast, O my
soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? When I remember Thee, when I
remember Jerusalem, when I remember how I went with the pilgrims on festival,
then my soul is cast down within me.” Oh, they loved Zion. They loved Jerusalem
because there, in that sacred place, all of their being was centered, because there
God dwelt.
In the New Testament community, Paul had to write to the church at Corinth
because they were abusing the Lord’s Supper. That gave him an occasion to give
to us the tradition that he had received: how Jesus broke bread and poured the
cup and said to his disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me.” So, for us, the
center is no longer the temple in Jerusalem, but the center for us is the table and
the bread and the cup. And our life comes back again and again to that
celebration - that simple celebration of the breaking of bread and the pouring of
the cup, and the remembering of Jesus who loved us and gave himself for us.
What these two scriptures do is they give me an occasion to say that what was
true of Israel is true of the Christian church as well. Our worship together can be
the medium for traditioning. Usually I think we think of tradition as that
understanding and way of life that is passed down, the actual contents of what we
believe and how we live together, but tradition can also be a verb and I use it thus
this morning. We are called to tradition - our children and grandchildren and
ourselves. The process of traditioning is the way we are shaped and formed
according to the will of God and after the image of Jesus Christ.
We noted last week that the Psalmist of Psalm 78 said, “I will tell a story with a
meaning,” and then he went on to say that God had commanded that these things
not be hid from the children but that the children be instructed in the ways of
God. The mighty acts of God in the midst of Israel’s history were related in order
that the children, the generation as yet unborn, might come to set their hope in
God. The Christian community, like Israel, lives by continuing to tell the story. In
our encounter with the word of God and our experience of life we are being
shaped and formed.
And that spiritual formation of our lives is what we are about in our worship. I
want to say to you this morning that worship, I believe, is the primary medium
for traditioning the people of God. Now I wouldn’t have always said that. I am
only somewhat recently coming to appreciate that. I am growing presently in my
sense of the importance of worship as a means of traditioning. That’s new for me.
I am a child of the Reformation. I was raised in the Reformed tradition. The
Reformed tradition has been characterized by the clear articulation of the word of
preaching. Oh, to be sure, John Calvin spoke of word and sacrament, but we have
© Grand Valley State University
�Worship: Medium of Traditioning
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
been Word, Word, Word. Even our worship has not been worship, but has been
word - the sermon dominating.
Word necessarily addresses the mind. So our faith has had an intellectual bent.
We have had a reasonable faith, and we have prided ourselves on the
thoughtfulness of our tradition. I want to say to you this morning that, while I
would not take away from the importance of understanding and of clear thinking
about faith, I want to say, that we’ve been wrong in our emphasis. In the way we
have shaped our worship, in the way we have nurtured our children, we have
been wrong. We looked to Sunday School classes to pass on the faith. But you
can’t teach God. For the adults the worship service itself was primarily didactic.
Experience of worship is the key to faith. I am pleased that we as a community
are growing, I believe, in a deepening sense of the tapestry of worship. The
movement of worship, where color, pageantry, dance, song, prayer is woven
around the spoken word and create an experience that is more than simply an
intellectual exercise. I think it has always been that to some extent, in spite of
ourselves, but we have not always had that centrally in focus or clearly
understood. I am only stumbling and stammering in my attempt to grasp after it,
but what I would hope in our corporate worship together is that, if you would go
out after the service and someone would meet you and they would ask, “What
happened?” And if you were able to put into a sentence the sermon theme – (how
anyone could put into a sentence a sermon theme after I am done I don’t know)
(Laughter)– then I would hope that you would stop and you would say, “But
there was something more. I don’t know how to tell you.”
There is a book by a philosopher entitled Surplus of Meaning. I like that phrase a
Surplus of Meaning. I would hope that on a given Sunday you could get some
insight and some enlightenment that was helpful to you, that you could
articulate, but then also be aware that there was some Surplus of Meaning,
something beyond that you can’t put your finger on, that you simply can’t bring
to expression. I would hope in your worship experience that something
happened, some encounter with the Mystery of God that is Grace. And who
knows from which angle it may come if you would learn - I hope we are learning to worship, to come in with our minds and hearts, our whole being open,
expectant, prayerful, waiting. Then maybe a liturgical formula, maybe the sound
of water at the baptismal font, maybe the rose or the candle, or a song or an
anthem, or maybe just the rumble of the organ would touch you down in your
depths.
You see, God cannot be comprehended. God must be apprehended. Not by my
mind thinking, but by my being receiving - intuitively, through my imagination,
through feeling - who knows? Now here, now there. This one or that one, but
something that is operative beyond that which we can nail down, some surplus of
meaning beyond the rational understanding of every prayer and every hymn, and
even the sermon itself, beyond a comprehension of the meanings of a biblical text
© Grand Valley State University
�Worship: Medium of Traditioning
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
- something more. That something more is what seeps into our depths and forms
and shapes us more than ideas, I think. You know if you go out of here on a
Sunday morning with a new idea count yourself lucky and double your offering.
(Laughter) But that’s not really what it is all about. What it is all about is to be
touched in the depths by the God who can only be known in the depths.
I was moved as I viewed a video that I used in the Wednesday night class. The
videos are videos of Christian and Jewish and Muslim fundamentalism. In the
first half of the course on Wednesday night I showed the videos of the Polish and
the Czechoslovakian churches. The films dealt with the suffering that these
people endured in the communist era, forty years of an intentional attempt to
stamp out religion. And then the falling away of the walls and melting of the
curtain, followed by the coming again of openness and freedom of people to
worship. I was moved as I saw that and as I saw the faces of the old women with
their babushkas who had kept faith alive in their hearts. But what struck me, you
know – it was the Catholic Church that did a better job than the Protestant
Church in remaining faithful in Poland. In Czechoslovakia there were faithful
Reformed pastors there, but there were unfaithful ones too. There were
collaborators there.
And the strength that was able to sustain the fire was the church that was imbued
in ritual, sacrament and experience! Ideas will not keep you true! Our rational
faith can be abated. If it’s only this deep it will not stand you in the flood. It is
what has seeped down here that enables one to be faithful. That’s the traditioning
of worship where, beyond doctrinal definitions, I have been gripped, grasped by
Grace in my depths, and that comes in worship, in this time together where a
gesture, a word, a visual translate, through repetition week in and week out, that
which is shaping us even without us consciously thinking about it.
I am so glad when we bring our children in here; we bring them in here so they
can worship with us. There are surveys about congregations where children never
came in the sanctuary. Then they grew up and never came in the sanctuary either
because they had never been exposed to the awe and mystery of God. So we bring
them in and next week we will come to receive the bread and the cup, and they
will be with us - our children and our grandchildren. Because, you see, what you
teach them is important. But that won’t do it. Bring them with you. Let them feel
the fervor of your faith as you sing your heart out. Let them sense the humility of
your heart as you kneel. Let them feel the fire of your faith as you pray. Let the
tremor of your body somehow or other be communicated to that child –
something that words could never, never express or bring to fruition. You want
your children to trust? Bring them to worship.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost XVI
Scripture Text
Psalm 137:4, I Corinthians 11:26
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-19920927
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1992-09-27
Title
A name given to the resource
Worship: The Medium of Traditioning
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
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 September 27, 1992 entitled "Worship: The Medium of Traditioning", on the occasion of Pentecost XVI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 137:4, I Corinthians 11:26.
Nature of Scripture History of Israel
Ritual
Traditioning
Worship