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Every Family Has a Story
From the series: Christian Faith: Interpretations of Experience
Text: Deuteronomy 6:6-7, 6:20; Mark 3:19b; Acts 1:14
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Mother’s Day, Eastertide, May 10, 1998
Transcription of the spoken sermon
I was given a tape of an interview on National Public Radio, of a novelist, Jim
Crace, an Englishman. In the course of the interview, which was about his recent
novel, Quarantine, which he has written recently and which centers on the
temptation experience of Jesus in the Judean wilderness, I was struck by the fact
that Jim Crace, who wrote the story about the temptation of Jesus, is himself an
atheist. And he is a very articulate and intentional atheist. He’s not an angry
atheist, but he is, by conviction, a person who believes that the scientific
explanation of reality and its purely naturalistic fashion is sufficient for him, and
he lives comfortably with that view of the totality of things. But, what struck me
was his recognition that atheism and any kind of scientific naturalism has failed
to develop ceremonies and rituals and celebrations that can elicit awe and
wonder, and cultivate that depth dimension in the human person. That came up
in the interview when he told that, as his father, who is also an atheist, was
approaching his death, he had said, "No priest, no music, no ritual." They grew
up, of course, in that grand Anglican tradition where the liturgy sort of permeates
the air and his father, obviously, was a very deliberate atheist who wanted none of
the folderol at his death and burial. Well, the son felt a lack, but what impressed
me was the fact that, once again, the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. A
good, intentional, deliberate, articulate atheist produces a good, articulate atheist
son. You can point to exceptions to that fact, of course, all about you, but the
exceptions prove the rule. As a matter of fact, the apples don’t fall very far from
the tree, and it is, therefore, the claim upon us by our Christian tradition that we
keep telling the story to keep the faith alive.
Every family has a story. We have a story together and we have a story
individually in our respective families, and on this Mother’s Day when we focus
on the family, I do want us to understand how important are our family stories.
As we have been saying these weeks, in this Eastertide series, our tradition, the
Christian tradition in our case, is the consequence of a foundational event that
finds expression and symbols and images that have developed into a story that
eventually is conceptualized and systematized, but is really kept alive and is
shaping and determinative of ongoing generations by the story itself. We have a
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Richard A. Rhem
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story. We keep telling the story and the generations, one following another,
hearing the story, are shaped by the story and by the story are given lens through
which to understand life, to interpret the meaning of human existence. The
stories that we have received, that have shaped us and that we pass along are
terribly important. This is a critical matter. I don’t know what would be more
critical in the midst of the congregation as we think about being a part of the
Christian tradition than to be reminded of the critical nature of storytelling,
passing on the faith by reciting the story.
We Christians are relatively new kids on the block. The Christian tradition came
out of the Jewish tradition and, whenever we think about these things, we rather
naturally go to the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy where we have a classic package
- the creed which had been crystallized and made concise, "Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God is one Lord." Yahweh, our God. This is our God.
That creedal statement is set in the context in which Israel is commanded to love
the Lord with their whole being, to keep the commandments in their heart, that
is, all of the ordinances and the statutes and the rituals, the liturgies, the prayers,
all of that which make up the religions experience - keep it in your heart, and
recite it. Tell it to your children. Talk to your children about it all the time. Talk to
your children as you’re going along the way, when you rise up, when you sit
down. Put it on the doorpost of your house so that every time you go out, you
touch the doorpost and are reminded of the Shema, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one." In other words, be so saturated, so drenched in the consciousness of
our God that the whole atmosphere is controlled, conditioned by that spiritual
reality. One is, at it were, drenched with spirituality to the cultivation of a
consistent, continual consciousness of God in one’s life. And a little kid exposed
to that doesn’t have a chance. That’s essentially what Israel learned, found out,
and that’s why Israel continues to be a vital reality, a living reality, a living people
today.
What are they? Not a race. They’re not a tribe. There is again a nation, but finally,
they are a People. They are people with a story and they have magnificently kept
that story, and all of that religious tradition intact, practicing it, observing it, and
continuing their struggle to preserve it.
Jesus was a part of the Jewish People - an observant Jew. On this Mother’s Day I
am pointing to the fact that the family is where tradition is observed and kept
alive. That is a challenge. It takes serious commitment. The family, in whatever
configuration we find it, is the key place for telling the story and passing on the
tradition.
We get just little hints of Jesus’ own experience in the New Testament. Mary, in
the Gospel of Luke, is this beautiful maiden in total submission to the word of the
Lord brought by the angel that she will bear this one conceived by the Holy Spirit.
And then she, with Joseph, does everything for Jesus, according to the Law. All of
the ritual, all of the requirements are fulfilled. Then the next thing we find is that
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Jesus is off on his own, in his own ministry, and we have an interesting episode in
Mark, the third chapter, where the word is out that Jesus has gone off the deep
end, that Jesus is demon-possessed, beside himself, meaning literally in that day
that he had possession of some kind of spirit. And so, Mary and his brothers go
off to get Jesus. They want to bring him home. Obviously, there’s tension and
there is alienation and estrangement because Jesus doesn’t budge, Jesus doesn’t
move, even though his mother is outside.
Mothers have a way of expecting their children to respond, to obey, to follow their
word. One of my favorite mother stories is when I presented myself to my own
mother for the first time with a beard. I had grown a beard in Europe and since I
couldn’t grow it any other place, I thought it looked good, and the day before I
came home to see my mother, I shaved it off. (I had other problems; I didn’t need
that one.) But, after a couple of years, on the way to Florida, Nancy looked at me
and said, "You didn’t shave." I said, "I didn’t shave and I didn’t bring my razor." I
thought, you know, at one time I needed the whole Atlantic Ocean to separate me
from my mother to dare to grow the beard, but now Florida would be enough
distance. But, when I got back and she saw me for the first time, she said, "I don’t
like it, Dick. Shave it off."
Now, I’m a grown man. But, I can imagine Mary saying, "Jesus, come home."
My mother said, "Shave it off. I don’t like it."
Well, I gave her a hug and then probably another three or four weeks later I saw
her again and I still had the beard. She was quite nonplused, not really believing
her eyes. She said, "I told you to shave that off."
Well, Nancy was enjoying it a bit and thought she’d add a little fuel to the fire, so
she said, "You know what else he’s doing now, Mother?" And my mother said,
"Don’t tell me."
Nancy said, "He’s now sitting on a stool to preach."
My mother looked at me as if to say, "Tell me it isn’t true."
I said to her, "Mother, do you know that Jesus had a beard?"
She said, "He did?"
I said, "Yes." And I said, "Mother, do you know how he preached?"
She said, "No."
I said, "Well in the 4th chapter of Luke, he reads scripture and he sits down to
preach." She said, "He did?"
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I said, "Yes, and, Mother, from a child you have taught me to be like Jesus and
I’m doing the best I can."
I will never forget the absolute certainty with which she said to me, "Dick, shave
off that beard." And the next time when I came and hadn’t done it, she could not
believe I hadn’t obeyed. I imagine it was that way with Jesus. He is handed a
note, "Your mother’s outside." He says, "My mother? Who is my mother? My
mother is those who do the will of God."
I’m glad that John, the 4th Gospel, gets Mary and Jesus back together at the cross,
although he speaks of her as "Woman," hardly the kind of thing that warms the
cockles of a mother’s heart on Mother’s Day. That’s why I read that little
paragraph from Acts. Following the Ascension, that early community, the
disciples gathered praying, waiting for power from on high and there’s Mary and
there’s his brothers and sisters.
The reconciliation and the coming together - that’s not so easy. It’s a very, very
difficult thing, as a matter of fact. I think it’s part of God’s wisdom and perhaps
his humor that he makes us live in families. We can choose our friends – parents
are a given. And our children are a given. And our brothers and sisters are a
given. And that’s why, close as we are, living in that close, intimate proximity, we
allow ourselves to be revealed in all of our humanity. It is in that mix that we have
a story to tell and it is that story that shapes us, forms us, and it’s so critically
important that we tell the story and pass on the faith. That’s the only way it
happens.
I want you just to think about it this morning, how important that is. We have
had a rather unruly worship service this morning. I kind of like high church
Anglicanism, myself, but I do get misty-eyed when I see those children, and when
I see those children, I realize what a treasure is the community in which they are
present, and what a responsibility to nurture them, to tell them the story so that
the story becomes their story, so that the story shapes them and, in turn, gives
them lens through which to understand who they are, from whence they have
come, whither they are going and what is the meaning of it all.
Don’t you love the passage in Deuteronomy? When your son or daughter says,
"What do these things mean?" then you have a teaching moment, a wonderful
opportunity. And what do you do? You don’t get out the catechism. You tell the
story. You say, "Our fathers and mothers were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt and
God brought you out ..." You tell the story. And the story becomes that which is
remembered every year, annually in festival, in ceremony and ritual, and the
story shapes the community, it keeps the faith alive.
That’s so terribly important. Just hear me say that this morning.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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Now, how are you doing? Not just parents with active children, but parents who
had children long ago and now have grandchildren. How are we doing? How are
you doing it?
I think it used to be a simpler matter, although maybe it never was an easy
matter. For example, when my parents told me the story, they were dead certain
there was only one story. You’re going to have to tell your children, with
compassionate commitment to the story, that it’s not the only story. It’s our story.
It’s the story that has shaped us and formed us in which we find our hope and the
grace of God. We don’t want to build walls for them that need not be built, or that
need later to be torn down.
You have to give it proper priority. What is proper priority? Well, I don’t know
what to tell you. I could make you feel very guilty right now, because who of us
doesn’t know that we’ve been lousy at the job? I could tell you stories of years ago
when Mr. Bryson on Saturday morning had Choir School. I could tell you even
more ancient tales of when I went to catechism on Saturday morning, so that the
next time you run to the soccer field on Saturday morning, you might think,
"Hmm. Soccer rather than catechism; soccer rather than choir school. I wonder
about my priorities." I wish at some point I saw as much commitment to the
spiritual nurture of children as I see to soccer on Saturday morning. But, in all
honesty, I have to say that for kids who go to school Monday through Friday, then
to bring them to catechism on Saturday morning must be a form of child abuse.
So, as a grandparent, I’m glad that my kids didn’t get warped enough to damage
their children.
But, how are we doing it? What are we doing? Are we doing it? Does it have
proper priority? And then, do it with passion and grace. That means you don’t,
like Mary, go rushing off to bring the kid home. Your passion is felt; they’ve got to
feel your passion, but laced with grace. There’s a different feel, then, and there’s a
different feel because you are trusting the process, which is another way of saying
you’re trusting the Spirit. Or, let me say it this way - what you do, do for yourself.
Be genuine and authentic in your own choice and expression. That will be
perceived. That will be communicated. That will catch, sometime, some place,
believe me.
And then, let me say that what I see in you moves me deeply. I honestly believe
my children are better parents than I was. What I see in your families in the
respective arenas in which you live and in this arena in which children are being
nurtured, I see a commitment that is deep and wonderful, and I think you are
doing a marvelous job.
Traditioning, instilling the faith story must be recognized for the critical nature of
which it is. It must be given priority. It must be laced with passion and grace. But,
I want to say, you are doing a really good job, I believe. Parents, grandparents - I
see a wonderful commitment to those beautiful children, and I believe that there
is grace in the end of it all.
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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You want a nice Mother’s Day story? Betty’s mother is going to have surgery
tomorrow. It was a little over a year ago when Betty came out of church one day
and said, "We’re going to see my mother whom I’ve never seen before." She had
finally found her mother! Betty and Norma went down and found her mother,
brought her home, and Betty P. found out that her name was Elizabeth Grace.
What a name! Is it any wonder that on this Mother’s Day that Elizabeth Grace
says, "Pray for my mother," because after decades, there is reunion, there is love,
there is grace. Beautiful!
Now, go out and love each other.
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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
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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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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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KII-01
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Event
Mother's Day, Eastertide V
Series
Christian Faith: Interpreting an Experience
Scripture Text
Deuteronomy 6:6-7, 20, Mark 3:19b, Acts 1:14
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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1998-05-10
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Every Family Has a Story
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University
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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/
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eng
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An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 10, 1998 entitled "Every Family Has a Story", as part of the series "Christian Faith: Interpreting an Experience", on the occasion of Mother's Day, Eastertide V, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Deuteronomy 6:6-7, 20, Mark 3:19b, Acts 1:14.
Community of Faith
Story of Faith
Traditioning
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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
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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
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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
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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