1 24 7 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/86deabe2a1764b120a9f44f4ccac802e.pdf 2fd3f8468b2e3ed7649e09e3c319fb70 PDF Text Text Paul: Civil War; The Human Dilemma From the series: Varieties of Religious Experience Text: Acts 8:1, 8:3, 9:14; Romans 7:19, 24-25 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan April 18,1999 Transcription of the spoken sermon In 1902, William James, considered by many to be America’s foremost philosopher who had moved into the field of psychology, delivered the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh, Scotland, one of the most prestigious lecture series still in the world today, and he entitled his lectures, "The Varieties of Religious Experience." His lectures have become a classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, a very fine read if you ever see it on the book shelf. I read those this week, because in Eastertide I want to be thinking about some of the different responses to Jesus Christ, to his death and resurrection and the expectation of his coming. People are different, and our religious response varies from individual to individual, and I was somewhat interested in what William James had to say about Paul, for example. Paul’s story is familiar to us. I didn’t read the account in Acts, but we know that he was a Pharisee, the strictest sort of observant Jew, who were very fine people, but who get bad press in the New Testament because of the antagonism. Paul was also so committed to the Jewish faith and its propagation that he saw the Jesus Jewish movement as a threat, so he was on his way to stamp it out, on the way to Damascus, for example. He was knocked off his horse with a bright light and a voice said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" Going into Damascus, received with fear and trembling by the little community of Jewish Jesus people there, he receives baptism and he becomes the great Apostle, St. Paul. St. Paul is one of the significant figures in the whole of our western history and has had a tremendous shaping affect on our understanding of the Christian gospel. Paul did see something. Paul was a radical in that he went to the root and he had a vision, an understanding of the gospel of God in Jesus Christ which has shaped the whole Christian tradition, subsequently. There are those who say Jesus was not the founder of Christianity, but Paul was, and one can make a case for that, actually. Paul saw something and he spent the rest of his life telling the story of Jesus, proclaiming faith in Jesus Christ, establishing churches, and so forth, and we © Grand Valley State University   �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 2   speak about that Damascus Road experience as Paul’s conversion. But, that really isn’t right, for Paul wasn’t converted. Paul never thought of himself as anything but a Jew. Paul never served or worshiped any God but the God of Israel. What happened to Paul in that Damascus Road experience was not so much a conversion as a calling, and it was in that experience that he felt called to take the news of Jesus to the Gentile world, because what Paul believed, what he saw, what so startled him was the fact that Jesus Christ was the means by which God was overcoming that ancient separation of the Jew and all the rest of the people. Jew - Gentile. If you weren’t a Jew, you were a Gentile. In his Letter to the Ephesians, he uses the term, "That middle wall of partition" that separated the Jew from all the rest. In Jesus Christ, Paul was convinced that that wall was taken down and the grand vision that Paul had was this sense that, in Jesus Christ, what God was doing was creating one new humanity. That great gulf was being bridged, and Paul had as his passion to be the instrument by which that Gentile world would come to God through Jesus Christ and, in that, be united with Israel, with the Jew, and there would no longer be that great separation, but one community of the people of God. He began to see that he was the instrument of the bringing in of the Gentile, and the bringing in of the Gentile was literally bringing into the covenant of grace, bringing into the aegis of the God of Israel. That’s really what was happening. There were congregations that he founded all over the place and they were composed of Gentile converts and Jewish Christians, or we can say Jesus Jews. And in any community where he went, that was the makeup and in such a makeup there was the beginning of the realization of his great hope and his vision, but also there was great tension. Paul had no argument, really, with the Jew. Paul remained a Jew. Paul was an observant Jew when he was with Jews, according to his own word. Let’s just say, for example, that this half of the house are Jewish Christians, Jews who have come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. This half of the house, Gentiles. Any kind of a mix of religious experience was pagan, whatever you want to call it. Now, Paul, when he’s with this crowd, is kosher. When he’s with the other crowd, he has ham on buns. And he does that with good conscience, because he realizes that all of those religious rituals and ordinances and regulations are finally inconsequential. He has had an experience of God in Jesus Christ that transcends all of his religious observance. But, he doesn’t derogate it; he’s not negative about it, and he continues, in order to win the Jew, to be a Jew when he’s with Jews, and to win the Gentiles, to be a Gentile when he’s with the Gentiles. Problem: As long as you stay on your side of the house and you stay on your side of the house, no problem. But, what happens when we have a banquet, a potluck, and the Gentile Christians say, "Ach, we’ll cook this time?" Menu? Ham. What are you going to do? You’re observant Jews, even though you believe in Jesus as the Messiah. Now there’s a little kink in the community, and we can laugh about it, © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 3   but it was a serious problem. We know that it was so serious that Peter and Paul had a confrontation in Galatia, and those good Jewish people who came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah continued to think of themselves as Jewish, they continued to follow Torah, they observed Sabbath, they observed the dietary laws, they practiced circumcision. Nothing really changed so much, except that they saw in Jesus God’s onward movement, Jesus the Messiah who eventually will come and finish it all. But, over here, there is no knowledge of that background, no sensitivity to that background, and now you’re trying to forge one new community, a people with that kind of diversity, and there was tension. Paul had been a happy Jew. Sometimes we think of Paul as having this bad conscience and burden of sin, but that’s not Paul. If you read Paul through Martin Luther and St. Augustine, then you get the bad conscience and the heavy burden of sin and heavy guilt and all that. Augustine with his profligate life, never got over it, and screwed us up in the West in our understanding of sexuality ever since. And Luther with his tormented soul, learning from Augustine. Tormented soul: "How can I find a gracious God?" Both of them went back to Paul, and we read Paul through Luther, through Augustine. But, that wasn’t Paul. You read in Philippians, the third chapter, Paul’s autobiographical notes, he says in regard to the law, "I was blameless," and as Krister Stendahl says in his discussion of Paul, Paul had a robust conscience. Paul didn’t go mealy-mouthing around, groveling in the dust. Paul had a very good sense of who he was and what he had been as a Jew, and he is not really responsible for what has been done to him and the interpretation through Augustine and Luther and into Protestantism, especially Reformed Protestantism. Paul, himself, Krister Stendahl says, according to his character and his academic achievements, was a very happy Jew. But, he had seen something more, and what he had seen is that it was possible to transcend his highly respected Judaism into a more spiritual, transforming relationship with God, and his concern was to get these two groups together. He knew that in order to get them together, that this group could not go over here and become Jewish. He fought that to the death. And he knew that these people couldn’t simply come over here and give up their Judaism, but he knew both of them could find a meeting place in the grace of God in Jesus Christ by faith, not by religious observance. Now, you may ask, "If Paul wasn’t one of these guys groveling in the dust, what about chapter seven of Romans that you read?" Well, let me tell you about chapter seven of Romans. You have to read it in the context. To whom is Paul speaking? Paul is speaking to Jewish Christians. If you read the beginning of the chapter, he’s speaking to those who know about Torah and all that stuff. And so, he wants to show them that the Torah way won’t finally get the job done. He’s come to see that, and he wants them to see that so that they can let go of it, so that they can move here. And so, he gives them a little commentary on Genesis, chapter three, verses 7-12 of the seventh of Romans. He © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 4   says, "You remember the story - in the beginning when God formed a garden, created Adam and Eve and said to them, ‘Now look, there is orchard after orchard after orchard. You can eat any of the fruit. But, there’s one tree in the middle. Don’t touch it.’" Paul says, "What happened? They touched it." I mean, what happens to you when I say, "No?" You say, "Yes." Or, when I say, "Yes," you say, "No." Paul said, "I’ve discovered there is something in the human being that is contrary and you say you can’t have it, covetousness begins to generate, and I want it." And so, Paul says there is nothing wrong with the command, nothing wrong with the Law. But the Law exacerbated the human situation. The old serpent, the liar, comes and says to Eve, "What did God say?" Eve says, "Well, God said we could have a lot of stuff." "Oh, but not that one, eh? You know why? Because God knows that the moment you eat that fruit, the moment you go against the command, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, and you will have the knowledge of good and evil." For once, the old liar wasn’t lying, because that’s just what happened. She took the fruit, she shared it with Adam, and their eyes were opened, and they looked at each other and knew that they were naked, which is not a statement about having no clothes on, but is a statement about their real condition. They took the fruit and awareness dawned on them. They took the fruit and they became like God, knowing the difference between good and evil, they gained a moral sense. They came to consciousness and awareness and their mind blew. That is a parable. It is a profound parable, and Paul says, "That’s what the Law does. It exacerbates that in the human person which is contrary and it excites the opposite response." Well, we call that the Fall. I think it’s Milton in his Paradise Lost who speaks about the paradox about the fortunate Fall. Now, tell me, if you were Eve and you had it to do all over again, what would you do, knowing what you know? Would you live in blissful ignorance, unconscious, unaware, like the rest of the animals that Adam named? Or, would you also, knowing the consequence, take the fruit and have your eyes opened and come to awareness and find in the wake of that all of the hell on earth, from Kosovo to the Holocaust to broken promises and the tragedy that stalks our steps? What would you do? Garden of Eden? Garden of Eden in Paradise? Unaware so that, well, excuse my language, like a dog you could urinate, defecate or copulate at ease, any time, any place, with total unawareness. Do you ever look at a dog and envy the dog? That © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 5   beautiful innocence, unaware. Or, would you, too, bite the apple and pay the price of human being? Now, Paul paints that picture in order to say to Jewish Christians who are following Torah, "Look where following religious observances finally leads. Legalism, moralism, obligation, dotting the i, crossing the t, can keep you hedged in, but it will never transform you inwardly so you are sprung free to soar with the Spirit." He was trying to say to the Jewish Christian community there is another way than Torah. He says, "Look, Torah? It is good and righteous and holy. It is of God. With my mind, I affirm it. Everything that it entails, I affirm with my mind. But, this mental, spiritual part of us," Paul says, "is housed in a body and because it’s housed in a body with all of the drives and all of the coercions and all of the temptations and all of the seductions, there’s a civil war going on within the human being. With the law of my mind, I serve God. With the law of my flesh, I serve sin." Paul says flesh battles against spirit and the spirit battles against flesh, and I don’t understand my own actions. The good that I would, I don’t do, and the evil I would not do, I do, oh wretch that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Can any of you identify with that? Don’t tell me. Don’t raise your hands. I wouldn’t want your spouse to know. Can you identify with that? Is that not the human dilemma? Are we not the battleground? Are we not caught up in a civil war between that which we affirm in our spiritual selves and that which we actually live out in this body of death? Paul was trying to say to the Jewish Christian community which was still observing Torah that that’s not the answer, and we could get you all together if you could see what I see, if you could see that there is the possibility for a freedom in the spirit of Jesus Christ. The eighth chapter of Romans is that marvelous chapter on life in the Spirit and it is Paul’s answer to that civil war that he finds within himself. I read William James and found him fascinating. Paul is Paul. Augustine was Augustine; Luther was Luther; John Bunyan of Pilgrim’s Progress, with the load on his back, was John Bunyan - we all respond differently. We all come with a different set of hormones and genes and backgrounds, environments, but William James did say there were two distinct kinds of people: there were the healthy-minded and the sick soul. The healthy-minded, the sunny personality, like a Walt Whitman who revels in this life, revels in the world, revels in the grass and the flowers and the trees, who never seems to have a cloud in the sky. And then there are the Augustines and the Luthers, such like, that seem tormented always with this sense of failure, of condemnation, the burden of guilt they never seem to get rid of. There are different people and religions can exacerbate it or reinforce one or the other. © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 6   But, William James says, in regard to the healthy-minded like a Whitman, there is finally a superficiality there because, he says, it won’t do for one to just whistle a happy tune. It will not do for one to whistle in the dark, to deny the darkness. We are not isolated individuals. We cannot be cognizant of what’s going on in Kosovo without our being caught up with it, and if we think long enough and deeply enough into our own hearts and look around us, we know that there is a certain tragedy that is a part of the human scene. There is suffering; there is misery; and finally we die, and anybody who thinks long and hard about that, knows that it is not enough simply to whistle under a sunny, blue sky as though that’s all there is. There’s more to it than that, and Paul knew that that "more to it" was the very kind of nature that we have, this human nature that can affirm the law of God with the mind and get all caught up in selfishness and greed and hostility and hatred and anger and create a Kosovo or a Holocaust and the impossible darkness that is a part of our human scene. So, William James, very sensitively dealing with these things, says, "Healthy-mindedness has its limits." And while he would not advocate that we all become examples of the sick soul person, nonetheless, we do recognize that also within us there is raging a civil war which sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, and I suspect that Paul, who had this vision of one grand humanity, and the possibility of it by seeing this salvation by faith in the grace of God, may have overplayed his hand. If you read the eighth chapter of Romans, it will give you goose bumps. There are marvelous passages there, but I’m not sure that one moves chronologically from Romans seven to Romans eight and ever gets rid of Romans seven. I think to our dying day we will live as divided personalities. I think to our dying day we will struggle with this body of death which will not cooperate with the nobility and the magnificence that this mind can envision, and our soaring with the Spirit of God in the heights will never pull us free fully from our anchorage in the mud and the physicality of this body that is the house and the ground of the Spirit. Paul may have promised more than any of us will ever realize, but he did see that it is not in religious observance, it is not in the fulfillment of heavy obligation, it is not in prescribing to legalism or moralism, but it is in catching a glimpse of grace that there lies the possibility for some freedom from the struggle. He did understand that what we all need to hear is that we are accepted. This is the point at which traditionally and still too often in the Church the minister takes the occasion to exacerbate the load of guilt and the sense of failure of the people. This is the point in this message when this preacher would like to say to you, "Drop your guilt. Let it go. It doesn’t help. There’s nothing positive about it. It will do you no good, except keep you bound at a point at which you will not know the freedom of grace." © Grand Valley State University �Paul: Civil War, Human Dilemma Richard A. Rhem Page 7   We’ll never shed this shell as long as we live. We’re never going to get beyond the human dilemma. But, it’s a human dilemma. It’s a human possibility, and it’s a humanity embraced by God, Who, after all, as the Psalmist says, "Knows our frame and remembers that we are dust," making us thus. Maybe the finest statement of what I am trying to say was written by Paul Tillich: It strikes us when our disgust of our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us, as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes, at that moment, a wave of light breaks into our darkness and it is as though a voice were saying, "You are accepted. You are accepted." Accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now. Perhaps you’ll find it later. Do not try to do anything now. Perhaps you will do much later. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted and, if that happens, you have experienced grace. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b63efb6c4c3ceec0e2825ef99eb719b0.mp3 e8ab868094ec9b7909183b74d5e4190e 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 Eastertide III Series Varieties of Religious Experience Scripture Text Acts 8:1, ,9:14, Romans 7:19, 24-25 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-0-19990418 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-04-18 Title A name given to the resource Paul: Civil War; The Human Dilemma Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 18, 1999 entitled "Paul: Civil War; The Human Dilemma", as part of the series "Varieties of Religious Experience", on the occasion of Eastertide III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Acts 8:1, ,9:14, Romans 7:19, 24-25. Forgiveness Grace Inclusive Transcendence https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9b1b06d567bb308ae88a36e5c1731a15.pdf f4d4c3b3527d907a676051cf97310ed7 PDF Text Text Holy Smoke: Ancient Forms; Fresh Expressions Text: Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 5:13 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan September 15, 1996 Transcription of the spoken sermon I remember it as though it were yesterday. I had occasion to visit overnight the city of Pittsburgh and, wandering down in the midst of the metropolitan area, there was a church and I rather naturally walked into the church. As I walked in, however, I had an experience for which I was not prepared. Something happened to me. I was overcome with the beauty of it all. I still remember the pillars that soared heavenward, melting into high, vaulted arches. I remember the stained glass window through which filtered the soft light of twilight, predominantly blue. I remember the altar, the candles. That was sacred space. And in that moment I was transfixed; I was transported out of myself; I had an aesthetic experience that mediated to me the Holy. The Holy Other. It was my first experience, even though I had been in the ministry some years by then – it was the first time that I had ever stood in awe, affected thus by space, sacred space. The experience changed me because I had grown up in a tradition that prided itself on having thrown off all of the trappings of the Roman Catholic tradition in the Reformation of the 16th century. I think the only thing the Dutch Calvinists didn't throw out was the organ. Thank God for that. The Heidelberg Catechism said God's people will be taught, not through images and pictures, but through the lively preaching of the Word. The architecture of the Reformation Church was symbolic; the pulpit was in the center on which lay the open Word of God, which was the means by which the congregation was to be nurtured. There was an almost total lack of sense of how beauty, architecture, well-crafted, and symbols, well-appointed, can be a means of communicating the Holy. Not a word was spoken on that evening in Pittsburgh, but it was a transforming moment for me. I learned something. And it caused me to reflect on my own experience. Some years ago in the city of Leiden in The Netherlands, I was wandering about and I went into a church. It was a Reformed Church, the Highland Church, a great big structure that towered over the town. It had been redone inside. It was stark and sterile. It was whitewashed. It was stone; it was simplicity itself, and there was a certain strength and power about it, but the best word I could use to describe it is sterile. I wandered on down the street to the Roman Catholic © Grand Valley State University �Holy Smoke Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Church and it was like entering a warm, embracing womb, and in that experience I understood the contrast between my tradition and the tradition that had been repudiated, and I recognized that the Reformation was a reaction, and reactionary movements always lose more than they gain. I had come to Pittsburgh from Midland Park, New Jersey. My apologies to those who are present from that congregation this morning, but let me say, in coming there, I found exactly what I had been used to in the Reformed tradition, only worse. There was this little church and then they needed more room, and so they knocked this wall out. Now the church was wider than it was long. But, if you knocked the wall out, how do you hold the ceiling up? Well, you plunk a couple of pillars right in the aisle. We called them Aaron and Hur, the two guys who held Moses' arms up in prayer while Israel fought the battle. There they were. Ugly, iron poles! And it was rather low-ceilinged. You'd walk into that church and there was absolutely not a chance in the world that you would ever say, "Ah!" No, if all depended on the preacher, there's no preacher that is equal to a task like that. I went to a seminar down at McCormick Seminary a few years ago, a Presbyterian school. The Lutheran theologian, a great, great scholar, Joseph Sittler, was lecturing on the Apostles' Creed, and as an aside, he said, "You know, you Presbyterians always come at it through the head, whereas the Catholic tradition comes at it intuitively, through pageantry, through color, through scent and sight." And it was like a light bulb went on for me and I recognized the possibility of combining the best of the Reformation tradition with that which had always characterized the Roman Catholic tradition, and characterizing the Roman Catholic tradition would be also characterizing the Temple of Israel where the space, the sacred space already preached, where the sacred space communicated a sense of the Holy, and that entering the space, one was immediately aware that one was in a place set apart where now and then, here and there, God would be met, as it were, face-to-face. Mine has been a long pilgrimage of having to come to understand that the experience in which we are now engaged is an experience which potentially offers us an encounter with God, an encounter with God which is an experience unspeakable. Now, you see the ridiculous nature of what I am presently engaged in. I am speaking about the unspeakable. I am trying to portray the ineffable. I am attempting through reasoned discourse to point to an experience that is beyond conceptual description. And what I am trying to do is to invite you to reflect on what we are really engaged in in these moments. I don't denigrate preaching, for I believe that it is important that there be a reflection on experience. I do not believe that the heart can long rest where the mind cannot follow, and if we have feeling periods, it can soon degenerate into sentimentality and maudlin mush. I am not denigrating the thinking dimension of faith. But, I want to say to you this morning that the very heart and center of a community of faith is an experience in which we open our lives to the touch of the © Grand Valley State University �Holy Smoke Richard A. Rhem Page 3   living God Who is not at our disposal, Whom we cannot manipulate, Whose touch we cannot command, but before Whom we open our lives in prayerful anticipation that there might be a transforming moment such as I experienced quite unexpectedly walking into a magnificent holy space. Such that might happen to you this morning through the phrase of a hymn or the sound of the organ or a line of an anthem or a paragraph of the prayer, or the moment of placing baptismal water on a beautiful child - that moment when there would be a catch in your throat and a tear in the eye. Last Tuesday there was a journalist here from The Chicago Tribune who wanted to cover our story, and I spent a couple of hours with him. He's an Orthodox Jew. He said to me, as all of us feel we must confess to priests and pastors and rabbis, "I'm not as observant as I ought to be." "But," he said, "when I go to synagogue, I go to the orthodox synagogue, because when I go..." (I mean, like he was saying, "If I am going to go, after all, I want something that will grab me.) And then he told me a bit of his own story, how he shares his life with a woman who is a pure rationalist, born of Communist parents, committed atheists; she herself is atheist, who believes anything beyond the parameters of human reason doesn't exist and isn't valid. He said, "Do you know what it's like to share your life with a pure rationalist?" I said, "No, not really. My wife cries easily." But, coming to Christ Community, he had read all of the news reports, and so he was expecting to meet in me someone similar to his wife, a kind of a rationalist, a reasoning sort, one heavy on thought and short on mystery. And I tried to say to him that's not who I am and that's not who Christ Community is. I said we are a passionate people with deep commitment, and we bow before the Mystery that is beyond us and we acknowledge the mystery of human suffering and that whole dimension of human experience, which is beyond our ability to reduce to a neat formula. We had a wonderful conversation for a couple of hours, and then I took him through the building and we ended here, in the sanctuary. I turned the chancel lights on; we walked through the doors and down the center aisle, and about in the middle of the center aisle, he stopped and said, "Oh! This is beautiful. This is a Christian Church!" And I said, "Yes, it is." I was so pleased that this sacred space, even without all of you beautiful people, but with its appointments, with its height, with those symbols that speak to us of long-treasured traditions, that it grabbed him and he could identify this place as a place where just possibly one might be grabbed. And that's really rather a good description of that which we pray happens to us as we come here without our being able to predict it or guarantee it, coming upon us unexpectedly, sometimes in the strangest ways. © Grand Valley State University �Holy Smoke Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Have you known it? That moment when suddenly there was that which washed over you and you were quite overwhelmed, when you, as it were, lost control, when you experienced vulnerability, recognizing the fragility of your existence, and then, because we have been nurtured in the grace of God and in that grace manifested in Jesus, we know that that Mystery into which we are caught up is a gracious, loving Mystery, and yet an awesome Mystery, full of majesty. It doesn't happen every Sunday. I know that. And for some, it may almost never happen. But, now and again, here and there, with this one or that one, there are those moments when we are taken out of ourselves and stretched beyond ourselves and experience ourselves being uplifted, transported. And an experience like that is enough. Just a moment like that will do quite well. An authentic moment like that, once in a while, will do for a lifetime. And we may return again and again and never be able to duplicate the experience. And yet, because we deal with the living God, we stand always in the potential of that inbreaking, or that emerging, or that overwhelming. It seems as though crises enable us more readily to be thus encountered. That's the way it was with Isaiah. "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and the whole temple shook in its foundation." Can't you see it? The vivid imagery; the temple filled with smoke, the smoke of the incense? The altar, the priests in their robes, and suddenly that whole space was filled with the majesty of God, the One Who sits on the throne, Whose train filled the temple. "I saw the Lord, high and lifted up, and I heard the angels sing, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.'" And then, of course, that immediate response: "Woe is me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." Ah, but in the vision, the angel takes tongs and a coal from off the altar and touches his lips and says, "Your guilt is removed." And then, as again is a very natural, normal kind of scenario, thus encountered, thus transformed, thus cleansed, the voice is heard, "Who will go for us? Whom shall we send?" The only authentication of a genuine experience of God is that which follows in the wake of it. The prophet says, "Here am I. Send me." The worship in heaven modeled after that worship in the temple, I'm sure. The writer John, in his vision, sees into the very heaven of heavens and he hears myriads and myriads and thousands and thousands of angels singing, "Worthy is © Grand Valley State University �Holy Smoke Richard A. Rhem Page 5   the Lamb, and Power and Glory and Wealth and Honor to the One Who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever." You see, the Bible is full of that imagery. It's imagery! It's the only way one can stammeringly give witness to the ineffable experience of being caught up and overwhelmed and over washed with the Holy One. The journalist from The Chicago Tribune had followed the mega-church phenomenon; he had been to Willow Creek outside of Chicago, probably the most successful church in the country with masses of people coming, fantastic programming reaching a broad spectrum of human need. Don't hear what I'm going to say in any sense as a critique of that or a criticism of that, but as he said to me and as I have read myself, when you come up to the campus, you wouldn't know but what you were coming to the corporate headquarters of IBM. No cross, no banners, no organ; none of the traditional trappings of the Christian tradition or the Jewish tradition because there is an intentional attempt to reach those for whom all of this has no connection. We're at a point of new beginnings at Christ Community. We're on the threshold of a wonderful, new experience. But, I want to say to you at this point of new beginnings, that we will not jettison the ancient forms. We'll always seek to bring them to fresh expression. We'll always attempt to have the voice be contemporary, but it will be the ancient tradition and the old symbols, because I am not sure that every medium and mode can carry the weight, the weight of the glory of God. I am not sure that all of the present experimentation in much of the Church is not a desperate flailing in an attempt to find a way to success when, finally, there are some postures, there are some modes, there are some media that lend themselves to creating the transcendent moment. And there are others that I suspect can only be called pure entertainment. On the threshold of new beginnings, I am committed to worship that is full of grandeur, that is alive with glory, that will lift us into the presence of the Holy One, for I do believe that, finally, in the depths of our soul, what we long for more than anything else, is just a moment in which we are held in the gracious embrace of the Eternal God, and we know that whatever other hell is breaking loose, nonetheless, all will be well. This place is committed to worship that ushers us into the Mystery and the Majesty of the Eternal God, and there is nothing more wonderful. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2e2b530d115da81c8c7d532b70898cec.mp3 1f1f547b13ee1fc34af98a6e4e3bb514 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 Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 5:13 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19960915 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1996-09-15 Title A name given to the resource Holy Smoke: Ancient Forms, Fresh Expression Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 15, 1996 entitled "Holy Smoke: Ancient Forms, Fresh Expression", on the occasion of Pentecost XVI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 5:13. Divine Mystery Sacred Transcendence Worship https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7b7620556e1232522192a960710aee18.mp3 1f35ab8354264a48923ae7f1a7d2b45a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/deef5b30b46a24f2772556b0d257fe38.pdf 2cfaf9afa030f01f92e4dc61794e9c42 PDF Text Text Humility That Opens to Wonder Text: Exodus 4:13; I Corinthians 15:9 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 12, 2000 Transcription of the spoken sermon Well, I imagine that all week long you had conversations about the election which even six days later has failed to deliver for us in any certainty the President elect. It’s a very interesting period of time through which to live. The positive side of it, I suppose, is that we are talking about it together and one can also see some positive significance in the fact that maybe we are learning how important is the single vote, and perhaps we also are taking a look at the whole process, wondering about the Electoral College, for example. And certainly we can see a positive thing in the fact that, although we are at an impasse and stalemate and we don’t know just what is going to develop in the next few days, nonetheless, there isn’t any panic around. We have a confidence in that long tradition of Constitutional rule and the judicial process and, although however it comes out may not please everyone, nonetheless, I think basically we all believe that somehow or other decently and in order this matter will be resolved. But it also gives us added lengthened opportunity to reflect on the whole elective process, the political campaign that seems to get longer every time. It also gives us occasion to wonder about that point at which we find ourselves when the parties are bought and paid for, when the debate is reduced to sound bites, when the multitude of television ads becomes more shrill and frenzied, asserting an agenda bought and paid for and denigrating the other. Language fouled and conversation polluted. As a people we wonder, don’t we, if there isn’t a better way? You may think that Bruce and I consulted about his remarks this morning, but I assure you that we didn’t at all. I’m glad that he called us to revisit two weeks ago when Huston Smith was here. Last week being the beautiful All Saints Service, I didn’t really have occasion to do it, but I want to revisit that, along with what he said this morning, because I sensed such a sharp contrast in what we experienced in Huston Smith’s presence in our midst as over against the shrill frenzy of political rhetoric whose decibels go higher and higher. Here was a gentleman, a scholar, a man of great knowledge, great wisdom, and great grace who was with us in significant conversation, leading us in reflection on matters that are of deep importance to the well-being of society, the well-being of our lives and our future, and in his sermon, “Beholding the Glory,” suggesting to us the glimpses, the © Grand Valley State University   �Humility That Opens to Wonder Richard A. Rhem Page 2   intimation of transcendence that come to us in those thin places in our lives if we are able to see them. A friend knew that I was going to preach on humility this morning and called me with a quote from Huston Smith to the effect that humility is not low self-esteem, but it is, rather, the coming to recognize and distance oneself from one’s own separate ego, to be able to step back and recognize that one counts as one, but not more than one, and that in charity the other counts as one, as well. And in that humility that we saw embodied in him, we were able to think with him and see with him the glory, for I believe that humility opens to the possibility of wonder. Following the worship service, I had the wonderful privilege of sitting here between Huston Smith and his friend of many years and a relationship many years ago, Duncan Littlefair, and we experienced conversation between these two men, conversation that was lively, encountering, engaging, with different personalities, Duncan in his powerful determination to make distinctions that lead to clarity, Huston in marvelous candor, admitting that he always has a hard time choosing between dichotomies and his words “mealy-mouthed Huston.” I hope you didn’t miss the rarity of that encounter, a conversation between two prophetic figures with decades of experience, knowledge, and wisdom, differing personalities but engaging one another with civility and with candor and with grace and affection, to the end that truth might be glimpsed, not to make a point, not to win an argument, not to establish some absolute claim to the truth, but in the cause of truth in order that understanding might be furthered, conversation sacred, its holy, honest exchange where there is the loss of ego, the dissolving of self and the focus on truth to the end of understanding. My, that was a marvelous and all too rare experience, and we had just heard Huston pointing us to the way to behold the glory, pointing to those places where the layered reality becomes luminous in nature, in art, human relationship, and in the wisdom traditions. The advantage I had over you is that I had also just recently listened to a funeral meditation that Duncan had shared with me in which the transcendent one, the holy, the sacred could be glimpsed if only there are eyes to see it, in a blade of grass or a blossom or a bird or a leaf, or a sunset or a human relationship, and the wonder which is a consequence of the pointers of both of them being exactly the same. Huston said, “I use the word God.” Duncan said, “You don’t need to use God, but it’s okay if you do. It’s a philosophical concept.” It is a means of explaining, but the means of explaining is not the important thing. It is the reality, that reality to which it all points. Whatever we call it, whatever language we use, if there has been an emptying of the self, if there has been that vision of something beyond, then that awareness that brings wholeness and holiness to our being, however it is spoken of or expressed as we try to give expression to it, it seems to me that in both cases, the secret is humility. It is not an accident that the word human and humility and humor have a common root, the root of humus. You know what humus is - the little residue that worms leave after moving through the soil, it’s © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �Humility That Opens to Wonder Richard A. Rhem Page 3   vegetative decay; it’s that brown-blackish, rather unpleasant stuff. It is no accident that we are named human, for we are of the humus, we are of the soil, we are earthy and therefore, the most appropriate manifestation of the human is humility, and in order to come to an appreciation of the human, humor, because we are rooted in the soil, we are earthly, but we are more than that, as well. Because we know that we are earthly, we know that we are so rooted, so grounded, we know, as well, that we are more. We know that we are beckoned by the spirit to the experience of spirit, to the life of the spirit. Here we are, these ridiculous animals who know, who experience, who feel, who intuit, who have that sense of transcendence that calls them even while being rooted in the soil. They are anchored solidly. Humus. Human. Humility. And humor, one of the best antidotes to the egoism that shuts us off from wonder, being so filled with self, so self-assertive, so self-securing, so self-aggrandizing that we have no eyes to see nor ears to hear and our life is devoid of wonder and of joy, of grace and of peace. How do you come to it? Ah, that’s where preaching is stumped, for what does one say next? How does one come to it? Moses came to it, but was given a revelation an epiphany, a manifestation of the sacred and the holy that made his life holy, set apart to a great task because of a great vision that came after the brooding wilderness experience. Someone said in the scriptures it speaks of Moses 120 years old at his death, twenty years in Egypt as a prince learning to be somebody, forty years in the wilderness learning to be nobody, forty years learning what God could do with someone who had learned both lessons. No lack of self-esteem, but a brokenness, an honesty, an awareness, the simplicity of seeing truthfully and then acting in light of the wonder of the vision that comes when we’ve been emptied of the self. The Bible says that Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth, but he had a vision, a revelation. Paul, frenzied, passionate, defensive, threatened by this new movement with the name of Jesus, going about to destroy, to obstruct, to hold down, to stamp out, in a moment’s revelation, a vision, a light. How does it happen? I don’t know. It’s a grace; it’s a given. It’s not at our disposal, but it happens if we are serious, if we are engaged, if we can come to some honest estimate of ourselves, if we can let go. Moses had to let go of Egypt. Paul had to let go of all that which was sacred and holy to him that structured his whole life. Those security systems that we have built tightly around us - if only for a moment we could let go, if we could see through, there might be a bush that would burn or a light that would shine. It reminds me of the political campaign - noisy assertion, frenzied activity, absolutist claims, dogmatic assertions, control and manipulation. There is so little honest conversation that seeks not to make a point, but to open the truth more clearly. It is humility, it is that dying to myself, it is that recognition that I © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Grand Valley State University �Humility That Opens to Wonder Richard A. Rhem Page 4   am not God, that life has been given and is gift and if only for a moment I can step outside this frenzied drivenness of contemporary life, I can just pause long enough to look at the face of a child or a flower or a sunset and know that I am embraced in something marvelous and wonderful beyond my imagining - then my life will be bathed in wonder and there will be joy and peace. © 2013 Kaufman Interfaith Institute and 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 XXIII Scripture Text Exodus 4:13, I Corinthians 15:9 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-20001112 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000-11-12 Title A name given to the resource Humility That Opens to Wonder Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 12, 2000 entitled "Humility That Opens to Wonder", on the occasion of Pentecost XXIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Exodus 4:13, I Corinthians 15:9. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Humility Transcendence https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/efa87a05ef4bf1c92c035b5442ec6b72.mp3 5c77b3f06765d9789d7d5cad8a3f994f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b818a3401034b8939c347399695986cb.pdf 2c4decf99ca9df05a70e6e9d24bc6607 PDF Text Text Living Before the Face of God Baccalaureate Sunday Text: I Timothy 6:11-16 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan June 5, 1988 Transcription of the spoken sermon But you, man of God, must shun all this, and pursue justice, piety, fidelity, love, fortitude, and gentleness. Run the great race of faith and take hold of eternal life. For to this you were called; and you confessed your faith nobly before many witnesses. Now in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Jesus Christ, who himself made the same noble confession and gave his testimony to it before Pontius Pilate, I charge you to obey your orders irreproachably and without fault until our Lord Jesus Christ appears. That appearance God will bring to pass in his own good time -God who in eternal felicity alone holds sway. He is King of kings and Lord of lords; he alone possesses immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light. No man has ever seen or ever can see him. To him be honour and might for ever! Amen. ... I Timothy 6:11-16 (NEB) Commencement is a time of the giving of many speeches and most of them can be lumped in the category of moral imperative, an urging of graduates to plunge into life with seriousness of purpose and diligent effort, to pursue lofty goals, to live by high ideals and to strive for nobleness of life. Who could argue with that? Surely this is a good occasion for such stirring rhetoric. What is usually missing, however, and in the context of public education necessarily is missing, is any foundation for such moral urging. One might well raise the question to much commencement speechmaking, "Why?" It is the "Why" I want to address on this Baccalaureate Sunday. From the perspective of biblical faith, the reason one ought to enter seriously into life with discipline and purpose and live fruitfully, creatively and significantly as a catalyst for the betterment of one's world and society is because one is not one's own; rather life is a gift and is lived before the face of God. It is the consciousness of God, the Living God, the Creator of the Universe, the gracious, saving God revealed in Jesus Christ, that shapes human life into a faithful response, pointing one to the highest and best and fullest realization of one's potential. © Grand Valley State University   �Living Before the Face of God Richard A. Rhem Page 2   The text this morning might seem to lead us down the pathway to another instance of moralistic cheerleading: Pursue justice, piety, fidelity, love, fortitude and gentleness. Run the great race of faith and take hold of eternal life. Good counsel, to be sure; who would argue with such encouragement? But, again, why? Let me try to answer that and thereby avoid the pitfall of another blind call to goodness and duty. The call to serious, disciplined living here is based on the assumption that one is not one's own. Note the address, "But you, man of God." Is that a technical designation of one in Christian ministry? Perhaps in this instance. Yet it is not to be so limited. The biblical assumption from beginning to end is that God is God and the human person lives before the face of God. That is stated expressly in verse 13: Now in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Jesus Christ... The solemn charge to duty is given "in the presence of God," but what is explicitly stated as the context of this charge is true for us all at all times and in all circumstances. We live before the face of God. God is the great reality embracing all of nature and history and God is the ground and goal of our lives as well as the origin, preserver and finally the goal of all existence. Since the 18th Century, the Enlightenment Movement in France and Germany, our thinking has been secularized. Reality has been bifurcated in such fashion that the world has been viewed as a self-contained system running on its own with its own natural law and bound together in a chain of cause and effect. God, if God is still retained as a reality or possibility, is outside the reality of history and nature. If God is given place at all in the natural world and the drama of history, it is at specific points of intervention, still maintained by the religious but even that is denied by the thoroughgoing naturalist. In the philosophical movement, which gradually filtered down to popular thinking, this removal of God from historical existence and the natural world was spoken of as emancipation. Just as Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed the slave, so clearing the world of God was thought to give space to the human person to develop potential and carve out a destiny free from the oppressive restraints of religion. Much religion was and is oppressive. Much coercion and manipulation by religion has done untold damage to human personality and bound the human spirit in a strait jacket of fear and guilt and neurosis. Let that be freely acknowledged. © Grand Valley State University �Living Before the Face of God Richard A. Rhem Page 3   But, that being candidly admitted, it must be recognized that a godless world and a godless existence is a dismal business leading not to creative freedom and selfexpression, but rather to a dead end of hopeless futility. It is the absence of a sense of the reality of God that is responsible for much of the malaise, the ambiguity, the confusion, the moral crisis of our present world. In a Christian Century editorial (June 1,1988), James M. Wall addresses the loss of the transcendent source of moral values, the loss of a norm beyond the standards of individuals or communities. Entitled "Ed Koch, Call Your Office," the editorial suggests that from time to time one ought to check in to determine if one is still aligned with what is true and good and right - call your office. Koch roused the Jewish community in New York City against the black democrat candidate, Jesse Jackson, in the recent primary. Wall suggests Koch acted as though a moral compass were irrelevant. He goes on to declare, The ethical crisis in our public life stems not from the lack of parochial ethical standards but from the failure to turn to any transcendent standard in making decisions as individuals or as communities. We are not calling our offices because there is no one there to take the call. And if we did call, we would get only a recorded message we ourselves had made, advising us to do whatever will enhance the bottom line, make us feel good or guarantee a profit and/or a victory, preferably both. Examples of this attitude abound in contemporary society. In addition to Koch, they include Ed Meese in the Justice Department and Ivan Boesky on Wall Street. The dominant operative mind-set tolerates and actually encourages a rudderless moral climate. Modernity has brought us incredible advances in the way we live, but it has left us in a situation where we do not know how to live. The prevailing standard is victory, not values.... Wall quotes a Czech-born novelist, Milas Kundera, (The Art of the Novel, p. 2) who regards Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, ... Kundera regards Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote as the first novelist of the modern era who captured what it means to exist in a society that puts all its emphasis on knowing a lot about little pieces and cares nothing about the largest piece of reality. It was during Cervantes's era that Western civilization began to assume that the only reality that matters is that which is subject to measurement. The central authority for all existence had once been called God, and that authority's representative on earth was the church. Both of these entities were pushed into a sacred reservation to keep them out of harm's way, while rational and wise men (never women) pursued knowledge. Or as Kundera puts it: © Grand Valley State University �Living Before the Face of God Richard A. Rhem Page 4   As God slowly departed from the seat whence he had directed the universe and its order of values, distinguished good from evil, and endowed each thing with meaning, Don Quixote set forth from his house into a world he could no longer recognize. In the absence of the Supreme Judge, the world suddenly appeared in its fearsome ambiguity; the single divine Truth decomposed into myriad relative truths parceled out by men. Thus was born the world of the Modern Era... [p. 6]. I cannot begin to draw out and document the disillusioning end of the demise of God in the modern world, but if you are really interested in one person's account of where we are after a century of Nihilism filtered down to popular understanding, read Allan Bloom's book. The Closing of the American Mind, whose subtitle reads, "How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students." Nihilism is a philosophy, a world and life view that denies any reality beyond the human mind and system of values. There is no God, no ultimate source of truth or goodness. It is all simply human devising. Nihilism means Nothingness. Hans Küng, in Does God Exist?, defines Nihilism as "The conviction of the nullity of the internal contradiction, futility and worthlessness of reality." (p. 388) Bloom traces the line from Nietzsche’s philosophical ideas to contemporary American Society where the denial of any Absolute is a given, but where the resultant chaos of right and wrong, truth and error has led to the recognition of the need for values clarification. The problem is there is no transcendent reference, no absolute standard or norm. Consequently, one must determine one's own values and then live authentically in the light of those values. Since there is no norm, one value is as valid as the next and tolerance rules over all. Bloom writes, My grandparents were ignorant people by our standards, and my grandfather held only lowly jobs. But their home was spiritually rich because all the things done in it, not only what was specifically ritual, found their origin in the Bible's commandments, and their explanation in the Bible's stories and the commentaries on them, and had their imaginative counterparts in the deeds of the myriad of exemplary heroes. My grandparents found reasons for the existence of their family and the fulfillment of their duties in serious writings, and they interpreted their special sufferings with respect to a great and ennobling past. Their simple faith and practices linked them to great scholars and thinkers who dealt with the same material, not from outside or from an alien perspective, but believing as they did, while simply going deeper and providing guidance. There was a respect for real learning, because it had a felt connection with © Grand Valley State University �Living Before the Face of God Richard A. Rhem Page 5   their lives. This is what a community and a history mean, a common experience inviting high and low into a single body of belief. I do not believe that my generation, my cousins who have been educated in the American way, all of whom as M.D.s or Ph.D.’s, have any comparable learning. When they talk about heaven and earth, the relations between men and women, parents and children, the human condition, I hear nothing but clichés, superficialities, the material of satire. I am not saying anything so trite as that life is fuller when people have myths to live by. I mean rather that a life based on the Book is closer to the truth, that it provides the material for deeper research in and access to the real nature of things. Without the great revelations, epics, and philosophies as part of our natural vision, there is nothing to see out there, and eventually little left inside. The Bible is not the only means to furnish a mind, but without a book of similar gravity, read with the gravity of the potential believer, it will remain unfurnished. The moral education that is today supposed to be the great responsibility of the family cannot exist if it cannot present to the imagination of the young a vision of a moral cosmos and of the rewards and punishments for good and evil, sublime speeches that accompany and interpret deeds, protagonists and antagonists in the drama of moral choice, a sense of the stakes involved in such choice, and the despair that results when the world is "disenchanted." Otherwise, education becomes the vain attempt to give children "values." Beyond the fact that parents do not know what they believe, and surely do not have the self-confidence to tell their children much more than that they want them to be happy and fulfill whatever potential they may have, values are such pallid things. What are they and how are they communicated? The courses in "value-clarification" springing up in schools are supposed to provide models for parents and get children to talk about abortion, sexism or the arms race, issues the significance of which they cannot possibly understand. Such education is little more than propaganda, and propaganda that does not work, because the opinions or values arrived at are will-o'-the-wisps, insubstantial, without ground in experience or passion, which are the bases of moral reasoning. Such "values"" will inevitably change as public opinion changes. The new moral education has none of the genius that engenders moral instinct or second nature, the prerequisite not only of character but also of thought. Actually, the family's moral training now comes down to inculcating the bare minima of social behavior, not lying or stealing, and produces university students who can say nothing more about the ground of their moral action than "If I did that to him, he could do it to me" - an explanation which does not even satisfy those who utter it. Bloom concludes, © Grand Valley State University �Living Before the Face of God Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Thus our use of the value language leads us in two opposite directions - to follow the line of least resistance, and to adopt strong poses and fanatic resolutions. But these are merely different deductions from a common premise. Values are not discovered by reason, and it is fruitless to seek them, to find the truth or the good life. The quest begun by Odysseus and continued over three millennia has come to an end with the observation that there is nothing to seek. This alleged fact was announced by Nietzsche just over a century ago when he said, "God is dead." Good and evil now for the first time appear as values, of which there have been a thousand and one, none rationally or objectively preferable to any other. The salutary illusion about the existence of good and evil has been definitively dispelled. For Nietzsche this was an unparalleled catastrophe; it meant the decomposition of culture and the loss of human aspiration. The Socratic "examined" life was no longer possible or desirable. It was itself unexamined, and if there was any possibility of a human life in the future it must begin from the naive capacity to live an unexamined life. The philosophic way of life had become simply poisonous. In short, Nietzsche with the utmost gravity told modern man that he was free-falling in the abyss of nihilism. Perhaps after having lived through this terrible experience, drunk it to the dregs, people might hope for a fresh era of value creation, the emergency of new gods. Perhaps no one has given finer expression to the reckless affirmation of selfdetermination apart from any tradition, community value or transcendent ground of existence than Frank Sinatra singing, "I did it my way!" Call the office? No need; no one is there. I did it my way! But, what of God? If God is God, then human life is lived before the face of God. Our text speaks of "The presence of God and of Christ Jesus who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made a good confession." There we have a model set forth: Jesus before Pilate. Sinatra sings, "I Did It My Way!" Jesus trembles and cries out, "Nevertheless, not my will but Thy will be done." Can there be any starker contrast? Two different worlds. Two different conceptions of life and Reality. My Way! Thy Way! The whole life of Jesus was characterized by an overwhelming sense of living before the face of God. With Jesus, it was not a matter of finding out what works and doing it in order to become successful as the world judges success. Rather, it © Grand Valley State University �Living Before the Face of God Richard A. Rhem Page 7   was to determine the will of God and do it in spite of human approval or disapproval. Before Pilate he was strong, steady, unmovable. Tell me, if you had to choose, would you stand with Jesus knowing it would lead to crucifixion, or with Pilate thereby saving your power and position? What choice would you make? Of course, you would stand with Jesus - masterfully clear-eyed, strong, not with the pathetic Pilate, anxious, fearful, equivocating, vacillating. Who was really on trial? Who was really in command of the moment? Is it not abundantly clear that Jesus' "Thy will be done," freed him from every other bondage? True to God, therefore truly himself. They crucified him. But, Jesus reigns, and one day every knee shall bow to him, every tongue confess him Lord, to the glory of God! To the glory of God! The phrase sets the writer on fire. He breaks out into praise with a great doxology, as he calls to mind God Who will bring all things to their consummation in His own time, at the appearing of Jesus Christ. God Who in eternal felicity alone holds sway. He is King of kings and Lord of lords; he alone possesses immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light. No one has ever seen or ever can see him. To God be honour and might for ever! Doxology. That is the tone quality of a life lived consciously before the face of God. To live in the spirit of doxology is to live spontaneously, creatively in a constant sense of awe and wonder, awe and wonder before the mystery of God, the meaningfulness of existence, the sheer majesty of an eternal purpose already at work, in us, through us, moving from Creation to new creation. Doxology: The breaking forth of worship from one who is already participating in life that is eternal - that is life lived within our time and space, but breaking through those limits, breathing already the air of another reality, a transcendent dimension. ... take hold of eternal life. For this you were called. So enjoins the text. In John's Gospel, Jesus says, I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. Again, he declares, © Grand Valley State University �Living Before the Face of God Richard A. Rhem Page 8   This is life eternal that they might know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. To live before the face of God is to live in the consciousness of a Reality beyond the limits of time and space, beyond the appearances empirically perceived, beyond the limited realm of nature that can be measured and of history that can be documented. To live before the face of God is to have a transcendent reference point, an absolute from which to measure, truth by which to discriminate the confusing clamor of claims to validity that play upon one. Doxology! Not passive resignation to Fate. Doxology! Not unprincipled yielding to what works, is effective, gets one by or brings one instant reward. Doxology! Not self-serving narcissism that aims at the instant gratification of desire, the pleasure principle - doing what feels good. Doxology! Not a spineless, careful, fearful failure to dare, to risk, to live, to love -satisfied with an obscene mediocrity. Doxology - The overflowing life that senses the very Creative Spirit of God rushing through it, reaching for the stars, dreaming the impossible dream, believing that there is so much more, unwilling to rest with what has been, dissatisfied with what is, always stretching, reaching, pushing the limits, knowing that the possibilities of Reality are as limitless as the God Who is the ground and goal of all that is. And so I call you to take hold of life eternal and I ground that challenge in who you are - a person, created in the image of God, the God Who is the source, the ground, the norm of all that is good and true and beautiful and whose purpose for you is the fullness of life in the present and beyond what eye has seen or ear heard or has ever entered the human heart's conceiving. That is to live fully, richly, creatively - that is to live before the face of God. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Baccalaureate Sunday Pentecost II Scripture Text I Timothy 6:12-14 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19880605 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988-06-05 Title A name given to the resource Living Before the Face of God Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 5, 1988 entitled "Living Before the Face of God", on the occasion of Baccalaureate Sunday, Pentecost II, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Timothy 6:12-14. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Awe Baccalaureate Sunday Consciousness of God Mystery of God Transcendence Values https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/eaffc0ebda3e36798ccf63eb121224ea.mp3 cfafb7a9ff11dc0c63fe34be26ef2ae8 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/71e0200e982e076d0c2c422109477cc6.pdf a1256cc3cd868296042b959a9ac521a8 PDF Text Text The God Who Is There For Us From the sermon series: God, Our Ally Text: Isaiah 57: 15; Hebrews 4: 13, 16 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan July 14, 1985 Transcription of the spoken sermon God, Our Ally. That is an affirmation of faith. It is certainly one of the most significant and meaningful statements one could make and to live with such a conviction is to be in possession of one of the most necessary truths for human happiness and wellbeing. God is for us. Human existence is embraced by grace. So to live is to have a foundation for the present and hope for the future. Who is this God? How do we know Him? These are deep questions whose answers are shrouded in mystery. God is not "at hand." He is not simply available. To know Him is beyond human capacity; yet He has made Himself known. This series of messages is an attempt from a variety of biblical texts and a variety of angles to say "God is our ally; He is for us." But to speak of God, let alone to speak of Him in a whole series of messages seems almost presumptuous. How dare one presume to speak of this One Who is hidden in mystery? Would one not do well simply to be silent? Yet that cannot be the answer, for God has revealed Himself; He has made Himself known. Thus He wills to be known and He wills that we have knowledge of Him. On the other hand, as I reflect on this task, I am quite certain most sermons purport to know too much. I am certain as well that there is often a craving in the human mind and heart to know more than can be known of God and, rather than acknowledging the limits of our thinking in proper humility, we tend to cut God down to a size in which we can handle Him. © Grand Valley State University   �The God Who Is There For Us Richard A. Rhem Page 2   I make this confession early on in this series because I want to admit to the impossibility of speaking about God even as I attempt to do so, simply to make you aware that I am aware of how inadequate are these stammering attempts to speak of Him. Thus we look to the Spirit to reveal to us truth too deep for us to grasp through our own power of reason and intuition. "The God Who Is There For Us." That is the focus. "There for us" in the sense of being the solid foundation of life, the sustainer of our life, the strong support and source of comfort for the human pilgrimage which is our life. I. Let me begin with the simple assertion that we need God. The consciousness of that fact must be why we are here. Of course, for some of us this appointment is not a matter of decision. We have made that decision long since - this is the Lord's Day and it is a day first of all for worship. And so it is not as though we awoke with a conscious longing for that encounter and communion that happens in this setting and therefore we have come. Yet, however we happen to be here, it is reflective of some deep-seated sense that we need God, that we long for His presence, that we find a fulfillment of life not within ourselves but only in relationship to One Who is beyond the limits of our time and space and human rationality. Were I to make a list of the dozen most influential books that have shaped my thinking, one would surely be Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death. It won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1974 and it is one of those works that gives an overview and summary in lucid fashion of a vast area of human thought and endeavor. In this case the book focuses on the insights gained from the movement of psychoanalysis from its beginnings in the work of Sigmund Freud through the modification of those insights in the work of Otto Rank. What gripped me in this summarization of the best insight of psychoanalysis into the nature of the human being was the acknowledgment that what a human being most desperately needs to be fully human is precisely what the Christian Gospel offers. Through the work of Freud, the work of an earlier philosopher and Christian came to be appreciated for the depth of truth it contained. That thinker was Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard summarized the human situation profoundly and found the answer to the human dilemma in the leap of faith, casting oneself into the arms of God. Kierkegaard held that Once a person begins to look to his relationship to the Ultimate Power, to infinitude, and to refashion his links from those around him to that Ultimate Power, he opens up to himself the horizon of unlimited possibility, of real freedom. This is Kierkegaard's message, the culmination of his whole argument about the dead-ends of character ... One goes through it all to arrive at faith, the faith that one's very creatureliness has © Grand Valley State University �The God Who Is There For Us Richard A. Rhem Page 3   some meaning to a Creator; that despite one's true insignificance, weakness, death, one's existence has meaning in some ultimate sense because it exists within an eternal and infinite scheme of things brought about and maintained to some kind of design by some creative force. Again and again throughout his writings Kierkegaard repeats the basic formula of faith: one is a creature who can do nothing, but one exists over against a living God for whom "everything is possible." (Becker, The Denial of Death, p. 90) From a life-long study of the human psyche in the discipline of psychoanalysis, Otto Rank concluded Kierkegaard was right. ... Rank joins Kierkegaard in the belief that one should not stop and circumscribe his life with beyonds that are near at hand, or a bit further out, or created by oneself. One should reach for the "highest beyond of religion. ... (p. 174) Rank recognized that the scientific study of the human being could strip him bare, expose his delusion and defense mechanism, but could not allow the person to find out who he is and why he is here on earth, why he has to die, and how he can make his life a triumph. (p. 193) He declares, Modern man needs a "Thou" to whom to turn for spiritual and moral dependence, and as God was in eclipse, the therapist has had to replace Him. ... Becker indicates that these two disparate thinkers, one a Christian of the 19th Century and one a psychoanalyst of the 20th, ... reached the same conclusion after the most exhaustive psychological quest: that at the very furtherest reaches of scientific description, psychology has to give way to "theology" - that is, to a world-view that absorbs the individual's conflicts and guilt and offers him the possibility for some kind of heroic apotheosis. Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level, (p. 196) Rank was not a Christian believer nor is Becker. Neither of them espoused the answer of the Christian faith. Yet they saw that the lostness of the modern person is precisely that she has been robbed of faith in transcendence. The one thing modern man cannot do is what Kierkegaard prescribed: The lonely leap into faith, the naive personal trust in some kind of transcendental support for one's life. (p. 200) © Grand Valley State University �The God Who Is There For Us Richard A. Rhem Page 4   The characteristic of the modern mind is the banishment of mystery, of naive belief, of simple-minded hope. (p. 200) Perhaps I could summarize Becker's view and Rank's by saying that they believe that the Judeo-Christian faith provides precisely the view of Reality which a human being needs to be happy but they also believe it is an illusion. What they call illusion we hold to be the truth. God is and God is Who we need. The analysis of human nature and the scientific study of the human psyche confirm that to be human is to be frustrated and restless as long as one is turned in upon oneself or imprisoned within the structures and meanings of this world. There is something intrinsic in the human spirit that longs to leap beyond itself, to commit itself to a transcendent Reality - in a word - to God. Israel's God provided a resting place for the soul. In Isaiah 57 God speaks of His coming in judgment on His people but that judgment here, as is always true, was in order to turn his people back to Him. The prophet knew there was no peace except in Him. God expresses His gracious way thus: I cured him and gave him relief, and I brought him comfort in full measure, brought peace to those who mourned for him, ... peace for all men. ... But the wicked are like the troubled sea, a sea that cannot rest, whose troubled waters cast up mud and filth. There is no peace for the wicked, says the Lord. (Isaiah 57:19-21, NEB) Wickedness in the Old Testament is unbelief. It is life lived on a purely human, secular plane. It is life without trust in God. Such a life says the Lord knows no peace. We do need God - to be fully human, to know peace. II. The Good News is that the God we need is the God Who is there for us. We have in the text from Isaiah a marvelous capsule summary of the biblical God. God speaks. He tells Who He is. For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. There is a portrait of the God we need. We see in this statement both the otherness of God and His nearness. God is the Wholly-Other. That is a designation made popular by Karl Barth. He had been schooled in the classic Liberalism of the 19th Century. Christian faith had become pretty much a © Grand Valley State University �The God Who Is There For Us Richard A. Rhem Page 5   man-centered affair. The Gospel was reduced to the limits of human reason. It was Barth who sounded the alarm and called the whole European continent back to the Otherness of God - the Godness of God; the One Who contradicts us. He is a God beyond us. He is not like us only a little more so. He is other than we are. He is the Creator, we the creature. He is not of one being with us but the source and ground of our being. God is the exalted One - high and lofty. God is the Infinite One, the Absolute, the Ultimate Power. God is the Eternal One - beyond the limits of our time and space. It would be difficult to find a more exalted conception of God. Yet in the same breath we are told that He dwells with him who is of humble and contrite spirit. He dwells with the one who is crushed. And he draws near to revive. He is thus not only the Wholly-Other, but He is the God Who is near. He is the God Who in gracious condescension has come near to us to revive and redeem. In the classic doctrine of God the theologians have spoken of God's transcendence and God's immanence. In so speaking they have sought to let God be God - to honor His Otherness, to recognize that He is beyond us. Yet, in faithfulness to Scripture, they have spoken of His drawing near, of His being with His people. We must never lose that tension. God is God and, as we have already seen from the analysis of the human psyche, nothing less can satisfy the human heart or provide a resting place for the human spirit. God is a mystery. He is not at our disposal. Could we fathom his depths He would not be God and we would be restless still, striving on to find that Ultimate One Who limits our existence and grounds our being. Barth called the world back to the Otherness of God. The 19th Century had domesticated God and formed Him in the human image. About the same time another theologian, Rudolf Otto, wrote a book entitled The Idea of the Holy. In a forward to the English translation, Otto wrote, This book ... makes a serious attempt to analyze all the more exactly the feeling which remains where the concept fails. ... The English translator, John W. Harvey, in his Preface raised the question addressed in the work. © Grand Valley State University �The God Who Is There For Us Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Is religious experience essentially just a state of mind, a feeling, whether of oppression or of exaltation, a sense of 'sin' or an assurance of 'salvation;' or is it not rather our apprehension of 'the divine,' meaning by that term at least something independent of the mental and emotional state of the moment of experience? (p. XIII) Obviously Otto believed that in religious experience we apprehend the divine or God. But he recognized that God is not at our disposal. That a God within the limits of human reason is not God at all. Otto studied the history of religions and found a common thread. There was an apprehension of the divine which could only be described as a knowing beyond knowing. ... a unique kind of apprehension ... not to be reduced to ordinary intellectual or rational "knowing" with its terminology of notions and concepts, and yet - and this is the paradox of the matter - itself a genuine "knowing," the growing awareness of an object, deity. ... The primary fact is the confrontation of the human mind with a Something, whose character is only gradually learned, but which is from the first felt as a transcendent presence, ‘the beyond,’ even where it is also felt as ‘the within’ man. There you have the text from Isaiah. Otto's classic study names that transcendent presence the Holy, but the word Holy carries with it such a strong, ethereal connotation that he needed another word to describe that residue of experience. He chose the word "numinous" from the Latin numen, the most general Latin word for supernatural divine power. 'Numinous' feeling is, then, just this unique apprehension of a Something, whose character may at first seem to have little connection with our ordinary moral terms, but which later 'becomes charged' with the highest and deepest moral significance. (p. XVI) 'Numinous' and 'Numen' will, then, be words which bear no moral impact, but which stand for the specific non-rational religious apprehension and its objects, at all levels, from the first dim stirrings where religion can hardly yet be said to exist to the most exalted forms of spiritual experience, (p. XVII) It was Otto's contention that in Christianity The numinous elements, such as the sense of awe and reverence before infinite mystery and infinite majesty are yet combined and made one with the rational elements, assuring us that God is an all-righteous, allprovident, and all-loving Person, with Whom a man may enter into the most intimate relationship. The paradox of Isaiah's text is maintained. © Grand Valley State University �The God Who Is There For Us Richard A. Rhem Page 7   It is a real knowledge of, and real personal communion with, a Being whose nature is yet above knowledge, and transcends personality. (p. XVII) One could not hope for a better commentary on the text than the explanation of the thesis of Rudolf Otto and his book did greatly impact theological development. The text itself is simply a condensation of the experience of Isaiah recorded in the sixth chapter of his prophecy where he entered the temple and saw the Lord "high and lifted up." He heard the angels sing the Sanctus, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts." The vision left him awestruck, smitten with his own unworthiness. But through the ministry of the angel he was cleansed and through the voice of God called and commissioned to service. In the midst of awe and wonder he was addressed, cleansed and given a task. The high and lofty One stooped to grace His servant. III. The God Who is there for us is the God with a human face. If we leave Isaiah we find in the New Testament the same gracious God Whose glory is now revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews was concerned for Jewish Christians who had responded to Jesus, received him as the Messiah, the fulfillment of the Old Testament hope. They left the Temple and recognized the provisionalness of the Law and ceremony of the Old Covenant and embraced the Gospel. But now they were experiencing persecution and they were living under pressure. How normal for them to wonder if they had made a mistake, if perhaps this was a judgment on their offering of allegiance to Jesus. This letter addresses that question showing that Jesus is indeed the fulfillment and the culmination of the whole Old Covenant system. He warns them against drifting away or falling off in slackness and disobedience, as had that generation that was delivered from Egypt's bondage only to lose faith in the wilderness. He points them to the word of God that is, in this case, the message of God by which they have been addressed. It is, he claims, ... alive and active. It cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the place where life and spirit, joints and marrow divide. It sifts the purposes and thoughts of the heart. There is nothing in creation that can hide from him; everything lies naked and exposed to the eyes of the One with whom we have to reckon. (Hebrews 4:12-13) That is a call to faithfulness couched in a word of warning. The One with Whom we have to do is no marshmallow God, no passive deity or dumb idol. The words resonate with a seriousness that the thought of God calls forth. In a word, the writer is saying that one's whole life and existence is an open secret before the eyes of the living God Who judges according to absolutes of truth, righteousness and justice. There is no game of charades with Him. In the © Grand Valley State University �The God Who Is There For Us Richard A. Rhem Page 8   presence of one another we mask the deep intent and purposes of our hearts and even before our own minds we hardly dare face the truth of our personal ambiguity, faithlessness and meanness. But He knows us - better than we know ourselves. What a frightening thought! But no; it is not so. In the very next paragraph the God Who searches the heart is described in magnificent fashion as the gracious God Who has drawn near to us in Jesus and Who bids us come to Him through Jesus to find in his grace timely help. Once again as in Isaiah 57:15, we have a marvelous juxtaposition -the Judge Who might be thought to instill fear and trembling is the God Whose seat is a throne of grace. To be sure, He is God; to be sure, He is pure light; to be sure, to be in His presence must inspire awe and wonder and certainly there is a proper reverence described in Scripture as the fear of God which must be part of any experience of His presence. But "fear and trembling" are not the last word; the last word is grace. For the God with Whom we have to do is the God with a human face. Did not Jesus say, If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. (John 14:9) Did not Paul write, For the same God who said, "Out of darkness let light shine," has caused his light to shine within us, to give the light of revelation - the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (II Corinthians 4:6) Quite consistent with the whole witness of the New Testament our writer points us to Jesus who brings us to God. Since therefore we have a great high priest ... Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to the religion we profess. For ours is not a high priest unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who because of his likeness to us, has been tested every way, only without sin. Let us therefore boldly approach the throne of our gracious God where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help. (Hebrews 4:14-16) One could meditate on that gracious invitation for a long time and never fathom the mystery of love and depth of mercy there set forth. The Eternal God, the Infinite One, the Ultimate Power, the King of the Universe is full of mercy, ready to give grace in every time of need. The way is open; access is available at any moment. The invitation is come. © Grand Valley State University �The God Who Is There For Us Richard A. Rhem Page 9   The God we need is the God Who is there for us - the God with a human face - the God we see in the face of Jesus - the God of grace without limit and mercy without measure. That is the message - God, our ally is full of Grace. His anger is for a moment, the other side of His love in order to turn us and return us to Himself. His love is everlasting and His Grace will finally conquer us with gentle wooing and steady faithfulness. But these are words, expressed in stammering fashion, attempting to express the inexpressible. When all this has been said, it must be said further that words cannot convict us. That is the Spirit's work. Yet we have this encouragement that, if with all our heart we truly seek him, we shall surely find him. The longing of our hearts is already the sign of His early work and those who thirst for God will be satisfied. God is our Ally. He is there for us. Come to Him through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. References: Ernest Becker. The Denial of Death. First published in 1973. Rudolf Otto. The Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey. Oxford University Press, 1958. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost VII Series God Our Ally Scripture Text Isaiah 57:15, Hebrews 4: 13, 16 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, 1973 Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 1958 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19850714 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-07-14 Title A name given to the resource The God Who is There for Us Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 14, 1985 entitled "The God Who is There for Us", as part of the series "God Our Ally", on the occasion of Pentecost VII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 57:15, Hebrews 4: 13, 16. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Awe God of Grace Immanence Meaning Mystery Nature of God Revelation Spiritual Quest Transcendence https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/48c9b87092b10fb0b98a3d392794e487.mp3 a7b777306adc129b2acf796f5e9e20b3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/61d9566a92d26dcdda169fd526207471.pdf a3e149ca05cd1d65c16576bff78decac PDF Text Text Living With Wonder From the sermon series: Lifelines Text: Isaiah 6: 1 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany IV, February 3, 1985 Transcription of the spoken sermon …I saw the Lord…high and exalted. Isaiah 6: 1 Viewing the Robert Kennedy story on television this past week I was reminded of the tumultuous events of the last quarter century. What drama and high tension have punctuated the flow of the years of recent decades. I remember vividly where I was the day John F. Kennedy was shot. Seeing familiar scenes flashed on the TV screen again this past week still sent a chill through me. The vast majority of our days flow without special significance and they are lost in the mists of the past. But not all days, not all events. Some days, some moments change us forever; they leave their imprint upon us and we can never be the same again. Isaiah knew that. He shared such an experience. Isaiah wrote, In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted ... It was not necessarily the occasion of the King's death, although that is possible. Perhaps it was the annual enthronement festival. At least it was a great worship celebration, a state occasion in the setting of the Temple with, no doubt, the pageantry of priesthood, altar and incense. Whatever was the particular focus of the worship that day, for Isaiah, it was a moment of revelation, of the breaking through of the hidden majesty of God, the penetration of his whole being with the vision of the glory of God and he was transformed; his whole life was grasped, shaped and given its destiny. In chaste and restrained fashion he describes the vision: © Grand Valley State University   �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 2   ...the skirt of his robe filled the temple. About him were attendant seraphim ... calling to one another, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.’ As he was transfixed by the scene, The threshold shook to its foundations, while the house was filled with smoke. Such was the vision of the glory of God. In reaction to the vision of God's holiness, the prophet was overwhelmed and sensed his unworthiness, his uncleanness in the presence of the Lord and he cried, Woe is me! I am lost. He knew immediately that there was a great gulf between the creature and the Creator. Such a vision would be his undoing, for he cries, I have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. But the gracious God revealed Himself not to destroy His servant; rather the ministering seraph took a glowing coal from off the altar and touched his lips, signifying his cleansing and the removal of his sins. Then it was that he heard the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for me?" To which Isaiah answered, "Here am I; send me." And the word of the Lord was, "Go and tell..." And Isaiah became one of the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, speaking the word of God to the People of God. This passage is obviously about the making of a prophet, about the vision of God and the prophetic call. In this message, however, I want to use the passage for another purpose, which, although not its primary teaching, is yet certainly a valid use. Let us consider the experience recorded here as an instance of the encounter with God in the celebration of worship. Worship is our focus. And even though Isaiah's experience was very personal, as all moments of divine revelation must be, yet its occasion was the corporate worship of God's people. It is corporate worship about which I invite you to think with me. Corporate worship is a lifeline; it provides the occasion in which Eternity breaks into our time, heaven touches earth, God reveals His glory, Grace and forgiveness are realized, the call of God is heard, and our response is offered. © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 3   Worship provides the setting in which we are lifted out of ourselves, beyond the limits of the ordinary, in which we have the experience of transcendence and we are enabled to live with wonder. Living with wonder — That is the enrichment that worship affords. Moving from the experience of worship into the ordinary and the mundane to pick up our duties and exercise our vocations, all is transformed. A glow radiates over all of life. We move through the world as through a magnificent vaulted cathedral, conscious of the vertical dimension of life by which the horizontal plane of our lives has been intersected and transformed. Archbishop William Temple wrote: To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God; to feed the mind with the truth of God; to purge the imagination by the beauty of God; to open the heart to the love of God; to devote the will to the purpose of God. Those statements seem to flow directly from the experience Isaiah recorded for us. Worship is a lifeline because it is the highest action of the human person whereby true humanity is realized through the vision, grace and call of God. Worship is a spiritual discipline. It is means by which we are shaped into the persons God has called us to be. That shaping, that forming of persons, of a people, is accomplished most notably through the experience of corporate worship. In this message I recommend to you the great importance and value of regular corporate worship. I do so not to make it a legalistic requirement, the socalled "Sunday obligation." I do so because I believe the regular, corporate worship of the people of God gives structure and rhythm to life. I recommend regular, corporate worship to you as a spiritual discipline, indeed, a lifeline, because I believe it is so vitally important to have a regular weekly appointment in which you can be unlocked from the world's grip, freed from the grip of value systems and ideologies that would mold you into a sub-human existence, lifted above the economic struggle for survival, the competitive struggle that creates tension with values of mercy and compassion, the perils of a consumer culture that pummels you with eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die – like a dog, a culture that would convince us that this is all there is. No people can know spiritual formation, the shaping of life and value by the Word of God without a regular appointment with the occasion and the setting in which our lives may be encountered, confronted, judged, graced, healed and sent forth again to be the people of God in the world. Living with wonder. © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 4   That could be a definition of being human. It speaks of living with the awareness of God, with the awareness that there is something more, a transcendent dimension; with a sense of grace that overcomes brokenness and failure; with a sense of vocation, calling, that gives life meaning and purpose. A sense of wonder. Living with wonder would enable others to sense through our language and behavior a life lived in openness and awesomeness before the world of things and peoples. As a friend and colleague described it, In an over-rational and over-explained world our overweened arrogance of knowledge teaches us that wonder is a temporary state of curiosity caused by an ignorance of adequate explanation. To realize that this universe, the one in outer space as well as inner space, holds mystery beyond imagination. Dag Hammarskjold was a celebrant of that mystery. He said in his diary, “God does not die on the day we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder the source of which is beyond all reason. (Howard Moody) Isaiah's life was transformed in that moment of vision which occurred in the context of corporate worship. Every time we gather together here we place ourselves in the posture and setting where lightning may strike. Reflect with me about the act of corporate worship. Obviously one could bring a whole series of messages on the subject of the corporate worship of God and I cannot begin to cover the subject in this one message. My focus is very limited and specific: I am setting before you the great importance of a regular corporate worship as a spiritual discipline by which your life might be characterized by a sense of wonder. In choosing this narrow focus I create for myself inevitable problems. First, I can point to the vision of God which transforms human existence but I cannot guarantee that that will "happen" every time we gather for everyone, or even for anyone. God reveals Himself. God gives Himself. God is sovereign in His own unveiling. The same thing stated negatively - God cannot be manipulated by liturgical acts, incantations, sacramental actions. God is God. He is not at our disposal. He is not a genie to be "rubbed," moved by a magical formula or coerced into action by ritual of priest or people. I face a second problem: To speak of the vision of God is not the same thing as experiencing the vision of God. To speak about worship is not worship. Speaking as I am now, tied to a biblical text over which we have prayed and to which we © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 5   give attention is an essential action of corporate worship. In speaking as I am, I speak out of prayerful preparation with confidence in the promise of God to speak through my words. Yet here, too, God remains God; God remains free. In our Reformation tradition we have highly valued the sermon. We speak of the Word made flesh, the Word written and the Word preached and we call them all the Word of God. Nonetheless, apart from the present action of the Living God, the Word written remains a dead letter and the Word preached but human stammering. In other words, in corporate worship all of the forms, liturgical acts, gestures, sacramental actions are human structures that provide the framework in which the "happening" may occur. To use an analogy, the structure of the service and the actions in which we engage are like the train tracks. Whether the locomotive moves down those tracks is not in our power to determine. There is a third problem I face related to the one just mentioned: I can only describe that to which I refer rationally; yet what I am seeking to describe is beyond reason. Obviously as I speak to you I must attempt to be clear, to make sense. I work hard to make the message understandable. It must therefore be reasonable, able to be grasped by the reason. It must be logical so that its meaning can be grasped. But when I speak of the vision of God, of the inbreaking of God, of a “lightning strike” of revelation, I am speaking of an action of God, the experience of which is ineffable. The definition of “ineffable” is that which “cannot be expressed in words; unspeakable, unutterable, inexpressible.” Do you sense my dilemma? I am speaking about what is unspeakable, attempting to express what is inexpressible, trying to utter the unutterable. The best I can do is to point you by means of speech in logical thought, to a Reality which can only be experienced. In a classic study of the experience of God, which is beyond reason's ability to grasp or describe, The Idea of the Holy, by Rudolf Otto, the author states: This book, recognizing the profound import of the non-rational for metaphysics, makes a serious attempt to analyze all the more exactly the feeling which remains where the concept fails, and to introduce a terminology which is not any the more loose or indeterminate for having necessarily to make use of symbols. (Forward) To speak thus of "feeling" certainly is not to reduce religious experience to a purely human phenomenon. The translator of Otto's book writes in the preface: It is possible to devote our attention to religious “experience” in a sense which would almost leave out of account the object of which it is an experience. We may so concentrate upon the “feeling,” that the objective © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 6   cause of it may fall altogether out of sight. Is religious experience essentially just a state of mind, a feeling, whether of oppression or of exaltation, a sense of “sin” or an assurance of “salvation;” or is it not rather our apprehension of “the divine,” meaning by that term at least something independent of the mental and emotional state of the moment of experience? (p. XIIf.) In reference to Otto's purpose, the translator affirms: He is concerned to examine the nature of those elements in the religious experience which lie outside and beyond the scope of reason - which cannot be comprised in ethical or "rational" conceptions, but which none the less as "feelings" cannot be disregarded by an honest inquiry. And his argument shows in the first place that in all the forms which religious experience may assume and has assumed, so far as these can be reinterpreted ... certain basic "moments" of feeling ... are always found to recur. Speaking directly to our point, he continues, Here we are shown that the religious "feeling" properly involves a unique kind of apprehension, sui generis, not to be reduced to ordinary intellectual concepts, and yet - and this is the paradox of the matter - itself a genuine "knowing," the growing awareness of an object, deity. ... a response, so to speak, to the impact upon the human mind of the divine," as it reveals itself whether obscurely or clearly. The primary fact is the confrontation of the human mind with a Something, whose character is only gradually learned, but which is from the first felt as a transcendent present. "The beyond," even where it is also felt as "the within" man. (XIV F.) When I speak of the problem of expressing what is essentially inexpressible, I am speaking of what Otto describes in his study. The translator states it thus: The "feeling" element in religion involves, then, a genuine "knowing" or awareness, though, in contrast to that knowing which can express itself in concepts, it may be termed "non-rational." The feeling of the "uncanny," the thrill of awe or reverence, the sense of dependence, of impotence, or of nothingness, or again the feelings of religious rapture and exaltation, - all these are attempted designations of the mental states which attend the awareness of certain aspects of "the divine." (p. XV) It is to the "feeling" that remains when the concept fails that I point you. I can only point to the experience. Isaiah described such an experience in the imagery of the Temple service. There in the midst of some festival celebration God broke through to him. © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 7   It was a life-transforming moment. For the rest of his days he was shaped by that vision. Few of us will ever have such a vivid, dramatic encounter. But it is the contention of this message that it is in the setting of corporate worship that we put ourselves in the way of such an experience. It is here in the sanctuary that we are most likely to be encountered and that we have the greatest potential for apprehending the divine vision. If we would live with wonder then we can do no better than place ourselves in the presence of God with spirits open to the lightning strike of His glory. Rudolf Otto coins the word "numinous" to describe ... The specific non-rational religious apprehension and its object, at all its levels, from the first dim stirrings where religion can hardly yet be said to exist to the most exalted forms of spiritual experience. (p. XVII) But he maintains that we cannot dispense with the knowledge that comes through human reason and moral experience. He insists, writes Harvey, that for him the supremacy of Christianity over all other religions lies in the unique degree in which ... in Christianity the numinous elements, such as the sense of awe and reverence before the infinite mystery and infinite majesty, are yet combined and made one with the rational elements, assuring us that God is an all-righteous, all-provident, and all-loving Person, with whom a man may enter into the most intimate relationship. (p. XVII) Thus it is Otto's contention that religion ... is a real knowledge of, and real personal communion with, a Being Whose nature is yet above knowledge and transcends personality. This apparent contradiction cannot be evaded by concentrating upon an aspect of it and ignoring the other, without doing a real injury to religion. It must be faced directly in the experience of worship, and there, and only there, it ceases to be a contradiction and becomes a harmony. (p. XVII) God is the object of worship. We attempt to speak of God. The description of God is spoken of as the attributes of God and Otto writes, ... all these attributes constitute clear and definite concepts; they can be grasped by the intellect; they can be analyzed by thought; they even admit of definition. An object that can thus be thought conceptually may be termed rational. The nature of deity described in the attributes above mentioned is, then, a rational nature; and a religion which recognizes and maintains such a view of God is in so far a "rational" religion. Only on such terms is Belief possible in contrast to mere feeling. (p. 1) © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 8   However, too much religion, including our Reformed tradition, has stopped there. As Otto says, ... so far are these "rational" attributes from exhausting the idea of deity that they in fact imply a non-rational or supra-rational Subject of which they are predicates. ... That is to say, we have to predicate them of a subject which they qualify, but which in its deeper essence is not, nor indeed can be, comprehended in them; which rather requires comprehension of a quite different kind. (p. 2) Otto points to the failing of Christian orthodoxy in that it found in the construction of dogma and doctrine no way to do justice to the non-rational aspect of its subject. So far from keeping the non-rational element in religion alive in the heart of the religious experience, orthodox Christianity manifestly failed to recognize its value, and by this failure gave to the idea of God the one-sidedly intellectualistic and rationalistic interpretation. (p. 3) So much for the problems I encounter as I point you to the discipline of corporate worship as the place and occasion for an encounter with the living God from which one derives the sense of wonder that transforms all of life. Recognizing that I can point to the vision of God but cannot guarantee that to speak about worship is not the same as worshiping, and that I must describe the worship experience rationally, but that it is an experience beyond reason, let me nonetheless say something about the experience of corporate worship. The first statement I would make is that our worship is response to God. He has taken the initiative; He has woven the truth of His being into the fabric of our being and no matter how much we deface His image in our souls, yet we can never fully divest ourselves of the trace of His imprint. This is where we part company with those following the German philosopher/theologian Feuerbach, such as Marx and Freud and company, who insist that religion is of human creation, prompted by human need and thus must be understood not as response to the revelation of God, but as a purely human action fashioning God out of human projections. We speak of the "feeling" that remains when the concept fails; we speak of that which shatters our reason and breaks the bounds of our rational thinking, but we insist that is a reflex action a response, a re-action. God reveals Himself; our worship is response. Thus worship is something the People do Godward; it is human action offered to God Who is the object of our worship. Therefore, while worship should be edifying and instructive, edification and instruction are not in themselves worship. Therefore, worship ought never to be boring, but neither is its purpose entertainment, simply holding the people's attention. Worship is the offering of praise and adoration to God Who has made © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page 9   Himself known to us so that we cannot but respond by acknowledging His worthship. Secondly, the corporate worship of God occurs in a carefully choreographed, dramatic pageant. Such a statement will certainly not be accepted by all without objection. Let me quickly admit that there is a large variety of acceptable modes of worship. Where God's people gather, God's truth is declared and God's Spirit is present, there the worship of God occurs. Let me acknowledge further that various modes and media of worship touch different persons. There must be no stereotyping of personality type that alone can worship truly, and worship depends not on one's theological understanding, liturgical training or aesthetic sense. Granting that I must insist that the worship of God demands of us the highest attention, the most strenuous care for detail, and the utilization of our best gifts all devoted to excellence of form and content in the experience of worship, I have acknowledged the legitimacy of variety in modes of worship: the silence of the plain Quaker Meeting House, the fervor of the Charismatic Pentecostals, the solemn dignity of Evensong in the setting of Cathedral magnificence. Yet, let me put in a word for the mode of worship created in this place week by week. I spoke of a carefully choreographed, dramatic pageant. The word pageant has several definitions. The most obvious is "a scene acted on a stage." Another definition is "a spectacle arranged for effect." And "pageantry" is defined as "splendid display; pomp." "Pomp" is defined as "splendid display or celebration; splendour, magnificence. " In the definitions of pageantry and pomp there is also another meaning of empty display or ostentation. That is interesting because it indicates what a fine line there is between truth and its counterfeit. That is why religious ritual and ceremony have so frequently through the centuries become empty, lifeless display without substance, without soul. Hollow forms have been the curse of the Church, foisted on her by ministers and priests without passion and faith, by religious leaders grown callous through familiarity with holy things. Acknowledging all of that, I must still contend that the celebration of worship of the People of God at its highest and best is the full-spectrum pageant in which is utilized the arts which appeal to the aesthetic sense: music that moves one in the depths; movement that expresses what leaves the tongue dumb; color and symbol creating a feast for the eye; the word of truth that engages the mind and triggers the emotion that triggers the will; candles and crosses and colors of vestments; incense and smoke rising heavenward; © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page10   the roar of the mighty organ; the chill of an obligate; the simplicity of a gesture - breaking bread, pouring wine, making the sign of the cross on a forehead with baptismal water; The word of assurance -"Your sins are forgiven; go in peace." Choir and congregation in one mighty voice, singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Alleluia! Go back to the definition of pageant: "A spectacle arranged for effect." That is it, you see: arranged for effect. What effect? The vision of God, surely! The vision of God, high and lifted up! I cannot in calm rational discourse affect the vision; I can only point to it, speak about it, draw out the implications of it. Sweet reason does not remove the veil from the face of the living God. Reason reaches its limit; rational discourse comes to its bounding and still beyond reigns the living God. He must come to us. He must penetrate our space and time. But if I can choreograph a pageant full of sound and sight which engages not only the head but the heart and soul, then at least I have set the stage - created the setting, arranged the spectacle where the effect might, if God be gracious, happen. In such a setting I just may catch a glimpse of His glory; there may well be a moment in which there is a rift in the sky and in that moment my life may well be transformed, become radiant with light and full of glory. Then I will have come to know God Who is beyond knowledge, and to possess a joy which is unspeakable. Then my life will be full of wonder, and I will walk beneath the blue sky of the heavens as though it were a great vaulted cathedral and my every day will be vibrant with praise. Finally, in such an experience of worship all of life is lifted into the presence of God, cleansed and claimed and sent forth to serve. It is here in worship that one is most likely to hear the Voice, "Who will go for me?" "Whom shall I send?" It is while one is lost in wonder, love and praise that one is most open to respond, "Here am I, send me." That, of course, is why this service always culminates in the offering. Where a People has caught a glimpse of the glory of God and heard the call of God, response is inevitable. Some action is called for, some gesture must be made. That is why the organ builds to mighty crescendo, the people rise, the gifts come forward and together we sing, "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow." © Grand Valley State University �Living With Wonder Richard A. Rhem   Page11   How could we remain seated, passive, uninvolved? Such is the wonder of worship. From such worship flows life full of wonder. Living with wonder is living with heaven on earth. Reference: Rudolf Otto. The Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey. Oxford University Press, 1958. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Epiphany III Series LifeLines Scripture Text Isaiah 6:1 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Rudolf Otto. The Idea of the Holy. Translated by John W. Harvey, 1958. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19850203 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-02-03 Title A name given to the resource Living with Wonder Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on February 3, 1985 entitled "Living with Wonder", as part of the series "LifeLines", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Isaiah 6:1. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Epiphany Presence Prophet Isaiah Sacred Transcendence Wonder Worship https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/30efd72a365ac1ef2f695ed2119482b5.mp3 3d215c3b370b35f117dc19a602431d1f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/69bf57baa7f46260026bf9181618c0e1.pdf e25215b622cdfb94575ac450564b7894 PDF Text Text Living From Commitment From the sermon series: Lifelines Text: Luke 14: 27, 33 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany II, January 20, 1985 Transcription of the spoken sermon Noone who does not carry his cross and come with me can be a disciple of mine…none of you can be a disciple of mine without parting with all his possessions. Luke 14: 27, 33 To commit is to entrust oneself to another. In the Christian Faith it is to entrust one's life to God through Jesus Christ. It is to turn over the controls of one's life to Christ, to yield to His Lordship, to recognize Him as one's sovereign, one's King. The Christian Life is a life lived out of commitment to Jesus Christ. That commitment involves the whole of life; every area of life is affected - human relationships, vocational decisions, attitudes, political and economic decisions. In the Christian understanding of things, one's spiritual commitment is not one dimension of life among others, but the primary decision of life which shapes all others. It is also the Christian understanding of human existence that yielding one's life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is not to lose one's life, but rather to come into the fullest possible realization of being, of a truly, fully human existence. I begin with this message a series entitled, "Lifelines." It will be my purpose to show that the total commitment of oneself to Jesus Christ and the consequences of that commitment, or the living out of that commitment lead to life in its fullness. Commitment to Christ and the disciplines of Christian living are Lifelines. In this series we will focus on several facets of the Christian life in order to find the path to the abundant life Jesus came to bring and which He makes available to us. Before we examine some of the disciplines of life, however, let us begin with the recognition that the call of Jesus to follow Him involves us in a costly choice: He calls us to radical commitment. Radical is a word deliberately chosen. It comes © Grand Valley State University   �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 2   from radix, root. The call to follow Jesus reaches to the very root of our existence. His claim and call are uncompromising. His claim and call are serious. He would shape us from the core of our being so that the attitude and actions of our daily lives are the fruit of that one primary and fundamental commitment to be His disciple. The choice of texts presented a problem only because there are so many possibilities. The Gospels carry the theme repeated in various contexts. I point you to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 14. The paragraph beginning with verse 25 begins, Once, when great crowds were accompanying him… No one could accuse Jesus of inviting followers on false pretenses. He always laid it on the line. Obviously He was not running for election. He was not astute at winning friends and influencing people. There was nothing manipulative in His manner. He was a person consumed with God and the Kingdom of God He came to inaugurate. In the vivid language of the East, He put it this way when the crowd swelled and He feared there were many following without really understanding what was at stake. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be a disciple of mine. No one who does not carry his cross and come with me can be a disciple of mine. …none of you can be a disciple of mine without parting with all his possessions. Luke 14: 25-33 The sharpness of the saying jars us and that is precisely its purpose. To hate means literally to love less and the counsel is obviously not hatred in intimate human relationships which are sacred but simply to say there is no relationship or claim upon the disciple of Jesus which takes precedence over the claim of Jesus on our lives. The renunciation of possessions was a familiar model for conversion in the world of Jesus. The gentile who converted to the God of Israel was called to such a oncefor-all act of renunciation, which entailed a break with one's social relationships. Edward Schillebeeckx, in his book, Jesus, points out that this pattern was taken over from late Judaism. Being converted meant in practice surrendering all one's possessions, becoming odious, having to leave father and mother, etc., and all one's worldly goods. The radical break with the past was called for by Jesus in light of the coming rule of God. The narrative of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus illustrates that this young man was not ready for radical conversion because he was unwilling to renounce all and give to the poor. The actual surrender of all material goods was the sign of a true conversion. As for the call to cross bearing, that was a familiar sight in the Palestine of Jesus' day. Crucifixion was the fate of the Zealots who were always plotting against the © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Roman occupiers. Once again here, cross bearing was a sign of the willingness to lay down one's life and Jesus' own death on the cross became the concrete illustration of the cost of discipleship. Cross bearing was the willing assumption of the suffering involved in following Jesus and aligning oneself with the cause of the Kingdom of God. It is voluntary. It is not a burden thrust on one about which one can do nothing; it is an active assumption of the consequences of following Jesus. All of the imagery of this paragraph and the others liberally sprinkled throughout the Gospels speak of death, the dying to self. In his book, Alive in Christ, Maxie Dunnam tells of a friend, Brother Sam, a Benedictine monk who shared with him the service in which he took his solemn vows and made his life commitment to the Benedictine community and the monastic life. On that occasion he prostrated himself before the altar of the chapel in the very spot where his coffin will be set when he dies. Covered in a funeral pall, the death bell that tolls at the earthly parting of a brother sounded the solemn gongs of death. There was silence - the silence of death. The silence of the gathered community was broken by the singing of the Colossian words, "For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. " (Col. 3:3). After that powerful word, there was more silence as Brother Sam reflected on his solemn vow. Then the community broke into song with the words of Psalm 118, which is always a part of the Easter liturgy in the Benedictine community: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the words of the Lord. " (Psalm 118:17 King James Version). After this resurrection proclamation, the deacon shouted the works from Ephesians: "Awake, O Sleepers, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light." (Eph. 5:14). Then the bells of the Abbey rang loudly and joyfully. Brother Sam rose, the funeral pall fell off, and the robe of the Benedictine Order was placed on him. He received the kiss of peace and was welcomed into the community to live a life "hid in Christ." (p. 27F) That is a beautiful ritual, a vivid image of the call to discipleship, not just to monastic orders. Jesus calls us to life through death, the death of self, selfcontrol, self-life. That this is the call of Jesus and that His claim on our lives is absolute there can be little argument. But granting that, how do we live that out in our world in our day? What does it mean to follow Jesus today? We have just been reminded of one of our own generation who put his life on the line and paid the supreme price for his discipleship. Martin Luther King said shortly before he fell from an assassin's bullet: © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my funeral. ...I don't want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long... Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize... Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards... I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody... Say that I was a drum major for justice, say that I was a drum major for peace. That I was a drum major for righteousness, and all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia. February 4, 1968 And he did. Would anyone say he was a failure? About three years ago Archbishop Romero was likewise gunned down while saying Mass in EL Salvador. He was killed because his call to discipleship led him to take up the cause of the poor and oppressed in that troubled nation. The moving film, "Gandhi," has reminded us again recently of that great spiritual leader who changed the face of India and he too took an assassin's bullet. Around the world today many languish in prisons because they have espoused unpopular causes in situations of tyranny. Our world is no stranger to the violent death that pursues those that seek to bring justice and righteousness to bear on the concrete conditions of humankind. But what of ordinary mortals like you and me living in the safety and security of Western Michigan? What does it mean for us to live from commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord? Sometimes I fear we put discipleship out of reach when we speak of King and Gandhi and of course, Jesus, who remains the preeminent model. One hardly knows where to begin and certainly there are many more things to say than can be dealt with in the compass of this message. Yet we can say some, things. First, the call to commitment is the call of the gracious God revealed in Jesus Christ. There are not two Gods. The God of grace Who in Jesus has touched our world is the only true God and His heart is love and His movement toward us is gracious. In the face of Jesus we have seen into the heart of God. © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 5   This is the God of tender compassion Whose love will not give up on His people, Whose judgment is the other side of His love with the intention of calling His people to their senses and to return unto Him. The call to commitment is issued by Jesus Whose heart was moved with compassion because the people were restless, harassed, like sheep without a shepherd; Jesus Who said, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." The call comes from one Who dealt tenderly with the weak and embraced the sinner, offering unconditional acceptance and a continuing positive regard for persons. It must be obvious then that total commitment is not the call of a despotic sadist who enjoys seeing people on the rack. A second thing that comes to mind is that the call to commitment issued by Jesus is not properly responded to by a heavy religiosity. Any cursory reading of the Gospels will detect a strong strain of anger in Jesus, anger directed toward the most religious groups of the day. His anger was not a disapproval of religious practice as such but against religious practice as a way of self-righteousness, selfjustification before God, religious practice that was outward conformity to structured ritual and ceremony without corresponding inwardness, religious practice that fulfilled institutional demands but was exercised apart from the more important matters of love, justice and mercy. A third observation I would make is that the call to commitment transcends institutional structures. Perhaps I can put it simply this way: Jesus calls persons to life in God, not simply to join the Church. By now you know me well enough to know that I consider the institutional form of the Church as a necessary evil. Spirit needs form and apart from the institutionalization of the Gospel in the community with creeds and rituals and forms of organization, the Gospel would not have reached us. All organized religion involves a set of rites, an ethical code and a body of doctrine. The institutional Church - just like the Judaism of Jesus' day, consists of rituals, ethics and doctrines and these structures become the vehicle by which religious reality is mediated from one generation to the next. By these institutional forms – rituals for worship, rules for conduct, articles of faith for understanding – a religious system is shaped which is the carrier, the mediator, of religious belief and practice. But when Jesus called to commitment he was calling persons to something more than institutional loyalty. In fact, it was the perception that He was a very great threat to the institution that got Him crucified. There was fear for the Law and the Temple. He dared point beyond Law and Temple to the God toward Whom both Law and Temple pointed, thus relativizing Law and Temple in the face of the absolute demand of God. Keeping the Law was not an end in itself; rather the Law was God's gift to Israel that they might find fullness of life. The Temple was not an end in itself; rather it © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 6   was the place where altar and sacrifice and Priesthood were present to mediate the presence of God to the worshiper and bring him beyond the outward forms into the gracious presence of his God. That would suggest a fourth comment: The institutional forms of religious faith and practice fulfill a necessary function in providing the structures by which we find our life's fulfillment in the worship and service of God. Here I am not saying anything not already mentioned, but I say this explicitly lest I be understood to be cavalier about institutionalized religion. How could I be? My whole life is spent in the cause of institutional religion because I see in it the only means by which the Truth of God may be conveyed and the worship and service of God cultivated, through which God is glorified and His people led into the fullness of life. There are rare souls that seem to be able to go it alone, to find the ecstasy of mystical contemplation of God in splendid isolation, but such is not possible for many. And even those who find the vision of God in the solitude of contemplation did not learn of God in a vacuum. The institution is necessary; its forms and structures are the vehicle upon which the Truth of God is conveyed. They are the signs pointing beyond themselves to the mystery of God and apart from them the vision would soon die. The institution also provides the social structure within which we are aided in the spiritual quest. We are social beings. We do not live as isolated atoms in the Universe. We are bound together in the bundle of life. We were created for community and we need the support and encouragement of one another. Personal devotion is essential; contemplation in solitude is essential. But such cannot take the place of corporate worship when as one body we are caught up into the presence of God and lose ourselves in the wonder of worship. The purpose of religious structures then is to mediate the knowledge and experience of God. If we did not have them we would have no access to God but if, having them, we never rise beyond them, we will never experience the mystery of God. Charles Davis says it well: Religion is the drive toward transcendence, the thrust of man out of and beyond himself, out of and beyond the limited order under which he lives, in an attempt to open himself to the totality of existence and reach unlimited reality and ultimate value. This drive cannot be confined to the observance of a moral code, settling questions of right and wrong within a limited frame of reference. The person who is merely moral knows nothing of the heights and depths of human experience and existence. Even a religious system set up to mediate the drive toward transcendence cannot contain it. It never fits exactly and at its best is inadequate © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 7   precisely because it is in itself limited and relative, not transcendent and absolute. (The Temptations of Religion, p. 73) Again, David writes, For religion the relativity of any human order of truth and value indicates its mediating function. Its purpose is to become transparent, to lead beyond itself and mediate a transcendent experience. Summarizing what we have said: 1. The call to commitment is the call of the gracious God revealed in Jesus Christ. 2. The call to commitment issued by Jesus is not properly responded to by a heavy religiosity. 3. The call to commitment transcends institutional structure. 4. The institutional forms of religious faith and practice fulfill a necessary function in providing the structures by which we find our life's fulfillment in the worship and service of God. If the above statements are true, then it must be evident that the call to commitment is a serious call to find the highest possible human fulfillment in a life whose first priority is the worship and service of God. God has made us for Himself. There is a hunger in the human heart for God. The universality of religion would seem to demonstrate that. To be sure that claim has been disputed and it does seem in our day there are many who live "onedimensional" lives with no transcendent reference, no worship, no sense of mystery beyond the human and the mundane. Yet our day would also seem to witness to that hunger for transcendence. We speak of the younger generation "turning East." With the lessening of influence of the traditional Church we have seen a rise of the cults and bizarre expression of religious devotion. Ernest Becker, the noted scholar in the field of psychoanalysis finds in the human being a longing for the heroic. He sees a universal fear of death but not the fear of extinction so much as extinction without meaning. We want our lives to be significant, to mean something, to find ourselves caught up in something bigger than ourselves. Although he does not profess to be a Christian thinker, he finds great truth in Kierkegaard who found in the Gospel's call to total commitment that which lifted the person out of himself and satisfied his longing for meaning, (cf. The Denial of Death). © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 8   God calls us to Himself not that He may be enhanced in His Sovereign Rule, but because God is love and love would bestow the best and highest gift on the creature made after His own image. The truth of Jesus' words has been proven over and over throughout the centuries. To grasp on to one's life is to lose it; to lose one's life in the service of Jesus and the Gospel is to find it. Thus the call to commitment is an invitation to experience Life at its highest. It is the call of the gracious God in Jesus Christ to experience abundant life. If that is true, then it must be evident that the successful living out of one's commitment is always threatened from two directions: a. From the danger of absolutizing the institution and its form and structure; b. From the danger of abandoning the institution or giving it only slight regard. The first danger is succumbed to by the religious. Jesus' greatest foes were the highly religious: those who absolutized the established form of Jewish faith, who made idols of Temple and Law and ritual. One can see this so very prevalent in our own day with the upsurge of visibility and volubility of the religious Right. Fundamentalism has become militant in our country as illustrated by the conflict over Creationism and Evolutionism. One can see it also in the mean-spirited militancy that crusades against abortion and the rights of homosexuals. There is little civility in the debate on issues in which there can certainly be differences of opinion. In great emotional display evidencing deep-seated anger, we see people demonstrate for God and Truth as though they had some corner on the truth. What they have done is absolutize their position, which is limited and relative because it is a human perspective on divine truth, not that truth itself. One can see the danger of absolutizing the institution where people are controlled and manipulated by religious leaders. Often the implication is if you do not follow my leading or support my program, or serve in my institution, you can have no part in the Kingdom. But there is danger on the other side, as well. Too many have "progressed" to where they recognize that God and the institutional forms structured to give access to Him are not synonymous and have thus simply written off the institution and the practice of religious life. One theologian of sorts writes that he doesn't need the institution or the symbols anymore. Growing up as a Scottish Presbyterian, it was all so deeply ingrained “that he can go on without it.” Fine. But who will tell his children and provide the © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page 9   experience in which they might be overwhelmed with the mystery of God? Who will pass the torch of faith and maintain the community of faith for the generations yet unborn? For many years now at Christ Community I have chosen the difficult path of teaching you that our creedal statements are not the last word, our way of worship is not the only form of true worship, our grasp of the Christian life must always be open to examination. Our institutional life and structure is not absolute; our program as a congregation is not synonymous with God's perfect will. Yet I have called you to commitment to Christ and the Church and its life here, recognizing we have blinders, we are flawed, and we stand always in need of correction and further insight. What "sells" today is to reduce complex issues to simple formulas, claiming they are absolute, beating the drums, whipping up the emotions and leading a crusade. Such has not been my style nor the posture of this congregation. We have sought rather to be both Civil and Committed. Is it possible to recognize the relativity of our grasp of God's Truth and of the structures of our life and worship and yet be totally committed to God through Christ in the life and mission of the Church? I believe it is. I would hope that I might myself be "Exhibit A." I believe in what we are about here. I commit myself unreservedly to it, even though I recognize the flawed nature of all we do and are. This is the kind of commitment to which I call you. Spirit needs form. Faith needs structure. The Gospel of Christ will be perpetuated from one generation to another only if we maintain the community of faith, flawed though its every expression is, relative though its grasp of Truth may be, partial though its obedience always is. The cause of the Kingdom of God is carried on in the world by people like us for whom God is a priority, who, having found Him gracious, find the fullest experience of being human in the worship and service of His Name. We have striven never to come off as laying on you heavy duty and obligation. Rather, we have sought to lead you into the joy of losing yourself in the service of God. The Gospel paradox is true - greedily grasp your life to yourself and lose it; give your life away for Jesus' sake and find it. You don't have to do anything. God loves you anyway. But in failing to find yourself, your gifts and energies in the employ of God, you lose out on the deepest joy of being human. © Grand Valley State University �Living From Commitment Richard A. Rhem Page10   God's claim on you is absolute; Jesus' call to commitment is total, because God being the fountain of love would give Himself to you as you offer yourself to Him in response to His redeeming grace. Thus I set before you the key lifeline: Commitment. Living from commitment is to live fully, richly, deeply. It is the abundant life. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Epiphany I Series LifeLines Scripture Text Luke 14: 27, 33 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-0-19850120 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1985-01-20 Title A name given to the resource Living from Commitment Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 20, 1985 entitled "Living from Commitment", as part of the series "LifeLines", on the occasion of Epiphany I, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 14: 27, 33. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Community of Faith Epiphany Followers of Jesus Institutional Religion Nature of Religion Spiritual Quest Transcendence Worship