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Sermon
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| A CREDAL CONUNDRUM
If I had control over what every preacher preached every week in every church, I think I would want the sermons prefaced by these three disclaimers: godtalk tries to describe the indescribable, it's inevitably flawed and we need to be humble in the way we put things. That's not to say we can't hold and declare our beliefs with conviction and passion; only that we're overstepping the mark if we claim an unflawed perception of things, a monopoly on the truth – and that anyone who disagrees with us is by definition wrong! Now here's something else to think about. Everyone here is a theologian. If you've two thoughts about God to rub together, you're making theology, doing theology, and that makes you a theologian. Of course, we have a few who make it a major professional interest: who study hard, earn impressive qualifications and (one hopes) help the rest of us a bit. But we're all in a sense theologians. Where does theology (godtalk) originate? At its most basic, theology comes from reflecting on life through the eyes of faith and saying, "My experience seems to suggest this or that about the sacred, the transcendent, God." Some seem to have a strong sense of the presence of God in everything. Others seem to have a strong sense of the absence of God. They wonder if anyone is home. Obviously their own personal godtalk will be coloured by their experience. I want to talk to you about three kinds of sublime experience, which for many people are pointers to this mysterious reality we call 'God'. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to call these moments of sublimity 'awe', 'lure' and 'power'. First, the sense of AWE – of wonderment before the mystery of the cosmos: indeed why there should be something and not nothing. Albert Einstein said, "The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and in science . . . He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. The sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as feeble reflection, this is religiousness." On one of our trips to the US I met Chet Raymo, science writer with the Boston Globe and Professor of Astrophysics at Stonehill College, Boston. He was speaking at a symposium on theology and science. He shared his own journey. Born Catholic, he had been reared in what he called 'French piety' – pebble in the shoe stuff! God rewarded the virtuous and punished evildoers; he tinkered in the affairs of the world, making good and bad things happen. Chet Raymo did his undergraduate study at Notre Dame and then went to the University of California in Los Angeles. There he became friends with a Panamanian atheist Jew, who freed him from what he now saw as very heavy and useless baggage. Study of the starry heavens and becoming an astrophysicist moved Chet Raymo into an experience of awe and wonder and reverence for the One behind and beneath and within it all. He says, “Who can look at this and not be transformed? The heavens declare the glory of God”. Chet Raymo has spent many summers at Mount Brandon in Ireland, a holy place in Celtic spirituality. In one of his books he says, “The God of the spiraling powers resides in nature beyond all metaphors, beyond all scriptures, beyond all 'final theories'. (This God) is the ground and source of our sense of wonderment, of power, of powerlessness, of light, of dark, of meaning, and of bafflement.” I don't apologise for invoking two scientists. This is because I find a clear starry night speaks volumes of one who may be called 'cosmic progenitor' (Father). Second moment of sublimity is LURE: the pull toward beautiful life, that which makes me want to be the best I can be. Two little stories to light this up. I have met the Dalai Lama three times. The first was my chairing a conference on religious studies about twenty years ago. The Dalai Lama addressed our opening session. I visited him beforehand as a courtesy and to discuss the event. He asked about my interests and showed his familiarity with my faith. He said that he saw Jesus as a truly 'enlightened' one, in the manner of the Buddha, and therefore to be taken with the utmost seriousness. Jesus appealed to him as exemplifying the beautiful life of one who was so 'enlightened'. Naturally I told him that I found the Buddha an attractive person; I know something of Buddhism and the story of its founding figure. The Dalai Lama said, “Unfortunately, many Buddhists do not take him seriously enough. If they did, they would be more beautiful people.” Then he asked if I thought there were Christians who were similarly 'deprived', shall we say. I had to admit that some did not take Jesus as seriously as they might. He smiled, laughed a little and said, “And so they have yet to be the best they can be?” I hastened to add that there were others who say they find Jesus a truly alluring figure: the one who makes them want to be better than they are. Another story . . . Some years ago, when I was running a youth drop-in centre, one of the wilder lads was named David. David was a bit of a wag; he was an electronics whiz, and had bugged his parents' room. They used to wonder at his dutifully turning in early when they did. Any how, David told me he didn't like God, but that he did like Jesus. I asked him if he could explain. It turned out that God was to David rather like his school principal – who was a hard, judgmental and punishing figure. And Jesus? David saw Jesus as one who mixed with the rough and tough, the marginal and the outcast, assorted ruffians and low life – and who put within them the hunger for a different kind of life. “I think I could get along with Jesus,” he said. “I think he believed in people. He makes me want to be a better person.” Of course, I tried to tell him that we see something of God in this person. My third moment of sublimity is POWER: that experience of being somehow lifted and borne along by a power outside oneself. Research on 'religious experiences' finds one of the commonest to be this sense of empowerment. 'Gary' (not his real name) grew up in Hawthorn and went to an independent school. His parents often entertained friends and business associates, and they had a well-stocked cellar. It was a happy home, not at all plagued by the troubles you're half expecting. The family were regular churchgoers. But Gary started drinking at eleven years of age. Mind you, just sipping a little of this and a little of that. His parents saw no reason for withholding alcohol, and the cellar was never locked. By thirteen or fourteen Gary was getting to enjoy the sensation of being a little tipsy, especially when school work was troubling him. With a small bottle that went in the trouser pocket, he could have enough sips of fortified wine to get him through the day. Teachers thought he had a problem with paying attention. In fact, he was often just mildly 'sedated'. Gary didn't greatly enjoy school, and left at the end of Year X to pursue a career in banking. He had people skills and on good days was very productive. By his early twenties he was managing a country branch. Still single, he spent lonely nights getting drunk. But he met a nice girl and wed her; they had three kids close together. The added responsibility and expense found Gary more and more stressed. He continued his tippling during the day, and most nights drank until he fell asleep. The marriage was now at risk, and so was his employment. Matters came to a head one evening, when Gary had to collect one of the children. He should not have been driving. With judgment flawed he drove into another car. He was charged with being over .05. The bank put him on notice. Now forty, Gary was far from healthy. A bout in bed and a house call from the doctor set alarm bells ringing. Gary was under the influence most of the time, and his body was protesting. He had another car accident and was hospitalised. Gary begged staff and family to slip him some alcohol and they refused. He tried to discharge himself and collapsed. Thereafter, it was down all the way. After three weeks in hospital he was visited by a chap from Alcoholics Anonymous, who told Gary he must face up to himself and his god, and that he needed help from a power outside himself. Gary lay there listening and had his moment of truth. He told me that at some point the next day, when the AA chap came again, he had an amazing experience. “I just knew,” he said, “that something good was happening inside me. I was feeling weightless, like a bird flying. I knew that with help I could kick the booze. I would always be an alcoholic, but I would be a dry alcoholic.” Gary joined a branch of AA. All that was about twenty years ago. Gary is still dry, goes regularly to worship (and AA), and helps with alcohol awareness programs in schools. He speaks of God as the empowering spirit around him and within. We've not talked about the doctrine of the Trinity per se. We've talked about three kinds of experience that in former times led people like us to speak of the sacred, the transcendent, 'God', as Creator, Redeemer and Inspirer – or Father, Son and Spirit. I'm not too fussed whether or not you can embrace the doctrine. After all, nobody ever got converted or saved or made into a new creature by a doctrine. That happens only by entering into the mystery of God. If you have had those sublime experiences of Awe before the wonder and mystery of the cosmos, of the Lure (perhaps via Jesus) to be the best that you can be, of Empowerment by something outside yourself . . . you may say “Surely God was in this” and your doctrine will follow your experience. That is all that matters. May it be so for you. ___________________________________________________
A sermon presented by the Rev Dr John Bodycomb at St Aidan's
Uniting Church North Balwyn, on 11th June, 2006 IT MAY BE REPRODUCED WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT. |
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Page updated 11/06/06