Thank you

Many thanks to all of the people who send cards and notes of condolence after the death of my mother. One of the blessings during such a difficult time is being reminded of how many people love you and care for you.

My Mother’s Life (Lebenslauf)

In the Moravian Church, it is customary to read a memoir of the deceased at the funeral. Here is my mother’s memoir that will be read this afternoon.

Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Brown Atwood

March 25, 1930 – November 26, 2009

Elizabeth Atwood was born on March 25, 1930 in Forsyth County, NC. She was the daughter of Solomon Levi Brown and Pearl Swaim Brown, and she had seven brothers and sisters. Elizabeth was known by many affectionate names through the years, which reflected the changing circumstances of her life. One of her older brothers tried to call her Wee Bess or little Bess when she was young, but instead it came out as Wee Bet, and the name stuck. She was still called Weebet by many relatives even when she was grown. She preferred the name Lib, and that was how most people knew her as an adult, but when her first grandson was born, he called her Nanny. Eventually most of the family called her Nanny since all of the grandchildren did. When she was in the hospital after her last surgery, some of the nurses called her Nanny. It was a name that expressed the love that many people had for her.

Elizabeth was born near the beginning of the Great Depression, and that terrible time had a profound impact on her life. When she was just a toddler the family moved to a farm in Iredell County where they lived in a large house. The family’s first house had burned down a few years earlier, along with most of Pearl’s family heirlooms. They moved into the new house with high hopes, but it was hard work living on a farm. Years later, Weebet could recall how frightened she was of the chickens when she had to get eggs from them each morning. She was too tender hearted to watch as some of the country food was prepared. It was lonely in the country with so little to entertain a bright child, and so Weebet made a pet of one of the goats and got in trouble one day for taking it into the house upstairs to her room. Mr. Goat was banned from the house.

Elizabeth and the rest of the family looked forward to Vacation Bible School each year, but the annual revival services and all too frequent funerals were frightening to a sensitive child. She loved to read and draw as a child, and she continued to do both for most of her life. Her brothers used to make things to amuse her and her sisters loved to sing. Her younger sister Ima was her closest friend to the end of her days. They supported each other through countless trials and tribulations, often meeting troubles with laughter. They were known to play tricks on each other, even as they got older. Everyone thought it was Ima who was the source of trouble, but Weebet had a very funny, wicked streak, too. She loved to laugh, and she taught her children not to take hardships too seriously.

Life was often hard. The Depression took its toll, and the Brown family, like so many thousands of others, lost their farm. They moved to Winston-Salem where Sol could work as a carpenter. They moved to a small house on the south side of town, and the children became active in the Sunday School at New Eden Moravian Church. Elizabeth attended Gray High School where she excelled in art. She went to work as a young woman and was able to help support the family.

Elizabeth married Wade Lee Weatherman when she was a young woman. This was during the post-war “Baby Boom,” and she and Wade Lee had three children: Reenea, Keith, and Lynn. She loved her children dearly, and they remained very close to her through the years. Since her husband was in the service, they moved for a time to Texas. She often talked about how hard it was to take the train back to North Carolina alone with three children and remembered fondly the small acts of kindness from strangers. Sadly, the marriage ended painfully, but she and the children were always welcome at Grandma Weatherman’s house.

Elizabeth and her small children returned to her parent’s house and she went to work at Western Electric. It was there that she met her second husband, Albert Atwood. His family had a dairy farm in the western part of the county, and he always wanted to be a farmer like most of his ancestors. Unfortunately, the Atwood Dairy could not compete with the new conglomerates, and so Albert had to go to work in the factory, too. After he and Elizabeth married, they were able to build a new house on land that had been part of the farm in the new development of Atwood Acres, on Atwood Road. It made it easy for their child, Craig, to remember his address when he went off to school. That was a hard day for Elizabeth as the last of her children went off on the school bus, but she was always there to greet the children when they returned.

Lib worked hard to make the house into a home and to be part of a growing neighborhood. Since the Atwoods kept extensive vegetable gardens, much of the summer was spent picking, shelling, shucking, canning, and freezing green beans, corn, tomatoes, and potatoes. She was a wonderful cook, and the children did not mind the chiggers they got picking blackberries once the fruit was baked into a pie. Lib loved all children, and would make up funny songs to sing to them, including one about a “big gray elephant” and another about the donkey singing at the break of day. She knew lots of games and there was almost always laughter when she was around. As the children grew up and had families of their own and Lib became Nanny, she loved to attend family parties at their houses. Thanksgiving, Christmas, July 4, and even Halloween were times to laugh over family stories. Everyone loved to be with her, but would playfully compete over who was her favorite.

The family decided to join Hope Moravian Church, where John Walker was the minister, and everyone was deeply involved in the congregation. At one point, everyone in the family except Craig sang in the choir. People at church will always remember Lib’s hats which she wore every Sunday. Lib excelled in writing liturgies and poems for church. She had a gift for language, but she did confess once that she sometimes changed a word if she wasn’t sure how to spell it. One of the major themes of her writing was the need for people to live as Christ intended us to live rather than simply observing religious traditions. What is the point of a beautiful lovefeast, she would ask, if you do not live in Christian love? Lib had a probing mind, and she probably pushed one son into theology by posing questions such as whether Solomon was really wise to suggest dividing a baby between two women.

Lib loved art, and for many years she painted. Even after she gave up painting, she would make cartoons and cards for family members. At this point, the truth can probably be revealed that it was indeed Nanny who wrote dozens of letters from Santa Claus to children in Winston-Salem. She thought it was unfair that children wrote letters to Santa without getting a reply, and so each year she would compose Christmas poems with illustrations for children on behalf of St. Nick. As they got older, some of them noticed that Santa’s handwriting looked suspiciously like Nanny’s, but that only made them love her more. Nanny’s greatest joy was her four children, ten grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

She saw many of them through extremely difficult times, and she was like a second mother to Erik, Jodie, Nicole, and Mark. Young grandchildren often slept in the bed with her when they were afraid of the dark, and she would sing silly songs about Sweetums or play games to get them to go to sleep. Whoever went to sleep first would be the princess and the last one would be the frog. Her granddaughter Allyson would wake Nanny up if she fell asleep because she did not want to be the frog. The younger grandchildren Emily, Billy, Kelly, Sarah, and Madeleine didn’t get to spend as much time with Nanny because of distance and her failing health, but she loved them dearly.

Nanny suffered from ill health for many years, mainly gastric problems. She grew increasingly frail, but her mind and spirit remained strong to the end. In the last year of her life she attended the funeral of her beloved grandson Erik here at Hope Church, and a few months later was able to attend the wedding of her granddaughter Allyson also at Hope Church. One of the last times she went out in public was for the baptism of her youngest greatgrandchild, Cooper, who is now part of Hope Church, too.

In August Nanny was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and she endured surgery for the sake of her family, hoping against hope for a cure. When it was evident that she would not recover she made the choice to discontinue treatment. She faced her death with grace, courage, and confidence in her Savior. She died on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26, 2009. It is hard for those who loved her for so many years to let her enter into the more immediate presence of Christ, but all were thankful that day for many years of love and joy. Nanny was ready to lay down her burdens and died peacefully. One of her requests was that no sad songs be sung at her funeral. She wanted to be remembered with laughter and joy. It is appropriate that her ashes will be buried here at Hope Church where she found so much joy in the midst of hardships and sorrows.

This 26th day of November 2009

The Rev. Dr. Craig D. Atwood

Imago Dei

Image of God (Theology Lecture given at WFU School of Divinity)

Genesis 1:26-27: Some passages of Scripture have been especially fruitful for theological and ethical reflection in the history of Christianity. We may legitimately say that they have been more revelatory than other portions of Scripture in that once the teaching sinks in, it profoundly changes the way you view God, the world, yourself and the relationship between them. Gen. 1:26-27 is such a passage.

One of the nice things I like about these verses is that they have driven theologians and Sunday School teachers crazy for centuries because it clearly states that God says “let us make humankind in our image.” There have been solutions proposed for the plurality of divine beings implied in this verse, but none of them have proven entirely satisfactory. It is interesting that there has been a marked reluctance by interpreters to connect the “our” here with the creation of males and females. Only a few folks like Jacob Boehme and Ann Lee proposed that the plurality refers to the masculine and feminine aspects of God.

Our focus today is on humans as being created in the image of God and what that might mean for Christian doctrine. This is not spelled out for us in the Bible, and so there has been ample room for speculation in the tradition. Those who claim to base their theology on Scripture alone generally rely on tradition to interpret this verse.

Male and Female: First of all we should highlight something that is already well known to you, I suspect. The text clearly states that males and females are both made in the image of God. Paul’s argument in I Corinthians 11 that man is the image of God and woman the image of man is a common misreading of the text. Man and woman are both created in the image of Elohim here. Thankfully, Paul admits that sometimes he’s speaking for himself instead of for God, and I think this is one of the times. He was led astray by traditional rabbinical teaching on Genesis that tried to integrate the two creation stories. Paul’s reading of Genesis became the norm in Catholicism, but as good Protestants here, let’s begin with the plain meaning of the Genesis text rather than tradition. In this crucial passage, both men and women are made in the image of God. This is the one text that feminists in the church tend to literally why so-called biblical literalists use tradition to contradict the plain message.

Rather than revisiting the material discussed on Friday, let’s first focus on what this idea that both men and women are made in the image of God tells us about God. We could conclude with Mary Baker Eddy and other unorthodox thinkers that God is both masculine and feminine. Or we might conclude that the image of God in human beings is not connected to gender at all. Gender is part of biology and human society, and may have nothing to do with the Creator. It seems likely that gender, like race or individual attributes, is not definitive of the image of God, but that the image of God is something shared by all people regardless of gender or race or age. It seems to me that Genesis is teaching us that all humans, simply by virtue of being human, share in the image of God as an aspect of their creation. To be human is to have the image of God.

Universal Image of God: Notice that the image of God here was not given at baptism or circumcision; every person is a living image of God. Sometimes we read the Bible too quickly. We sweep right past one of the most important affirmations in the history of civilization and jump into the story of the Fall or the flood or the call of Abraham without considering the global implications of this claim. Genesis 1 does not say that only two of ancient ancestors were made in the image of God, and that later generations lost that image. It says that men and women alike were created in God’s own image as part of the fundamental, foundational goodness of creation.

If all that God made is good, humans are especially good because we are the living images of God on the earth. Turn to someone near you – in pairs or triads if you like. So long as you can share the gaze of another person in the class. Look into the face of the other person and examine her or him for a moment. Don’t be embarrassed. Look in the eyes, at the face, at the body of the other person. Now say to each other slowly, “you are the image of God.” Ponder that for a moment. Shelley, Barrett, Christa, Orita, Alfonso, Wesley, each of you is the image of God. Say to yourself, “I am made in the image of God.”

A Physical Image: Turning our attention back to the Bible, it is important to ask what the phrase “image of God” mean? There has been a lot of linguistic research and debate over the meaning of the world translated as image here. It refer to a likeness or a copy of something, such as a graven image is a likeness of a person or a deity. We cannot exclude the possibility that the original intention of the author of this verse was to claim that humans are smaller versions of a bi-pedal deity. Many of deities in the ancient world were represented in human form, and we know that the ancient Israelites had graven images of deities at least until the time of David, probably later. If Genesis was the only Scripture we had, we might conclude with the Mormons that God is like a human with legs and hands since he is often depicted as walking and doing things with his hand or finger.

But there are reasons why the whole tradition of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam has rejected this extreme anthropomorphism. The most compelling reason is that for much of the history of Israel and Judah the prophets railed against graven images and other forms of idolatry. Not only did the Jews promote a form of radical monotheism in contrast the dominant polytheistic cultures around them; they also adopted a view of God as radically beyond human constructions. They worshiped an invisible deity who spoke to priests and prophets but who has no physical form. By the time the litany of creation was attached to the beginning of Genesis, the rejection of anthropomorphism was normative for Judaism. I think we can safely dismiss the idea that the image of God refers to the physical attributes of humans as indicative of the divine being. It is not our opposable thumbs that make us bearers of the image of God, and we do not have to worry that birth defects or accidents make us lose the image we bear.

Stamped Image: Another meaning of image is like the image that is stamped on to a coin, usually the image of the governor authority (emperor, king, etc.). This marks the coin as legal tender. The same type of image may be stamped on official documents as a royal seal or guarantee of the authenticity of the document. In this case, the image is representative of the authority of the one whose images appears on the seal. In light of the fact that humans are created on the day before God rests and that they are explicitly given dominion over the creatures of the earth, it makes sense that the image here refers to a royal stamp of authenticity and authority.

By being stamped with the image of God, humankind is identified as the representatives of God on the planet. This would agree with the theme of stewardship proposed last week. We do not have divine authority to pillage, plunder, and rape the earth like brigands and blackguards; we have divine authority to care for the earth with the same love shown by the creator in making the earth. To wantonly destroy or passively allow the desecration of the earth is tantamount to rejecting the image of God in yourself.

Sharing in Divine Wisdom: A third way of viewing the image of God takes elements of both the first two. Children are said to be the image of their parents since they have traits of each parent. They are reproductions of their parents, at least partially. For centuries, theologians have discussed what it is in the human character that is a reproduction of the being of God. For the most part, theologians have focused on reason as the thing that distinguishes us from animals and makes us most like God. If God created the heavens and earth through the Word or Logos, then it makes sense that it is our Logos that connects us most intimately with God. Or, if you prefer to follow Elizabeth Johnson, it is Sophia that is the image of God in humankind.

If this is true, then the commandment to be fruitful and multiply takes on a different nuance. It is not simply to reproduce like other animals, but to be fruitful through our reason and our wisdom. The commandment to have dominion over the earth should then be read as a commandment to exercise wise and intelligent dominion rather than spreading across the earth like a ravenous swarm of locusts.

Churches in recent decades have been too quick to denigrate reason, primarily because of the attack on faith by certain types of naïve rationalism. The doctrine of the image of God should call us to exercise our God-given abilities wisely and courageously. As far as we know, we are the only earthlings who can use our minds to investigate the mysteries of the universe far beyond the confines of our own bodies. Without leaving our homes, we can travel to distant lands, predict solar eclipses, and marvel at the subatomic world. In our minds we a fleeting glimpse of eternity and are freed from the constraints of the body.

Creation: We do not have to enter into a contest with the Creator to prove that we are powerful. We seem to think that as our power and knowledge grows, our awe in God’s creation should diminish. Too often we are like children who learn how the magician does the trick and become cynical about magic instead of being inspired to learn how to do the magic ourselves. Personally, I think a recovery of the doctrine of the Image of God may help us recover a proper sense of reverence for the creator. I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that there are miracles that humans can perform, such as raising the recently dead, that the Creator cannot do. We are the first generation that can cause a virgin to conceive through scientific means, and yet we find it hard to believe that God could do so. If our minds can move our bodies or use electrons to move machines, why do we doubt that God can work subtly but intentionally to move the natural world?

Perhaps part of being made in the image of God is the desire and ability to do miracles and wonders. Perhaps the image of God that humans share is the quality of creating, of calling new things into being. It may well be that we live most fully into our divine image when we create or at least re-create the world in which we live – or at least share in God’s appreciative love for creation.

Morality: Others have identified the moral sensibility of humans as the uniquely divine-like quality we share. Even though attempts to find a universal moral code running through all human societies has failed, we can assert with confidence that all human societies depend on some type of moral code. The ability to look at actions as having moral consequences appears to be a uniquely human trait. Contrary to the teachings of some schools of philosophy, humans do not act solely on the basis of self-interest or to satisfy the desires of the flesh. Humans can and do exercise restraint and self-discipline. They sometimes even sacrifice their individual desires for the sake of others. The ability to view actions in terms of right and wrong rather than in terms of success or failure may be our most important quality as human beings. We’ll talk more about this on Wednesday.

There is another approach to understanding the meaning of the image of God. We could look at the concept in the context of Genesis 1. What does God do in this litany? God creates, God speaks, God names, God orders, God plans for the future, God encourages life, and God blesses the world. It makes sense to me that this tells us about the image of God that humans bear. Humans think, create, speak, name, order, love, and plan for the future. We do these things and we should do these things because this is our essential nature. Moreover, humans are called to be like God and encourage life and bless the world God has made.

Fully Human/Fully Divine: And here we come to a conclusion that may be surprising, and many theologians have rejected this idea, but Genesis teaches us that we are most like God when we are most truly human, and we are most human when we act toward creation as God acts. We are called by God to use our God-given reason and our remarkable powers to care for what God has given. We are to share in God’s loving desire for creation, which ironically means we should limit our own appetites and desires in order to make room for creation to take place around us. We are to exercise a benevolent dominion over other living things, just as God does. It may be that we are most divine when we are most fully human.

Ethical Implications There is a problem with most of those approaches to the Imago Dei, however, which some of you may have picked up on already. They are very logocentric, and could be used to say that only humans who are rational, wise, creative, and moral are made in the image of God. Those born with disabilities or who lose significant brain functioning could be dismissed as not fully human. It is not just theologians who are in danger of viewing some humans as more divine or more human than others. Pay close attention to many policy debates in industrialized nations and you may find a tendency for wealthy, white, well-educated people to define humanity in their terms. Health care if for some, not all. Resources are for some, not all, for instance.

According to Genesis, all of humankind bears the image of God, but this image may be obscured through diseases of the mind and body, including the diseases of a society that dehumanizes the poor, ignorant, and neglected. We are the ones who tarnish God’s image, often with our racist and elitist attitudes. I am often bemused by the fact that many “Bible-believing Christians” reject the plain teaching of Scripture that all humans are created equal in God’s eyes. Souls and minds do not come in racial colors. Incidentally, this idea of that all humans are made in the image of God was the central issue behind the early opposition to Darwin’s theory of natural selection. It is interesting that it was religious liberals and social progressives who generally opposed Darwin in the 19^th century because they feared that Darwin would undermine morality and social justice.

Among them was Samuel Wilberforce, the son of William Wilberforce—the man who was mostly responsible for freeing slaves throughout the British Empire. Samuel recognized that Darwinism could be used to justify racism, slavery, military aggression, and the worst forms of cut-throat capitalism. Wilberforce was wrong about the science of biology, but he was prophetic in his warning of the evils that can result when humans no longer view themselves and each other as the image of God. Ideas of racial progress and “survival of the fittest” played important roles in some of the worst atrocities of the 20^th century. The misuse of Darwin’s theory demonstrates that it is not just theology that can be distorted for destructive purposes. Science can also be an ally in the service of hatred, greed, and oppression.

Living Images of God: It may be a good thing that the Imago dei is not explicitly discussed in Genesis 1. The text leaves ample room for us to develop our own thinking, and I personally think that we should not choose a single human attribute as the sign of the Image of God. Rather, we should think of the whole human person as being in God’s image, and we should worship the creator by living into the identity that he has given us.

What is most important, though, is that we recognize that the image of God applies to all humans, not some humans. There is no indication that some are more like God than others. It is even possible that we most clearly reveal the Image of God in our own lives when we are able to view others as representatives of the Image of God in their own right. Think how differently we would raise our children, speak to our spouses, treat our employees, and live in society if we let every single person remind us of God, our creator and judge. In times of war governments work very hard to dehumanize and even demonize the people on the other side in order to make it easier for soldiers to kill them. What if we simple refuse to go along with that demonic program? What if Jews, Christians, and Muslims with one voice said to every person in the world: “You are the image of God, and your life is sacred to me.”

Comenius: What happens when we view every child as a representation of God on earth? What happens when we look into the eyes of our enemies and see the eyes of God? Despite the claims of Augustine, Calvin, and others, there is little support in Scripture for the view that we lost the image of God in Adam’s fall. More on that Wednesday, for now let me just assert that the only way we lose the image of God is to refuse it. For now, let me leave you with this quotation from Comenius with apologies for the sexist language of the translator: “Whenever you encounter one of your neighbours, regard him as yourself in another form (which he is), or indeed as God in another form, for he is the image of God, and God will be watching to see how reverently you treat him.” Panorthosia, I:22.

 

All Saints

Today is the festival for all the saints. You may know that the church intentionally created this festival in the fall to reinterpret Samhain and other festivals for the dead. The fear of the dead is common in most societies, but the lesson of All Saints is that those who have died in the Lord are to be remembered with joy and thanksgiving rather than fear. All Saints is not just for those who have official status as decreed by Vatican officials. It is for all the saints, especially for those whose names we do not know. Many of these people suffered horribly at the hands of others. They were raped, tortured, starved, and wounded in countless ways. The history of the saints is grim indeed, but the message of All Saints is that the forces of evil and hatred were not victorious when they try to stifle the message of love through threats and intimidation. In Christian art, the saints are often depicted as both physically whole yet honored for the signs of their ordeal. It is a statement that even our woundedness and our suffering may be holy and honored before God. We should not fall into the trap of viewing suffering itself as good or divine, but we should remember that the roll of saints includes those who were abused and broken. So, on this All Saints Day, honor those who loved to the end. Honor them not just in song, but in acts of extravagant love and daring goodness.

neologism

Ecclicheastical – the tendency of churches to speak in religious cliches instead of meaning language.

Creation Ethics

What are the ethical demands of Genesis 1?  What is the first commandment given to humankind in this litany? To be fruitful and multiply. What does this say about sexuality? It is part of the goodness of the created order. Christian asceticism has often missed this point and validated celibacy over intercourse. A lot of ancient Gnosticism came into Catholic teaching through the monasteries, by the way. The question for us today is whether this commandment has the same relevance in our day that it had 2500 years ago. When this litany was recited by the priests of Israel, there were many uninhabited parts of the world and large cities were the size of average-sized universities. What do we do with this now that the human habitat has overwhelmed the entire planet? What do we do now that death has been kept at bay for decades for most people and there seems to be no longer a natural check on population? Should we rethink the command to be fruitful to mean more than simple sexual fertility?

Perhaps the commandment to be fruitful should be taken to mean that we should produce good fruits or be productive. This would be consistent with the second chapter of Genesis where humans tend the garden in Eden and till the ground after the expulsion.

The commandment to have dominion over the world has become problematic. Originally this was probably related to the fact that humans developed agriculture and mastered the ability to plant and harvest plants that we eat. We have also been able to domesticate other animals and use them for our ends. We cannot tame every beast, but we’ve turned wolves into dogs and bovines into cattle. We train dolphins to jump through hoops for our entertainment. The only animal that domesticates humans is the cat. But humans have never had mastery of the whole earth, nor can we subdue the entire earth. We should acknowledge hyperbole in the Scriptures. The quest to assert our power over the elemental forces has had some dire consequences.

All good teachings can be twisted to demonic ends, including the commandment to exercise dominion over the earth. We should not let the twisted versions of this text keep us from recognizing the positive nature of the commandment.

Genesis 1 affirms that humans are part of the web of creation and are in relation to the world. Notice that this commandment does not extend to the heavens, just to the earth. Here is how the Bible bring the vastness of creation down to a human scale. Christian doctrine teaches that God freely chose to make humans the stewards and caretakers of this small planet in the universe. It has been useful to explore the stars and send probes into space, but we have a fundamental responsibility to this planet that God has given us to care for.

Chapter 2 of Genesis tells us that we are Adam or earthlings; creatures of mud and divine spirit who are asked to till and protect the world. The stewardship of the earth is the second commandment given to human beings: male and female. If you believe in divine justice and judgment,you might want to ponder Jesus’ parable about the unjust steward who abused his office and was punished by the householder.

For too long we have asserted our power through manipulation and control, treating creation as an inert thing rather than as a precious gift loved by God. Perhaps things would be different if we viewed this world as a grace, as a gift, as a sacrament, as a sacred thing with an ecosystem that reflects the intention and goodness of the creator. Perhaps things would be different if we viewed dominion the way the ancients did, which is to govern wisely for the good of all. Perhaps it would be different if we recognized that the creator loves every creature, each according to its kind. Perhaps it would be different if we recognized that all that is, including humans, is contingent upon God not upon us. Perhaps things would be different if we were worthy of the trust that God places in us.

The Stars

Cosmology:

We humans construct models that allow us to interpret the world in which we live. Our perceptions of reality are shaped in part by these models, but every model has limits. We know in part, as Paul says, and we see the world through a “glass darkly.” As we pass through time, our knowledge and insight may increase, but there is also the possibility that the models we construct become more distorted over time.

When we talk about God, it is easy to slip into clichés or bits of ecclesiastical jargon that may be profoundly true but which now mask reality instead of illuminating it. If pastors are going to function as theologians, they will have to speak both the language of the church and the language of the world. They will have to understand their own historical and intellectual context in order to speak meaningfully about reality.

To a certain extent, theology is about three things in relationship: God, the world, and the self. Each of these is the topic of intense investigation and debate. There is no general consensus on the precise meaning of these terms, and efforts to give a single definition of each has failed to account for the complexity of the problems each term poses. But the fact that there is no simple answer to the question posed by the terms God, world, and self does not absolve us of the responsibility for coming to some understanding of these terms. As pastors, teachers, counselors or whatever vocation you will pursue with your M.Div. you will be expected to say something meaningful about God, the world, and the self. I suspect that you will find the task exceedingly difficult, and I hope that will lead you to humility rather than hopelessness.

One thing I think we can safely assert is that God, self, and world are interrelated terms. Our views of God are shaped in part by our view of the world and visa versa. We cannot truly understand human beings without understanding them as part of a world. Despite philosophical assertions that humans are autonomous, the truth is that our identities and our very lives are dependent on others and on the world. We are human in relationship to other humans and to nature. I believe that our existence and the world in which we exist are also dependent on God. Our identities are shaped in part in relationship to God. The attempt to understand humans without reference to religion has proven to be flawed. Our conceptions of the divine do affect our perceptions of reality.

Our knowledge of the world increases exponentially each year, but at the same time it is impossible for any individual to have a comprehensive knowledge of the world. The more there is to know, the less complete our knowledge. No one is able to put all of the knowledge we have of the world into a single system. That is part of our dilemma. Having said that, let’s discuss what we think we know about the universe in which we live and move and have our being.

I think that most theologians still work with a small universe, even though they claim to be working in a modern context.  For two thousand years Christians have proclaimed their belief in the creator of “heavens and the earth”, but the heavens are much bigger than the ancients imagined. In fact, the universe is far greater than we can really imagine. Douglas Adams offers an important insight: “Space…is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind bogglingly big it is.” People get all bent out of shape that we have trouble describing the nature of an infinite God who is the ground of all being, but seem content with our ignorance about the apparently infinite universe in which we live. If world means universe, it is a vast and nearly infinite universe.

Scientists work with cosmological models that allow them to investigate the universe. We use space probes, the Hubble telescope, radio waves, and a variety of technologically sophisticated tools and intellectually sophisticated theories to explore and explain the universe, and it just keeps getting weirder. All of our scientific investigation of the universe, though, is predicated on certain assumptions that cannot be proven. One of the most important is that matter and energy obey certain fundamental laws that we can describe mathematically. In other words, science is based on an assumption that the universe is a cosmos rather than a chaos, and that seemingly random phenomena can be explained through natural laws. We observe on earth that the speed of light is constant and so we construct cosmologies based on the speed of light.

Though many scientists deny it, this conviction that nature works according to universal laws was originally grounded in a theological conviction that the creator orders the cosmos according to rational principles. The notion that the universe was created by a benevolent and rational deity was fundamental to the development of modern science, which is the major reason that experimental science progressed most rapidly in monotheistic cultures. The early confidence that investigation of creation would prove the existence and benevolence of the creator was naïve, but the fact remains that the scientific investigation of the world began with a conviction that the world is constructed according to rational principles that humans can understand.

It appears to be true that the universe is at least 20 billion years old and is expanding over time. Not all Christians today believe this. You can visit a museum in Kentucky that argues that this is not true, but that is the equivalent of believing the world is flat or that the sun orbits the earth. Incidentally, the notion that the universe is only about 6000 years old does not come directly from the Bible, but is a calculation made from the genealogies in Genesis. No where does the Bible say that you must believe the universe is only 6000 years old. You may choose to believe that the universe is only 6000 years old, but you will have a hard time making sense of the modern universe we inhabit. Thankfully, the doctrine of creation never depended on a particular cosmology.

It appears that the universe is 20 billion years old, using the solar year as a way of measuring time. When we look into the heavens and “see” things that emit light that are 20 billion light years away, we are actually looking back 20 billion years into the past. So when we think about what “is” we need to remember that we are actually seeing much that “was” and may no longer be. When we see a star go nova and explode, we are seeing something that happened thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years before humans built the first villages. Those ancient humans looked up at the stars and were awed by their beauty and their predictability. Today we explore the stars in our minds and see that the heavens are in condition of perpetual change. We see a vast, violent cosmic dance in which the death of stars leads to new creation.

It appears that the universe has a beginning, which is commonly called the Big Bang. Somehow all of the energy and matter of the universe was united before it exploded. Since the beginning, everything that exists has been in motion from the tiniest atom to the greatest galaxy. Nothing is stable. All is in a state of change, just as Heraclitus said 2500 years ago without realizing the vastness of the universe. The atoms that make up our planet and all that exists originated in the Big Bang, which means that we are indeed made of stardust. The idea that we are dust and to the dust we will return is true on the cosmic scale.

The world we inhabit is part of a vast network of stars in our galaxy, but we are dependent on the sun. Our planet is moving around the sun, and the motion of our planet is affected by the motion of other planets. Until recently we thought that our planet was the only one with water on it, but now we know that Io, one of the moons of Jupiter, has vast seas flowing under a thick layer of ice.

It appears that there is water on the moon, and we just sent a large chunk of metal to slam into the moon to try to determine whether there is enough water there for us to exploit if we built a moon station. There is much about the moon we do not know, but one thing we do know is that we have already begun to pollute the moon and violate its being the way we violate our own world. In our attempt to understand the moon we have already begun to alter the moon and have left behind scars. Space is mind bogglingly big, but we already have so much junk orbiting the earth that it is causing a problem for scientists. And there are plans to infest other worlds with human habitation. We grow in knowledge of the cosmos without growing in wisdom.

It is ironic that as our knowledge of the stars grows, our personal experience of the stars diminishes. If you live in the northern hemisphere, light pollution is so severe you see fewer than half of the stars that those who live in non-industrial nations see. One of the changes in human consciousness in the 21^st century is that we rarely lift our sights to the starry host above us and experience the universe beyond our world. I remember lying on a hillside as a boy staring up into the light bedecked blackness of space and suddenly feeling my perspective change so that it seemed I was looking down into the abyss. I grabbed hold of the grass to keep from falling into the void, but then equilibrium returned. Still, for a moment I felt the reality of how small I am in the cosmos.

A couple of summers ago my family went out West, away from the lights of the cities and the habitations of humans. My daughter found it disturbing to stand under the dome of the sky because she felt so insignificant. It took a while to find comfort in that. One night was pulled off on the side of the road to look at the stars, and I was blessed with the sight of a meteor plummeting through the sky with its brief, glorious trail of fire as it was consumed in the atmosphere. The death of the meteor is part of creation, too.

In our modern context of theology, we cannot assume that people look in awe at the heavens above or ponder the wonders of nature around them, but we can assume that people will pay little attention to a theology of the world that does not take the world seriously or reflect scientific fact. That does not mean that we need to let scientists be the arbiters of all truth. Science cannot give meaning to the universe nor tell us the nature of God, but it can tell us much about the world.

Mucha’s slavonic epic paintings

People interested in the Moravian Church may enjoy these paintings by the Czech artist Mucha:

http://hoocher.com/Alphonse_Maria_Mucha/Alphonse_Maria_Mucha.htm

Satire

Divinity School Application for Liberals

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Lovefeast Sermon

“That none might have to eat alone”

Job 31:16-23, Acts 6:1-7, John 19:25b-27

Preached at Fairview Moravian on Senior Adult Sunday 9-13-09

Introduction: It is always good to be here at Fairview Moravian. I often say that a sermon is not really necessary at a lovefeast because the message is in the ritual and in the music, but perhaps I can add some food for thought to the coffee and buns you’ve shared. A couple of years ago Riddick helped me do a lovefeast for the divinity school, and it was very meaningful for the students, most of whom are Baptist. I decided to preach Baptist style without any written notes. I just got up and talked about what a lovefeast is and how they are a modern expression of the meals that Jesus ate during his earthly life. Pay attention when you read the gospels and you’ll see that much of Jesus’ ministry took place during meals. Wouldn’t you know it; I had more requests for a written text of that sermon than just about any I’ve preached, but I had no text to give.

We Moravians are so familiar with lovefeasts, that sometimes we forget what they mean. If you grew up Moravian, lovefeasts can make you nostalgic and bring back all kinds of memories. When I was a boy, lovefeasts were always more interesting than regular services, in part because unexpected things could happen. There was the time that my cousin ate his bun as soon as he got it and shouted out during the blessing “Momma, I want another hamburger bun.” There was the time we watched a bun slowly rolling down the middle of the aisle and then saw how embarrassed my mother looked. We won’t even go into the cruel tricks played on ministers during lovefeasts when they drink their “coffee.” Lovefeasts can be fun, but they can also be solemn occasions, just like family dinners have many meanings.

Nostalgia One of the dangers for Moravians is that we let nostalgia take hold of us during lovefeasts and forget what we are doing. American advertisers use the word “nostalgia” in a positive sense as a way to get you to buy products that remind you of your younger self, but did you know the word originally referred to a disease or illness. Greek doctors noticed that people who had left their homeland often grew sick and depressed. They called this distinct form of lethargy “nostalgia,” or home-sickness.

If you have ever been homesick, you know that it robs you of your ability to enjoy your new circumstances. Nostalgia is a type of homesickness – a yearning for a romanticized past when you were young and the future stretched endlessly before you. It is a yearning for a time when others were responsible for your welfare and you were never alone. A little nostalgia is normal, but if it saps your strength and prevents you from living in the present, then it is an illness. We Moravians are often guilty of nostalgia when it comes to traditions like the lovefeast. We want to recapture the feelings we had when we were children without taking responsibility for reaching out to others and caring about their feelings.

This morning, lets shake off wistful longings for an imagined golden age of our youth and take a look at the meaning of this lovefeast. You may have been wondering why I chose these particularly readings for this day. You may have had trouble finding a common theme. I’m pretty sure that these readings never appear together in the lectionary, but they seem perfect for our lovefeast this morning.

Job First we have a statement from Job in the Old Testament. Job, as you probably know, was a righteous and prosperous man who suffered unjustly. Almost everything was taken from him in a cruel fashion and he was left to mourn sitting in ashes. His wife told him to curse God and die. His friends, if you can call them that, tried to convince Job that he had been unrighteous and had offended God. Job repeatedly defended himself, and in one of his speeches he spoke the words we heard earlier in the service. Job protests that he has always helped the poor and needy and that he never “ate his morsel alone.”

This is a beautiful and vivid way of saying that Job never ate alone if there was someone who needed food. It was not simply food that Job shared; it was companionship during a meal. Job was rich enough to eat what he wanted when he wanted with whom he wanted, but he chose to share his bread and his table with those who were hungry and lonely.

You may not know what it is like to be truly hungry and have to depend on the mercy of a stranger, but I bet you know what it is like to eat alone. One of the worst moments during my divorce from my first wife was when I first went to the grocery store and bought food for one person instead of for a family. I cried in the grocery store. I’ve heard similar stories from people after the death of a spouse. One reason so many Americans dine out these days is so they do not have to eat alone. There is someone else there even if they are not at your table.

Our Moravian ancestors included this passage from Job in the Sunday Litany. Each week they prayed:

O That we might never see a necessitous Person go unrelieved,

O that none of us might eat his Morsel alone,

O that we might see none suffer for Want or Cloathing,

O that we might be Eyes to the blind, and Feet to the lame;

O that we could refresh the dejected Hearts,

O that we could mitigate the Burden of the labouring Man, and be ourselves not ministered to, but minister,

And to do Good, be our princely Repast,

And that the Blessing of him, who was ready to perish, might come upon us!”

I wish the litanies in our blue book of worship were so vivid and meaningful. I love the double meaning in the phrase “that none of us might eat his morsel alone.” It is a prayer that those who have will share so that no one be left alone and neglected. Doesn’t this put our lovefeast tradition in a different light? This morning we made sure that none of us ate his or her morsel alone. We waited until all are served and then broke bread together. The poor, the lonely, the nostalgic and depressed, widows and orphans, all are welcome at this meal. The Moravian lovefeast is training for the Christian life. This is the spirit we should take out into the world. What if we were as concerned that everyone in this city was served before we ate our morsel? What if none of us ate our morsel alone or let others eat in isolation and lonliness?

Dieners: The second lesson was from the Book of Acts, and it describes how early Christians restructured their administration in order to minister more effectively to those around them. This was the purpose of our synod yesterday, and it is nice to be reminded that the first Christians thought about administration, too. When the church in Jerusalem gathered for their lovefeasts, the widows were not being properly cared for. Widows were not considered very important in the ancient world, and there was no glamour in providing them food. It was easy to overlook widows, but when the apostles noticed that some were neglected, they took action. They appointed seven people to serve at the tables of the widows. This may be the origin of the office of deacon in the Christian church, but we tend to gloss over the fact that these deacons served food to elderly women.

The connection with today’s lovefeast becomes clearer if we use the German word “diener” instead of deacon. A diener is one who serves, and in our church it refers specifically to serving the lovefeast. We dress up and do this task with dignity, but I wonder if we think about dieners as living reminders of Christian vocation. Our dieners, like Stephen and the original deacons, express their love for Christ by serving food to those who worship Christ. If we combine this lesson in Acts and Job’s words about not eating his morsel alone, we have a picture of the true follower of Christ as one who shares his or her table with those who are lonely, neglected, rejected, and hungry. We see that the lovefeast is a powerful symbol of true Christianity.

Mary and John And that brings us to our Gospel reading. It is the one reading that does not involve food, but it is about a widow named Mary. The gospel of John tells us that when Jesus was dying on the cross he saw his mother standing there, grieving for the child she was losing. In the midst of that awful drama that we theologize so much about, Jesus cared about a single, elderly woman whose heart was breaking. He did not want her to eat her morsel alone or be crushed by her grief. He saw the disciple he loved most dearly and told him that Mary would be his mother. When we call each other brother and sister, we should recognize that means we have many mothers and fathers that we are called to love and care for. Open your heart and invite someone who is lonely and hungry to share your table. Then any meal can become a lovefeast. It is not buns and coffee that make a lovefeast; it is food shared with love in the name of Jesus.