Epiphany IV - Sunday January 21st, 2007
(by Rev. Glenn Brown)
Deceivers, yet true.
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians keeps in mind the fact that there are those in that congregation who oppose his teachings, who think them false. Paul is used to this. There are people who represent another a-borning religion, Gnosticism, who resent his harsh realism and insistence that Christ is part of this world which is real. There are people who do not come from the Jewish background at all, but rather from cultures that believe in many gods, usually conveniently identified with the current temporal powers. He is used to preaching to people who do not understand, let alone believe, for whom the need for salvation was unknown, and who remain unconvinced that it is needed, let alone offered. The worship of gods was the “rational” thing to do. The existence of the gods was not doubted, but there was doubt as to whether their existence made a difference or improved things much.
For our time, of course, in addition to these doubters, we have those who insist that there is no God, no prime mover, no ground of being, no cause, no intention, no loving beginning of humankind. Our way causes them difficulty, for it seems irrational. We speak of things that could not possibly be true in a rational world. Is the world rational?
Two weeks ago, not long after the U.S. declared that it would not let any other power limit its freedom to operate in space, and several years after former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had published his article in Foreign Affairs declaring that the U.S. would dominate space and allow no one else in, China quietly fired a missile at one of its own weather satellites and hit it so accurately as to destroy it, without using a warhead. The U.S. promptly castigated China for a) not having announced the effort in advance and b) for bringing closer the militarization of space. Scientists castigated China for blowing it into so many parts which will cause dangers for other space vehicles for years. The military and civilian workers who customarily walk to their offices in trailers at Nellis AFB in Nevada, and sit down at their computer consoles to control Predator UAVs to assassinate people in Iraq, now experience the disquiet of knowing that this capability to wage war is at risk. Is the world rational?
In the ever-changing scientific perspective on how the universe began and what it’s doing now, a strongly held theory is that the universe is expanding. Now, let me ask you to close your eyes and use your imagination. You are floating in space, able to go from star to star, planet to planet. At the moment it seems that the universe, all that there is, is stable. When you move around, it seems to you that you are moving closer to some stars and farther from others. Now you feel a great surge of energy and you see that you and everything else, are moving. Stars are growing farther apart from each other, and farther away from you, and you are farther from those you left “behind,” so to speak. You realize that the universe, all that there is, is expanding. Now you wonder, “Expanding into what? If the universe is all that there is, what is there into which it can expand?” Is life rational?
We proclaim that humanity, as a gift from God, stand above history. That is, that we can see the past and look into the future, and we can evaluate how things have been and how they will be. We can ask ourselves whether we have done well; we can plan what changes we ought to make to improve the future. We stand above history.
But we stand beneath eternity. What is eternity? Well, perhaps it is that what into which the universe is expanding, for if the universe is expanding there must be something other than all that there is out there. It is where the universe still has yet to go, where the universe has not yet been. It is before the universe and after it. It is the dwelling place of God. But God is able to be in the universe.
Eternity is where God’s purposes are known. Just as history is the stretch which over-arches our lives, orients us with a sense of direction and perhaps purpose, and just as, because we are thinking people, our minds stand above history, so Eternity stands overarching us and perceiving the greater perspective, the greater purpose, the grander scheme. It is where the ultimate values reside in the abstract so that we may know them: mercy, justice, righteousness, love, steadfastness. We do not know these completely in our lives, but we can perceive what they would be like because we can see them in eternity. This is rational, because our minds can comprehend them, and our souls can yearn for them. We can talk about them; we can urge them upon each other. And, were we to attempt to subject them to the “laws of nature” or the laws of physics, we would not know them, for they are immeasurable and unobservable.
Eternity is the place of God, and we do not know whether it is where God resides or just visits, without really needing a “place” to reside.
What we declare is true. And it is rational, though not subject to scientific principles. Some may say that, because we are not so subject, we are deceiving people. So it was said of Paul. Paul notes the irony, and responds, “receivers, but true.” That is what we are – true. We hold the ultimate truths, whether they be considered rational or not. Let us show them to others.
