Immediate Word

November 21 is Christ the King Sunday, the end of the church year, and the lectionary readings appropriately consider the large issues of life, death, and judgment. The Second Reading, Colossians 1:11-20, recalls the first word in the Hebrew text of Genesis 1 (be-resith, "in" or "for" or "by means of" the "head" or the "beginning") and refers to the cosmic aspects of creation and redemption, both linked to the work of Christ. It is therefore an opportune time to reflect on the meaning of creation from the perspective of Christian faith. With this thought, we at The Immediate Word have asked team member George Murphy, who has special interest and knowledge in the area of science and theology, to provide clarity on the still-contentious issue of creation and evolution. Other team members, as usual, offer their take on the question.

November 21 in the United States is also the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and we have invited Carter Shelley to offer an evocative sermon idea appropriate for that occasion. She has chosen Matthew 13:44-52 as her text.

Illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon round out this issue.


ALL THINGS: EVOLVED THINGS?
Colossians 1:11-20
By George Murphy

"Was Darwin Wrong?" asks the cover of the current issue of National Geographic (November 2004). This may send a thrill of hope through some Christians -- one that will quickly be extinguished when they turn to the story inside. "No," it begins, answering the question on the cover. "The evidence for evolution is overwhelming."

On the other hand, Christians who have different views are dismayed at the news that a Wisconsin school district has allowed the teaching of creationism in science classes (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=233278&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312). That's just one example of attempts to limit the teaching of evolution in schools across the country. (For a current Pennsylvania case see http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2004/PA/39_a_dubious_first_for_int...). And then there was the recent announcement about discovery in Indonesia of a "hobbit"-sized species, Homo floresiensis, which was still extant less than 20,000 years ago, and seems to have been closely related to our own species Homo sapiens. This raises some intriguing questions about human uniqueness. (The November 8 issue of U.S. News & World Report has a story on p. 70, "Tiny survivors," dealing with this discovery.)

The pesky subject of evolution and creation just won't go away. The issues involved are far from trivial, for they have to do with how God acts in the world and who we are as human beings. But they are issues that many clergy would just as soon stay away from. You can talk about the problem of sin and the message of salvation in Christ without mentioning the E word, so why stir up needless controversy?

The Second Lesson for Christ the King Sunday is Colossians 1:11-20. This text challenges the idea that we can limit our subject matter to a narrowly personal one of sin and salvation. Even broader appeals for social justice do not exhaust its significance. The text says that all things were created through Christ, and hold together in Christ, and were made for Christ -- and that the reconciliation of all things to God is accomplished "through the blood of his cross." If we take this seriously, it just isn't possible to restrict the scope of the Christian message.

The heart of this text is the Christ hymn of Colossians, verses 15-20. This was part of the Second Lesson for Proper 11 (July 18) of this year and I dealt with its interpretation there (http://www.csspub.com/action.lasso?-database=TIW-Story&-layout=main&-op=...).

It's a wonderful text -- in my opinion one of the most important in the whole Bible. But what does it have to do with evolution?

First of all, it has a message for the preacher that I've already mentioned. If "all things" in the universe have their deepest meaning in Christ, there is nothing for which Christ is irrelevant, and cannot be illuminated by the gospel. Now of course preachers should exercise some common sense. A sermon on the relevance of Christ for stamp collecting or French cooking will probably not be very helpful except to small groups of specialists. But issues relating to evolution are in a different category. They clearly have implications for the ways in which we think about creation and human nature, and have given rise to a lot of controversy in church and society. I think it is irresponsible to ignore them.

But should these issues be addressed in a sermon? Some might argue that a classroom setting is better for such discussion. I agree with that -- as far as detailed study of creation and evolution is concerned. But in most churches a lot more people will hear a sermon than will attend an adult class or discussion group. A sermon should not be simply a lecture about evolution, but appropriate comments about the topic may spark some discussion that can lead to such a class or small group.

And some fears about referring to evolution in a sermon, and especially about any positive reference to it, may be overdrawn. Certainly you need to know your congregation, and certainly there may be people who will be upset by any suggestion that the preacher accepts evolution. Sensitivity and a non-dogmatic approach are needed. But there may also be people who will be upset if the preacher gives the impression of accepting what they consider an obsolete and anti-scientific picture of the world. I remember vividly one response that I got to a brief positive reference to evolution in one of my sermons several years ago. One elderly woman who had just recently become a member of the parish said to me at the door, "I was so glad you said that. That other way never made any sense to me."

Given that the subject should be treated homiletically, how can we do that on the basis of the Colossians text? There are several possible connections. Let me begin with Homo floresiensis.

One concern that people have about evolution is that it challenges the idea of the uniqueness of our own species. While the Bible says that all living things are God's creatures, it singles out humanity among all other creatures as having a special relationship with God, and the Christian tradition has often pictured a sinful humanity as the unique object of God's saving work in Christ. But if we had a common ancestral species with the great apes on the order of ten million years ago (and with even more remote species farther in the past), if we are closely related to other hominid species like Homo habilis and Homo erectus, how unique can we be?

The discovery of Homo floresiensis brings this question to a head. Even though these creatures were only about three feet tall and had brains only about a quarter the size of modern humans' brains, they were clearly not just "brutes." They had fire and stone tools and engaged in relatively sophisticated hunting behavior. In the most important ways in which we consider ourselves human, they were human. And we have to ask, what is the significance of the Homo sapiens Jesus of Nazareth, the one the Christ hymn of Colossians speaks of, for these creatures?

We need to know a lot more about this species, both its biological relationship with our own species and its possible cultural interactions with our ancestors. But Colossians 1:20 tells us that we don't have to have such data to answer the basic theological question. All things are to be reconciled to God through the cross of Christ, not just "Homo sapiens things." It is as a member of our species that the Son of God became incarnate, suffered, died, and rose again. But, if evolutionary theory is correct, he, like all the rest of us, carries anatomical, chemical, and historical relationships with all other species. This text does not mean that Homo sapiens has no special place in God's ultimate plan for creation, but it does say that we are not the only species that has a place in that plan.

The same is true for other species. Ever since I was a kid I've had a liking for the saber-toothed tiger (though I wouldn't want to meet one in a dark alley), and it's kind of sad that they're all gone. Were those creatures just disposable props in God's plan, or did God really care about the saber-tooth? ("Did he who made the lamb make thee?") I think God did care, and may not be done with saber-toothed tigers -- though any speculation about their place in heaven is rather pointless.

One of the biggest obstacles to an adequate understanding of creation and evolution by Christians is the posing of the issue as one of "creation or evolution." This is a false dichotomy, because the basic meaning of the Christian doctrine of creation is that the universe depends entirely upon God for its existence, not how God brought various things into existence. (But again, this is not to say that the latter questions are unimportant!)

One way to correct this error is to begin discussion of biblical views of creation not with the creation stories of Genesis but with the New Testament texts that speak of Christ as the agent of creation -- including our Colossians text. (John 1:1-14; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Hebrews 1:3 are also important.) A sermon on this text could focus on creation, and it could be pointed out that while Christ is spoken of here as the one through whom all things were made, nothing at all is said about how (or when) he did this. It is quite consistent with this text to say that God created living things through the processes of biological evolution. The Genesis stories of course have to be considered in any thorough treatment of creation, but that is not where Christians should start. (And when we look at those stories we see a certain amount of openness to evolutionary interpretation -- e.g., in the way in which God creates living things in Genesis 1 by commanding the earth and the waters to bring forth plants and animals.)

To say that God creates living things through the natural processes involved in biological evolution is just one example (albeit a very important one) of the belief that God is always active in creation, making things happen by cooperating with natural processes. That is part of the traditional Christian doctrine of providence. Christ is not only the agent of creation in the beginning, in a kind of deistic fashion, but is the one in whom all things hold together and for whom all things were made.

And here we're reminded that a few days after Christ the King Sunday this year we will celebrate Thanksgiving. I suspect that some people in the modern world have trouble with the concept of such a holiday simply because they don't see God doing anything to give thanks for. Why give thanks to some putative deity for the turkey and pumpkin pie on the Thanksgiving table when science can explain to us quite well where turkeys and pumpkins come from, and economics can tell us how they end up on the table?

The doctrine of creation says that we are to give thanks to the God who works through those processes. More than that, we can give thanks to God for working through processes that we can understand, precisely because that means that we can understand them. God offers us the gift of being able to live as adults in the world, of being able to understand our environment on its own terms. The very possibility of science, including the science that has led us to understand things like evolution, is grace.

Evolution means basically "descent with modification," and it's not too hard to think of God bringing that about. But it's the way in which evolutionary theory describes the development of new species, and finally humanity, that is disturbing to many people (and not just Christians). The idea of natural selection, which is at the heart of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, means that competition, privation, death, and extinction have key roles in the development of life on earth. And it is hard for many people to reconcile this with the concept of a loving and all-powerful creator.

Trying to "justify God's ways to man," as Milton wanted to do, is a bit presumptuous (cf. Romans 9:20). We can't give a final explanation for why God might choose to create in a way that involves suffering and death for creatures. But we can point out, on the basis of our text, that it is not only creatures that pay this price. When the hymn speaks about the reconciliation brought about by Christ, the work of new creation, it says that this takes place "through the blood of his cross." Through his Incarnation the one through whom and for whom all things were made became a participant in the evolutionary process and stands with the losers in that process. (For, in the short term, the political and religious authorities that sent him to the cross to preserve their power were the survivors.) And because he is "the firstborn from the dead," there is hope even for the losers -- perhaps even for saber-toothed tigers.

Finally, I should say that even though my endorsement of evolutionary theory has been fairly clear here, I don't think it's the primary task of preachers to convince their hearers of the truth of a particular scientific theory -- much less to suggest that Christian faith depends on one or another scientific way of describing the origins of living things. I do hope that those who find it impossible to accept evolution will come to that conclusion only after some study of both the theological and the scientific issues. (I'll give a few references in a moment.) I hope as well that they will realize that there are committed Christians who come to a different conclusion on this matter. In turn, I hope that the acceptance of evolution by others will be more than just a casual agreement that "evolution is how God created." There are serious theological issues involved, some of which (such as the issues of original righteousness and original sin) I haven't been able to go into here. Recognize that other Christians do have legitimate questions about how evolution can be understood in the context of the Christian faith. This is an issue on which we need theological dialogue, not just more of the polemic that has already been too plentiful.

Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett, Evolution from Creation to New Creation (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), is a very good survey of the religious issues connected with evolution, and gives a quite fair description of a wide range of views, while at the same time setting out clearly the authors' own theistic evolution position. Keith B. Miller (ed.), Perspectives on an Evolving Creation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), is a collection of essays by scientists, theologians, and historians, mostly from evangelical positions. Kenneth R. Miller (no relation to Keith), Finding Darwin's God (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1999) is a presentation by a Roman Catholic cell biologist.


Team Comments

Carlos Wilton responds: "In him all things in heaven and on earth were created ..." (Colossians 1:16). It's an extraordinary statement: Jesus of Nazareth, a man who, two millennia ago, lived an ordinary human life (and died a tragic, violent death) is the focal point of all creation. This is an especially remarkable statement if we believe, as many scientifically informed Christians do, that God's work of creation is ongoing. If creation is a series of evolutionary ripples, radiating from that still center of the cosmic pond where God started it all off with a really big bang, then what does it mean to say that a man over whom those ripples washed 2,000 years ago is the point of it all?

"He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (v. 17). This Jesus lived 2,000 years ago, to be sure, but he was present from the very beginning -- and even before it. Even now, the scriptures tells us, his life-force continues to have its effect, maintaining planets in their courses and aligning human souls Godward.

How does this take place? We're only just beginning to understand. Future generations will look back on our era and remember that the most significant scientific advances occurred in the field of microbiology. The identification of the DNA molecule in the 1950s and the mapping of the human genome in the 1990s revolutionized our understanding of who we are as human beings. We now know something our ancestors did not: that within each cell of our bodies is a complex code, a sequence of biochemical signals that tells each cell when to grow, when to differentiate, and when to die. That encoded biochemical message is -- poetically as well as theologically speaking -- a Word.

"In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). Could the apostle who penned those words have had the slightest idea that this God-spoken Word of life had its first expression in nucleic acids -- that, as species succeeded species and generation succeeded generation, it was all inexorably working its way toward the birth of a Jewish peasant boy to a teenaged mother? That's what Paul would have us believe -- though, like John, he couldn't have had the foggiest idea that the language the creator God was speaking found expression in genes and chromosomes.

That man who lived and died 2,000 years ago also did something else. What he did was utterly unique, an unrepeatable anomaly amidst the eternal whisper of genetic code. He rose again. In any other human life, the flogging, the nails, the loss of blood, the slow asphyxiation would have resulted in the permanent collapse of the life-force within him. The primeval whisper of gene to gene would have been silenced -- as, indeed it was in him, for a time. Yet in him the Word did something it had never done before. It spoke again, in the same organism. The intricate biochemical switchboard lit up again, as those millions of neurons in his nervous system began firing.

He lives today. "He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything" (v. 18).

Creation vs. evolution? You're absolutely right, George, in saying that's a false dichotomy. The truth is altogether more beautiful and awesome: Creation is evolution.

Carter Shelley responds: For a superb examination of the ongoing debate between creationists and evolutionists, get a copy of the play Inherit the Wind, by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. I use this play with students in my "Christian Tradition" class because it is a thinly veiled retelling of the famous Scopes Trial in which a high school biology teacher gets fired because he dares to teach the theory of evolution to his students. In the play almost all of the scripture texts, scientific debates, and arguments pro and con are presented through the two attorneys prosecuting and defending the case. This play can be found at any public library and can be read in one sitting. There is also a superb movie version, made around 1960, now available on video, starring Spencer Tracy and Gene Kelly in a non-dancing role.

What intrigues me about this debate is the way almost nothing has changed since that original trial in Georgia. The dividing lines remain based upon the different ways people read and interpret the Bible. Fundamentalists are individuals who read the Bible literally and understand it to be inerrant, that is, to be factual, accurate, and correct in every detail. If one reads in Genesis that Methuselah was 900+ years old when he died, then Methuselah was 900+ years old. The inerrantist believes there are no errors in the Bible. There are no contradictions in the Bible. We humans are just too stupid to figure all of it out correctly and so there are places where the Bible seems to contradict itself but really doesn't. Consequently, Adam and Eve were the first human beings God created and all humans are descended from them. God created the world in six days.

What's interesting about this understanding of the Bible is its lack of a long history. Fundamentalism essentially is a nineteenth-century American phenomenon and not an interpretive stance held by say, the early church fathers. In fact, in most of its many centuries, pastors, priests, and biblical scholars have recognized that the wealth of revelation evident in the Bible is larger than any one hermeneutical tool. Scripture has been read allegorically, typologically, literally, historically, and in many other ways. Rather than being a threat to the Bible's authenticity, these various interpretive insights demonstrate God's ability to speak to us through the Bible in our place and time of vital truths contained within its pages that transcend time.

A foundational truth of the Bible and Genesis 1-2 is "God created the world." If one does not believe that the world was created in six 24-hour days, that does not mean one considers the story of Adam and Eve's creation a fiction to be read and disregarded. It is possible for something to be true and not be either fact or fiction. Fiction is a made-up story. Fact is a visible event, observable and measurable in some way. Truth is greater than either facts or fiction. The second creation story reveals a profound truth about humanity and our relationship with God. It describes the ongoing reality that human beings seek to assert ourselves -- our ambitions and our actions -- with disregard for whatever ambitions and actions God would have us perform. The truth is we choose self over Lord almost every time. That profound insight and its accompanying affirmation and good news, that God is both Creator and Master of the world, transcend the centuries, different biblical understandings methods, and the many different generations of Christians.

Problems fundamentalism poses for the faithful Christian reading the Bible include the following: (1) All readings of the Bible are interpretations. There are no purely objective readings. (2) Our own historical context and life situation cannot help but influence our (and the preacher's) understanding and interpretation of biblical texts. (3) Literal readings of the Bible disallow for human diversity of life, experience, time in history, and so on. (4) The fundamentalist stance doesn't demonstrate trust in the living vitality of God's Word as an ongoing document of insight, revelation, inspiration, conversion, and salvation.

Marshall Johnson responds: George alludes to the decision of the school board at Grantsburg, Wisconsin, to require the teaching of "various theories of origins" in addition to evolution. The stated rationale, that such a curriculum would promote "critical thinking," prompted Mary Rumsey of Minneapolis to write a letter to the Twin Cities Star Tribune newspaper (November 15, 2004), in which she made the following tongue-in-cheek suggestions:

"In chemistry classes, make sure to spend a day critically analyzing how a woman could transform into a pillar of salt.

"In physics, teach the students about gravity, but also discuss how a man walked on water.

"And I do hope the biology curriculum will cover the Hindu origin myth that the god Brahma transformed himself into a boar to bring forth the Earth."

She concludes by opining that, "bringing religious ideas into science classrooms weakens critical thinking."

It is certainly true that the way we understand creation affects the way we view human life -- and other forms of life as well. The entire controversy reminds us of the churches' response to Copernicus, Galileo, and (later) Freud. But Dietrich Bonhoeffer long ago pointed to the danger of the "God-of-the-gaps" theology, the practice of using God to explain what we have not yet been able to explain otherwise. As human knowledge gradually reduces the number of "gaps," this approach increasingly reduces the function of God. We Christians would do better to stick to our traditional creeds, affirming the reality of God, the enduring value of the moral teaching of Jesus and the prophets, the possibility of human redemption, and a robust hope for the renewal of all creation.

Stan Purdum responds: George, it is helpful to hear your words about God's creation through scientific processes. Too often, those who rightly accept Darwin say that evolution precludes God from the conversation. For example, a recent article in Wired (10/2004), titled, "The Crusade against Evolution," is about the latest incarnation of creationism, so-called Intelligent Design and the mission of Discovery Institute. While describing the ID tactics, the article says that evolution is a natural rather than a supernatural explanation for the rise of humankind and implies that it leaves no possibility for God at all, not even as the Prime Mover. In other words, the article seemed to define the battle as ID and belief in God on the one side and evolution with no room for God on the other. In this context your clear-eyed and faith-filled explanation is extremely helpful.


Related Illustrations

Her name was Luca, the Last Universal Common Ancestor. What did she look like, and where did she live? The conventional answer is that she looked like a bacterium and she lived in a warm pond, possibly by a hot spring, or in a marine lagoon. In the last few years it has been fashionable to give her a more sinister address, since it became clear that the rocks beneath the land and sea are impregnated with billions of chemical-fueled bacteria. Luca is now usually placed deep underground, in a fissure in hot igneous rocks, where she fed on sulphur, iron, hydrogen, and carbon. To this day, the surface life on earth is but a veneer. Perhaps ten times as much organic carbon as exists in the whole biosphere is in thermophilic bacteria deep beneath the surface, where they are possibly responsible for generating what we call natural gas ...

The three-letter words of the genetic code are the same in every creature. CGA means arginine and GCG means alanine -- in bats, in beetles, in beech trees, in bacteria. They even mean the same in the misleadingly named archaebacteria living at boiling temperatures in sulphurous springs thousands of feet beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean or in those microscopic capsules of deviousness called viruses. Wherever you go in the world, whatever animal, plant, bug, or blob you look at, if it is alive, it will use the same dictionary and know the same code. All life is one. The genetic code, bar a few tiny local aberrations, mostly for unexplained reasons in the ciliate protozoa, is the same in every creature. We all use exactly the same language.

This means -- and religious people might find this a useful argument -- that there was only one creation, one single event when life was born. Of course, that life might have been born on a different planet and seeded here by spacecraft, or there might even have been thousands of kinds of life at first, but only Luca survived in the ruthless free-for-all of the primeval soup. But until the genetic code was cracked in the 1960s, we did not know what we now know: that all life is one; seaweed is your distant cousin and anthrax one of your advanced relatives. The unity of life is an empirical fact. Darwin was outrageously close to the mark: "One and the same kind of living filaments has been the cause of all organic life."

In this way simple truths can be read from the book that is the genome: the unity of all life, the primacy of RNA, the chemistry of the very earliest life on the planet, the fact that large, single-celled creatures were probably the ancestors of bacteria, not vice versa. We have no fossil record of the way life was four billion years ago. We have only this great book of life, the genome. The genes in the cells of your little finger are the direct descendants of the first replicator molecules; through an unbroken chain of tens of billions of copyings, they come to us today still bearing a digital message that has traces of those earliest struggles of life. If the human genome can tell us things about what happened in the primeval soup, how much more can it tell us about what else happened during the succeeding four million millennia. It is a record of our history written in the code for a working machine.
-- Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 20 Chapters (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1999), pp. 19, 21-22

***

Charles Darwin himself was a religious man, blessed with an extraordinary patience for observing nature's details, as well as the longevity and brilliance to put it all together. In his years of studying animate life he noticed four things, which any of us could notice today if we looked hard enough. They are:

1. Every organism produces more seeds or offspring than will actually survive to adulthood.

2. There is variation among these seeds or offspring.

3. Traits are passed down from one generation to the next.

4. In each generation the survivors succeed -- that is, they survive -- because they possess some advantage over the ones that don't succeed, and because they survive, they will pass that advantage on to the next generation. Over time, therefore, the incidence of that trait will increase in the population.

Bingo: the greatest, simplest, most elegant logical construct ever to dawn across our curiosity about the workings of natural life. It is inarguable, and it explains everything.

Most people have no idea that this, in total, is Darwin's theory of evolution. Furthermore, parents who tell their children not to listen to such talk because "it's just a theory" are ignorant of what that word means. A theory, in science, is a coherent set of principles used to explain and predict a class of phenomena. Thus, gravitational theory explains why objects fall when you drop them, even though it, too, is "just a theory." Darwin's has proven to be the most robust unifying explanation ever devised in biological science. It's stunning that he could have been so right -- scientists of Darwin's time knew absolutely nothing about genetics -- but he was. After a century and a half, during which time knowledge expanded boundlessly in genetics, geology, paleontology, and all areas of natural science, his simple logical construct continues to explain and predict perfectly the existence and behavior of every earthly life form we have ever studied. As the unifying principle of natural sciences, it is no more doubted among modern biologists than gravity is questioned by physicists. Nevertheless, in a bizarre recent trend, a number of states have limited or even outright banned the teaching of evolution in high schools, and many textbooks for the whole country, in turn, have wimped out on the subject. As a consequence, an entire generation of students is arriving in college unprepared to comprehend or pursue good science. Many science teachers I know are nostalgic for at least one aspect of the Cold War days, when Sputnik riveted us to the serious business of training our kids to real science, instead of allowing it to be diluted or tossed out to assuage the insecurities of certain ideologues.
-- Barbara Kingsolver, "A Fist in the Eye of God," in Small Wonder: Essays (San Francisco: HarperCollins 2002), pp. 95-96

***

The planet earth is blessed with water, great slops of it, swaying tonnage of saline ocean and sea, clear blue lakes and fish-tremblant rivers, streams, brooks, rills, and pulsing springs, mountain runoffs, rains, mists, fogs, and hurricanes. At our birth billions of years ago, an amorphous heap of buzzingly radiant star spin-off, we melted inward to a core of iron and nickel, molten at its edges, and formed on top of this a hot rock mantle, and mineral crust. We began immediately to cool, thus creating enormous clouds of vapor, which rained down into the great craters and basins of rock until the seas were filled. The rock dissolved into soil, granulated into seabed, and the seabed granules salinated and produced the first bubbling nitrogenized, oxygenized possibilities of blind, dumb life. Dead cellular matter flung up from the seas fertilized the rock soil. We are a blue oasis in black space, cocooned in our atmosphere of nutrient gases. We look peaceful but we are not. We are a planet of water and rock, sand and silt and soil. The tectonic plates under the earth's crust move and shift about, breaking the landmass into continents that float and change their shape over eons. The plates collide, ride one over another, crack, and great upheavals of the sea floor rise gasping into mountain ranges, enormous volcanoes in the seafloor create islands that bob up in the oceans, the earth's crust quakes, shivers us into different shapes, we buckle and cleave, storms assail our heavens, our mountains shake thunderous avalanches of snow down upon our valleys, our Arctic and Antarctic ice floes crack like the bones of God, our wind-worn dunes of desert pile up to bury us, maniac tornadoes fling us about and thump us against the ground like rag dolls, great floods of viscous burning lava bury our villages, and in all this fury of planetary self-fulfillment, we spin about an axis and roll around the sun, and our oceans are pulled and pushed by lunar tides, our oceans roll in waves which exist apart from the water they pass through, our atmospheres are shot through with electromagnetic frequencies, and we stand abroad our terrains totally magnetized by the iron core at our center, with our skies at night tumbling with asteroids and flashing with the inflamed boreal particles of solar winds that flare like the luminous eyes of saber-toothed tigers circling the darkness beyond our fire.

What a merry planet, everything said and done. For isn't it, after all, livable?
-- E. L. Doctorow, City of God (New York: Random House, 2000), pp. 82-83

***

Religion is tending to degenerate into a decent formula wherewith to embellish a comfortable life.... Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science.
-- Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York, 1927), pp. 269ff.

***

David McCullough cites words written by an elderly John Adams:

I never delighted much in contemplating commas and colons, or in spelling or measuring syllables; but now ... if I attempt to look at these little objects, I find my imagination, in spite of all my exertions, roaming in the Milky Way, among the nebulae, those mighty orbs, and stupendous orbits of suns, planets, satellites and comets, which compose the incomprehensible universe; and if I do not sink into nothing in my own estimation, I feel an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees, in adoration of the power that moves, the wisdom that directs, and the benevolence that sanctifies the wonderful whole.
-- David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p. 630

***

Not everything that counts can be counted; not everything that can be counted counts.
-- Albert Einstein


A Thanksgiving Sermon
By Carter Shelley


I have preached the following sermon the Sunday prior to Thanksgiving and also as the sermon for a Wednesday night community Thanksgiving Service. Whereas most sermons I have preached on this topic have been about "things we are thankful for and gratitude to God" in some way or other, this particular sermon expresses Thanksgiving in response to particular incidents or experiences. I like to think it's evocative rather than instructive.

"And We Can Be Thankful"
Matthew 13:44-52

I don't know about you, but when I hear a scripture text read, it helps my understanding of it if I can decide who I identify most with in the story. And, frankly, there's no one in Matthew 13:44-52 that I feel I am able to identify with.

Certainly, not Jesus -- his maleness is the least of my problems. Matthew heralds Jesus consistently as the Son of God and the Son of Man. Next to that, I'm small potatoes. Nor do I identify with the poor guy who sells all he has and buys the field with the treasure buried in it. Or with the richer merchant who gets the pearl of great value. In the second place, I'm not too fond of jewelry; and, in the first, when I owned a house, the yard looked more like a field than a yard, so unless the treasure covered professional gardening....

Well, I don't identify with the fish! Do you identify with the fish? And I would rather not identify with those poor people thrown in the furnace where they will weep and gnash their teeth. Which leaves me, and perhaps you, with two possible choices: the angels? --Forget it! And, of course, the disciples.

Jesus says to them, "Have you understood all this?"

And, they said to him, "Yes!"

But I have to say, "Uh, well ... actually, I'm not so sure I do understand all this." In fact, it stumps me how these three parables got lumped together by Matthew in the first place. I don't identify with anyone identified by Matthew in this passage. Where I fit, and where I suspect most of us fit is somewhere over on the sidelines with the crowd Jesus left behind in verse 36.

Unfortunately, we've still got a few minutes left, and so while we may feel like we belong with the crowd, we're really inside the house listening to these additional parables about the kingdom of heaven.

What is the kingdom of heaven? Is it valuable enough, hot enough to sell all? Is it menacing enough that if we don't sell all, we get thrown back into the sea or brunt bad? What is the kingdom of heaven? Well, most of us church types know enough about parables in Matthew to know they give us information about the kingdom of heaven.

These three parables seem to be saying two things about the kingdom of heaven. The treasure and the pearl tell us that the kingdom of heaven is precious and worth all we have. The parable of fish and furnaces appears to be saying that the kingdom of heaven will be a time for separating the evil from the righteous.

New Testament scholar Jack Kingsbury puts it another way. He writes: "The Kingdom of Heaven is a reality that is at once present and future." By this statement Kingsbury suggests that God the creator is also the king of the world. As such, God's rule stretches back to creation, through Jesus of Nazareth, and up to us today.

This message is central for Matthew and his primary word: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus preaches a word of judgment to the situation he encounters and promises something better. That was the good news 2,000 years ago, it is still the good news for us today.

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" Seize the treasure; buy the pearl; acknowledge that some fish are edible and some people will weep and gnash their teeth when judgment is pronounced. The words Jesus speaks tell of both grace and judgment.

Now when some of us theologically liberal types hear the word "judgment," our un-Presbyterian, universalistic inclinations begin to creep to the surface. "God's not really going to divide us up like fish. God's not going to throw anybody into any furnaces. God loves us."

What we may be overlooking is the element of love present in the parable of judgment. Thus, we may miss the fact that the flip side of these parables is not a threatening word or a bad word, but a good word, a thanksgiving word.

Before you decide that I'm stretching the point to avoid talking about something unpleasant and unknown, like hell, let me show you why I am thankful that Jesus' words in these three parables are not that the kingdom already has come fully and that if you didn't unbury it or buy it, you've lost your chance and so has the world. These parables are a thanksgiving word because the kingdom of heaven is a possibility now.

When I was nineteen years old I flew to England to study for a year. As is still my tendency, I went with the impulse and didn't fret too much about the consequences until I had to deal with them. It was on that first flight over the Atlantic that I suddenly realized, "I'm all alone. I don't know anybody on this plane. I don't know anybody in Manchester, England. I don't know where I'm going to live. I'm scared almost to death. I must be crazy! I love my family. I've got great friends at the university. What am I doing leaving everything behind?"

Then as I looked out the window of the black night sky, I saw a full moon shining from behind gray-black clouds, and I realized. "The moon is going with me. The moon is going with me to England. The moon and God are making this trip with me."

And I was thankful. It was a simple thing, but it meant that God, not I, was in control of the whole world, and not just South Carolina. And I was very thankful.

The kingdom of heaven is a possibility for us now.
The kingdom of heaven is still in process.

I know a Duke Divinity School graduate who decided during his ministerial training that the traditional church scene was not for him. Having worked in an Episcopalian soup kitchen during his field education, David discovered that working with street people and ministering to the poor had more than a transitory meaning for him. Consequently, the sight of David sitting in our church lounge on our expensively upholstered sofa with someone smelly whom the church housekeeper would have never let in the building was such a common thing that the rest of the ministerial staff took David for granted and called on him regularly to rescue us from someone reeking of alcohol or someone long-winded who wanted to speak to a "preacher."

But working with street people is not glamorous or satisfying work. David listens to the same sob stories, true stories, and dull stories from the same people week after week. The lines at the soup kitchen don't get any shorter, and the requests for money and easy solutions persists day-in and day-out. David's funds are never enough, and his church supporters are invariably less forceful than those members who'd rather not share their pew or coffee hour with someone who needs a peanut butter sandwich on Sunday.

David, how do you do it? How do you minister to this infinite need day-in and day-out?

Well, David understands that he doesn't bring in the kingdom of heaven by himself. Its arrival is not dependent upon him. The poverty, disease, mental illness, prejudice, and pain that he takes by the hand and offers a seat on the lounge sofa isn't a sign of the kingdom's existences; it's a sign of it's failure to exist. And David knows he can't change that. Only God can change it. And David is thankful for he knows that the world we live in is not the world as God intends for it to be.

The kingdom of heaven is a possibility for us now. The kingdom of heaven is still in process.

So why does Jesus speak in parables when he tells of the kingdom of heaven? Why does he talk of treasures and pearls and nets and furnaces? Do you suppose it's because the kingdom of heaven is only tangible in our experiencing of it? That it's too important, too fluid to pin down to one doctrine, one denomination or one parable?

I read a short story in high school that I have never forgotten. The author of the anthology it appeared in I don't know, but its plot went like this:

A little boy cuts school and he and his 80ish grandfather sneak off together for a day at the fair. They have a glorious time. They eat cotton candy and ride the Ferris wheel and eat caramel apples and throw darts at targets. In short, they spend an exhilarating and exhausting day doing all those things to excess. It's not until they arrive home and the grandfather becomes gravely ill that the little boy is confronted with the possible consequences of his day.

His mother's initial anger that he has allowed his grandfather to do things beyond his capacity quickly changes to terror when her father's illness looks as though it will be his last. The little boy sits in the shadows and weeps in the corners, certain that he has killed his grandfather. For the first time the boy realizes that the joy of life and the sorrows of life are intertwined and he is seriously grieved. But the grandfather recognizes what the boy does not. He calls the little boy to his bedside and says to him,

"Live while you live, and then die and be done with it. I had a wonderful time at the fair. No one can take that from me."

Life is precious. It's God's gift to us to enjoy, but life's not perfect. A day at the fair can do an old man in. The kingdom of heaven is in our midst, but it's still in the process of coming. But like David and the grandfather we can be thankful that cancer and war and violence and famine are not the final word.

Jesus asks the disciples, "Have you understood all this? They said to him, "Yes."

And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

We are offered the opportunity to recognize the treasure when we see it; to benefit from its contents -- there's new and there's old, it's all yours.

Thanks be to the God of heaven and earth.
Thanks be to God's Son Jesus the Christ.


Worship Resources

N.b.: All copyright information is given from the first cited place where found. Some copyright information may differ in other sources due to adaptations, etc

The Revised Common Lectionary calls for the canticle of Zechariah as the response to the First Reading. One option is to use this as a hymn setting either as a response to the reading or as a response to the homily. If one desires to use a psalm instead, then Psalm 95, 96, or 146 are good options.

OPENING

Music

Hymns

"Christ, Whose Glory Fills The Skies." WORDS: Charles Wesley, 1740; MUSIC: J. G. Werner's Choralbuch, 8115; harm. William H. Havergal, 1861. Public domain. As found in UMH 173; Hymnal '82: 6, 7; LBOW 265; TPH 462, 463.

"Jesus Shall Reign." WORDS: Isaac Watts, 1719; MUSIC: John Hatton, 1793; Public domain. As found in UMH 157; Hymnal '82: 544; LBOW 530; TPH 423; AAHH 289; TNNBH 10; TNCH 300; CH 95.

"All Hail The Power Of Jesus' Name." WORDS: Edward Perronet, 1779; alt. John Rippon 1787; MUSIC: Oliver Holdern, 1792 (Coronation), James Ellor, 1838 (Diadem). Public domain. As found in UMH 154, 155; Hymnal '82: 450, 451; LBOW328, 329; TPH 142, 143; AAHH 293, 294; TNNBH 3, 5; TNCH 304; CH 91, 92.

"Ye Servants Of God." WORDS: Charles Wesley, 1744; MUSIC: attr. William Croft, 1708. Public domain. As found in UMH 181; Hymnal '82: 535; LBOW 252; TPH 477; TNCH 305; CH 110.

"When Morning Gilds The Skies." WORDS: Katholisches Gesangbuch, ca. 1744; sts. 1, 2, 4 trans. Edward Caswall, 1854; st. 3 Robert S. Bridges, 1899; MUSIC: Joseph Barnby, 1868. Public domain. As found in UMH 185; Hymnal '82: 427; LBOW 545, 546; TPH 487; AAHH 186; TNCH 86; CH 100.

"Fairest Lord Jesus." WORDS: Munster Gesangbuch, 1677; trans. Joseph August Seiss, 1873; MUSIC: Schlesische Volkslieder, 1842; arr. Richard Storrs Willis, 1850. Public domain. As found in UMH 188; Hymnal '82: 383; TPH 306; TNNBH 75; TNCH 44; CH 97.

Songs

"Come, Let Us Worship And Bow Down." WORDS and MUSIC: Dave Doherty. (c) 1980 and this arr. (c) 1986 by Maranatha! Music. As found in PMMCH3 105.

"How Majestic Is Your Name." WORDS and MUSIC: Michael W. Smith. (c) 1981 Meadowgreen Music. As found in CCB 21.

"King Of Kings." WORDS: Nomi Yah; MUSIC: Hebrew Folksong. (c) 1980 Maranatha! Music. As found in Renew 268.

CALL TO WORSHIP

Leader: Come, we will sing to God.

People: We will make a joyful noise to our Savior.

Leader: We come into God's presence with singing.

People: We are joyful with the songs of praise.

Leader: Come, we will worship and bow down.

People: We kneel before God our Creator.

Leader: We are the people of God's pasture.

People: We are the sheep in God's hands.

COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER

O God of creation, who is within and yet far beyond all creation: Grant us the grace to join in owning Christ as our sovereign so that your will may truly be done on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

or

We come into your presence, God, and offer our praises. We come to acknowledge that through Jesus the Christ you have placed everything into the your realm. We come to declare ourselves members of your realm and to be renewed by the power of your Spirit to claim our communities and the whole world for you. Give us humility to acknowledge that we are not able to articulate your ways completely and to stand in awe of your great mystery. Amen.

Response Music

Hymns

"Blessed Be The God Of Israel." WORDS: Michael Perry, 1973 (Luke 1:68-79); MUSIC: Hal H. Hopson, 1983. Words (c)1973 Hope Publishing Co.; music (c) 1983 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 209; Hymnal '82: 444; CH 135.

"Come, Christians, Join To Sing." WORDS: Christian Henry Bateman, 1843; MUSIC: trad. melody, arr. Benjamin Carr, 1824; harm. Austin C. Lovelace, 1963. Harm. (c) 1964 Abingdon Press. As found in UMH 158; TPH 150; CH 90.

"Lift High The Cross." WORDS: George William Kitchin and Michael Robert Newbolt, 1916, alt.; MUSIC: Syney Hugo Nicholson, 1916. (c) 1974 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 159; Hymnal '82: 473; LBOW 377; TPH 371; AAHH 242; TNCH 198; CH 108.

"At The Name Of Jesus." WORDS: Caroline M. Noel, 1879; MUSIC: Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1925. Music (c) by permission of Oxford University Press. As found in UMH 168; Hymnal '82: 435; LBOW 179; TPH 148.

"His Name Is Wonderful." WORDS and MUSIC Audrey Mieir, 1959. (c) 1959, renewed 1987 Manna Music, Inc. As found in UMH 174; AAHH 307.

"Majesty, Worship His Majesty." WORDS: Jack Hayford, 1981; MUSIC: Jack Hayford, 1981; arr. Eugene Thomas, 1981. (c) 1981 Rocksmith Music. As found in UMH 176; AAHH 171.

"He Is Lord." WORDS: Philippians 2:9-11; MUSIC: trad., arr. Tom Fetke, 1986. Arr. (c) 1986 Word, Inc. As found in UMH 177; AAHH 285; CH 117.

Songs

"Shine, Jesus, Shine." WORDS and MUSIC: Graham Kendrick. (c) 1987 Make Way Music. As found in CCB 81.

"Lord, I Lift Your Name On High." WORDS and MUSIC: Rick Founds. (c) 1989 Maranatha! Music. As found in CCB 36.

"He Is The King Of Glory." WORDS and MUSIC: Eddie Smith. (c) 1990 and this arr. (c) 1992 Spiritruth Music. As found in PMMCH3 68.

PRAYERS OF CONFESSION / PARDON

Leader: Let us confess to God our reluctance to allow God to be God and for us to God's creatures.

People: We confess to you, O God, and before our brothers and sisters and all creation, that are reluctant creatures. We are much more comfortable being in control. We know we did not create the universe but we insist that our understanding of how you created it must the one and only true understanding. We mock each other's attempts to put language to the indefinable work of creation sometimes calling them stupid and sometimes calling them non-Christians. We have grievously erred.

We are, indeed, part of your great creation. As those who are a part of what you have wrought it is impossible for us to fully comprehend your work. The story of creation, which should help us feel kinship with one another, instead is a cause for division and strife.

While we grapple with an understanding of your works, let us put aside our differences and turn to one another in love that we may truly be the Body of Christ, offered for the healing of the world. Unite us in your Spirit and your mission. Amen.

Leader: The God who created us is the God who knows us. The God who knows us is the God who loves us. In the name of Jesus Christ you are forgiven. Leave in peace and charity with your brothers and sisters.

GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.

Psalm 146:1-10

Leader: Praise God! Praise God, O my soul!

People: I will praise God as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

Leader: Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.

People: When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

Leader: Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in God their God,

People: who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;

Leader: who keeps faith forever;

People: who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

Leader: God sets the prisoners free;
God opens the eyes of the blind.

People: God lifts up those who are bowed down;
God loves the righteous.

Leader: God watches over the strangers;

People: God upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

Leader: God will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.

People: Praise God!

PRAYER FOR THE DAY

All worship and glory is yours, O God, for you are the Creator of what was, what is, and whatever will be. We stand in awe of the mystery of space with its whirling galaxies and the mystery of cellular life with all its hidden codes and ways. We see a simple flower and find it a source of beauty and of wonder.

(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)

We cannot fathom the mystery of creation and we are far from understanding its Creator. Yet in our arrogance we have offered our interpretations of your works and declared them to be the truth. We take our understanding of science and of interpreting scripture and declare them the only sane way to understand you. What insanity! We, the creatures, have set ourselves up as those who can explain the Creator! Forgive us our stiff-necked pride and our intolerance of those you have declared to be our brothers and sisters. Help us to live in this family in the harmony of knowing that you are our God so that together we may serve the world for which Jesus died. Unite us in your Spirit and in your ministry to the world.

We thank you for the wonders of creation. They are a delight to our eyes, ears, noses, tongues, and touch. Thank you for those around us who share your love with us in sundry ways. We thank you most of all for Jesus Christ who showed us in his living what it means to be a child of God.

(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)

We lift up to you those who are in our hearts and minds knowing that you are with them already. Bless the sick and the dying, the hungry and the thirsty. Bless the strangers and the prisoners and those who have lost their way in life. Bless your church as struggle to live together serve the world in your name.

(Other petitions may be offered.)

All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray saying, "Our Father ...."

Hymnal & Songbook Abbreviations

UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
TNCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition
Renew: Renew! Songs and Hymns for Blended Worship


A Children's Sermon

Names And Titles

Object: a driver's license, a credit card, a name plate, a church directory, or anything else that identifies a person by name or title

Based on Luke 23:33-43

... and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews." (vv. 37-38)

Good morning, boys and girls. Today we are going to talk about names and titles. What if you came to our church for the first time and you wanted to know the pastor's name? Where would you look? (let them answer) Is it printed anywhere in the worship bulletin? Is it on the sign in front of the church? Is it on the door to his office? (let them answer)

Here are some things with people's names on them. This is a driver's license. It even has my picture on it. Here is a credit card with my name on it. This name plate sits on my desk so that I won't forget who I am, and so that other people will read it and know how to spell my name. And this is the church directory with everyone's name and picture printed in it.

Today is a special Sunday. It is called "Christ The King Sunday." Jesus has many names and titles. Sometimes we call him Lord or Savior. We can also call him the Messiah, Prince of Peace, the Good Shepherd, the Son of Man, or the Son of God. But when Jesus was put on the cross, the soldiers made a sign that said, "This is the King of the Jews." Many people wanted Jesus to be the king. They wanted him to be like King David or King Solomon but Jesus would not accept that kind of an honor. Do you know why? (let them answer)

Jesus didn't accept it because he was not that kind of a king. Jesus was not King of the Jews and he is not King of the Americans or King of the Russians. Jesus is King of the whole world and all the people in the world. Jesus does not have armies or castles. He doesn't ride in carriages or wear a crown with jewels. He doesn't have a queen. But Jesus is the mightiest power the world has ever seen.

Jesus uses his power to share his love. He cares about the poor, the sick, and the lonely. Jesus loves children and adults. He loves all of the people he created.

Jesus uses his power to forgive sin. He helps people who are lost from God to find their way back again. Jesus is the only real King of the entire world.

The next time you meet a person with a title, like doctor, teacher, or pastor, I want you to remember the day soldiers hung a sign on Jesus that called him King. Then remember that he was not the kind of king they wanted him to be but the best King the world has ever known.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Immediate Word, November 21, 2004, issue.

Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.

All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.