SermonStudio

Down through the centuries, philosophers and theologians have come up with a number of classical "proofs for the existence of God." The truth is that these "proofs" are not likely to convince anyone who is determined not to believe in God. But they can be helpful guides to experiencing God for people who want to believe. Most of the proofs for the existence of God focus attention on the things that exist and the things that happen in the world around us and reason that there must be someone who is making those things happen. But there is one argument for the existence of God that focuses upon our own inner consciousness and relatedness and reasons that, since we had a consciousness of some greater reality beyond ourselves, and a need to prove that such a reality exists, there must indeed be such a reality out there. This has been called the "ontological" argument for the existence of God. It was advanced by the twelfth--century theologian, Anselm of Canterbury. (You won't flunk your final if you fail to remember that.)

As we have said, the ontological argument is not likely to serve as a conclusive proof of anything. And yet, it can focus our attention on an important aspect of our experience of God. Are you aware that you do, in fact, live in some kind of a relationship with a greater reality that is out there and that comes to meet you in each new day of life?
In fact, coming to an awareness that we live in relationship with a greater reality that is beyond us is the starting place of all religions. All religions, including our Christian faith, start with that awareness and then try to help us discover who that great other is, what it is like, how it relates to us, and how we ought to live in relationship with it. That is the way in which religion can shape our lives.

Does all of that seem a little abstract? There is a story in the Bible that can help us to catch a vision of what it means to live a life shaped by a relationship with a greater reality. It is a story of a man who heard a voice from beyond everything that he knew and responded to its call. His name was Abram. Today, and for several Sundays to come, we will be trying to see what we can learn from the experiences of Abram and his wife Sarai, or Abraham and Sarah as they were later called, and their family.

Abram and Sarai lived a very long time ago, near the very beginning of the biblical narrative, in Haran, a city in Mesopotamia. This was a thriving city in the ancient civilization that grew up around the Tigress and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq. Theirs was one of the most advanced cultures of the ancient world. They had well--developed systems of commerce, a written language, an accounting system and, we may suppose, all of the other amenities that go with an advanced and prosperous culture. They also had a well--developed religious cult, with temples and priests and traditions, all dedicated to the worship of the moon. Abram was a part of all of that.

In fact, Abram had grown up in the city of Ur, the capital of that civilization. But his father had, for some reason we are not told, taken his whole family, including his adult children and their children, and set out from Ur to go to the land of Canaan. They got as far as Haran, in northwestern Mesopotamia and settled there.

We can imagine that Abram and his family were affluent business people who lived in a two--story house built around a court yard. They probably had running water and something like venetian blinds on the windows. (Of course, they can't really have been venetian blinds since there was not yet a Venice.) They probably had a circle of friends and business associates and some status in the community. All of the things that represented the good life in that day were familiar to Abram and Sarai. Are you getting the picture that Abram and Sarai were enjoying a lifestyle very similar to the one enjoyed by some of the most fortunate among us? We might have thought they would have wanted to stay there and benefit from all of their advantages.

But Abram was different. Somehow, he had come to a realization that there was some greater reality out there beyond all of the things that were so important to the other people around him, something bigger than two--story houses and profitable businesses and the advantages of Mesopotamian culture, something greater even than the moon goddess whom everyone around him worshiped. We don't know how Abram came to that awareness, but it was very real to him. One day Abram heard a voice speaking to him from beyond all of those familiar things. The voice came from one who was invisible and mysterious, unknown and, for the most part, unknowable, one who was beyond human control or management. The voice called Abram to take his family and to leave behind everything that he had known and to venture out into the unknown.

There was a promise. The invisible other who was speaking would be with him and lead him to a new land that would be given to him, and his descendants would become a nation that would play an important role in human history. But in order to receive that promise, Abram would have to leave everything that was familiar and dependable and manageable and venture out trusting only that great unknowable other who called him.

The other must have been very real to Abram because Abram did what the other called him to do. He took his family and his servants and that part of his things that he could carry and set out from Haran on an adventure that would eventually give rise to three of the world's great religions.

There are lots of things we can learn from that story. In fact, we will be watching that story unfold and learning what we can from it for a number of weeks to come.

The first thing that we will need to learn is how to find ourselves in relationship with that great other who is in and beyond everything else in life.

You know that you have lots of relationships with lots of different people and things, don't you? And you know that those relationships help to shape your life, don't you? You have one relationship with your spouse and another with your parents and another with your children. You actually have a relationship with yourself but that is sometimes a little hard to figure out. You have a relationship with your boss or your employees and your job or with the teacher and the school, if you are in school, and of course, the peer group, whoever that is. We won't mention your relationship with the traffic on the freeway and with all of the happenings that get reported on the nightly news. Each of these things impacts your life in one way or another and each requires some response from you and each makes some difference in your life. We have lots of little separate relationships with particular people or things.

But now, are you aware that you also have some kind of a relationship with one great other someone out there beyond you? It is a relationship that puts all of your little relationships together so that you relate to them all as a whole. You may have identified that as your relationship with life in general. You may find that you have developed some attitudes toward that other. You may be afraid of life. You may feel that life is there for you to exploit for your own profit. You may get angry at life and cuss it. If you are very wise and perceptive, you may sometimes even appreciate life and love it - though that attitude is not very popular in our culture. Are you aware that you have some such relationship with all that is beyond you?

Now let's take one more step. Could you imagine that there is actually someone standing there in the place of that to which you are relating, some reality that is in and beyond all of the other realities to which you relate, one who is more than the sum of the parts, one who created everything and gives life to you, and that it is God? Now that is a mind stretcher, isn't it? Many of us are accustomed to thinking of God as one reality that is separate from all of the others living somewhere in heaven. To think of God as one who is there relating to you in all of your interactions with life can seem like a new and challenging idea. Some of us would prefer not to believe that. We like it better with God somewhere else where God can't see us or make demands upon us or get in the way. But, if we can learn to experience God as one who is present and at work in, and beyond, all of the other things that we encounter in life, if we can learn to experience all of our interactions with life as interactions with God, it will make a big difference in what our Christian faith can mean to us.

Now that is a big idea. If it is new to you, you may need some time to soak it up. While you are doing that, let's race on ahead and preview some of the things that will follow from coming into a relationship with God as the great other.

First, since that great other is the most important thing we have to relate to, we should let our relationship with that one shape our lives rather than being preoccupied with any of the little realities with which we have particular relationships. Don't let something little take the place in your life that should be occupied by the one who is really big.

Second, if you are really going to let your relationship with that other shape your life, you are going to want to know all you can about it. You will find, as Abram did, that the one who is out there is beyond our ability to understand or to manage fully. But you can learn a lot of things about that one from the witnesses of people who had experiences with God. Many of those witnesses have been incorporated into the Bible. We will be studying them. Most of all, we will want to take seriously what God has shown us about God's self through Jesus Christ. That is the most important revelation of God. And, that revelation shows us that the awesome other who meets us and interacts with us in all of our interactions with life is one who loves us and who is at work in our lives and in our world to make life good for us.

Finally, if we can believe what we have learned about God, that invisible other, we can dare to venture out into life trusting life and the God who gives it and following the leadership that God will give us day by day. The Bible calls that "living by faith" and it tells us that is the way to fullness of life. If Abram's witness is true, that awesome other often acts like a swimming teacher standing waste deep in water and calling to the children who are clinging to the side of the pool, "Come on now, let go of the side, trust the water to hold you up, and swim out here to me." That is what it means to live by faith.

There is a poem that may be meaningful to those who are considering whether or not to answer that invitation. It was written by Christopher Logue in honor of another poet, Guillaume Apollinaire.

Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
Come to the edge.
And they came,
and we pushed,
And they flew.1


Who knows what may happen to us if we dare to respond to the invitation of the one who calls us to venture out. There are many other things that we need to learn about God. For now it will be enough for us to learn what Abram learned. There is someone out there calling our name.


____________

1. Christopher Logue, written in 1968 for a festival honoring the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Guillaume Apollinaire.