Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Mystic, Connecticut

Sermon from August 08, 2004

“You Call the Worlds Into Being”

(Exploring Our Faith, Part I)

Rev. Thomas Ratmeyer

Scripture:

Genesis 1:24-2:3

Yesterday was the perfect day.  I walked the dog in the morning.  I felt the dew on my naked toes when I made my way across the lawn.  Everything seemed to be waking up with me.  It was as if I could feel how the green around me was drinking  up the moisture and soaking up the morning light, reaching to catch every ray of sunshine.  The dog was jumping through the high grass alongside the stretch of River Road making leaps of exhilaration.  He forgot that he was still on a leash, that there was any confinement or restraint where he wanted to proclaim: “Life is good!”  The river spread out as if enjoying a morning stretch after the retreat of the night and a proud egret was already promenading with graceful, deliberate steps where the water is shallow and fish can easily be found.

Could we be any more in awe?  God not only made this creation, but put us into it—each one of us, having created us as well and in his own image.  God endowed us with enormous powers with insight and skill so that we may have dominion over this creation; that we may greatly accept what it offers us; that we may learn to work it so it may yield fruit for our nourishment and our enjoyment; that we may preserve it for this precious every day anew. 

Dominion and power—they are awesome responsibilities and we awake anew to these responsibilities as if it was Day 6 all over again. What does it mean today that God created you and me in God’s image?  There is a divine spark in us and I ask you, “Where has it brought about some light today?”  What does it mean that I look at you and the image of God is looking back at me.  Behold!  God made all these and God made you and me.  God made us men and women and God saw that it was good.

Every day, you might say, is Day 6 again.  Some days, like this one, are Day 7.  Day 7 is when we get together to express our awe to God to remind ourselves that we and all that surrounds us are God’s work indeed.  Day 7 is when we ask ourselves how the work that we do, how our work can be God’s work also. 

 You might say, though “Is faith and beliefs and my relationship with God, is that not a highly individual thing?  Is it not my own alone where I see God and where I connect with God and whether I think of God as ‘him’ or ‘her’ and where and how in my life I make my work God’s work?  Is that not a very individual thing?” Is not, in fact, the faith community limited in how much it can describe God to me in a way that truly speaks to me?  After all, our creeds are centuries old.  Some of our hymns are, too.  That makes them dear to some and inaccessible to others.  It is the same, of course, with the new hymns—dear to some because they find a language that is in touch with who they are, and inaccessible to others because that is not the language that we grew up with in our faith.  That is not the language we learned in Sunday school.  But what they both have in common is that it is the melodies and words of hymns what we revert back to when nothing else quite knows how to comfort us; when reason and understanding have long ago been found insufficient to speak to us in life’s most existential struggle.  Herbert Kearsley was such a great example of that:   the way hymns spoke to him, and the way, even in the hospital, when they played a cd with hymns, his face would lighten up and he would communicate on a whole different level.  Play Bach, I beg you, and a little Barbra Streisand, when my mind has ceased to function the way it should and I will find all the comfort I need. 

It’s true.  Our faith is an individual matter.  The church is not the gatekeeper at the entryway to the divine, and, yet, we have an inherent longing to know that something that touches us as deeply as faith does it shared with others.  I believe we long for peers, to be with someone who hears our thoughts about the grace of God that we have encountered in a sacred moment, and nods with recognition.  ‘Yes, me, too. 

Our faith may be personal.  It may even be private in some way but it need not be lonely.  If you think of it, there is little in the Christian faith that allows us to keep it entirely to ourselves.  We are to be a witness of Christ to others if our life is in Christ.  We are to see in others the image of God.  Does that not inevitably change the way we interact with everybody else?  We shall reach out to those around us who have needs and share the gifts that we have been given finding that our gifts multiply when we put them to use for and with others.  Much of our faith is about connecting and putting us in touch with others.  So it would make sense that, for as long as there have been Christians, we have longed to put our experience with God, this relationship that is like a landscape of desert and oasis, like the journey of those thirsty to the well of living water—it makes sense that we have longed to put this experience on a map, a map that fellow travelers can read, a chart that allows us to plot a course to the other shore.  We call them creeds, from credo, I believe, those maps that we lay out for the word of God.

The earliest forms of creeds spoken by believers when they gathered for worship and a meal in their homes or in hiding places in the catacombs marked with the fish as a symbol—even those earliest forms of creeds knew to describe God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  I firmly believe that to them, as to us, at any given time, one of the three or two of the three may have more significance than the other.  At any given time, it could be that we mostly find God in creation.  Frankly, how much more plausible to think of the evolution that science describes to us, as following a divine intent rather than coincidence and chance.  Or it could be, at any given time, we find God most in Jesus Christ who came to us as human only to take upon himself everything of humanity that would separate us from God; that we find God in the sacrifice of the son.  Or it could be, finally, that we find God in the Holy Spirit, that breath of life that continues to create and put forth God’s will; that makes it feasible how God could be acting among us today.

We call them testimonies of faith, those creeds, where some in the past have called them tests of faith and have tried to give a grade of “Pass” or “Fail” to their fellow believers according to whether they would simply subscribe to a doctrine or dare to argue with it.  But it is not a test.  To say a statement of faith is a testimony that does not divided us into believers and not-really-believers.  It unites us into a community of faith.  It answers our longing to know that our faith is shared, that the beliefs we hold dear and the beliefs with which we wrestled so much do not make us lonely but call us into the community of faith.

Someone in our community at large, the United Church of Christ, has been so inspired.—I mean inspired as in the Holy Spirit—to write the UCC Statement of Faith, as a prayer!  To make the words that describe our relationship with God and with one another not a description but a communication with that same God.  How ingenious and obvious a solution is that? 

We are going to pray the Statement of Faith together this week and in the weeks to come as we explore our faith together.  But then, maybe “explore” is a word too cautious.  Should we say, instead, “as we reflect on our faith’’, “as we joyfully declare our faith”, “as we give witness to our faith”, “as we claim our Christian faith”?  The UCC Statement of Faith is printed in the bulletin this week, and will be in the weeks to come with the part that we talk about that particular time in bold print.

Let me talk about it first, and then we will stand and pray together at the end of the sermon.

“We believe in you, O God, eternal spirit, God of our savior Jesus Christ, and our God, and to your deeds we testify.”  God of our Savior Jesus Christ, and our God—that is the God that Jesus called Abba, Father, so that we may do the same.  Jesus, the man of Nazareth, brought God closer to us, and because Jesus was human, were we able to grasp and embrace that he was divine as well.  That is a paradox but it makes sense: because Jesus was human, we were able to grasp that he was divine as well.  Had he not wept, and feared, and felt lonely at times, and overwhelmed by the crowds at other times, that we wouldn’t be able to begin to understand and comprehend that he suffered for us, and was resurrected, and revealed as the Christ, the Messiah?

“You called the worlds into being, create persons in your own image, and set before each of us the ways of life and death.”  I love that it talks about the worlds, plural.  Are there others out there?  Other worlds with other issues?  Or is this an acknowledgement that there is diversity, that my world can be different from yours, that I have little in common with the cabdriver in Berlin or a professor at Oxford, England?  My world is significantly different even from my brothers, let alone a Pakistani businessman or woman from Tanzania.  My world is opposite that of a poor person, a disabled person, a person in a war zone.  You called the worlds into being—maybe that means that there is no one, objectified world, truth, and perspective, but, instead, the amazing multiplicity of experience that makes the world so rich.

“You seek in holy love to save all people from aimlessness, and sin.”  Love is the starting point.  Love created, and love redeemed what was created.  Love is what sustains in us faith and hope.  Our God is a God of love. 

“You judge people, and nations by your righteous will declared through prophets and apostles.”  Is our God a god who judges?  You bet.  If there was not a righteous will, would it not mean that God simply does not care?  God calls us to a life of faith and faithful action.  God empowers and affirms.  God loves us and forgives us so that we may learn to love ourselves and act accordingly, in a righteous way which is the opposite of a self-righteous way.  Do justice.  Love kindness and walk humbly with your God.  God judges us and God loves us.  God engages us even when we have turned away from God.  God calls us into God’s care and God offers new life.

The church, in its history, has done much harm in claiming to know the judgment of God, and in claiming to be God’s representative.  Then, the church, in its more recent history, has sometimes gone too far in eliminating that notion of judgment, in an effort to make the church more welcoming.  I firmly believe that the church should be as welcoming as it can be and no one should be left outside.  But if we were ever to forget how to ask for God’s mercy, the mercy of a righteous God, then, the grace and forgiveness that comes to us through the death and resurrection of Christ, would have little or no meaning anymore.

I invite you now to please stand, and pray the Statement of Faith with me, and remain standing as we sing the hymn after the sermon.  Please join me.

“We believe in you, O God, Eternal Spirit, God of our Savior, Jesus Christ and our God, and to your deeds we testify: You call the worlds into being, create persons in your own image and set before each one the ways of life and death.  You seek in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.  You judge people and nations by your righteous will declared through prophets and apostles.  In Jesus Christ, the man from Nazareth, our crucified and risen Savior, you have come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the world to yourself.

You bestow upon us your Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.  You call us into your church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be your servants in the service of others, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ’s baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory.

You promise to all who trust you forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, your presence in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in your realm which has no end.  Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto you.  Amen.”