Advent I - November 27, 2005
Communion / Food Bank Sunday
Many people in the world today live an exile experience. It is not easy for those who live in secure situations to fully understand the depth of the longing for rescue by people who live under the threat of military oppression, hunger, fear, or poverty. What experiences of liberation and transformation do you and your community long for this Advent season?
The Message: “Don’t give up on God’s surprises”
By Rev. James K. Farrell
When people
think of the coming of the Son of Man…thoughts of terrible “end times” scenarios
often come to mind. The passage I read from Mark’s gospel is certainly a passage
that has brought such visions to the minds of many over the years. In fact all
kinds of things get said when folks focus on the second coming of Christ. Signs
and wonders often lead people to such places and when people are fearful their
beliefs can become places of entrenchment rather than places of grace. The evolution
vs. creationism debate in the U.S.A. is now so contentious that the American Museum
of Natural History (AMNH) in New York has been unable to find a corporate
sponsor for its new exhibition detailing the life and discoveries of Charles
Darwin. With American companies apparently unwilling to be seen to be taking
sides in the old debate, the whole of the $3m bill for the exhibition has been
met by donations, large and small, from private individuals,
Darwin has been
dead for nearly 50 years and while it is my belief that science and faith are
not enemies, still, evolution for many continues to be a subject over which
people are willing to become cemented in their views and dogmatic in their
tenacity to pick sides. Some people focus on “believing in their believing” more
than the belief that God journeys with us through our discoveries. Some of you may
remember Bishop John Spong visiting us nearly four years ago. Jack writes an
internet column in which he invites questions from readers. I find that column a
good way to engage what’s happening in his life and what is happening in
religious thought and discussions outside our local area. One of his
recent columns was in response to a question from Christina, a television
producer at Fox News who writes: Bishop Spong, “How do you respond to the Rev.
Pat Robertson when he warns the citizens of Dover, Pennsylvania, that God might
strike them with a disaster since they voted out the School Board members who
favoured “Intelligent Design?” “ Jack responds
in part by writing: Dear Christina, Pat Robertson has said so many silly and
ridiculous things that I wonder why anyone would pay much attention to him on
any subject. He warned Orlando, Florida, that God would send a hurricane to
destroy them when Orlando’s decision makers added “sexual orientation” to that
city’s civil rights ordinance making it illegal for an employer to discriminate
against a person because of race, ethnicity, gender, creed or “sexual
orientation.” He suggested
that Hollywood would be the victim of an earthquake because that is where Ellen
Degeneres works. With Jerry Falwell he agreed that the 9/11 disaster was brought
upon [the US] as God’s judgment for harboring “feminists, abortionists,
homosexuals and the American Civil Liberties Union.” He suggested
that the CIA should assassinate the duly elected President of Venezuela, Hugo
Chavez. He has said that the feminist movement is about those women who want to
“leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft and become
lesbians.” The tirade of absurdities goes on and on. This country
treasures the precious gift of free speech and Pat Robertson can obviously say
any foolish and ignorant thing he wishes. When he pretends to speak in the name
of God, however, I think his fellow believers have a right, indeed a necessity,
to speak a word of judgment on his behavior since his words slander the
Christian definition of God “as Love,” A definition given to us first by the
author of the First Epistle of John and even more important, lived out by Jesus,
who called us even to love our enemies. I wonder who,
other than Pat himself, designated Pat Robertson to be God’s spokesperson? How
dare Pat assume that ‘the God’ revealed in the Jesus ‘I serve’ is filled with
all of Pat’s peculiar prejudices. Why does he not understand that God is God and
Pat Robertson is not? Why does he not see that when he tells the world with an
unashamed certainty what God thinks and what God will do, he is only revealing
what he thinks and what he would do if he had God’s power? Pat needs to
understand that he is acting out the very meaning of idolatry. He has confused
God with himself. Some one needs
to inform Pat Robertson that the idea of God sitting on a throne above the
clouds manipulating the weather in order to punish sinners is so primitive and
so naïve that it is staggering to the educated imagination. It is bad
enough that his mind cannot embrace the thought of Charles Darwin from the 19th
century, but Pat has yet to embrace the thought of Copernicus from the 16th
century or Galileo from the 17th century. No educated person today believes that
the earth is the center of the universe and that God lives above the sky,
playing with low-pressure systems and planning revenge on those who are not
believers in Intelligent Design. Indeed why
would anyone be drawn to the demonic deity who emerges in Pat’s thinking and
teaching? It is surely
not a God of Love who punishes New Orleans’ poorest citizens with a hurricane
that New Orleans’ wealthiest citizens could and did manage to escape at least
with their lives, because they had cars. Did God cause
two tectonic plates to collide under the Indian Ocean because there were some
350,000 evil people, with fully one-third of them children, whom God desired to
kill in a tsunami wave? Is that how God communicates divine displeasure? Is that a God
worthy of worship? Were the 3000 who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 or
the 2100 members of the U.S. Armed Forces who have thus far died in Iraq during
this war somehow worthy of this ultimate punishment either because of their own
evil or because God sacrificed them to send a message to someone else? Those ideas are
so ludicrous as to be laughable, except for the fact that for anyone to suggest
such incredible things is still painfully hurtful to those who are the victims
of both natural and human disasters to say nothing of their surviving loved
ones. I, as a
Christian, am embarrassed by the public face that Pat Robertson puts on the
religious tradition to which my life is dedicated.” Signed, John Shelby Spong Whenever we
engage the passages from scripture that speak of Christ’s return—the “end times”
stories, we invariably call up the kinds of comments that have people speaking
for God and declaring the judgments God will or will not execute upon humanity.
Well meaning
and even malicious Christians have been doing it for 2000 years. I do believe
that, in the big picture, God is in control…regarding the details that lead us
toward that big picture however, I believe we do God a disservice as we try to
make God the enactor of our prejudices. Today I have
elected to share these words of Jack Spong believing that most of you here have
reconciled the science / creation debate in your own minds but there may be
other debates that weigh heavy upon your heart. To you I say, wrestle with those
issues but do so knowing that much of what we would like to be very ‘sure of’
really can only be fully known by God. We should tread carefully when we
attempt to lay claim to a knowledge which only God can fully know. The coming of
the Son of Man that matters most is the coming of the love that “God is” into
the hearts of people wanting to be made new by the “Lord of the Universe” right
now this moment and all the moments between now and our own eternity. Be diligent in
seeking the ever-new possibility of God’s ongoing entrance of surprise into your
life! Be alert for those signs of new life and new love and embrace them. Amen.