Stars

If you were in worship at First Church this morning, you got all this already… some “star data” and a true story…

On the clearest of nights, if you’re at least 10 miles away from any source of light like streetlights and cars and lit up houses, and if your vision is relatively good, and depending on the time of the year, you can see anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 stars in the sky. The closest one to us, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years away, which means that the light we’d see tonight from that star was generated by that star about Thanksgiving, 2005. The brightest star in the night sky, the North Star, or Polaris, is 2,527,808,910,468,952 (2 quadrillion, 527 trillion, 808 billion, 910 million, 468 thousand, 952) miles, or 430 light years away, which means the light we’d see tonight from that North Star was generated about the time Sir Francis Drake was wrapping up his circumnavigation of the globe. The farthest star we’d see on our really clear night isn’t really a star at all, but a galaxy, Andromeda, and it looks like a star because it is so far away, all of its stars look as if they are all one star. It’s 2.5 million light years away, Andromeda is, or something like 14,696,563, 432,959,020,000 (14 quintillion, 696 quadrillion, 563 trillion, 432 billion, 959 million, 20 thousand) miles, which means the light we’d see tonight from the Andromeda galaxy was generated about the beginning of the Proterozoic Era, when the continents became stable and oxygen started to saturate the atmosphere. The star that is farthest from us but still in our own Milky Way Galaxy that we’d see tonight is only about 23.5 quadrillion miles, or 4,000 light years away, which means the light we’d see tonight was generated a couple of centuries before Father Abraham’s vision in Genesis 15.

About the time the 12^th brightest star in tonight’s sky, Altair, was generating the light we'd see in tonight’s perfectly clear night sky (that’s about 17 years ago), we had a group of youth community young people staying at the Powder Horn Ski Resort on the western slopes of the Rockies. The last night we were at Powder Horn was a gloriously clear night, and after our worship time several of us sat outside as far away from any earth light as we could and just looked up. Several of the young people with us said they had never seen as many stars. Shooting stars darted across the night sky like fireworks, and one of them said something about how the light we were seeing at that moment was generated long in the past. Then one of the boys, one of the rowdy, always-hard-to-keep-down-on-the-farm-always-knows-much-much-more-than-anyone-else boys who we loved to be around but whom we always had to keep kind of a tight leash on, got up and started to wander off into the dark. Somebody called his name, and he just kept walking, so I went off after him. When I caught up with him, he was sobbing. Shoulders heaving, struggling to catch his breath sobbing.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“The stars,” he said, ‘the stars. The stars might not even be there, and we’re still seeing them. That’s how it’s gonna be for us, you know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

And then I heard one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard, from the mouth of that frightened, distraught boy…

“You’re always telling us, Rob that we have a lot of life to live. Well, we don’t! We don’t have very long, maybe 90 years if we’re lucky. I’m already 16. I only have like 70 some years left. It’s like the stars! When I’m dead, people will still see me. Well, maybe they won’t see me, but they will still be affected by me, by the person I am. They won’t know me, they won’t love me, but they will still see me. And I want them to see me at my best, not as the jerk I am most of the time. I don’t want them to think I’m a jerk. I want them to see me how I really am.”

“I don’t want them to think I’m a jerk! I don’t want to be a jerk anymore.”

More on "Fearing Not"

Jim Collins is a leadership and organizational leader who wrote among other things the leadership development books Good to Great and Built to Last. Though a huge proponent of changing processes (he calls them "mechanisms") and being responsive and embracing new technologies, he argues that the whole "change or die" emphasis prevalent in so many organizations is wrong-headed in at least two ways. In addition to not wanting to change for the sake of change, Collins argues that fear can set things in morion, can get people moving, but almost never results in healthy change. In short, fear is a lousy motivator.

In an article in Inc. a dozen years ago, Collins used this story as an example:

Picture the great composer Beethoven struggling to write a perfect Fifth Symphony that will stand the test of time. He starts with a simple theme. Discards it. Starts again. Revises it. Finally settles upon the famous "fate motive" (Da Da Da Dommmmm!). Inverts it. Extends it. Rends, amends, and dissects it. All in the context of a primal thematic struggle: that of light versus dark, hope versus despair, major versus minor. With great discipline he holds back the trombones, the piccolo, and the contrabassoon until their triumphal entry on the downbeat of movement four, when the forces of life and hope blast forth to obliterate the forces of angst and despair once and for all...

Now imagine asking Beethoven during his toil to perfect the Fifth Symphony, "Ludwig, why are you working so hard? Your First Symphony has established you as one of the most popular and successful composers of the day. Your Third Symphony, Eroica, will stand as one of the great cutting-edge creations of all time, having shattered the constraints of the classical style. You've already earned your place in the history books. Why do you continue to push yourself?"

Can you picture Beethoven responding, "Why push myself? Because if I don't write a better symphony, then someone else will. The competition is fierce, and if I don't improve, I'll be pummeled by those feisty foreign upstarts. Change or die. Innovate or self-destruct. Eat lunch or be lunch. It's not that I really want to reinvent and perfect my work; it's just that in this world, only the paranoid survive..."

The next time you encounter..."Change or die,"... remember the words of Royal Robbins, the great rock climber who pioneered ascents of Yosemite's big walls: "The point is not to avoid death - if you want to do that, simply stay on the ground. The point is to reach the top, and then to keep on climbing."

God is...

Paul Tillich talked about the limitations of language and the transcendence of the holy when he wrote about "the God above the God of theism." That is to say, whatever God is, God is more than our best description of God. For centuries we have argued some (a lot?!) about which image is better, what symbol set makes most sense rather than seeing what we can learn from images and symbol sets that don't necessarily make sense to us.

In his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius Loyola encouraged his young Jesuit novices to begin their search for spiritual truth to begin with this exercise. Prompted by one's spiritual director, the novice was instructed to complete as many "God is..." statements as could be corroborated by "scripture or experience." The novice would then create the "God is..." list --

God is love.
God is peace.
God is justice.
God is light.
God is ruler.
God is truth.--
God is... --

and then proceed to the mentor for direction. The spiritual director would listen warmly, intently, patiently as the novice would read one by one the "God is..." list and explain each individual statement. The mentor would press the novice through each rationale to the place where the novice would say "God is not only love, or peace, or light," or whatever.

"What then, my son, is God?" Almost invariable the novice would revisit his list, and his "not only list" and then move to a place of great exasperation and blurt out "God is...God!"

"Precisely," the mentor would reply. "God is God."

Notes on Trusting and Not Being Afraid

Imagine that you cannot swim. You are one of three people in a canoe that capsizes in the deep water, and you are the only one of the three that cannot swim. In the literal and figurative swirl of things, you see the two swimmers moving in on you, trying to rescue you. Can you in your wildest imagination picture yourself lying quietly in the water, all the while reassuring yourself by saying to yourself, "This, too, shall pass. I'll stay still and quiet and my friends will rescue me." Not likely.

Or, can you imagine your non-swimming self, in the midst of groping and gasping frantically for air and aid, coldly calculating, "Now, let me think; if I can get into position so I can push my friends' heads under water, I'll be able to keep my head up." I don't think so.

But anyone who has survived a life-saving class will tell you, you could very well, all pumped-up with adrenaline and with your life in the balance, automatically, instinctively try to compensate for your impending drowning by "oppressing" those who are only trying to save you.

In Psychoanalysis and Religion Erich Fromm tried to explain the dilemma of being human:

"Self-awareness, reason, and imagination have disrupted the harmony which characterizes animal existence. Their emergence has made humanity into the freak of the universe. People are part of nature, subject to nature's laws and unable to change them, yet people transcend the rest of nature. People are set apart while being part of; we are homeless, yet chained to the home we share with all creatures. We are driven to overcome this inner split, for another kind of harmony which can life the curse by which we are separated from nature, from other people, from ourselves and from God. The human capacity for self-transcendence is both our glory and our agony. We are guilty not so much of trying to play God as we are guilty of not knowing how to be human. Simply hubris (arrogance) is the mask that fear wears."

I think we have missed the point for centuries, at least since the early Middle Ages. Classical theology argues that at the heart of our sinful brokenness is that we all strive too much, and that striving is ultimately our effort to try to dismiss God and be in charge of our own universe, and that that the ultimate idolatry to which you and I are inevitable predisposed. But all that misses the real human drama.

I think it's more like this: we have a sense that things aren't as they should be, and we try, like the non-swimmer adrift in the threatening waters, to use anything and anyone to compensate for whatever is wrong, and that at the source of all our idolatries is our inability to trust. And because we do not trust, we puff up with hubris and vainly attempt to mask our fears.

What if we are not so much bad or sinful or wanton or reckless or damned or doomed as we are crippled by our lack of trust. We are the non-swimmer in the deep water; we can see the shore, but we fear we will never be able to reach it. It is as if we have been cast into the deep, and we are afraid -- of drowning, of dying, of the possibility that our lives mean nothing and that we are all alone. And, even worse, we are easily convinced that we deserve to be that way.

Remember the woman who, having been caught in adultery, was brought to Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees? There, in the presence of the a mob who viewed themselves as legally and morally bound to stone this woman to death, Jesus invites any among them who have not sinned to take the first shot at her. And by doing so, Jesus shows love and mercy not only to the woman who was a stone's throw away from her last breath; he showed love and mercy to those lining up to pelt her as well. Jesus knew that they, and we, are not so much crooked as we are crippled, and that we need to be freed of our fear in order to trust the promises of God.

What Do You Want Your Religion/Your Faith/God to Do For You?

We are going to wander around a bit to get to the point (I know, I know, what's new about that?!), so hang in there with me.

I just finished reading Steven Levitt's and Stephen Dubnar's book Superfreakonomics, and enjoyed having my thinking provoked by it as much or even more than their earlier book, Freakonomics. In a fascinating discussion of the omnipresent conversations about climate change/global warming, they cite an article by a classically educated journalist who, among other things, became the mayor of London, Boris Johnson:

"Like all the best religions, fear of climate change satisfies our need for guilt, and self-disgust, and that eternal human sense that technological progress must be punished by the gods. And the fear of climate change is like a religion in this vital sense, that it is veiled in mystery, and you can never tell whether your acts of propitiation or atonement have been in any way successful." (Boris Johnson, " We've Lost Our Fear of Hellfire, But Put Climate Change in Its Place, The Telegraph, 2006)

And then I revisited the "pre-reading" handout about "The Myth of Redemptive Violence" for our next Faith Journey gathering (January 26th, 6:30 PM, Room 1 -- if you haven't joined us, or haven't joined us for a while, why don't you?) that starts by citing something that Walter Brueggemann says in our Living the Questions videos:

"We are going to deal theologically with the problem of violence forever because it is intrinsic to our inheritance. The question for God for all of us who follow this God is is whether we can resist that stuff that is intrinsically present in our existence."

So all of that got me thinking about the question "What do I want my religion/my faith/ God to do for me?

Do I have an inherited, intrinsic need to be reminded of my imperfection? Do I want to be reminded how I do not measure up (the whole guilt and self-loathing thing?) Do I really yearn for an never-known and only barely imagined pre-existent perfect world from which, through no real fault of my own, I have fallen? Do I want God to reinforce the notion that I am somehow chosen because all those others are somehow so obviously not chosen? Do I want God to bless me and mine and by blessing me and mine, give me leave to not worry about you and yours, or more correctly, to not worry about them and theirs?

Or...

Do I want to be reminded from time to time that I am inherently, intrinsically self-interested, and so is my culture, and do I want to be reminded and invited and empowered to recognize God as the one who continually calls me away from that "intrinsically present inheritance" and toward the power and promise of love? Do I want to remember and revisit and recommit to the model for that kind of movement that Jesus continually, and sometimes surprisingly, offers? Do I want to be comforted and strengthened for the journey from intrinsic, inherent (and all too often violent?)self-interest to redemptive agape?

Hmmm.

Luke 1

My favorite part of all the parts of the Christmas stories in the bible...

These two couldn't have been any different if they had tried. Though related by marriage, you’d think that Mary and Zechariah have little use for each other.

Zechariah, the priest, is an important man in the political and religious life of his people.

Mary is “poor relation,” a simple, back water cousin who’s enchanted with Zechariah’s wife and the trappings of the big city, who celebrates her cousin’s good fortune and tolerates the “airs” Zechariah seems to emit everywhere he goes.

It seems as if Mary and Zechariah are night and day, oil and water, fire and ice.

She’s poor; he’s wealthy.

She’s so very young; he’s very old (“getting on in years” is Luke’s gentle way of talking about it).

She’s an insignificant, undervalued girl (females weren’t on top of many social heaps there and then); he’s a high-profile, public arena guy who, at least in his own mind and the minds of his close friends, is quite indispensable.

They’re as different as different could be – still, in the story that Luke tells, they are there when the curtain comes up on the drama of the incarnation of God’s love in time in the person of God’s long Promised One.

Look at how differently they respond to the messages that come to them from God. Prominent, religious, important Zechariah hesitates, stumbles, argues, cajoles – he doubts and questions the wisdom and the purpose of God, to say nothing of his uneasiness, fear, and sense of impropriety at the notion that he and his long-barren Elizabeth could be parents at the same time they are approaching their dotage. Never mind the great things Gabriel says their new boy has in store. Never mind the mind and will of God that transcends history and moves in ways too marvelous for our minds to always comprehend. Never mind that for Elizabeth, at least in cultural terms, a child will be a blessing, for barren women are even less valued than young virginal ones in those ridiculous times. Never mind how anyone else would benefit from this great gift of a son. All that matters to Zechariah is that his life of importance and comfort will be disrupted. Old Zechariah just doesn’t think it’s fair that he’s going to be burdened with this gift of God’s Providence. “How shall I know this?” he demands of his messenger, who then strikes Zechariah dumb, as if to say, “if a priest (of all people) can’t be open to the message of God for all people, then maybe he ought not speak!” Unless Zechariah can come to grips with the reality of God’s goodness, God’s graciousness, Zechariah will never utter another word. So here’s old Zechariah, too caught up with himself and his importance and his comfort and the way things are and been able to believe that God is ready with a song of good news of great joy for all the people. Poor, ancient, dumb-struck holy man Zechariah, condemned to silence for his inability and unwillingness to see past what has always been.

Later, same chapter, same angel, pretty similar message, different recipient. Gabriel tells Mary she’s pregnant, and after a brief moment of confusion because this announced pregnancy doesn’t happen the way pregnancies happen, Mary does not resist the angel’s message; instead of fighting it, she simply offers her self : “Here am I, the servant of the Lord: let it be with me according to your word.” Mary, with nothing to tie her down, no conflicting investments of money, time, or prestige, responds in way that seems unimaginable for an unwed mother in her time and place.

A glorious thing happens when Mary offers her self, and the baby in Elizabeth’s womb jumps for joy – Mary sings a song. (Get it? Recalcitrant, resistive, stubborn Zechariah is struck dumb – open, welcoming, embracing Mary sings.) In the face of what most would call a bleak condition, in the apparent poverty of her life, in the hustled, harried confusion of her recent past, Mary embraces God’s gift and sings a song of praise. In the midst of all that seems to be wrong with life and with the world, Mary sings a song praising God for what will happen to her. Mary sings a new song of good news of great joy, and Zechariah sits dumb-struck in the temple.

Without a whole lot of reflection at first blush, if asked who we were most like, Mary or Zechariah, we would likely say “Mary” because that is who we would rather be – open and receptive to the good news, ready to embrace how God’s working among us and to leap and sing for joy. But I think that you and I know that you and I are mostly more like Zechariah, dumb-struck at the risky, blind leaps of faith to which God calls us every day of our lives. And that’s too bad, because there is so much we miss, sitting alone in the dark, dumb struck.

But this part of the story doesn't end there. The time comes for Zechariah’s son to be born, and he is. On the 8^th day of his little life, when the rite of circumcision is to be performed and child is to be named, people in Zechariah’s family get all exercised because Elizabeth doesn’t want to use the old family name. She insists that her son be given a new name – like when Sarah, the old barren wife of father Abraham named her son “laughter (“Yitzak,” “Isaac”) because she had laughed at the prospect of giving birth at her advanced age. Or like with Hannah, the old, barren woman who gave birth to the first great prophet, named her son “listen to God” (“Shem uel” , “Samuel”) because listening to God is a prophet’s primary job. Elizabeth, the old, barren woman who gives them this gift of a son, insists that her boy be named “God is gracious” (“John”). The argument rages until somehow Zechariah gets someone to hand him a writing tablet, on which, from his silence, his nine-month exile from the realm of talking, Zechariah affirms what God wanted him to affirm from the beginning. He scribbles “His name is ‘John,’” following orders to be sure, but also as if to say “the son born to me in my old age is a gracious gift from a gracious God.”

And then another marvelous thing happens; at that moment, Zechariah’s tongue is freed, and that first thing that comes out of his mouth is (you guessed it!) a song reminiscent of the song of Elizabeth’s young cousin. Mary sings the Magnificat, and Zechariah sings a Benedictus. So the one who took the blind lead of faith and the one who was frightened speechless of the jump both begin the story by singing songs of good news of great joy for all the people.

Just like the angels do only 9 verses later.

Reminder...

We will not meet on the 4th Tuesday in December (December 22nd), but will meet in January on Tuesday, January 26th at 6:30 PM in Room 1