HEARING THE VOICE OF GOD
I was very interested in reading about the 'God particle' in media reports this week. The media reported British physicist Peter Higgs saying it should soon be possible to prove the existence of a force which gives mass to the universe and makes life possible. He believes a particle named the "Higgs boson" will be found when a vast particle collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) research centre which has been built on the Franco-Swiss border begins operating fully early next year. His earlier efforts to explain why the force, dubbed the Higgs field, must exist were dismissed but today, the existence of an invisible field coming into being milliseconds after the Big Bang created the universe some 15 billion years ago is widely accepted by scientists. Finding the Higgs boson would prove this theory right.
CERN's new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) aims to simulate conditions at the time of that primeval inferno by smashing particles together at near light-speed and so unlock many secrets of the universe. Scientists at the centre hope the process will produce clear signs of the boson, dubbed the "God particle" by some, to the displeasure of Professor Higgs, who is an atheist. Some humorists suggest maybe he does not like an elementary particle being called 'God particle’ because that would mean that it doesn't exist. The reason the name ‘God particle’ has stuck is because the Higgs boson gives a very fundamental property to all other elementary particles, and in fact to itself, namely to have mass at all. If this had not happened to all the smallest constituent parts of matter - molecules, atoms and quarks, would have floated free in space and stars and planets would never have formed. That is, the Genesis of life would never have happened. While I am not theologically in favour of describing God as “the Higgs boson” particle, it does raise the issue of what we find helpful in talking about God.
Today’s Scripture reading offers us much more familiar images of God as “home”. God is shepherd and host, pasture and valley, mansion and fortress, still water and open gate. The ancient shepherd image itself is rich and traditional, even if it no longer forms part of everyday life for most people and reflects practices quite foreign to our knowledge of sheep farming. Like the image of kings and queens, it has long since lost its relevance for most of contemporary society.
Yet these images and associations swirl around in the background as we consider our reading. The sheep are unambiguously people who are to be cared for. That in itself represents a positive value implicit in the image. It might remind us of Jesus’ parable about caring even for the one lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7), which in Matthew’s gospel applies to the care for members of the church who have fallen morally (18:12-14). In John’s gospel (3:16) Jesus makes the whole world a flock for divine love, far beyond Israel, and beyond the recognised faith community. Last week’s reading (Luke 24:13-35) told the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus who walked with this stranger without recognising him as Jesus until he broke the bread. The disciples were invited to see Jesus truly for the first time. Today’s parable implies: hear the voice of Jesus!
Imagine a pen where many sheep perhaps from many flocks are protected overnight. The hearer of the parable would know the common practice. Sheep belonging to a particular shepherd and would follow their shepherd through the gate in the morning out into the new day according to the sound of his voice. The story invokes response and reassurance.
But there is more, however, to the parable. It is warning about rival claims to the call of Christ. In the context of Jesus’ ministry those rivals are the other Jewish leaders with whom Jesus is in dispute and, perhaps in the context of the early church other would-be leaders. It is clear here and in Jesus’ parting words and prayer (especially John 15-17), that disunity was a major threat. Words like ‘thief’, ‘brigand’, ‘fleeing’, ‘steal and slaughter and kill’, indicate the seriousness of the statements. Villains abound, wanting to suggest other options for abundant life, wanting to seduce people into easy self-fulfilment, and self-absorbed life-styles. In the cafeteria of life, there is a smorgasbord of religions and spirit experiences. Charlatans abound. Seductive materialism abound. Consuming soft-drink is nothing to do with thirst; rather it is somehow to do with ‘fun’. Purchasing outrageously expensive cosmetics is something that is ‘self-deserved’. Owning fast cars give a feeling of complete human joy and personal fulfilment. A television company wants to be the one to be your friend. It all belittles what is truly important in life. This is a distraction & watering down of real human need and fulfilment. It represents a human existence without meaningful intimate human relationships, of belonging and without expressions of personal and corporate creativity.
Even the taking time out of life to reflect on life’s meaning and to seek out a sense of God is urgently replaced by good entertainment. Escapism from life pressures is one thing. Escapism from the meaningfulness of life is something else. Life doesn’t look like a TV commercial. We live with a lot of unfulfilled expectations and disappointments. We are constantly faced with the unknown and unfamiliar. It is this that drips away at our self-confidence, our self worth and even into our closest relationships. Negativism about living can burst into destructiveness when we least expect it. Those who seem to have so much going for them – talent, creativity, friendships, influence, and material success can suddenly have those things they care most about, fall apart.
In the midst of all this, Jesus offers us the reassuring intimacy of the God who cares. In the same way a child who awakens in the darkness of night, calling out in distress is comforted by the soothing familiar sound of the parent’s voice, so is the voice of God. But wait! How familiar is the sound of God’s voice in our uncertainty. How fruitless is the voice of a person who in their distress cries out why has God done this to me? What did I do to deserve this? Where have the missed opportunities been to seek out and become familiar with God’s voice?
Susan R. Andrews once worked as a hospital chaplain intern where she was assigned to the terminal cancer ward, where she describes certain death adding an extra layer to the human despair. One day as she entered an isolation unit to find a wretched shell of a human being -- legs and arms chewed up by gangrene, sweat pouring out of a shaking, stinking body. "Dear God," I thought, "what can I possibly say to this man?" The answer came intuitively. The words of the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm suddenly welled up within her. She writes, ‘as the familiar cadence filled that putrid room, the creature before me changed. He stopped shaking. He looked into my eyes and began to speak the words with me. In that moment, he travelled back home, back into the rooms of a long-lost faith. When this child of the covenant died an hour later, he had been welcomed by a loving God who had never left him.’
In life and in death, we belong to God. In life and in death, we are at home in God. But the reverse is also true. God needs and wants to be at home in us. God needs and wants to abide in us. Rest, restoration and security are the promises of Scripture. And they are promised even and especially in the midst of hostility and danger and death. We come to trust a dependable God only when we embrace a dependable faith discipline. I believe we are strengthened when we have a sense of belonging to a community faith, as imperfect as it maybe, and to engage God regularly, even if it is in anger or disappointment (see Lamentations and many of the Psalms). Know that we belong to God. We are never alone. We belong to God but not because of our own goodness. The sheep never earn the compassion of the shepherd. The shepherd gives it. We enter into baptism and Eucharist, never believing that we ever have the rightness and never having sufficient faith to warrant God’s mercy. We just receive it. We just pass through the shepherd’s gate. It is the Grace of God. It is in this grace that we have the audacity to believe that God loves and cares for us.
There is also a difference between being a flock and just a bunch of sheep too. It often revealed in human communities at a time of natural disaster, oppression of refugees, and obvious human need of all kinds. Neighbours whom scarcely know each other’s names, come together often to help clean up after disaster, for instance. Abundant life is about these and other personal sacrifices too – of giving life and freedom to others. For some it is the sacrifices made in parenthood, for others sacrificing personal time through their involvement in community groups, and in the helping of a stranger.
Abundant life is also living with the unfamiliar and the unknowingness in new ways transformed by God. Whatever the circumstances of our lives, God is with us -- in peace, in hope, in fear, in life, in death, in joy, in suffering, in sacrifice. When we are at home with God, even the most difficult days are infused with abundant life.
Rev John Mann 13 April 2008
"God Bless America Bench in Aluminum"
God Grant Me Wall Sticker
"God Bless America Bench in Aluminum"
"Tiki Gods Life-Size Cardboard Stand-Up"
I was very interested in reading about the 'God particle' in media reports this week. The media reported British physicist Peter Higgs saying it should soon be possible to prove the existence of a force which gives mass to the universe and makes life possible. He believes a particle named the "Higgs boson" will be found when a vast particle collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) research centre which has been built on the Franco-Swiss border begins operating fully early next year. His earlier efforts to explain why the force, dubbed the Higgs field, must exist were dismissed but today, the existence of an invisible field coming into being milliseconds after the Big Bang created the universe some 15 billion years ago is widely accepted by scientists. Finding the Higgs boson would prove this theory right.
CERN's new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) aims to simulate conditions at the time of that primeval inferno by smashing particles together at near light-speed and so unlock many secrets of the universe. Scientists at the centre hope the process will produce clear signs of the boson, dubbed the "God particle" by some, to the displeasure of Professor Higgs, who is an atheist. Some humorists suggest maybe he does not like an elementary particle being called 'God particle’ because that would mean that it doesn't exist. The reason the name ‘God particle’ has stuck is because the Higgs boson gives a very fundamental property to all other elementary particles, and in fact to itself, namely to have mass at all. If this had not happened to all the smallest constituent parts of matter - molecules, atoms and quarks, would have floated free in space and stars and planets would never have formed. That is, the Genesis of life would never have happened. While I am not theologically in favour of describing God as “the Higgs boson” particle, it does raise the issue of what we find helpful in talking about God.
Today’s Scripture reading offers us much more familiar images of God as “home”. God is shepherd and host, pasture and valley, mansion and fortress, still water and open gate. The ancient shepherd image itself is rich and traditional, even if it no longer forms part of everyday life for most people and reflects practices quite foreign to our knowledge of sheep farming. Like the image of kings and queens, it has long since lost its relevance for most of contemporary society.
Yet these images and associations swirl around in the background as we consider our reading. The sheep are unambiguously people who are to be cared for. That in itself represents a positive value implicit in the image. It might remind us of Jesus’ parable about caring even for the one lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7), which in Matthew’s gospel applies to the care for members of the church who have fallen morally (18:12-14). In John’s gospel (3:16) Jesus makes the whole world a flock for divine love, far beyond Israel, and beyond the recognised faith community. Last week’s reading (Luke 24:13-35) told the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus who walked with this stranger without recognising him as Jesus until he broke the bread. The disciples were invited to see Jesus truly for the first time. Today’s parable implies: hear the voice of Jesus!
Imagine a pen where many sheep perhaps from many flocks are protected overnight. The hearer of the parable would know the common practice. Sheep belonging to a particular shepherd and would follow their shepherd through the gate in the morning out into the new day according to the sound of his voice. The story invokes response and reassurance.
But there is more, however, to the parable. It is warning about rival claims to the call of Christ. In the context of Jesus’ ministry those rivals are the other Jewish leaders with whom Jesus is in dispute and, perhaps in the context of the early church other would-be leaders. It is clear here and in Jesus’ parting words and prayer (especially John 15-17), that disunity was a major threat. Words like ‘thief’, ‘brigand’, ‘fleeing’, ‘steal and slaughter and kill’, indicate the seriousness of the statements. Villains abound, wanting to suggest other options for abundant life, wanting to seduce people into easy self-fulfilment, and self-absorbed life-styles. In the cafeteria of life, there is a smorgasbord of religions and spirit experiences. Charlatans abound. Seductive materialism abound. Consuming soft-drink is nothing to do with thirst; rather it is somehow to do with ‘fun’. Purchasing outrageously expensive cosmetics is something that is ‘self-deserved’. Owning fast cars give a feeling of complete human joy and personal fulfilment. A television company wants to be the one to be your friend. It all belittles what is truly important in life. This is a distraction & watering down of real human need and fulfilment. It represents a human existence without meaningful intimate human relationships, of belonging and without expressions of personal and corporate creativity.
Even the taking time out of life to reflect on life’s meaning and to seek out a sense of God is urgently replaced by good entertainment. Escapism from life pressures is one thing. Escapism from the meaningfulness of life is something else. Life doesn’t look like a TV commercial. We live with a lot of unfulfilled expectations and disappointments. We are constantly faced with the unknown and unfamiliar. It is this that drips away at our self-confidence, our self worth and even into our closest relationships. Negativism about living can burst into destructiveness when we least expect it. Those who seem to have so much going for them – talent, creativity, friendships, influence, and material success can suddenly have those things they care most about, fall apart.
In the midst of all this, Jesus offers us the reassuring intimacy of the God who cares. In the same way a child who awakens in the darkness of night, calling out in distress is comforted by the soothing familiar sound of the parent’s voice, so is the voice of God. But wait! How familiar is the sound of God’s voice in our uncertainty. How fruitless is the voice of a person who in their distress cries out why has God done this to me? What did I do to deserve this? Where have the missed opportunities been to seek out and become familiar with God’s voice?
Susan R. Andrews once worked as a hospital chaplain intern where she was assigned to the terminal cancer ward, where she describes certain death adding an extra layer to the human despair. One day as she entered an isolation unit to find a wretched shell of a human being -- legs and arms chewed up by gangrene, sweat pouring out of a shaking, stinking body. "Dear God," I thought, "what can I possibly say to this man?" The answer came intuitively. The words of the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm suddenly welled up within her. She writes, ‘as the familiar cadence filled that putrid room, the creature before me changed. He stopped shaking. He looked into my eyes and began to speak the words with me. In that moment, he travelled back home, back into the rooms of a long-lost faith. When this child of the covenant died an hour later, he had been welcomed by a loving God who had never left him.’
In life and in death, we belong to God. In life and in death, we are at home in God. But the reverse is also true. God needs and wants to be at home in us. God needs and wants to abide in us. Rest, restoration and security are the promises of Scripture. And they are promised even and especially in the midst of hostility and danger and death. We come to trust a dependable God only when we embrace a dependable faith discipline. I believe we are strengthened when we have a sense of belonging to a community faith, as imperfect as it maybe, and to engage God regularly, even if it is in anger or disappointment (see Lamentations and many of the Psalms). Know that we belong to God. We are never alone. We belong to God but not because of our own goodness. The sheep never earn the compassion of the shepherd. The shepherd gives it. We enter into baptism and Eucharist, never believing that we ever have the rightness and never having sufficient faith to warrant God’s mercy. We just receive it. We just pass through the shepherd’s gate. It is the Grace of God. It is in this grace that we have the audacity to believe that God loves and cares for us.
There is also a difference between being a flock and just a bunch of sheep too. It often revealed in human communities at a time of natural disaster, oppression of refugees, and obvious human need of all kinds. Neighbours whom scarcely know each other’s names, come together often to help clean up after disaster, for instance. Abundant life is about these and other personal sacrifices too – of giving life and freedom to others. For some it is the sacrifices made in parenthood, for others sacrificing personal time through their involvement in community groups, and in the helping of a stranger.
Abundant life is also living with the unfamiliar and the unknowingness in new ways transformed by God. Whatever the circumstances of our lives, God is with us -- in peace, in hope, in fear, in life, in death, in joy, in suffering, in sacrifice. When we are at home with God, even the most difficult days are infused with abundant life.
Rev John Mann 13 April 2008
"God Bless America Bench in Aluminum"
God Grant Me Wall Sticker
"God Bless America Bench in Aluminum"
"Tiki Gods Life-Size Cardboard Stand-Up"
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