Doxology, May 30, 2010

Proverbs 8
John 16:12-16
This morning's sermon is a reminder of what to do when life gets out of sorts.
For there will come times when we are surprised by friends and family and the community, recognizing good works that have gone unacknowledged, and we are taken off guard. There will come holidays, adding more to our already busy lives. Baptism and faith, ordination, marriage, do not provide us with safety or security or guarantees of comfort. No where in all of Scripture, does God proclaim: “Settle and be comfortable, take life for granted!” But rather: “Peace, Be still and know that there is a God.”

Bubbling crude oil being churned up from 5000 feet below the ocean's surface seems like Chaos unleashed spreading and blanketing over the face of the deep, over the oceans of the earth, suffocating plants and fish, birds and life itself. Watching helplessly as our infants and our elders cease to take nourishment, as marriages crumble, being told what has been done with our life's assets, as hopes are consumed by debt and doubt make all of us want to scream. Witnessing as sons and daughters, husbands and wives go off to war, fighting for peace when common citizens wire themselves as human bombs, make us desire to hide our people from their responsibilities, to keep our loved ones from harm, when long ago we planted noble seeds in them of fighting for what you believe in, making the world a better place, doing for others who could not do for themselves.

First, to have Wisdom: that before the world was created, before time and space, before life itself, God created Wisdom as a companion, a co-creator with God. The ancients described that while God is One, God created wisdom as separate and intricately connected to all God does, in order that God could create and wisdom interweave connections between all that God created. Before time and space, before separate Continents, Nations and Peoples, God made us one. There are limits and boundaries to all that exists, which define who we are, as unique and separate, but there are also connections and dependencies, that removing any one element, without you, all the world is out of balance.

Lest we imagine these connections are only theoretical, only an imagined overlay of current science and politics, recognize that this passage PROVERBS 8 played a critical role in the development of Christianity related to and distinct from Judaism, as well as in the separation of the Christian Church East and West.

For Judaism, interpreted “Wisdom” as being “Torah” the Law as handed down through Moses; while Christianity reinterpreted “Wisdom” here to be the “Christ”. It is too easy for us, to read back into history, interpreting what has been as the pre-existence of what we know; which does harm to the text and to history by denial of what the word and events meant to that people in that time. Torah, the Law of Relationship with God as handed down by Moses, is one revelation of Wisdom. So also, is the Christ, the incarnation of God with us, suffering for sins of humanity, acting in grace/ compassion, to overcome any limitation separating us from God, is a revelation of what this Wisdom in Proverbs 8 describes. BUT ALSO, for the believer when these words were written, “The Wisdom of God” meant something else, something playful, imaginary, mythic, for the phrase “The beginning of God's Work” is a phrase used only one other time in Scripture, in the Book of Job describing the fantasy, the playful pet of God: “Behemoth, begotten at the Beginning of God's Work.” So Wisdom, is more than understanding, greater than our most intricate theories or hyperboles. Wisdom is fanciful, incorporating myth and imagination into reason and logic. Wisdom is The Law of God's Relationship, naming what is Sin. Wisdom is Immanuel, God being One with Us.

The controversy of Arianism split the Church in the 4th Century, leading to the Council of Nicea, which we know through the Nicean Creed. Arius interpreted “The LORD created me at the Beginning” as meaning that there was a time before Christ, when God was alone, and that Wisdom, the Christ, the Law was created by God out of something other than God. The poetic language of the Nicean Creed, sought to explain “Created at the Beginning” to mean “Begotten”, of one substance with and inseparable from God, God of God, Light of light.

One of the Children asked a few weeks ago: “where did God come from, who made God?” From before time and space did exist, God was, before anything. And with God was this Wisdom, this playful companion, the Law of Right relationships, the Christ of Compassion, Grace and Love that bind us to God, and this Wisdom, this Law, this Christ are one in substance and being with who we know God to be.

In assurance for all our fears and lack of control, there is wisdom that before anything else, part of the very substance of what it is to be God is the LAW, GRACE, REDEMPTION of the Lost. Just as Wisdom, which defies our best language and thought and imagination, was before CREATION, so also Jesus words recorded in the Gospel of John, are that there is much we still do not know.

In order to be a Ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church USA, it is required that you earn a Bachelors Degree, then a Masters from an Accredited Seminary. Then to take written Ordination Exams, not unlike the Medical Boards or State Bar Exam for Lawyers. After which, and after finding a Church which wants to Call you for a specific position, you attend a Presbytery Meeting during which the Elders and Ministers are able to ask any questions they desire, to satisfy themselves, that you are prepared and qualified to minister, writing prayers, preaching sermons, caring for people in times when there are no answers. 26 years ago, I stood before a Presbytery as they asked questions for over an hour, questions about the Virgin Birth & Mission, Homosexuality, Nuclear Weapons, Ecumenism and AIDS, Pastoral care in times of Conflict, Life and Death, all of which were the hot issues of the Church at that time. The final question was whether a Person needed to name the name of Jesus in order to be forgiven? I recall interpreting that Christ had been from before the Beginning, that Jesus had entered human history once, long ago, for all time, to redeem the world from what we had done to one another and to God, and that I believe in the Holy Spirit. But that if there were some people, who had never known the name of Jesus, that I believed in the love of God and the power of the Spirit to try by whatever means possible to love them, and that it was not up to me to decide whether that people would be condemned for what they did not know, but only for us to continue to try to extend the love of God to them. At which point, I was excused form the Sanctuary, while the Presbytery debated this answer for an additional hour. When someone finally came to get me, I entered the Sanctuary to the Presbytery rising to sing the DOXOLOGY of Old 100th. Doxology is the affirmation of faith that: All Blessings Come From God, that We Are One With All Creatures, that Before and After Human Time, there is God.

We may get frustrated with life. We may agonize over problems that seem to have no end and spoil Creation, spoil marriages and families. We can get angry with God, that our daughters and sons , wives and husbands at War and driving on the Expressway, or surfing on the Internet, ARE in harms way. But no mater what, there is God. Whether we rail against, or praise, whether we share tears of fears, or sing, we do so trusting in God.