“Those Wise Seekers”
by Bruce J. Johnson
When last we met here in this sanctuary it was the day after Christmas. News about the magnitude of the tsunami in South Asia and East Africa was just beginning to be understood and the magnitude of loss and suffering calibrated. (This morning we know that the death toll nears 150,000 and starvation and disease are threatening to push the totals higher.)
Our lesson last Sunday was about Herod and his search for the Christ Child with the evil purpose of killing him. In response to Jesus’ successful escape to Egypt, Herod ordered what is known in biblical history as ‘the slaughter of the innocents’—all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under. Today the line that carries such poignancy and connects to us with such power is:
“Rachael weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled,
because
they were no more.”
Today, a whole region of Asia is motherless and childless—both being swept away by a towering wall of water causing a disaster of catastrophic—no unimaginable--- proportions. And the world weeps for the victims, refusing to be consoled. This Asian tragedy affects all corners across a world grown closer. To the credit of millions bound together through an incredible expression of generosity—nations and individuals alike, particularly America and Americans, aid is being rushed to the devastated area and lives ripped open by this tragedy. And quite frankly, I almost went in that direction for this sermon--- somehow tying in the gifts of the wiremen to the reach and riches of our compassion and generosity. I had all kinds of stuff to report and comment on--- even a report on the “cheapskates from the cheapskates--- the blue states! But I was convinced to do otherwise by an op-ed piece in the New York Times yesterday by David Brooks. This is what he said:
The world’s generosity has indeed been amazing, but sometimes we use our compassion as a self-enveloping fog to obscure our view of the abyss. Somehow it’s wrong to turn this event into a good news story so we can all feel warm this holiday season. It’s wrong to turn it into a story about who gave, rather than about them, whose lives are ruined. It’s certainly wrong to turn this into yet another petty political spat, as many tried, disgustingly, to do. This is a moment to feel deeply bad, for the dead and for those who have no explanation.
It is a time to mourn….
(New York Times, January 1, 2005, A21)
Indeed, there is much that is so unsolved in my heart this morning, as I’m am sure is also the case for you, but those are two things that I are very clear to me. The first is that there is but one face of grief, no matter how many languages and skin colors there are among the survivors and the people’s of the world who have witnessed this disaster. And the only appropriate response that we can make is to grieve their losses, share their sorrow and respond in whatever way that is humanly possible to address their massive needs.
And the second is that people of faith—all faiths—feel deeply today what David Hart of the Wall Street Journal calls-the tremors of doubt.
(WSJ, 12/31/2004, w11)
Even the Willimantic Chronicle carried yesterday an article off the Reuters News Wire Service that dealt with how the tsunami has stirred questions of faith in God:
Perhaps no event in living
memory has confronted so many of the world’s great religions with such a basic
test of faith as this week’s tsunami, which indiscriminately slaughtered
Indonesian Muslims, Indian Hindus, Thai and Sri Lankan Buddhists and tourists
who were largely Christian and Jews.
(The Chronicle, 1/1/2005 p.4)
Somehow, someway, we’ve got to wrestle with the questions, work on explanations. I guess that I come among you this morning asking:
How are you doing with this test?
I recently read some interesting figures about the state of ‘belief’ in America:
Ninety –five percent of
American adults believe in God. Or so it is commonly reported. But that figure
has been considerably refined by Darren E. Sherkat, a sociologist at the
Southern Illinois University, whose paper to an October meeting of the Society
for the Scientific Study of Religion was summarized in the December 14th
issue of The Christian Century.
Data from six General Social
Surveys conducted by the National Opinion Research Center from 1988-2000
actually show that 8 percent of the nation’s adults opt for the statement “I
don’t believe in a personal God, but I do believe in a higher power of some
kind.” An additional 4 percent identify with the statement “I find myself
believing in God some of the time. But not at others.” Over 16 percent
Prefer “While I have doubts, I
feel I believe in God.”
In sum, an untroubled faith in
a personal God is reported by just over 2 of 3 American adults, rather than
more than 9 of 10….
Then, in yesterday’s New York Times there was this little item:
The Testing of
Faith
Does the number of doubters
increase with the news of a natural disaster sweeping scores of thousands of
people to gruesome deaths? Religious groups have spontaneously and quite
rightly placed aiding the survivors and comforting the grief-stricken ahead of
theological questioning. Questioning cannot be avoided, however, and eventually
Religious thinkers and doubters may be heard alongside the experts on earthquakes, warning systems and emergency assistance.
Well, this morning we are in worship to be heard from and perhaps those three wise seekers about whom we have read can help. For in the end, are we not all simply “seekers”--- in search of something and maybe even someone who gives meaning and purpose to life in general and to our lives specifically?
This morning, at least for myself, I am first and foremost reminding myself that I believe in a personal God who in Jesus Christ has made a personal promise to me--- that He is Immanuel—God with us, not just in times of certainty and clarity and conviction but when questions arise and doubts shake the foundations of my faith.
This morning especially, I am particularly mindful of the context in which the wiremen made their journey and for that matter, the context in which we all must make our way in life--- first, at night so they could be led by the star and second, in the midst of the plotting evil of Herod. In a recent article in Time Magazine, one can find the following statement:
For those not astronomically
inclined, however, the star continues to work just fine as a symbol. With
skepticism but without poetry, A.N. Wilson, author of Jesus: A Life notes:
Astronomers will never find the real star of Bethlehem because the real
star of Bethlehem is a thing of our imagination. It’s the light shining over
the Christ Child.
That I think is the essence of faith--- that the journey is forever taking place amidst the darkness and the evil of the world, amidst the explainable and the unexplainable, amidst the pleasures and pains of life and one of the greatest challenges in life is to develop the cat like ability to see at night--- no matter what— and be led by a light lit in the imagination- to that place, to that person that shows us the way to living a life that has meaning and purpose. There is no way that we can know everything and have all the answers. Sometimes we don’t even know the questions. But within the context of Christ’s nativity, I know that the poet Rilke was right when he wrote these words, words that I shared at other tragic moments:
…Everything is gestation and
then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to
completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the
unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence, and await with a deep
humility and patience the birth- hour of a new clarity: this alone is
living…(p. 29-30) And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant
day into the answer. (p.35)
Which leads us to another bit of wisdom. I found it sadly ironic that India has refused to aid the victims of the tsunami. I remember that Gandhi was once asked:
“What do you think of Western civilization?”
He answered, “I think it would be a good idea.”
His answer suggests that civilization is but a long process of learning to be civilized, compassionate, just and kind. In a couple of weeks we will be reading from the book of Micah. All of you know the quote well.
“He has told you, O Mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6: 8)
Norman Cousins once wrote:
“The highest expression of civilization is not its art but the supreme tenderness that people are strong enough to feel and show toward one another.” I like his recognition of the fact that only the truly strong can be tender. And I like his conclusion:
“If our civilization is breaking down, as it appears to be, it is not because we lack the brainpower to meet its demands but because our feelings are being dulled. What our society needs is a massive and pervasive experience of resensitization.”
Well, who can doubt that the world has been resensitized?
Rooted in compassion, wisdom always respects the importance and fragility of individual life and cares for all individuals, in the manner of Christ, as if all were but one. That article in Time mentioned this too:
The Magi are sometimes used simply as a way of expressing Christianity’s
openness to the far-flung and the unlikely.
Time, 12/13/2004, p.58
The most significant thing we should be saying about human differences is that they are not that significant. What is significant and needs desperately to be made manifest is the oneness of humanity…. that truly--- we are all children of God.
So, this morning, we are called together in faith to mourn the dead, to grieve with those whose losses have been so great but we are also called to respond to the light within and find the child who calls us to worship and then sends us to care and give and serve—perhaps the only truly wise response to this disaster.
Amen