Today is our church picnic and worship service in the park, so I've just pasted today's sermon here. There will not be a link to a YouTube video of the service today, but will return to our regular posting next Sunday. Also, feel free to join us next Sunday in person at Olivet Presbyterian Church in West Elizabeth at our regular worship time 9:45am or at Bethesda United Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth at 11:15am.
From Fig Leaves to War Boots
(based on Ephesians 6:10-20)
In the beginning of Genesis, the Scriptures
tell us the story of the creation of the world and the innocent beauty of the Garden
of Eden. We know the story well as Adam
and Eve went about the Garden in complete and total communion with God. But sin entered the world through the quest of
becoming like God in the knowledge of both good and evil. The result of that quest was that they suddenly
became aware of their nakedness and immediately sewed together fig leaves to
cover themselves. Artists throughout
history have captured this moment in beautiful renderings of Adam and Eve in
the garden modestly covering themselves with those fig leaves.
What is
fascinating about this passage in Genesis is the word naked or arum in
Hebrew, which doesn’t necessarily mean without clothing, but can also mean defenseless,
weak, humiliated. Perhaps what is really
meant from this story in Genesis is that Adam and Eve suddenly realized that
they were not equals with God, but were defenseless and weak against the
awesomeness of God, the power of their Creator, the full knowledge of
everything that they didn’t know or understand.
They suddenly realized their inadequacies and were humiliated for believing
that they could be like God. So, they
did the only thing they could think of doing and that was to cover themselves
with a few fig leaves and hide from God.
That
is a stark contrast from today’s reading in Ephesians, where we are instructed not
to just put on a few fig leaves to cover our inadequacies, but rather to fully
clothe ourselves in complete armor. Not
only is there a big difference in apparel, but this time we are being given the
right kind of clothing that will guard us against the forces of evil rather
than a fig leaf or two to protect ourselves against the humility of realizing
we are not equals with God. In Genesis
the enemy was God that Adam and Eve were afraid of and hid themselves
against. In Ephesians, God is the
protector and gives us war boots or the full armor of God to wear against the
true enemy. And the true enemy is the
darkness and evil of the world that we ended up creating.
Dan Brown was
the author of a book called Angels and Demons.
It’s a novel about an ancient brotherhood of the Illuminatees who have
returned to destroy Vatican City and to seek revenge against the church for
their past sins of repression. What
intrigued me in the book was a speech given by the camerlengo, who in Roman
Catholic terms, is the Interim Pope until a new Pope is chosen. His speech about halfway through the book
caught me by surprise and has been in my head ever since I first read it 20
years ago because of it’s naked truth. Jesus
called his followers to a higher standard than the standard set by the
world. And we, today, are at the same
crossroad. In this rather long quote in
Angels and Demons, the camerlengo tries to pin all the evil in this world of
ours on Science. I’m not against Science;
at all. But I believe that it is our relentless
pursuit of knowledge, of having more, of greed, of money and power which often
just disguises itself in what Dan Brown describes in the words of the camerlengo
as science.
“Science is the
new God. Medicine, electronic
communications, space travel, genetic manipulation…these are the miracles about
which we now tell our children. These
are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the
answers. The ancient stories of
immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting seas are no longer
relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. We concede.
But science’s victory has cost every one of us. And it has cost us deeply. Science may have alleviated the miseries of
disease and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment
and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths
and frequencies. The complexities of the
universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been
destroyed. Science proclaims that Planet
Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident. Even the technology that promises to unite
us, divides us. Each of us is now
electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division,
fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has
become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for
proof has become enlightened thought. Is
it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at
any point in human history? Does science
hold anything sacred? Science looks for
answers by probing our unborn fetuses.
Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God’s world into smaller and
small pieces in quest of meaning…and all it finds is more questions. The ancient war between science and religion
is over. You have won. But you have not won fairly. You have not won by providing answers. You have won by so radically reorienting our
society that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new breakthrough opens doors for new
breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands of
years to progress from the wheel to the car.
Yet only decades from the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in
weeks. We are spinning out of
control. The rift between us grows
deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a
spiritual void. We cry out for
meaning. And believe me we do cry
out. We see UFOs, engage in channeling,
spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests – all these eccentric ideas
have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern
soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability
to accept meaning in anything removed from technology. Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say, has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried
to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but
always with benevolent intention. Even
so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourseles. The promises of science have not been
kept. Promises of efficiency and
simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a fractured and frantic species…moving
down a path of destruction.
Who is this God,
science? Who is the God who offers his
people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God gives a child fire but does
not warn the child of its dangers? The
language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a
nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or
a bad idea.
To
science, I say this. The church is
tired. We are exhausted from trying to
be your signposts. Our resources are
drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on
in your quest for smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern
yourselves, but how can you? Your world
moves so fast that if you stop even for an instant to consider the implications
of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on, relentlessly, without any
considerations for the wake of destruction you are leaving behind. You proliferate weapons of mass destruction,
but it is the Pope and other world religious leaders who travels the world
beseeching you to use restraint. You
clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral
implications of our actions. You
encourage people to interact on phones, video screens, and computers, but it is
the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were
meant to do.
And all the while, you proclaim the
church is ignorant. But who is more
ignorant? The man who cannot define
lightning, or the man who does not respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push
us away. Show me proof there is a God,
you say. I say use your telescopes to
look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God. You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that question come
from? The answers are one and the
same. Do you not see God in your
science? How can you miss Him? You proclaim that even the slightest change
in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our
universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies,
and yet you fail to see God’s hand in this?
Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right
card from a deck of billions? Have we
become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical
impossibility than in a power that is greater than us?
Whether
or not you believe in God, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the
power that is greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith…all faiths…are admonitions that there
is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable…With
faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher
truth. Religion is flawed yes, but only
because human beings are flawed. If the
outside world could see this church as I do…looking beyond the ritual of these
walls…they would see a modern miracle…a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls
wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.
Are
we obsolete? Are these men
dinosaurs? Am I? Does the world really need a voice for the
poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? Do we really need souls like these who,
though imperfect, spend their lives imploring each of us to read the signposts
of morality and not lose our way?”
“None of us
can afford to be apathetic. Whether you
see this evil as Satan, corruption, or immorality…the dark force is alive and
growing every day. Do not ignore
it. The force, though mighty, is not
invincible. Goodness can prevail. Listen to your hearts. Listen to God. Together we can step back from this
abyss.”
I
think what Dan Brown was trying to say is that we need a moral compass. Our pursuit of knowledge and our Faith must
go hand in hand together. They are the
reverse sides of the same coin. One without
the other is incomplete.
We must
prayerfully consider our objectives and our goals. We must prayerfully consider what they lead
to. We must be the voice of reason in a
world that has truly gone out of control.
We’ve conceded the battle to the forces of the world in general, but
they are the result of the world that we created when we put on a few fig
leaves and hid from God out of the realization of our nakedness.
It
is so much easier to simply buy into the world’s view; to not be challenged by
the standards that God has set for us.
But we must put on the full armor of God; the belt of truth, the
breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and
the sword of the Spirit. Then be ready
to be the voice of control, to be the buffer in the street when others are hurt
or abused, to stand in the line of resistance for those that lose their rights,
to question the goals and the morality of our earthly pursuits and even
question the goals and the morality of some who claim to do things in the name
of God.
We
have been called to stand up to the challenges that face each and every one of
us. We have been called to live a higher
standard and put on the full armor of God.
We’ve graduated from fig leaves to war boots.
It
is not an easy task, it is not a light burden, but I’d like to call the church
back to action. To stand up for what is
right, to stand on the side of those who are disenfranchised, to care for the
oppressed, to speak for the widow and the outcast, to bind up the
broken-hearted and to live by the commandment of Christ to love one another as
God has loved us. We can’t do that by
allowing the world to spiral out of control and speak for us, instead we must
speak to the world the truths that Jesus spoke to us.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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