Shaking
the Foundations
Transcribed from the sermon preached March 29, 2009 The
Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705 Scripture Readings: Jeremiah 31:27-34, John
12:20-38 Unless
a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a
single grain;
but if it dies, it bears much fruit.27The days
are surely coming, says
the Lord, when I will sow
the house of Israel and the
house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. 28And
just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to
overthrow,
destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to
plant, says
the Lord. 29In
those days they shall no longer
say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are
set on
edge.” 30But all shall die for their own sins;
the teeth of everyone
who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge. 31The
days are surely
coming, says the Lord, when
I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I will put my law
within them,
and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they
shall be
my people. Whether
in biology, spirituality or History, we see that growth is gain and
loss at the
same time. Whatever
grows must
sacrifice many possible developments for the one through which it
chooses to
grow. We usually
pretend a wedding is
all joy. But there
is loss as well as
gain. Parents say
goodbye to children,
or at least goodbye to a certain form of their relationship. We say goodbye to the
infinite qualities and
fantasy of other possible mates in favor of establishing deep roots in
this one
real relationship. In biology we know that as our brain cells take on
one
function they lose the ability to perform others.
A principal may choose not to have children in order
to devote
herself to her career and help many, many children.
We may think we are free to use drugs in the moment,
but by using
them we lose the freedom to do other things that are beneficial in the
long
run. “Periods of
history which are
determined by one idea suppress the truth of other possible ideas. Every decision excludes
possibilities and
makes our life narrower. Every
decision
makes our life older and more mature.” (Tillich, Paul.
Shaking the Foundations.
Religion-online)
In
my youth, and still today there is a part of me which doesn’t want to
make a
commitment, would rather avoid responsibility and decision so that I
can keep
my options open and free. But
it took
me a while to learn that avoiding choices can mean avoiding growth…or
if we
don’t make choices at the right time, time or circumstance may change,
forcing
us in a direction that we did not choose. Not choosing is a choice, too. Paul
Tillich, one of the great 20th century
theologians, in Shaking
the Foundations (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, in 1955. http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=378)
reflects on newness and growth. I quote from him extensively today: We
proceed from the first minute of our lives to the last minute, because
we are
growing. The law of
growth lends us
greatness, and therefore tragedy.
For
the excluded possibilities belong to us; they have a right of their own. Therefore, they take their
vengeance upon
our lives, which have excluded them.
They may die; and with them, great powers of life
and large resources of
creativity. For
life, as it grows,
becomes a restricted power, more rigid and inflexible, less able to
adapt
itself to new situations and new demands.
Or on the other hand, the excluded possibilities may
not die. They
remain within us, repressed, hidden, and dangerous, prepared to break
into the
life process, not as a creative resource, but as a destructive disease. Those are the two ways
that aging life
drives toward its own end; the way of self-limitation, and the way of
self-destruction. “…At the beginning of our period we
decided for
freedom,” continues Tillich, It was a right decision; it created
something new
and great in history. But
in that
decision we excluded the security, social and spiritual, without which
man
cannot live and grow. And
now; in the
old age of our period, the quest to sacrifice freedom for security
splits every
nation and the whole world with really daemonic power.” Last
week, upon looking at Ephesians and John chapter 3 I argued that the
essence of
the gospel is “the means is the end.”
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus shows us,
contrary to the
conventional wisdom of princes, that if we want peace, be non-violent,
if we
want forgiveness, forgive now; if we want a world of love, be loving
now. As we
are willing to give up our current standing in the world, that standing
may
die, but a new standing will be born again.
As we have faith that the Kingdom of God has arrived
we begin to see and
live its power and truth. Tillich
throws in a different take on the primacy of means and ends by looking
at the
means of production and creation.
He
looks at modernity, and says western capitalist society becomes what it
is by
deciding “for means to control nature and society. We have created
them, and we
have brought about something new and great in the history of all
mankind. But we
have excluded ends. We
have never been able to answer the
question, ‘For what?’ And
now, when we
approach old age, the means claim to be the ends; our tools have become
our
masters, and the most powerful of them have become a threat to our very
existence. “We
have decided for reason against outgrown traditions and honored
superstitions. That
was a great and
courageous decision, and it gave a new dignity to man. But we have in
that
decision excluded the soul, the ground and power of life. We have cut off our mind
from our soul; we
have suppressed and mistreated the soul within us, in other men, and in
nature. And now,
when we are old, the
forces of the soul break destructively into our minds, driving us to
mental
disease and insanity, and effecting the disintegration of the soul of
uncounted
millions, especially in this country, but also all over the world.” (Tillich:
http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=378)
The parents have eaten sour
grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge. The
same issues we faced with our parents, our children face with us. Ecclesiastes says, “There
is nothing new
under the sun.” Or,
as David Burn from
the Talking Heads sang, “Same
as it ever was…Same as it ever was. And
you may ask yourself Same
as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was... The Gospel tells us that it
is just at those times when we are at our wits end, when we are
overwhelmed and
see no way out from the result of the choices we have made, or the
choices that
were made for us by our parents and our parent’s parents; when we’ve
escaped
slavery in Egypt only to fear we may die of thirst in the desert, when
the
Assyrians have sacked our sister nation and our own leaders are
desperate to
appease, when Jesus is lifted up on a cross for all to see hope is lost
and
Rome is in charge; it is at just those times that God makes a way out
of no
way. Tillich
again, “The new is born in us, just when we least believe in it. It appears in remote
corners of our souls,
which we have neglected for so long.
It
opens up deep levels of our personality which had been shut out by old
decisions and old exclusions…It liberates us from the tragedy of having
to
decide and having to exclude, because it is given before any decision. Suddenly we notice it
within us!” The new
covenant, says Jeremiah, is written
on our heart “...Readiness is the only condition for it How
many people have said, “I wasn’t even thinking about a black president! I never expected it to
happen in our
lifetime.” I have
never been more
depressed about being an American than during hurricane Katrina. It was here that Jeremiah
Wright sounds like
the Jeremiah God sent Israel. The “new in history, says Tillich, always
comes
when we least believe in it. But
certainly it comes only in the moment when the old becomes visible as
old and
tragic and dying, and when no way out is seen.” (Ibid) Still,
it will not take long to realize that the president is not the savior,
and the
job is so big and complicated, race is almost irrelevant and politics
is still
politics, same as it ever was. I
suspect President Obama will be his most effective after he hits his
own wall,
and can’t see how to dig himself out of it.
We die before we can be born again. Jesus
said, When I am lifted up I will draw all peoples to myself. The new is able to break
the power of the
old conflicts between …group and group, in memory and in reality. It is able to break old
curses, the results
of former guilt, inherited by one generation from another… The
truly new is more than new, for it taps deep truth that was in the
beginning
and will be in the end. It
is
eternal. Our
culture is crazy about new
and young, new fad and fashion, Tivo and ipod, the latest bank plan,
political
slogans and stars on magazine covers.
These things grow old almost as fast as they are
born. Yet the new
covenant taps something very old written on our hearts.
This new light is the same as that which
burst forth at Creation, it puts a new smile on an old woman, gives
wisdom to
youth, exposes evil, strengthens the fainthearted, brings strongmen to
their
knees, leads us to join hands and stomp our feet. Written
on our heart: In this sense, even faith is not ours.
We only discover what the Creator has already put
upon us. What a
relief, what a joy. Come
Lord, Jesus. |