Uncertain terms
Acts 17: 22-31
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
May 21, 2017
The term “both/and” can be difficult for us humans. Most of the time we much prefer “either/or”. “Both/and” is messy, incongruent, seemingly impossible. Take for example, the thought experiment or “what-if” proposition that we know as Schrödinger’s cat. Erwin Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist in the early part of the 20th century. He won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933. Quantum mechanical theory was just getting off the ground. One aspect of quantum theory, called the Copenhagen interpretation (scientists have as much complicated lingo as theologians), states that a subatomic object exists in all its possible forms simultaneously until it is observed and then collapses into one form. For instance, light can be a particle or a wave, but which one and when?
Schrödinger thought this was nonsense and sought to prove this theory wrong. So he devised a thought experiment in which there was a cat, a Geiger counter, some radioactive material, a hammer, and a vial of cyanide, all sealed within a steel box. And presumably enough air for the cat to breathe. There would be enough radioactive material, just a few atoms, that within an hour there was a 50/50 chance some of it would decay. If that occurred, the Geiger counter would detect the decay, setting off the hammer to break the glass vial of poison and thus kill the cat. But there was only a 50/50 chance that any of this would happen. Theoretically, without being able to observe what was happening in the box, the cat would be both alive and dead. Both possibilities would exist until the box was opened.
Schrödinger said this was ridiculous, because how could a cat be both alive and dead at the same time? It’s either one or the other. We know now that there are different models and theories at the quantum level than there are at the biological level of reality. Both/and. A British statistician serendipitously named George Box once said, “All models are wrong but some are useful”. Both/and.
I think this capacity for ambiguity would have driven the apostle Paul nuts. Here in the book of Acts he’s been preaching in Thessalonica, then Berea, and now Athens. He hasn’t exactly had an enthusiastic following as yet; he stirred up such emotion and passion in the synagogues he visited that mobs threw him out of town. Yet in Athens he finds people to have a more open mind. They are keen to hear or tell of something new. He debates with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. These Athenians seem to know little of the history of Abraham and Sarah and their descendants, of God’s covenant with the Hebrew people. The Jews were not known for their evangelism—Peter, Paul, and the rest of the apostles are the first. But people gather to listen nonetheless, to hear this new teaching.
They bring Paul to the Areopagus, or Ares Rock, Mars Hill, which was also the name of the high court in Athens, so it’s not clear whether they’ve brought him to a large outcropping of rock or to a court of elders to be judged. Either way, Paul gives the sermon of a lifetime. He had noticed all the idols in the city and being the good Jew that he is, he was deeply distressed—the Ten Commandments forbid idols and the worship of them. And yet when he speaks to the people, he compliments them on how religious they are. The shrine dedicated to an unknown God gives Paul the perfect opening to talk about the God he knows, the One who made heaven and earth, who gives life and breath to all living things, who cannot be contained by gold or silver or stone or by anything made by human hands.
Instead it is all of creation where God lives and moves and in which we have our being. There is no longer a distinction between God’s people and “other” people. All people are God’s people. The Church has no walls. And yet we can know this unknowable God in the person of Jesus. Paul talks like a true missionary, using a preaching and conversion template that would be used again and again. Appreciate and honor the native religion and spirituality, then move from their specificity to your specificity about the divine, extolling the virtue and truth of your teaching, all the while affirming the grandness and expansiveness of God.
We wonder and dream and theorize whether there is something infinite in this universe, some power or force, an energy beyond what we can know and observe, and we can’t help ourselves but try to define it in finite terms as a way of understanding it. Joseph Campbell wrote, “We keep thinking of deity as a kind of fact, somewhere; God as fact. God is simply our own notion of something that is symbolic of transcendence and mystery. The mystery is what’s important.”
Back in 1988 when Campbell and Bill Moyers were discussing The Power of Myth, both of them were probably considered heretics. A heretic is someone who chooses to believe something other than the accepted norm. Every time we move forward in human history it is because of heretical thinking. In their conversation, Bill Moyers said that “there are Christians who believe that to find out who Jesus is, you have to go past the Christian faith, past the Christian doctrine, past the Christian church,” and that many would consider that heresy. Campbell agreed and replied that “you have to go past the image of Jesus. The image of God becomes the final obstruction. Your God is your ultimate barrier.”
Now we have Christians who identify as Buddhist Christians or Hindu Christians, even Jewish Christians and Muslim Christians. The UCC isn’t nicknamed “Unitarians Considering Christ” for nothing. Those of us born and raised and still connected to the United Church of Christ are more than likely in the minority. Most of us do not think twice about our multi-Protestant journey or having been raised Catholic but then journeying through multiple expressions of Christianity and/or other religions. And yet sometimes we can be reluctant to identify ourselves as Christian, preferring instead to be a follower of Jesus, but we also acknowledge how flawed we are at that.
We need our tribe, a sense of belonging and trust in this brave, new, unfamiliar world we’re living in. And yet our tribe is expanding in ways we may not be aware of, that is, many who live a Jesus kind of life are not connected to a church; expanding to the point that we’re not sure where the boundaries are or if there are any. The big question of any major upheaval or transition is “By what authority shall we live?” No longer can we say with any real integrity that every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord. And yet we need that finitude, whether it is science or religion or both, to describe the infinite or else we feel as though we have nothing to stand on, nothing to hold onto.
I believe that the present challenge of the life of faith, and of no faith, is hold both infinity and its finite expressions in tension, in connection, in communion with one another; for us as Christians to live as Jesus lived in the company of those who believe differently than we do and those who acknowledge no god as such but are also trying to live like Jesus: compassionate, strong, merciful, loving, forgiving, justice-filled, unconditionally; to continually ask the big questions and be willing to praise the unknown while the answers come in their own good time.
We can certainly hold onto what has been, what has carried us this far, for as long as we can. But that’s not how living things grow. Evolution is about adaptation, and I believe what we are witnessing, experiencing is nothing less than an evolution of God. The next Great Awakening. It’s happened countless times before. Why wouldn’t it continue to happen, if our God is a living God, if the mystery, the power that guides us is a living mystery, a living power? Our beliefs change and thank goodness they do. What remains is how we are to live—that’s one thing that Jesus was very clear about; one thing we can be certain of.
Amen.
Then Paul stood up before the council of the Areopagus and delivered this address: "Citizens of Athens, I note that in every respect you are scrupulously religious. As I walked about looking at your shrines, I even discovered
an altar inscribed, 'To an Unknown God.' Now, what you are worshiping in ignorance I intend to make known to you.
'For the God who made the world and all that is in it, the Sovereign of heaven and earth, doesn't live in sanctuaries made by human hands, and isn't served by humans, as if in need of anything. No! God is the One who gives everything life, breath—everything. From one person God created all of humankind to inhabit the entire earth, and set the time for each nation to exist and the exact place where each nation should dwell. God did this so that human beings would seek, reach out for and perhaps find the One who is not really far from any of us - the One in whom we live and move and have our being. As one of your poets has put it, 'We too are God's children.'
If we are in fact children of God, then it's inexcusable to think that the Divine Nature is like an image of gold, silver or stone—an image formed by the art and thought of mortals. God, who overlooked such ignorance in the past, now commands all people everywhere to reform their lives. For a day has been set when the whole world will be judged with justice. And this judge, who is a human being, has already been appointed. God has given proof of all of this by raising this judge from the dead.'
(Acts 17:22-31)
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
May 21, 2017
 |
| Questions to the Rescue by David Hayward |
The term “both/and” can be difficult for us humans. Most of the time we much prefer “either/or”. “Both/and” is messy, incongruent, seemingly impossible. Take for example, the thought experiment or “what-if” proposition that we know as Schrödinger’s cat. Erwin Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist in the early part of the 20th century. He won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933. Quantum mechanical theory was just getting off the ground. One aspect of quantum theory, called the Copenhagen interpretation (scientists have as much complicated lingo as theologians), states that a subatomic object exists in all its possible forms simultaneously until it is observed and then collapses into one form. For instance, light can be a particle or a wave, but which one and when?
Schrödinger thought this was nonsense and sought to prove this theory wrong. So he devised a thought experiment in which there was a cat, a Geiger counter, some radioactive material, a hammer, and a vial of cyanide, all sealed within a steel box. And presumably enough air for the cat to breathe. There would be enough radioactive material, just a few atoms, that within an hour there was a 50/50 chance some of it would decay. If that occurred, the Geiger counter would detect the decay, setting off the hammer to break the glass vial of poison and thus kill the cat. But there was only a 50/50 chance that any of this would happen. Theoretically, without being able to observe what was happening in the box, the cat would be both alive and dead. Both possibilities would exist until the box was opened.
I think this capacity for ambiguity would have driven the apostle Paul nuts. Here in the book of Acts he’s been preaching in Thessalonica, then Berea, and now Athens. He hasn’t exactly had an enthusiastic following as yet; he stirred up such emotion and passion in the synagogues he visited that mobs threw him out of town. Yet in Athens he finds people to have a more open mind. They are keen to hear or tell of something new. He debates with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. These Athenians seem to know little of the history of Abraham and Sarah and their descendants, of God’s covenant with the Hebrew people. The Jews were not known for their evangelism—Peter, Paul, and the rest of the apostles are the first. But people gather to listen nonetheless, to hear this new teaching.
 |
| The Areopagus as seen from the Parthenon |
Back in 1988 when Campbell and Bill Moyers were discussing The Power of Myth, both of them were probably considered heretics. A heretic is someone who chooses to believe something other than the accepted norm. Every time we move forward in human history it is because of heretical thinking. In their conversation, Bill Moyers said that “there are Christians who believe that to find out who Jesus is, you have to go past the Christian faith, past the Christian doctrine, past the Christian church,” and that many would consider that heresy. Campbell agreed and replied that “you have to go past the image of Jesus. The image of God becomes the final obstruction. Your God is your ultimate barrier.”
Amen.
Inclusive Language version of the text:
an altar inscribed, 'To an Unknown God.' Now, what you are worshiping in ignorance I intend to make known to you.
'For the God who made the world and all that is in it, the Sovereign of heaven and earth, doesn't live in sanctuaries made by human hands, and isn't served by humans, as if in need of anything. No! God is the One who gives everything life, breath—everything. From one person God created all of humankind to inhabit the entire earth, and set the time for each nation to exist and the exact place where each nation should dwell. God did this so that human beings would seek, reach out for and perhaps find the One who is not really far from any of us - the One in whom we live and move and have our being. As one of your poets has put it, 'We too are God's children.'
If we are in fact children of God, then it's inexcusable to think that the Divine Nature is like an image of gold, silver or stone—an image formed by the art and thought of mortals. God, who overlooked such ignorance in the past, now commands all people everywhere to reform their lives. For a day has been set when the whole world will be judged with justice. And this judge, who is a human being, has already been appointed. God has given proof of all of this by raising this judge from the dead.'
(Acts 17:22-31)
Comments
Post a Comment