Worship
Sermon Teachings
Job 38-39, selected verses
From the heart of the tempest, God questioned Job. “Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Tell me! Who decided its dimensions, do you know? Or who stretched the measuring line across it? What supports its pillars at their bases? Who laid its cornerstone to the joyful concert of the morning stars…Who pent up the sea behind closed doors when it leapt tumultuous from the womb, when I wrapped it in a robe of mist and made black clouds its swaddling bands…Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or sent the dawn to its post, to grasp the earth by its edges and shake it?...Have you an inkling of the extent of the earth? Tell me all about it if you have! Which is the way to the home of the Light, and where does darkness live?...Have you visited the place where the snow is stored?...From which direction does the lightning fork, where in the world does the east wind blow itself out? Who bores a channel for the downpour or clears the way for the rolling thunder so that rain may fall on lands where no one lives, and the deserts void of human dwelling, to meet the needs of the lonely wastes and make grass sprout on the thirsty ground?...Are you the one who makes the horse so brave and covers his neck with flowing mane? Do you make him leap like a grasshopper? His haughty neighing inspires terror…He laughs at fear; he is afraid of nothing…Is it your wisdom that sets the hawk flying when he spreads his wings to travel south? Does the eagle soar at your command to make her eyrie in the heights? She spends her nights among the crags with a needle of rock as her fortress.
John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word: the word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came into being, not one thing came into being except through him. What has come into being in him was life, life that was the light of humanity; and light shines in darkness, and darkness could not overpower it.
Sunday Teaching:
Today we continue our Lenten sermon series based on the book, Why Faith Matters. It is written by Rabbi David Wolpe of the Sinai Temple in West Los Angeles, not far from UCLA. Those of you who are reading along in the book will remember the story he tells at the beginning of Chapter 4.
“A thousand years from now when scientists have solved all the questions that plague humanity, they are finally ready for the ultimate challenge. They elect a representative to address God. “God,” says the scientist in charge. “You are no longer needed. You served a function in your day, but that day is gone. We can do everything that You can do, so goodbye.”
There is a moment of silence. Then a voice booms out of the sky: “Everything?”
“Yes,” answers the scientist, “everything.”
“Can you make a human being from dust?”
“Absolutely.”
“OK,” says God, “let me see you make a human being.”
The scientist reaches down and digs his hands into the earth.
“Oh, no,” says God. “Get your own dust.”1
Wolpe asks, Does Science Disprove Religion? For example, what do you believe about the “Theory” of Evolution? Is it fine during the week but something you leave out in the parking lot when you come into a church and hear the Creation story from Genesis or God's questions to Job in today's Scripture? Those verses could have been the next sentences of Wolpe's story. “Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or sent the dawn to its post, to grasp the earth by its edges and shake it?” Some would say that the recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti were a result the earth evolving, of the action of the relatively new theory of plate tectonics as the plates, millions of years old, slipped alongside each other or one pushed down under another. Others, however, have said that the quakes are the result of ancestors of the victims making a pact with the devil. Apparently the thought is that an angry God might actually take the earth by its edges and shake it. Historian Will Durant was known to say it this way, “Civilization exists by geological consent subject to change without notice…To the geologic eye all the surface of the earth is a fluid form, and man moves upon it as insecurely as Peter walking on the waves to Christ.”2
Our scientific knowledge has expanded exponentially in the past 150 years. How do you incorporate your growing understanding of how our world works with your understanding of Scripture and faith? Wolpe's story demonstrates the “God of the Gaps” method of integration. It works for awhile as we let ourselves believe that whatever we can't explain or understand must have been caused by God. As we mature in our own understanding of the world and as scientific explanations are found for the observations we question, then the gaps become smaller and the need for God to fill them diminishes. As our understanding of climate changes and global warming grows, we are less apt to blame catastrophic storm damage on “acts of God.” We wrestle with a view of Scripture that makes literal assumptions for today's world from writings that reflected a people's understanding of God in a pre-scientific time.
A second way to view the science/religion issue is the one I mentioned earlier – the God of the parking lot. It probably is the narrow line many mainline Protestants walk, dualistically living with the belief that religion is not science and science is not religion, so keeping them in different parts of our lives. Science is about discovering facts and religion is about discovering why we are here and what the purpose is for our lives. John Calvin wrote in the 16th century that “Scripture gives us a way to look at the world as God's creation and self-expression…never intended to provide us with infallible astronomical or medical information…even Maimonides, a theologian and physician 300 years before Calvin, insisted that a contradiction between scientific truth and Scripture means that we have not properly understood Scripture.”3 But, for some, it is not satisfying to keep our understanding of faith in a separate box from our understanding of science.
A third way to look at the relationship emerged about 120 years ago and is fully alive today. It is known as the imperialistic view or the “ultimate arbiter” view – that science and religion are at war and only one is right. It is the I am the Truth and you shall have no other truths before me view.4 Although, clergymen had often been scientists and most scientists were known to be deep believers, hints of it began with poor Galileo in 1633. When he had the nerve to suggest that the sun, not the earth, was the center of our world, he was put under house arrest where he stayed until his death.
As the period of the Enlightenment developed, it brought a time of critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals. Scientific study and Biblical study expanded in new ways questioning assumptions that had been held for hundreds of years. Biblical scholars suggested that the writings should be understood in the context of the time the stories were told orally and later written and edited over several hundred years. Some even questioned God's single-handed writing of each word. Scientists, such as Charles Darwin, were making discoveries about the evolution of the world and humanity that seemed to deny the Biblical story of a seven-day creation. Liberal theologians studied and preached about these new understandings but these developments were threatening to a religious world that drew comfort from the idea of a never-changing God. To counter this new liberal theology, the president of Union Oil of California funded the writings of 64 conservative Protestant theologians in the early 20th century and produced a twelve-volume work titled entitled The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth. It taught the inerrancy of selected verses of the Bible. That was the beginning of what we know today as the Fundamentalist Christian Movement and we have seen it played out in recent decisions regarding the teaching of science and social studies by the Texas State Board of Education. The vast majority of scientists accept evolution as the best explanation of the diversity of life on earth clearly supported by the fossil record that shows all life descended from the beginnings of genetic matter some 3.9 billion years ago. However, the board chairman believes that God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago and wants that included in biology classes across the nation. (Holding up banded iron formation rock) –
Many of you know that my daughter Christie is a geologist. This rock, which I will share with you in the after worship discussion, began its life in a quiet lagoon where bacteria were living 2.3 billion years ago. It has wavy lines in it from the tidal washing over of new sediments getting stuck in the bacteria. It was pushed and moved as the continents changed. She picked it up in the Cape Fold Belt in South Africa where it was likely dropped by an iceberg about 250 million years ago.
The state of Texas is the largest customer of text books. If publishers bend to include beliefs that are not proven by science, those same textbooks will be purchased for use in other states, even possibly California.
A fourth way for people of faith to live in relationship with religion and science is by integrating the two. The science of evolution does not make claims about God's existence or non-existence, any more than do other scientific theories such as gravitation, atomic structure, or plate tectonics. Just like gravity, the theory of evolution is compatible with theism, atheism, and agnosticism. Can we accept evolution as the most compelling explanation for biological diversity and also accept the idea that God works through evolution? Many people do. God defined Godself in Exodus as “I am who I am becoming.” (Exodus 3:13). Evolution teaches that the world is in a continuous dynamic process of self-creation. As scientist Francis Collins said, “For those who believe in God, there are reasons now to be more in awe, not less.” Did you see that beautiful child, Kathryn Day, who was baptized this morning? There is no other child like her today, yesterday or tomorrow. She is completely unique. The flowers that you saw budding as you came up the walkway to the church. What makes the green stem produce a bud that opens to flower? Scientists can explain it technically to us but isn't it awesome how each new tulip is slightly different from the next though the same process produced it? In 2009, one of the major science breakthroughs was the release of the news of ARDI (Ardipithecus ramidus) found in Ethiopia, that stood upright 4.4 million years ago! This is the oldest creature (by 1 million years) that we know in any detail at all that we can call “us” – a great celebration on the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. (picture shown)
So, for you and your life, what is the way you live with science and religion? Do you understand God's role as “God of the Gaps”? as “God of the Parking Lot”? as a battle with science to determine the “Ultimate Arbitrator”? as an integration of religion and science? Or do you have some other way to think about Wolpe's question, “Does Science Disprove Religion?” It is up to you – but our faith encourages us to think about and wrestle with this issue as people of the 21st century. The Presbyterian denomination does not assume that you believe one way but that you engage in the issue. Science can tell us how our brains work but can't tell us why we fall in love or why we care about each other enough to do incredible things. Earthquakes and volcanoes can move mountains but love, too, can move mountains in our lives and the lives of others. May we be open and alive to the seismic shifts!
Wolpe, David, Why Faith Matters, p.81
Blum, Deborah, Civilization on a Fault Line, NYTimes.com, January 15, 2010
Wolpe, David p. 84
Smith, Barbara Herrnstein, Natural Reflections: Human Cognition at the Nexus of Science and Religion
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