Online Sermons
The Sixth Sunday in Epiphany: February 15, the Rev. Dr. Barbara Schlachter
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online SermonsOne Sunday last year Bill got up here in the pulpit and said that according to the Gazette, he was going to preach on evolution. But he wanted us to know he wasn’t? If you could have seen my face, it was Valentine red, and later I apologized meekly that I had told the organizer of the Clergy Letter Project I would preach on evolution but not that Sunday. At any rate, that Sunday is here again: the day that clergy are to preach on evolution.
In case you are wondering, it is always the Sunday closest to Darwin Day, Feb. 12. This year we may be a bit more aware of Darwin Day because it was Darwin’s 200th birthday, as well as Lincoln’s. What a two-some!
Do you remember learning about evolution as a child? I am not quite sure how old I was when my mother had me join her in their bedroom for one of her talks and one of her pamphlets. This was her style—take me into the inner sanctum, call my attention to a few sheets of paper, and then leave me alone. That was how I learned about the changes in a girl’s body as she got close to her teen years, and that was how I learned about evolution. Or rather, that was how I learned she was against it. I think she was a bit late in getting to me because I remember being surprised, not by the theory itself, but that she didn’t think it was true and that she didn’t think I should either.
But by then, I was not only an eager young learner with a father who was a scientist, I was a tree-climbing, mud puddle jumping childhood mystic who was in love with the world and didn’t care how it or I got here, only that we both had!
Well, I thank God that I never felt I had to choose between a scientific understanding of the universe and a religious understanding of the awesomeness of creation. When it was time for me to choose a church for a mature faith, I thank God that I was led to the Episcopal Church. The signs are true: the Episcopal Church welcomes you, all of you, and you don’t have to leave your mind at the door. Keep learning, keep discussing, keep probing. Keep keeping on.
So most Episcopalians, like most main stream religions, are free to appreciate the great learnings about the universe that have occurred within the last 100 years without being defensive or fearful—on either one side or the other. It is fascinating in fact, that the creationists are afraid of the scientists, some of the scientists, that is, and the scientists are afraid of the creationists and each are trying to convince the other they are wrong.
That still leaves a lot of room in the middle for those of us who can go outside and look up at the stars and say, “Wow! Thank you, God!” The more I learn, the more awesome it is. But let us not be too hard on our fearful or doubting brothers and sisters or even ourselves when doubt creeps in and we want to think in either/or terms instead of both/and. At times like those it may be good to remember that even Albert Einstein, arguably the greatest scientist of the 20th century, was so fearful of the idea that the universe was expanding that he falsified his data. Later when it was pointed out to him, he admitted why he had done it and apologized. It was just too much to take in. Be ye therefore compassionate of others and yourself.
In the meantime, we read and go to lectures in order to learn more and to be even more radically amazed by this universe we live in. Radical amazement is a phrase coined by Rabbi Abraham Heschel and has been used by Judith Cannato as the title of a book. Now it’s time for an advertisement. Judith Cannato is going to be at Prairiewoods on April 17 and 18. She is a retreat director from Cleveland who has woven science and religious faith into a fascinating perspective on the enterprise of being a human being.
We human beings are not only as part of this evolutionary process, but in a unique role. She quotes Teilhard de Chardin, who said, human beings “are nothing less than evolution becoming conscious of itself.” It is in us that this 13.7 billion year process, of one step at a time, has enabled us to be the only species with awareness.
But it’s not like we can or are going to stop here. We are going somewhere, just as we and all of creation have always been evolving. There is a growing group of scientists and theologians who think that we human beings are being called to make the transition from homo sapiens to homo universalis. Unlike earlier stages of our development, however, we are required to participate in this next step.
Our existence as a species depends upon our willingness to respond to the issues that threaten the Earth as a living organism. Because every part of the earth is linked with every other part, every relationship on the planet is affected by every other part. Cannato writes: “Our soil and water and air together with our suffering and oppressed sisters and brothers of all species cry for our conscious loving awareness.”
Our gospel reading today talks about how Jesus healed a leper who came to him, in hope, but not with entitlement or arrogance. We have to laugh at Naaman’s self-grandiosity in the Old Testament reading. It wasn’t just that he wanted to be healed from leprosy, but he wanted it done in a certain way, a way that recognized his self-importance, that showed proper fan fare for one so important.
The leper who came to Jesus, however, came in humility. We can see him kneeling in front of Jesus, his arms outstretched, begging. “If you choose, you can make me clean.” And Jesus, filled with compassion, healed him.
Well, how does this healing story relate to our situation on planet earth? I have thought, first, it suggests that the whole human race may be represented in this leper. It would be a change in attitude if we were to realize that we are part of this earth and its evolutionary process and not the crowning sunum bonum of God, the final highest creation. We are learning that our four footed, two finned, two winged brothers and sisters, the trees in our yards and forests, all have as much right to consideration as we do.
This humility would be a recognition that we need to get down on our knees and ask for healing, for a new heart and a new mind, a new way of seeing and a new way of listening, and that this process would lead us to a new relationship with the earth and all its creatures, including our brothers and sisters who live in extreme poverty. It would be our healing, our salvation, our wholeness, our realization of our oneness with all that is, and that we are only a part of it.
If you think about how Jesus seemed to excite some people so positively and others so negatively, it was because he challenged the dominant world view of his time. He took humanity a step further into consciousness than many people were ready for, and those that feared it put an end to him, thinking that would take care of that. Of course it didn’t. Those who saw and heard what he was talking about had a whole new way of looking at reality and of God.
And that is where we seem to be now, ready to make another shift, a leap into Christ-consciousness that the people of Jesus time could not have made except through the path of mysticism. What an exciting time to be alive! What we do really matters! We can’t be in evolutionary drift; we need to make the evolutionary leap. How do we do this?
This is where it gets harder. It’s always easier to name the problem than come up with the solution. But I think it starts with our senses, with coming to our senses, like the prodigal son, who realized that he could return home.
David Adam, a Celtic-style priest in the Church of England, has an interesting image. He suggests that we must take time to learn to play the ‘five-stringed harp,’ that is, use all our five senses.” That is because God’s world and revelation come to us primarily through our senses. So we need to sharpen our eyesight so we can see clearly, fine tune our hearing so we can listen carefully, eat intentionally so we can taste our food, take time to smell the roses and all the other fragrances that have been linked with healing, and to be aware of our bodies as sensate, as feeling at all times.
This greater attention to our own senses would make us more aware of the beauty and intricacy of this earth. It would make us more aware of the presence of the energy and love and mystery that we call God. The seen can take us into the realm of the unseen but known and real.
It might be like getting a new pair of glasses and being able to see the fine print, or a new sound system and hear musical instrumentation with more depth, or tasting a carrot that has just been pulled from the ground rather than one that has lived more life under cellophane than dirt, or being able to find roses with fragrance, or sensing how alive all of our body is, and what a temple of God it truly is.
Do you remember the night of the full moon, Monday evening, and how the clouds were racing and roiling in the sky? They were unbelievably gorgeous, esp. with that moon as the backdrop. I nearly drove off the road a few times marveling at it. More intelligent than I was the member of this church who emailed me the next morning saying it was so marvelous she actually pulled over and stopped her car and got out to really look at it.
Well, maybe we all need to think about how to slow down, stop, get off the road and marvel, to pay attention to the beautiful and all the rest of it. Lent is coming. The church year evolves from looking up at the star of the Epiphany to heading to the desert and observing the heavens and the earth, the stars and the sand, and our place in it all.