Trust in the Lord Always
Saint Paul’s Cathedral, San Diego
February 11, 2007; VI Epiphany C
Scott Richardson +
Trust in the Lord Always
Gracious God,
Let these words be more than words and give us the spirit of Jesus.
Amen.
Many of your cathedral preachers have, in the past year, signed onto the Clergy Letter Project. This project affirms the compatibility of religion and science, especially in regard to the theory of evolution. We resist the notion, held by millions, that an either/or choice is required of believers. Many of us hold that God created the world over vast eons through a process best described by our most astute scientists.
That position may not seem terribly radical to you but, sadly, it now requires defense. Imagine this scene: A high school geology class visits the Grand Canyon National Park. One bright student asks the ranger to estimate the age of the rocks – the ranger hedges. He stammers, kicks the dust, and appears discomforted by the query. The student goes to the park bookshop to pursue her question and picks up a text that tells her the canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than geologic forces. Apparently, park officials are compelled to offer this perspective even though it’s excoriated by leading scientists and geologic societies. “In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology,” says the leader of a group known as Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. (See http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=801)
Is it the case that some members of our Park Service, pressured by political appointees, actively encourage people to accept the extreme view that the earth is but 6,000 years old? If not, they certainly seem to be unwilling or unable to counter this dated claim. But why, you ask, is this of concern to us? We care because ultimately this conflict is not about science or governance but, rather, biblical interpretation. It has to do, more specifically, with the veracity of the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. The key question for some is this: If the first two chapters of the Bible are not an accurate presentation of the facts of the origin of life, then how can we trust anything else from that point on? How can we know anything in the text is reliable if we can’t get past the first page without stumbling?
The problem, of course, has to do with “knowing”. Literally-minded folks require certainty, certitude, facts, but that’s not the métier of faith. Faith is about believing in things unseen. It’s about trusting that the promises of the past will be fulfilled in the future. The opposite of faith is not doubt but fixed certainty. But rigid belief becomes brittle quickly; it can shatter in a moment while true faith remains forever supple, pliable, adaptable. Jeremiah says as much in our first lesson today – “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious and it does not cease to bear fruit.”
So mature faith does not insist on exactitude, or on a need to have pet theories affirmed, or on “facts” that require intellectual contortions that lead to less than truthful conclusions, or on the shaky ground of literalism – that’s idolatry. Mature faith is confident in the permeating power of God in all circumstances. New information, new insights, new ways of understanding our place in God’s world never throw spiritual grown-ups off balance because they never stand on their own understanding. They stand in the Lord, and because that’s true of them all things are possible for them.
So blessed are those who may not have all the answers, blessed are those who may not have all their needs met, blessed are those who live with some doubt and uncertainty, but who, in the end, return to God. And woe to those rich in their own understanding. Woe to those full of arrogant certitude. Woe to those content with closed systems and closed minds. Woe not as curse but as description, as prophecy – this is the path of quiet desperation.
Saint Paul holds all of this in his heart as he writes to the church in Corinth. He’s asking them to trust, to believe something new, to believe that that which all considered impossible has, in fact, occurred. A dead man walks. A good man, struck down, is raised up. A child of God, the Son of God, beset by the powers of his day, is hauled up from the grave by the One with all power.
Human wisdom will have nothing to do with such nonsense. It’s impossible – everyone, even fools, know the dead are dead. But Paul doesn’t know that; he believes differently. He trusts his own experience. He remembers meeting the Risen One on the road to Damascus; life was immediately and forever different. He believes he escaped danger and death a dozen times because the hand of the Lord was upon him. He understands himself to be commissioned for one purpose – to tell the world the impossible is possible and death gives way to life. “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.”
Perhaps that’s how we should respond to our friends who are anxious about the truth of their text, those tempted by rigid readings or seduced by the simplicity of literal certainty. We might remember with them that the Word of God is not solely the books Genesis to Revelation; it is also, preeminently, a Living Word, the Logos, the one who died and rose and directs our reading and our understanding even now. We stand under him to understand him and we trust the Living Word to reveal truth – through scriptures, in the ancient creation, and by many other means – in a new way for this new day. Blessed are those whose supple faith allows their heart and mind to open even more to God’s endless revelation of wonder and love.
Amen.
Scott Richardson +
February 11, 2007; VI Epiphany C