Comments for Jim

Sunday, November 22, 1998
Rev. James A.Todhunter

"THE INVISIBLE BECOME VISIBLE"
JEREMIAH 23:1-6 COLOSSIANS 1:11-20 LUKE 1:68-79

I believe that all religion can be summed up in Paul’s phrase "The things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen are eternal." Another way of putting this is to say that the things that are most powerful in our lives are invisible. This puts us at odds with the world, for what makes humankind unique is the ability to investigate and learn and change. We do this by stressing rationality, and in so doing we are better able to manage our environment. But there is danger here. Our definition of the world becomes more and more restricted. Our vision is reduced to what we can observe and control. And our concept of ourselves is reduced also, so that we come to see ourselves essentially as rational beings. Therefore, we conclude that what is unseen, what is invisible in ourselves and in our world, doesn’t exist, and really can’t have power.

A religious faith questions all this. Faith is based on the understanding that the world we inhabit, this world of space and time, is not all there is. There are things that are invisible and eternal. If we restrict our understanding to this world of space and time, we restrict our own vision and we restrict our understanding of what it means to be human beings.

The statement "The things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen are eternal" is not something that can be proved, at least in terms of space and time. It is a statement of faith, not to be proved, but to be explored.

Christians, of course, are used to talking about the realm of the spiritual, the kingdom of God, heaven and so forth; and not just Christians and religious folk, but spiritualists, occultists, and others. But Biblical people do have something unique to say about this. "The things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen are eternal." And then the question must be, what is the relationship between things seen and unseen? Is this invisible world simply another parallel reality? A place we go when we die? Is such a place better than this world? What is the connection between the seen and unseen, the temporal and the eternal?

In the First Chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians Paul writes this about Jesus Christ: "He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation;" It has been said that the most important doctrine of God is the doctrine of God as Creator. God has created everything, including our world and beyond our world, everything visible and invisible "thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities." God is God and God’s creation is vastly more expansive and complex than we can ever conceive of. And Jesus, the Christ, was there at the creation and this Christ is the glue that holds everything together, visible and invisible.

But our biblical God is not the proverbial watch-maker who starts things up and goes away, one who winds up the machine and then adopts a hands-off attitude. What is unique about our God is that God steps into our world and does things, over and over. God was concerned about Adam and Eve and so took a stroll in the Garden in the cool of the day. God heard the cries of the Hebrews in bondage and appeared to Moses in the burning bush on the mountain side. And this same mighty God bent low and was born into a cradle at Bethlehem, coming all the way into our world, assuming human flesh, and walked the dusty roads of Galilee as the Man of Nazareth. In doing this God brought a power, was a power, that was not of this world. But God also manifested a power that had an impact on this world. This God, invisible to this world, became visible and present in this world.

You see, that is the difference. The power of God in this world will always be regarded as something illogical, illusory, and ineffectual because its source is invisible. And yet this power is always felt in terms of the concrete. Look at the stories that Jesus tells, his parables. It could be argued that they are not spiritual at all. Jesus again and again says "The Kingdom of God is like...." and then gives a very tangible example - a wedding feast, a woman searching for a lost coin, a wayward son welcomed home, a helping hand to a man fallen among thieves, and so forth. In other words, he describes the riches of the spiritual realm solely in terms of this world. He doesn’t describe angels or heavenly matters at all. What he does describe is the practical impact on this world of those who put their trust in God.

And Jesus talks a lot about how this happens. It happens invisibly. The Kingdom of God is like a seed growing secretly in the ground. The process is unobserved until the plant bursts forth from the soil. The Kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. You look at the field and though you cannot see the treasure, your attitude toward the field is different because you know what is hidden there. The Kingdom of God is like leaven in the loaf, secretly and invisibly at work.

What does this mean for our own daily lives? Jesus said that we need eyes that can really see and ears that can really hear. Christian faith is not simply a new philosophy, or a new set of understandings, or even a body of information that we read about and incorporate. It is not even something we learn from a seminar or sermon. It is really nothing less than a transformation in how we perceive the world around us and in us. If this world we see is all there is, then that has real implications for how we live. Then the prime issues become control and power and the flight from death. For this world rewards those who master their environment, at least in the short term. But what a different understanding comes from seeing this world as sustained moment by moment by an invisible God who has created it and is creating it still.

Looking at our own lives, it is one thing to define ourselves as consumers or producers or voters or citizens or stockholders. It is quite another to say that we are eternal and invisible souls, who, like Christ, are images occupying time and space for a spell; bodies inhabiting souls as Meister Eckhardt declared.

In a strange way, Christianity is at once the most mystical and most materialistic of religions. On the one hand, our Creator God is far-off and invisible, intangible and ineffable. But on the other hand, and at one and same time, this same God is present in a powerful way in this world. To paraphrase Jesus’ words to the disciples of John the Baptist, "This invisible God is real if you just look around and observe God’s effects - people are being healed, lives are being changed, life is conquering death, love is winning out over apathy." And if we respond, "Where, we don’t see that happening," Jesus will say, "That is because you don’t know how or where to look. Get eyes that see. Get ears that hear."

As Christians we ought never to forget that, as far as the world is concerned, our faith is irrational. There is nothing rational about saying that a real life man named Jesus was executed as a common criminal during the first century, and was raised from the dead in such a way that his followers were convinced that he was alive forevermore. Not rational. The resurrection cannot be rationally explained. But, only the fact of the resurrection (whatever it was that happened) can explain the fact that we are all here together this morning.

As Christians, we all called to work with God to make God’s love real in this world. That means as individuals and as a community becoming God’s image, living images of Jesus Christ in this world.

To me that is what is most powerful about our celebration of Thanksgiving each year. The Thanksgiving story is a wonderful story that everyone can embrace. The shared meal between the Pilgrim survivors of that first brutal New England winter and the generous and trusting native Americans they encountered really is a story that transcends religion and nationalism. In that moment that meal was a living image of the Kingdom of God, God’s peaceable Kingdom, the invisible vision made visible. The sad fact that subsequent generations have betrayed that dream and its promise can, in no way, undo the beauty and profundity of that moment.

Last week several of us met for lunch down at Progress Place with the lead developer for Silver Spring’s new downtown. The group included a County Council member and business leader. We ate in the dining room alongside members of the associate program and homeless people from the street. Our simple but ample meal was served by homeless people trained in our Vision Cafe. I am sure the developer was used to being wined and dined and courted by community leaders and elected officials. But there we were together in a pretty humble setting. And we talked with him about our vision for Silver Spring, about how our goal was not just to help and uplift the destitute; but that really our goal was to create the best possible community here, and that everybody, including those at the bottom of the social scale deserved a chance to contribute their best. And could we not all work together in this? And I thought, as I sometimes do when I find myself in such settings, what am I doing here amidst such powerful people? It is sort of irrational. But then I thought, why not? For the presence of people of faith is a reminder that there is a deeper rationality, a deeper reality. Paul said of Jesus that "in him all things hold together." Such a meal is a reminder that what holds us all together is not money, or power, or education, or political skills, or enlightened self-interest. These are all powerful forces in this world and must be respected and reckoned with. But ultimately what holds human community together is the invisible presence of love, a love which ultimately must push beyond self-interest into the irrational realm of self-sacrifice. This is a statement of faith; it is irrational.

But it is an irrationality that amazingly makes a difference in the world. For out of the meager resources of that first Thanksgiving how did such abundance come? Out of a few loaves and fishes how did a great feast occur on the shore of Galilee? Out of the irrationality of letting go, how is it that we can receive such joy? Out of the fearsome risk of trusting an invisible God, what a mystery it is that we are given the gift of eternal life in God. And how irrational, yet how wonderful it is, that all things work together for good for those who put their trust in God. Amen.

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