Imagine a World with More Beauty (Psalm 19)

 Six weeks ago, a small group of youth and adults from Bixby Knolls Christian Church and North Long Beach Christian Church spent the afternoon at the world-famous Griffith Observatory. One of the things we saw was an image from the solar telescope: Incoming sunlight bounces off from one of three tracking mirrors that are each aimed into three different instruments. The center beam passes through a telescope and a projecting lens, to another mirror, and displays the sun and its spots as a 21-inch wide image on a ground glass screen.

We stood around that screen, looking at the image of the sun. An employee of the observatory was explaining the image to us, and she could barely contain her excitement. “We have some really beautiful sunspots today!” she exclaimed.

I looked at the image on the screen. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to describe that image as “beautiful.” Just a large, yellow circle, a little fuzzy, with some small, black, splotchy spots. 

But her excitement was contagious. And after she explained a little more, I did begin to see the beauty in that image.

And the older I get, the more I realize that there are so many different types of beauty. Beauty is not limited by what you see in magazines and on social media.

In the scripture reading, all of creation is declaring the beauty of God’s world. Heaven and earth, day and night, proclaiming God’s glory; proclaiming it without words that could be heard. 

And since I’ve known for some time now that I would be preaching on beauty on this Sunday, I’ve been keeping my mind open to experiences of beauty in our world. It’s been a good exercise for me, since so much of our attention these days is focused on the ugliness of the world.

And my decision to start noticing beauty began with sunspots.

We seek to honor our God-who-is-beautiful by incorporating beauty into our worship. We have the beautiful music that Barb and Betsy and Ken bring us, and others as well. We have images on the screen and in our bulletins that Gretchen prepares for us each week, adding to the beauty of worship. We have tablecloths beautifully decorated by Samantha. We have banners. We have candles. We have stained glass windows… all of which add to the beauty of worship.

And we have you. Each of you is a beautiful, beloved child of God, and your presence adds beauty to this worship, and your presence adds beauty wherever you are. Don’t you ever forget that!

Here’s a more recent observation of mine: one of my favorite TV shows is Somebody Feed Phil. Phil Rosenthal created the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, but now he hosts a show where he just visits different places around the world, trying different kinds of food - although what really makes the show worth watching is his fun personality.

There’s a brand new season out, and the other day Ginger and I watched the first episode. In this episode he was in Oaxaca, and in between trying different kinds of food, he visited with some rug makers. They were making rugs using very old, traditional methods, and - depending on the design - it would take them up to three months to make a single rug. 

A similar rug could be made in a factory much more cheaply and quickly. And it would look very much the same. But would it be as beautiful? 

And then Phil met a woman who prepared and sold food on the street. She would spend all day making a small batch of mole sauce. All day! 

I’ve only ever made mole sauce once. I had to add a few things to it, but it largely came from a jar that I bought at the store. It was good, but not nearly as beautiful. Her mole sauce: the amount of time and care she put into making it… by the way, if you know what mole sauce looks like, it doesn’t actually look all that beautiful. But if you taste it - or if you taste any food that has been lovingly prepared with care, by hand, by someone who has put their whole heart into making it - that is beautiful.

Sometimes, we lose sight of what’s beautiful. This week, on one of my boat trips to Catalina, I was listening to a podcast that talked about traditional knowledge of the Tlingit people in the Pacific Northwest. The Tlingit were aware that, as salmon migrate up the rivers, bears and wolves would grab salmon out of the river and carry them into the forest to eat them… As the remains of the salmon decayed into the soil, they became a fertilizer, and the nutrients made their way into the trees. These trees grew bigger, and provided more shade, which helped keep the streams colder and more habitable for the salmon, helping the salmon to thrive. 

In this way, the wolves and the bears, and the salmon, and the trees, all worked together to create a healthier environment. 

And the Tlingit incorporated knowledge like this into their own fishing practices, working to maintain the balance, to preserve the forest, to not overharvest the salmon,... so that the life of the ecosystem would continue to thrive for many generations to come. 

And I was struck by the beauty in this. You know that feeling you get when you experience true beauty? Your attention becomes captivated, your emotions swell? That’s what I was feeling, listening to this podcast. It just seemed so amazing to me, so beautiful, the way humans and animals and plants all work together, for the benefit of all. 

We hear about competition in the natural world, and survival of the fittest, but here is an example of cooperation in the natural world. 

When I preached on community, I talked about how what’s best for an individual is what’s best for the community, and vice versa, and that the individual cannot thrive if the community does not thrive. “I cannot be what I ought to be unless you are allowed to be all that you can be.” …And here was a real example of that in nature.  

It’s so beautiful; even more so when we humans respect and honor that, and work to incorporate it into our own practices.

But so much of this knowledge has been lost or ignored by modern society. Maybe because of our desire for efficiency, or because of our greed? We’ve lost sight of the beauty, we don’t see the importance of maintaining that balance, and that has very real and very dangerous consequences for us and for all of creation. 

In a few weeks, I’m going on a trip, and one of the places I’ll be visiting is Zion National Park. This week, I learned that the flowers of the yucca that grow in Zion are pollinated by only one species, the yucca moth. 

In turn, the only food yucca moth larvae are able to eat are the seeds of the yucca fruit. The dependence of the yucca on the yucca moth and of the yucca moth on the yucca is another example of different parts of creation cooperating with each other - something the naturalists call “biological mutualism.” 

Each spring when yucca moths are ready to lay their eggs, they find a yucca flower and gather a sticky ball of pollen with two tentacles near their mouth. After they’ve gathered the pollen, they fly off to find another yucca flower and lay their eggs. After they’ve laid their eggs, they pollinate the flower by pushing the sticky pollen into tiny recessions within the style, which leads down to an ovary. 

Once the flower is pollinated, the moth marks it with a chemical pheromone (scent) that warns other moths from laying their eggs on the same flower. If too many moths have laid their eggs on one flower, the plant will not produce fruit from that flower. The yucca moth’s eggs will hatch into larvae as the flower develops into a fruit, eating only some of the seeds and leaving the rest to be scattered and hopefully grow into new yucca plants.

Isn’t that beautiful?

Like most moths, yucca moths are nocturnal, and depend on the daily and seasonal cycles of light and darkness for their life cycles. Which means that this whole process is interrupted when there are city lights brightening up the sky at night. Fortunately, Zion National Park is an International Dark Sky Park, and the park service is continuing to look for ways to reduce the amount of artificial light at night that would disrupt this beautiful phenomenon. 

And, coincidentally, after I read about the yucca moths and their need for darkness, I was substitute teaching a class of sixth graders who were learning about baby sea turtles, and how they depend on darkness to find their way to the ocean after they hatch, and how people in Florida are working to reduce the amount of artificial light shining on and near beaches, in an effort to help these sea turtles.

And that, too, is beautiful.

My purpose this morning is to help you open your own eyes and minds to the beauty that is all around. If there is such amazing beauty in moths and mole sauce, then truly, there must be beauty everywhere!

Here’s one more place where I see beauty. When people think seriously about faith, and wrestle with ideas - I think that’s beautiful. 

It’s beautiful, in part, because so many Christians in our country, it seems to me, haven’t really thought things through. They blindly follow and agree to whatever is told to them. They refuse to question what they’ve been taught, because they’re afraid - afraid that if one tiny part of their faith system is allowed to be challenged, then their whole faith will fall apart.

But without challenge, without questions, faith never grows.

And many of the loudest voices in American Christianity come from those who have never seriously wrestled with faith. They speak without thinking. As John Shelby Spong once said, “The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.”

But I think it’s beautiful when people do go deep in their faith, and are willing to question things, and wrestle with ideas. 

It was beautiful when Rajal did that, trying to decide whether or not he should be baptized, or be confirmed. To see a young person, especially, take so seriously a decision like that - to me, that is beautiful.

Now, I know, for most people who are trying to figure things like this out, who are wrestling with questions… it doesn’t feel beautiful. Not at the time. A lot of people have been raised in churches that taught them to never question anything, and when they did start questioning things, it felt like their whole world was falling apart. 

It’s a process called deconstruction, and it’s actually quite common. Everything they thought they believed gets called into question, until it feels like there is nothing left.

But then they start putting the pieces back together, slowly, and discover a new, more liberating, more honest faith - one that isn’t afraid of struggle, isn’t afraid of questions. A faith that is sincere.

It feels messy. It feels like a problem that must be solved. But I find the process to be beautiful, and to anyone going through that, I say: be patient. Let the Spirit do its work. Spend some time with those questions. It may feel like things are dying, but just wait: a resurrection is coming. 

And all your questions and all your doubts and all your struggle will lead you to a faith that is deeper and richer and way more beautiful than anything you could have possibly imagined.

More Than Words (Psalm 19)

 Words

Words are important. Wouldn't you agree? 

When I preach, I use words. When we read the Bible, we are reading words. When my children were little, just learning how to speak, Ginger and I would say to them, “Use your words. No, don’t bang the table; and don’t throw your food on the floor; use your words.”

Words are important. 

In the church, worship is generally divided into two parts: the liturgy of the word, and the liturgy of the eucharist. The liturgy of the word focuses on that day’s scripture readings, with a homily or sermon by the minister or priest.

Words are important.

The words of scripture bear witness to God and to Jesus. If you want to get close to God and experience God, you need to read the Bible.

And yet, that’s not enough. I, and many others, find that the words of scripture are helpful - and necessary - but something more is needed. There is, as John Scotus Eriugena says, another book… one that has no words… a book that he calls “the living text of the universe.”

Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul

John Scotus Eriugena is one of several people profiled in a book I’m reading. The book is by John Philip Newell, and is called Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World. Each chapter of the book focuses on a different figure from history, someone who was influential in the development of Celtic wisdom and spirituality.

Chapter three is about John Scotus Eriugena. According to Eriugena, God speaks through two different books. There’s what he called “the small book” of holy scripture, and the “big book” that is the living text of the universe. To fully experience God, one needs to read the Bible, but one also needs to gaze in wonder at the stars, moon, and planets; one needs to walk through fields and meadows, and along free-flowing streams; one needs to experience the sounds of birds, breezes, and waves crashing.

Centuries later, Scottish immigrant John Muir would express similar thoughts in his writings. 

Chapter one of the book Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul talks about Pelagius. Pelagius lived during the very earliest days of Christianity, not long after Christianity transitioned from being a grassroots movement of the people to the officially sanctioned religion of the empire. Pelagius taught about the value of finding God in nature, and in finding God in every living being.

For both Pelagius and John Scotus Eriugena, God was found both on the pages of scripture, and by contemplating the beauty and wonder of creation. 

Pelagius & Eriugena

Believe it or not, these ideas got both Pelagius and John Scotus Eriugena in trouble. Both were condemned by church councils and political authorities. Popes for centuries to come forbade anyone from following or teaching their ideas.

What was it about their ideas that the political and religious leaders thought were so dangerous?

Well, their ideas threatened the hierarchical nature of the church and state. The Pope was the holy father, and the emperor was imbued with divinity. But if God could be found in nature and in every person - every creature - then that meant that the pope and the emperor were just like everyone else. 

And it meant that the church and the state could not justify the separation of people into classes.

And it meant that the church and the state could not justify their oppression of the people.

These ideas were a threat to the entire oppressive socio-economic system of ancient Rome. 

Original Sin or Original Goodness

Also: if God is present in every aspect of nature and in every human - then that meant that every aspect of nature and every human had to be, at its core, good. Good and holy.

But the church insisted that humans were inherently sinful. Humans were sinful. They were born into sin. What was in humans wasn't of God; it was opposed to God. And only Jesus could save them, by lifting them up to something higher, something greater, than what they were. 

Pelagius and Eriugena, on the other hand, believed that humans were not born into sin. Humans, because they are holy, because God can be found in human lives, were created good. Humans are good and holy, and it is only when they forget their true nature that they sin.

What Jesus did, according to Pelagius and Eriugena, was restore humanity back to its true, original nature. Jesus didn’t make us into something we weren’t already; Jesus restored us to what we originally were.

A later chapter of the book focuses on Alexander John Scott, who lived in the 1800s. It’s interesting that he was arguing for reform in the Church in Scotland at the same time that some former Scottish Presbyterian ministers were starting the Disciples of Christ in the United States… 

According to Alexander John Scott, “Sin does not define our nature; it infects our nature.” Sin can’t define our nature, because our nature is good and holy. Who we are - who we were created to be - is good and holy. Sin doesn't define our nature; sin can only infect it.

And, again, this idea was a threat to the political and religious establishment, which argued that, no, humans are sinful by nature.

Now, one could use scripture to argue for either side. Many of us grew up hearing about how humans are born into sin - original sin - as that is the predominant teaching among Christians throughout the centuries - especially among those who would identify as traditional Christians or “Bible-believing” Christians.

But the Bible also has a number of passages that would support the argument that humans are not sinful from the very beginning, but that they - like all of creation - were created good and holy.

The creation story is certainly a good place to start. There, we read that humanity was created in the image of God, and that God pronounced humans “very good.”

We also have today’s scripture. After reading about Pelagius and Eriugena last week, the first verse of Psalm 19 certainly caught my attention. “The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.” Creation itself speaks to us and reveals to us God's glory. 

In the New Testament, it talks about Gentiles who did not have the benefit of God’s teachings in the form of scripture, yet they knew those teachings in their heart. They knew God in their heart, even though they did not have the scripture, the Torah. This makes it sound like the scriptures aren’t given to inform and instruct us of something new, but rather to remind us of what we already know, what we’ve known all along.

Then there's the time Jesus told a group of people that the kingdom of heaven is within and among them. Think about that for a second: the kingdom of heaven is within you. You are holy.

This is who we are. We are good and holy. God's spirit is within us. But we forget. 

Eriugena said, “Everything is sacred, but we live in a state of forgetfulness of what is deepest in us and in everything that has being. The more we forget our true identity, the less we treat one another as sacred.” We forget our true nature. We forget who we truly are. We forget that we and everyone around us is holy.

Scripture calls us back to that knowledge. Jesus calls us back to that knowledge, and shows us how to honor the holy in every person. So many religious leaders in Jesus’ time as well as our own try to separate people into categories of “more holy” and “less holy,” “good” and “evil,” but Jesus saw the good in every person, and reminded people of their goodness.

No wonder he told us how important it is to love our neighbor as we love ourself.

Critics of Pelagius and Eriugena and other Celtic spiritual teachers accuse them of pantheism, which is the belief that everything is God. A rock is God. A leaf is God. A star is God. A person is God.

But what Pelagius and Eriugena and other Celtic spiritual teachers actually taught was not pantheism, but panentheism, which is the belief that God is in everything. A rock is not God, but God is in the rock. A leaf is not God, but God is in the leaf. A person is not God, but God is present in that person.

“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.” God is present in every aspect of creation. There is a sacred thread running through every thing, especially every living thing.

Alexander John Scott said:

"Who can gaze upon the moon beams streaking through the boughs of the dark forest trees - or the fir [tree] glowing in relief against the clear amber sky, or the mountain scenery which seems to partake more of the sky above than of the soft verdure that reposes at its feet - without feeling that they all speak of this world transformed and glorified, and of the world above made ours." 

And if God is in everything, and in every living thing, and in every person, then how can people who follow God not be people of justice? Justice is making sure that everything is right for everybody. Justice is making sure everyone is treated fairly. Justice is a given when we look at every person, and see the image of God! How could it be otherwise? If you see and recognize the image of God in someone, how can you not treat them fairly, justly, with love and compassion?

The book said that Alexander John Scott condemned "the way organized religion either ignored justice issues or was used to sanction the political status quo… How did religion ever come to be 'another name for self-interest,' he asked, 'or at best for its extension into eternity,' in which the devout are more concerned about the salvation of their own souls than the well-being of humanity?"

Ideas like these led Scott to help start a Christian socialist movement in the UK in 1848, which called for "liberty, fraternity, and unity for all people under heaven," something which - I’m sure - got him into trouble, just like Pelagius and Eriugena got themselves into trouble centuries earlier.

All because of the simple idea that every aspect of creation, and every person, is good, is holy, and filled with the image of God...

"With All Your Mind" (Psalm 19)

Last Monday evening, here in this sanctuary, Boy Scout Troop 29 had an Eagle Scout Court of Honor to recognize the accomplishments of two young men who achieved scouting’s highest rank. As a leader in the troop, the pastor of this church, and an Eagle Scout, I was asked to open and close the ceremony with prayer.

Afterward, I was talking with some of the scouts during the reception. The troop is getting ready to go to summer camp at the end of July; summer camp for boy scouts is an opportunity to earn merit badges while having all the fun that a camp can offer.

Many years ago, for four summers in a row, I was on the staff of a boy scout camp. I was the nature director. With help from an assistant, I helped scouts earn merit badges like Environmental Science, Forestry, Soil and Water Conservation, and Mammal Study.

One of my favorite merit badges to teach was astronomy. You can't really earn the astronomy merit badge at home, if you live in the city. The requirements include identifying in the sky a number of constellations and stars, and there’s just too much light pollution in the city. But high up in the Sierras, where my camp was, the sky was dark and the stars were bright.

And we could see the Andromeda galaxy. I told you about the Andromeda galaxy in a sermon last year, but just in case you forgot, the Andromeda galaxy is the farthest thing you can see with the naked eye. Pretty much everything you can see in the sky – all the stars and planets – are part of our galaxy, the Milky Way. But the Andromeda galaxy is, needless to say, a whole other galaxy, over 2 million light years away.

You can find the Andromeda galaxy in late summer by locating the constellation Pegasus, which features a great square making it easy to locate. Off the corner of Pegasus stretches the constellation Andromeda, and in that constellation you can see a faint fuzzy patch of light that is the Andromeda galaxy.

When I would point out the Andromeda galaxy to scouts earning the Astronomy merit badge, I would remind them that 2 million light years away means that the rays of light reaching us left that galaxy two million years ago. In other words, what you see when you look up at the Andromeda Galaxy is actually what the Andromeda Galaxy looked like 2 million years ago. You’re seeing the ancient past. It’s literally a trip 2 million years back in time.

That’s how far away the Andromeda Galaxy is; yet it is the closest major galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy. Except for two mini-galaxies called the Magellanic Clouds, all the other galaxies in our universe are even farther. Obviously you need a telescope to see them.

How many other galaxies are there? Scientists say there are at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe, and maybe 500 billion galaxies. That’s a lot of galaxies. Remember: everything we can see in the sky on a dark night, except for the Andromeda Galaxy, is in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Multiply what you can see by hundreds of billions, and that’s the universe.

The psalmist didn’t know most of this. The psalmist didn’t know about the hundreds of billions of galaxies, or what that fuzzy patch of light in the constellation Andromeda is, or that the light from it takes 2 million years to reach earth. What we know about the universe has changed a lot since the time of the psalmist.

Actually, what we know about the universe has changed a lot since I taught the astronomy merit badge at boy scout camp 25 years ago.

On the other hand, the psalmist could look up in the sky and identify the constellations he saw, which many people today cannot do. I’m sure he knew what phase the moon was in, and probably he could look up and tell you which points of light were planets rather than stars, even if he didn’t know exactly what a planet was.

But one thing hasn’t changed since the time of the psalmist: then, and now, the heavens tell the glory of God. And the more I learn about the universe God has made, the more I see that. The more I learn about the universe, the more I am able to love God with all my mind.

In the late 1500s, a young man named Galileo Galilei was considering the priesthood, but his father encouraged him to study medicine instead. While studying medicine, he became fascinated by mathematics, and he eventually became a teacher of mathematics as well as astronomy.

At the time, there were many in the scientific world who believed in a sun-centered solar system. We think that Galileo introduced this idea to the world, but he did not.

However, just as there are some people today who, for political reasons, still insist that climate change is not real, there were many in Galileo’s day who still insisted that the earth was the center of the solar system and not the sun. After all, not once, but three times in the Old Testament, it says: “The earth is firmly established; it shall not be moved.” Verses like these backed up their own political reasons for refusing to accept what many scientists of the day said was true.

But they blindly quoted these scriptures to fit their already-formed political ideas, rather than delving into the scripture and learning what it really meant and could mean today. This is what happens when we refuse to love God with all our mind. We become fools.

Even worse, the church loses credibility when we refuse to use our minds in the worship of God. There are days when I’m embarrassed to be a Christian, let alone a pastor, when I hear the mindless things some Christians are quoted as saying.

The Bible was written by dozens of different authors over many centuries. It is a book full of great truth, but not all ways of interpreting scripture bear witness to this. God gave us minds, God gave us reason, and that is an important tool when it comes to biblical interpretation.

The Bible accepts slavery. But using our minds and our intellect, we can read the Bible and still come to the conclusion that slavery is wrong. In fact, we can conclude that slavery is contrary to the overall liberating truth presented in scripture. Using our minds, we can read those passages that accept slavery and conclude that, even though they are in the Bible, they express an idea that is contrary to God’s will for humanity. We come to this conclusion through the use of our mind.

Today there are Christians who find it very easy to take verses out of context, and use them to support unbiblical ideas, or use scripture that presents an idea that is contrary to the biblical witness as a whole. Four different gospels consistently show Jesus as one who stood up for the vulnerable in society, who was a friend to those who had been pushed to the side by society. Samaritans, women, children, foreigners, travelers, lepers – they all feature prominently and positively in stories about Jesus; and those who tried to condemn them as a threat to moral society were routinely condemned by Jesus.

Yet there are many who still mindlessly take various scriptures that condemn minority, disenfranchised populations as proof that God hates all the same people they do; they use scripture to reinforce their own fears and anxieties, which is exactly what the people who were against Galileo’s ideas did.

In the end, they are all exposed for having foolishly followed ideas that make no sense, even if they do appear in scripture, because they did not use their minds when discerning the truth.

But still, every day I hear someone say “I’m done with religion” or “I’m done with the church,” because every day there is some news story about the church or a religious leader who has mindlessly quoted scripture to justify his or her own hate or fear.

The early leaders of the movement that became the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) – including Alexander Campbell – encouraged a rational, thinking faith. And ever since, we have been a church that encourages people to use their minds.

Don’t accept blindly everything you hear. Ask questions! Every great scientist asked questions. Lots and lots of questions. It’s how you learn.

Every good person of faith should do the same. Those who don’t ask questions are afraid of the answers. They are afraid of the truth. But the truth is not something to be afraid of. The truth will set you free.

The answers may challenge some of your currently held beliefs, but in the end, they will set you free.

Psalm 19 begins: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.”

Faith and knowledge, mind and spirit, they are all connected.

The second half of this psalm praises God for God’s teachings in the law of Moses. My research informs me that this second half was likely written later, by a different person. This leads my mind to ask many questions, including this:

Was the writer of the second half trying to expand on what the writer of the first half was saying, or was the later writer trying to balance the first by providing a different viewpoint?

The first half sees God’s glory in the universe, the stars and the sun; the second sees God’s glory revealed through the law. Contradictory or complimentary?

Only the mind knows to ask these questions! It’s as if the Spirit intentionally coordinated with the human writers of scripture to place these ideas together, and then ask the reader: So, what do you think?

I see that challenge throughout scripture, the challenge that comes with being asked, “What do you think?” We talk about what scripture says, but scripture asks, “What do you say?”

And to answer that, we have to use our minds.