Sermon
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Essence and Energies
Before
I begin the sermon this morning, I want
to make a disclaimer. In order to make a
point, I am going to use the name of a politician but this sermon is not about
politics, nor will it be making a value statement on this person or his
politics.
By
a show of hands, how many people have an opinion, good or bad it doesn’t
matter, how many people have an opinion about President Bush? Next question, by a show of hands, how many
people feel that they have a pretty good sense about what President Bush is all
about, what he stands for, his values?
Next question—by a show of hands, how many people have ever seen
President Bush in person? Next
question—how many of you have ever sat down one on one with the President and
spoken to him at any length? Final
question—how is it that nearly all of us have an opinion about President Bush,
most of us have a pretty good sense about what President Bush is all about, few
have seen him in person and no one has spoken to him one on one, how is it that
we get our opinion of the President? By
things that we have heard that he has done—mostly through the media, through
things he has written, through speeches that he has given. It is probably a fair thing to say that most
of us feel we know President Bush fairly well based on what he has done, rather
than on who he is. And our opinions are
influenced, at least in part by what people say about him—whether it be news
critics, magazines or even our own friends.
I’ll come back to this later.
Many
people ask me the question, how do we know that there is a God? How do we know that God is real? And in my experience as a priest, I know that
if a few people have a question, then probably many others have the same
question and just haven’t asked it.
One
answer to this question, how do we know God is for real can be answered by
saying that God is known in part through the experience of others. The Christian Church has a 2,000 year history
of people witnessing for their faith.
There have been millions of people in these years that have died for
their Christian faith—martyrs and saints of the church—some are very famous,
others obscure and the majority anonymous.
As an example, we don’t know the names of all the people in
In
addition to those who have died for their faith throughout the past 20
centuries, there have been millions upon millions of people who have lived for
the faith—Church fathers, Bishops, priests, monks and nuns, as well as pious
people who have centered their lives around prayer and Christian living. As someone once told me, Christianity is
either the genuine article or the biggest fraud ever perpetuated. And these people who have dedicated their
lives to Christ are either loving and God-fearing people or are totally
crazy. I choose to believe that God is
real, Christianity is the path to salvation and that those who dedicate their
lives to Christ are loving and God-fearing people—I’m trying to be like them. That’s why my life is dedicated in service to
God as one of His priests. It’s not
because I wanted to live in
In
addition to knowing God through the experiences of others, we know God first
and foremost through our personal experience.
The Saint we commemorate each year on the Second Sunday of Lent, St.
Gregory Palamas, wrote extensively on the questions of how we know that there
is a God and how we come to know Him through our personal experience. St. Gregory Palamas, a Bishop of the Orthodox
Church in the fourteenth Century, was an extraordinary writer and
theologian. At a time when theological
doctrines of Orthodoxy were under attack, he courageously defended the dogmas
of our faith and wrote extensively about the essence and energies of God. What he concluded is that God cannot be known
in essence—thus we don’t see God depicted in iconography, because we do not
know what He looks like. Nor can we
fully comprehend how God is uncreated, how He could have created everything
that was created, how He receives the souls of those who go to heaven, and
probably dozens if not hundreds of other questions about God. Then there is the issue of salvation through
Jesus Christ—eye-witnesses experienced the Crucifixion and saw Jesus after the
Resurrection. They witnessed His miracles
and heard His teaching, in person. After
the Ascension, information was passed down by word of mouth and was written
down in scriptures, letters and other accounts.
St. Gregory was fourteen centuries removed from the time of Christ—he
lived closer to the 21st century than to the 1st, and
just like us, wondered how do we know that what has been passed down from
generation to generation, now into a third millennium, is indeed the
truth? And so he concluded that God is
known not in essence, but rather through His energies—While the human being
cannot know God in essence in this life, the energies of God are present
throughout the world, throughout everyday life.
Here are some examples:
First,
there is creation itself. We may not be
able to comprehend how God created the world, but we are able to comprehend the
things He created in the world—the loud thunder of a waterfall, the wind gently
blowing trees, the bubbling of water in a small stream, the tranquility of the
clouds in the sky, the chirping of birds, sounds of nature and countless other
things. As I am writing this sermon at
home on a Thursday afternoon, there is construction in the neighborhood—I look
out the window and see a bulldozer and hear the sound of earth being moved—I
hear the screeching of car brakes at the light up the street, the neighbor
mowing his lawn, and a car blaring rap music as it goes by the house. These are not sounds of God’s creation but
rather of man’s domain. And when we are
surrounded by noise constantly, or are stuck in traffic every day commuting to
work, when we stand in long lines at the store or are fighting to get the copy
machine working again, it is hard to think of the majesty of God’s creation
while doing any of these things. That’s
one reason I treasure the time at summer camp each July, because it is a chance
to reconnect with God which is made easier by being out in His creation, far
away from the noise of the city, from electronic devices, away from the things
we created so that one can focus on the things God has created. It’s hard to find God on TV or in the
newspaper—it’s easy to find him in a place that is silent and still.
Miracles
are another way we experience God’s energies in our lives. A miracle is where God suspends the law of
nature to make something extraordinary happen.
Take for instance when a couple gets married. Two single people with different ideas,
different talents, different dreams come together and become a family. How does that happen? God makes a miracle. We know how a wedding occurs in a legal
fashion—there are licenses, a ceremony, and lots of formalities like photos and
flowers—but the essence of a wedding, two people becoming one family is a
miracle, another way we experience God’s energies.
For
anyone who has had a child, the conception and birth of a child is a
miracle—yes, we know biologically how children are made, but at that critical
moment of conception, God makes a miracle, endowing matter from male and female
to be woven together with a soul, and from one cell to grow into for us, a
little boy who crawls and laughs and tomorrow will walk and talk, this is a
miracle, another example of God’s energies at work in a way that is visible and
tangible.
Grace
is another way we experience God’s energies in our lives. Grace is the gift of God which completes what
is lacking and heals what is infirm in each person. When one feels unsure or anxious and finds
direction and confidence after praying, this is God putting His grace on that
person. When we are sad but feel
comforted, this is another example of God’s grace. Peace in your heart is another manifestation
of God’s grace. And when calmness is
brought into chaos, this is another example of God’s grace at work. When someone passes away, that is a traumatic
thing. But I’ve seen countless times
when the moment of death actually becomes something beautiful and peaceful and
that is the grace of God at work. Just
this past week, I had two unexpected conversations with people who are struggling
in their faith, two opportunities to dialogue with someone about God. In both instances, I didn’t wake up those
days expecting to meet with these people before the end of the day. Nor did either of them wake up the day we
spoke thinking before the end of the day I’ll have had a long talk with my
priest. Again, I believe the grace of
God, His energy, was at work in both of these encounters.
As
we mark this feastday of St. Gregory Palamas, give some thought to how you
experience God’s energies. Get out in
creation—listen to the wind blow, stop and watch the rain the next time it
rains. Turn off the noise in your
life—the TV, the cell phone. Get into
God’s word—Some of you are already doing this, but if you aren’t doing it, go
onto the Archdiocese website and sign up to receive the daily Bible readings
each day via email. Every day, the
church has a lectionary of scripture we are supposed to read. Nearly everyone puts on their computer and
checks their email every day. We also check
the latest
Worship
and hanging around with Godly people will help you experience God’s energies
through the eyes of others—I know how much I get out of hanging around with
certain people whose faith is alive and dynamic. Talk about God—that’s why Bible study or a
Lenten retreat are so powerful—they are not just opportunities to learn but
opportunities to share God and to talk about God with our peers. How about a conversation about God over the
dinner table or over lunch with a friend?
In this morning’s Gospel lesson, four friends brought a man who was
paralyzed to Christ for healing—In this particular case, four friends were the
conduit to this man receiving healing and grace from God.
Finally,
back to where we started—Most of us feel
passionate about what our president is doing—either we like it or we
hate it. But our opinion and our passion
is based really on the experience of others and through limited personal
experience—we know or we think we know our President but we really know him only
through his energies if you will and not through his essence—no one in church
this morning has ever sat down with him one on one—and for us that’s okay—we’re
okay knowing people and voting for them based on their energies. And it should be the same with God. Just
because we’ve never seen God face to face shouldn’t stop us from feeling
passionate about him. After all, none of
us have ever sat down with the President and we still feel passionately about
him. We come to know God through His
energies. We should feel comfortable
having a passion for God in our lives based on His energies. Again, think of how much time you spend
talking about the President or reading commentaries about him in the newspaper
and then stack that up against how much you talk about God and how many
commentaries you have read about Him.
Get to know God through His energies—through His Creation, through the
little miracles that He makes in all of our lives, through scripture, through
prayer, through grace that comes from prayer, and from the experiences of
others, and you too will have passionate feelings when it comes to God. God is known through His energies in this
life—and those who delight in those energies in this life will see the essence
of God in the next. Amen.