The Reverend Seth Ethan Carey
February 17, 2008
First Congregational Church,
www.firstconge.org
630-469-3096
Introduction to the
Scripture:
Each Gospel writer—indeed, every author of the numerous texts of the Bible—approaches his work with a unique theological perspective. The Gospel of Mark, for instance, emphasizes Jesus’ humanity. It brings his pain, his temptation, and his fear into sharp relief. But in many respects, the Gospel of John is quite the opposite.
John, the evangelist, is not concerned with the matters of this world, so much as the big cosmic picture. For John, Jesus is thoroughly divine, a holy being come down from the halls of Heaven. As such, John emphasizes the radical divide between this world and the next, placing his faith in things unseen. For John, this world is somehow less fully realized, less real then the Kingdom of God. By comparison, our world is like a two-dimensional imitation of greater things.
So listen now to Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, a man so
fixated on the world around him that he cannot even begin to see the bigger
picture.
Scripture: John 3:1-15
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the
Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said
to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no
one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you,
no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be
born after having grown old? Can one
enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no
one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what
is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not
be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear
the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the
Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can
these things be?” Jesus answered him,
“Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
Sermon:
There are some people who
harbor unhealthy obsessions. And there are other people who videotape those
people, and broadcast their eccentric fixations on national television. I might
be describing any number of Reality TV shows, but I’m actually referring to one
called “Totally Obsessed,” a VH1 original series. This show makes a voyeuristic
spectacle out of those who take television a little too seriously, chronicling
the bizarre habits of obsessed fans that model their very existence around
shows like Star Trek and the Dukes of Hazard.
In one episode, we’re
introduced to a man who has structured his entire life around the 1980’s crime
drama Miami Vice. He makes every
effort to emulate the show’s protagonist Sonny Crockett, a hard-boiled vice
detective who fights crime in his trademark pastel blazers and pink slacks. The
fan in question doesn’t settle for dressing like his hero, although he does
that, too. He actually takes up a career in law enforcement and moves to Miami,
where he can live the dream. To complete the picture, he even invites the man
who played Crockett’s partner on TV—Philip Michael Thomas—to be the best man at
his wedding. Amazingly, Philip Michael Thomas agrees. The viewer is then
subjected to video footage of the reception, where we see the groom following
Thomas around like a lost puppy. His disgruntled bride looks on with unbridled
disgust.
In another episode, we find a
woman who is utterly addicted to the Lord of the Rings. Determined to bring the
fantasy to life, she surrounds herself with cardboard cutouts of the characters
from the epic film trilogy—elves and dwarves, wizards and warriors. To the
embarrassment of her husband, she insists on bringing her cardboard entourage
with her when the family goes out to eat. She seats them around the table, and
even orders drinks on their behalf.
These flat, two-dimensional
cardboard cutouts are her chosen companions. They are the denizens of
Middle-Earth, a fantasy world that only exists in books. Theirs is a story
written on razor-thin leaves of paper, and projected on flat television
screens.
As they sit in Denny’s©,
staring wordlessly over their glasses of Coca-Cola®, the fizz of
their beverages slowly evaporates and dies.
***
The Church has often been
accused of having a few bizarre fixations of its own.
In modern times it is widely
believed, for instance, that authorities of the medieval Church stubbornly
insisted that the world was flat. In actual fact, most cosmologists and
theologians from the third century BC onward have recognized the spherical
nature of the planets. Yes, the ancient Mesopotamians saw the earth as a flat
disc drifting on an endless sea. Yes, the Babylonians believed it was a
two-dimensional plane supported by crumbling pillars of eldritch stone. And
yes, I myself have often wondered if the world might in fact be a very large pancake—destined
to be drowned in syrup, served with a tall glass of orange juice, and consumed
at the end of days.
Even in the dark ages, very
few Christians thought anything of the sort.
There have been other
accusations as well. In the early days of Christianity, its adherents raised a
great deal of suspicion among their pagan neighbors by practicing the ritual of
Holy Communion. The pagans—having never sat at the communion table
themselves—were left to wonder what was going on behind the locked doors of
Christian homes in the dark of night. It was said that the Christians consumed
the flesh and blood of their master, and when this rumor reached the ears of
the uninitiated, they took it quite literally. The pagans rushed to their ink
and quills and drew up treatises against the Christians, accusing them of
cannibalism.
This was, of course, an
unfortunate misunderstanding. It’s a good thing our forbears weren’t seating
cardboard cutouts of the twelve disciples around the communion table. I imagine
their critics would have had a field day with that one.
***
Then there’s the Trinity. One
must admit that it is a rather strange doctrine. Few people outside of the
Christian circle have ever fully grasped it. Even within our own ranks, this
fundamental teaching of the Church has been known to cause headaches,
confusion, excessive perspiration, and a profound uncertainty about one’s place
in the universe.
The doctrine states that
there is only one God, who exists co-eternally as a mutual indwelling of three persons,
these being the so-called Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
As I’m sure you can imagine,
a lot of people think the idea of the Trinity is unnecessarily complicated. The
Jews believed in one God—Yahweh—the god of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. The
pagans of the ancient world believed in a multitude of gods who lived with one
another in an invisible world—gods like Baal, Asherah, Dagon, and Moloch. But
for us Christians, things have never been that simple. Our roots are in
Judaism, and no one wanted to abandon its fundamental teaching: There is only
one God, and we shall worship no other.
If we worship Christ as an
independent entity, then we’ve already broken that fundamental principle. To do
so would be to acknowledge a pantheon of gods, to abandon our Jewish heritage
and throw our lot in with the pagans.
In an effort to reconcile the
worship of Christ with the belief in one true God, the Church Fathers of
antiquity devised the doctrine of the Trinity. In those early days of our
faith, many harsh words were spoken and much ink was spilled in regards to the
exact nature of this Triune God. Especially puzzling was the nature of the
relationship between the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit—or in other words, God’s relationship with God’s self. Some used
these titles to employ a familial bond; Jesus was literally God’s son, birthed
by a spiritual union of God and the Holy Spirit, which took on a feminine,
motherly role. One can well imagine them in their living room, arguing about
who gets to hold the remote control. If that were true, then these three would
be independent beings and not really one God at all.
Another popular approach is
to imagine the Trinity as three aspects
of a single deity. According to this model, God the “Father” is the one in Heaven.
Jesus is the very same God, draped in human flesh on earth. And the Holy Spirit
is God’s breath, the divine force that permeates all of creation. Just as a
single person exhibits numerous aspects of their personality, just as a power
trio is still one hard-rocking band, these three manifestations of the divine
all flow from a single source.
If that’s the case, then who
was Jesus speaking to in the garden of Gethsemane on the night before he died?
To whom did he offer up his prayers? Was someone listening in Heaven, or did
Jesus just have a habit of talking to himself?
Such questions throw light on
the logical incoherence of the doctrine. I’m reminded of M.C. Escher’s famous
drawing of a four-dimensional house. In this surreal lithograph, three large
staircases are intersecting with one another at impossible angles. Their steps
are traversed by mysterious beings that walk up walls and stroll along the
underside of the stairwells, all of them bound together by some unknown
gravity. These three staircases are a lot like the Trinity.
They defy all reason, and
they look beautiful doing it.
***
My favorite explanation of
the Trinity is one that doesn’t attempt to explain it at all. On the contrary,
it explains why we are utterly incapable of grasping it. In his well-known book
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis breaks
it all down in geometric terms.
To our knowledge, there are
three dimensions in space. In this three-dimensional world, we are free to
travel left or right, backwards or forwards, or up and down as we please. Our
potential is both horizontal and
vertical. In one dimension, we’re limited to the use of a straight line. In two
dimensions, we can string multiple lines together to create shapes, such as a
triangle, or a square. And in three dimensions, those flat shapes become more
fully realized pyramids and cubes.
C.S. Lewis applies these same
principles to personality. This is what he says:
“The human level is a simple and rather empty level.
On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two
separate beings—just as, in two dimensions one square is one figure, and any
two squares are two separate figures. On the Divine level you still find
personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who do
not live on that level, cannot imagine. In God’s dimension, so to speak, you
find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is
six squares while remaining one cube. Of course, we cannot fully conceive a
being like that: just as, if we were so made that we perceived only two
dimensions in space we could never properly imagine a cube. But we can get a
sort of faint notion of it.”
However, in order to fully
wrap our minds around the doctrine of the Trinity, we need to transcend our own
dimensional limitations. Perhaps I should have called this sermon “Into the
Fourth Dimension,” or the fifth, or the sixth. I don’t really know how far up
the ladder one needs to go to get a good view of the cosmos. Frankly, the math
is tricky. I can barely follow algebra, much less theological calculus.
The principle behind it is
clear: there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy. Standing next to the
Triune God, we could barely pass for stick figures.
If we hope to get even a
faint notion of the divine mystery, then we need to start thinking in more
dimensions. We need to start thinking vertically.
***
In case you were wondering
what any of this has to do with the Gospel we read from this morning, that’s
what Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus is all about—thinking vertically. “No
one can see the Kingdom of God,” Jesus says, “without being born from above.”
Nicodemus really struggles
with this concept, but he’s not stupid. He’s a Pharisee, a scholar of Jewish
law and a presumably intelligent man; but he’s only thinking horizontally, in
two dimensions. “How can a person be born again?” he asks Jesus. “Am I to crawl
back inside the cradle of my mother’s womb?” An unpleasant suggestion, to say
the least.
Now, Jesus makes an important
distinction here between heaven and earth. “I told you about earthly things,
and you did not believe. How will you believe if I tell you about heavenly
things?”
The earth may be round, but I
often fear that the world is flat. Or as C.S. Lewis said, “The human level is a simple and rather empty level.” This culture
we live in isn’t terribly concerned with heavenly things, so much as the things
of this world. I’d go so far to say that most people are, to some extent, obsessed with the things of this world.
Maybe it’s not a fixation with Miami Vice
or Lord of the Rings, but you can
bet it’s something; probably lots of different things, in fact. Without faith
in a higher reality to lift us up beyond all of that, we are condemned to
wander the shopping malls of the earth as hollow creatures, stick figures, and
cardboard imitations of what we might have otherwise been.
Unfortunately, humanity has its limits. There’s no bottom to the stygian depths
of our depravity, as yet another university killing spree has shown us this
week. There is a ceiling to what we
can experience in this life. I believe that those who have passed on—either in
the violence of this Thursday’s tragedy or in the quiet final breaths of a long
life, as was the case for three of our own this week—I believe that those who
have passed on have ascended to greater dimensions than we can fathom. I pray
that what they find will give them peace.
As for those of us still
here, Jesus calls us to be born from above—to turn our eyes towards Heaven, and
catch a glimpse of something up there in the blue.
***
So, in an attempt to gain
some godlike perspective, I recently downloaded some software for my computer.
It’s called Google Earth. It’s essentially a mapping program that uses
regularly updated satellite photographs to give the user an eagle’s eye view of
the entire planet. All I have to do is punch in my desired location—DuPage
County, for instance—and the camera swoops down like an angel from the sky,
leaving me to hover a few miles from the Earth’s surface.
What’s even more exciting is
that the software has recently been updated, allowing me to view any location
in full 3-D. That means I can tilt the camera to get a better perspective, and
use my keyboard to maneuver through the towering steel and glass of the largest
cities in the world, or sail through the rifts of desert canyons. At least, in
theory.
In actual fact, the program
is still in its early stages. That means that three-dimensional buildings are
still few and far between. Imagine my horror when I tilted that camera for the
first time, only to have my worst fears confirmed. The world was as flat as an
old tire.
Then I discovered something
interesting. Among the few structures that achieved three dimensions on this
digital map, many of them were churches. It turns out that users like me can
design their own structures and submit them to the database grid for approval. The
more people design their own buildings, the more fully realized this digital
world will become.
Well, I wasn’t about to let
the First Congregational Church of Glen Ellyn be outdone. I decided to build my
own three-dimensional facsimile of the church and single-handedly put us on the
map—so to speak. Truth be told, it didn’t go so well. I did my best to capture
the rich texture of the walls, and the majesty of our soaring bell tower. The
end result was a warped and misshapen trapezoid, a geometric anomaly. It looked
like something that an infant M.C. Escher might have built out of play dough,
echoing all of his insanity and none of his skill. As I looked at it
doubtfully, I thought of the dismal lump of coal that Santa had left on my
doorstep, so long ago.
Rest assured, I destroyed my
own creation.
It just goes to show, it
isn’t easy to transcend into a new dimension. If you’re going to try, the
church is a great place to do it. When I laid my eyes on that digital grid, I
saw a flat world where only churches dared to soar upward into three
dimensions. Things are different
here. Can you see it? This is a place—maybe the only place—where earthy desires
take a backseat to the questions of heaven. Here, people are more concerned
about others than they are about themselves. Here, people treat each other like
real people, and not just cardboard
cutouts.
That bell tower up there is
more than an architectural wonder. It’s a symbol of our journey, a ladder
stretching upward, into new dimensions. I don’t know what’s up there. I’ve got
a feeling that it’s worth a look.
Amen.