Our Friend the Atom
Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
May 20, 2007; 7th Sunday in Easter, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary
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(John 17:20-26) -- Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then he said. "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
"Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."
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I remember vividly my seventh grade science project -- Our Friend the Atom. My primary resource was a Disney book by that name, a book intended to teach children about atoms. With the same optimism that created the "World of Tomorrow" ride in the Disney theme parks, Our Friend the Atom showed how we would someday meet and exceed all of our energy needs with the wonderful power waiting to be released for us from the nucleus of Our Friend the Atom.
Meeting this new "Friend" was a journey into mystery and wonder for me. It had the same effect on my finite mind as the first time someone suggested to me that God always was and always will be. That one still causes me to ponder. How could God always be? Somehow I could imagine an "always will be." It's not too big of a stretch of the imagination to think of something -- a life, a being -- living on forever and ever into an infinite future that never ends. In a way that's rather comforting. It removes the ugly consequences of death, of non-being.
But "always was"? I spent a long time thinking about that. How could anything, anyone have no beginning? Everything has to start somewhere, doesn't it? The thought of God having no beginning and no end made God seem so utterly different, alien, and so far away.
Our Friend the Atom held some different mysteries and wonders for me. My favorite illustration was one intended to show how small an atom is. Did you know, that if you were to go to any beach and take a glass, dip it into the ocean and fill it with water, and if you could study that glass so deeply that you could identify and name every individual atom in that glass, like you can identify and name every friend in your classroom... Then, if you travel to the ocean, anywhere in the world, and pour the water in your glass back into the sea, returning each of your friends the atoms back to their origin... Then, if you were to wait a while for the atoms to disburse... Then fly to any other beach of any ocean in the world and dip another glass into the sea and look at the atoms in that glass. How many of the atoms from your original glass would you recognize? How many of your old friends would be in your new glass of water from the other side of the world?
...Four. Four was the answer, according to the Disney book Our Friend the Atom.
I spent a long time thinking about that. How small must an atom be for that to be true? And how do they get around, all over the ocean like that?
There was another illustration that poised the question: How many oxygen atoms in your next breath were also breathed by Leonardo daVinci? He was a wonderful and mysterious character from centuries ago, wasn't he? Disney was probably looking for the name of a scientist who would be familiar yet ancient. Do you know how many of Leonardo's atoms your next breath will absorb? Well I forget the exact number, but it was a lot. Tens of thousands. (Another mystery of the DaVinci Code?)
Collins says that he was surprised by several things in his research on the Human Genome. Although there are 3.1 billion letters of the human DNA code, there are only about 20,000 to 25,000 protein-coding genes that do the heavy instruction work, only 1.5% of the total. Worms, flies, and simple plants have a similar gene count of around 20,000. Of course we share stretches of DNA sequences with other mammals. Chimpanzees and humans are 96% identical at the DNA level. Our genetic code reveals conclusively that humans and mice share a common ancestor. We also have some discernible DNA matches to fish and fruit flies and roundworms, even yeast and bacteria -- bread and wine.
More striking, says Collins, is how similar all human beings are at the DNA level. We are all 99.9% identical, regardless of which two individuals from anywhere in the world you might choose to compare. He says that within our own species, there is a remarkably low level of genetic diversity. Collins says "we humans are truly part of one family... having descended from a common set of founders, ...who lived about 100,000 to 150,000 years ago, ...most likely in East Africa." (Francis S. Collins, The Language of God, p. 124-130)
Jesus prayed for his disciples "that they may all be one." We are all one. We share virtually identical DNA coding; we breathe the same air; our atoms intermingle. That interrelationship stretches all the way down to the mice and bacteria and the water we drink. And the interrelationship also stretches infinitely upward into God. Jesus speaks to God: "As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us... The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have ...loved them even as you have loved me."
We are not just one family, one species, we are also one with God. The word we use for God's presence with us is Spirit -- the same word that translates as breath and wind. We breathe God into us; or more precisely, God breathes us into being. We are one -- one with each other as the human family; one with the creation; one with God. So to be -- simply be -- is to be one with God, one with neighbor, one with self. That is who you are; that is your essential nature.
Listen to how Richard Rohr thinks about it:
We are in union. There is nothing to prove. Nothing to attain. Everything is already there. It is simply a matter of recognizing and honoring and trusting. All spiritual disciplines are to help you trust this personal experience of yourself, which is, not surprisingly, also an experience of God. People are usually amazed that the two experiences coincide: when we know God, we seem to know and accept our own humanity; when we meet ourselves at profound levels of recognition, we also meet God. We don't have any real access to who we are except through God, and we don't have any real access to God except through forgiving and rejoicing in our own humanity. (Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, p. 76)
Science has revealed that we are one with each other and with all creation. Jesus has revealed that we are one with each other and with God.
Everything comes together in the mystery and wonder of the sacramental act of communion. We experience our union as we take bread and wine -- elements from the earth, humble creatures of wheat and yeast, grape and bacteria. We consume them and are constituted by their very atoms -- our friends the atoms. We who are many are one body, because we share one bread, one cup.
We experience this as our communion with the whole of the Body -- the Body of Christ. We also experience this as our communion with God through Christ who has made us one with God. The glory that God has given to Christ, Christ gives to us, so that we may be one as Christ and the Father are one. God loves us even as God has loved Jesus. God has already created a loving "World of Tomorrow" where the presence of God meets and exceeds all of our energy needs through the resurrection of Jesus who has endured the collision of Christ and Cross, and released infinite spiritual power into the universe. This is the Spirit, the breath we breathe as one people who live and move and have our being in God.
Do you know how many oxygen atoms in your next breath were also breathed by Jesus of Nazareth?
I remember vividly my seventh grade science project -- Our Friend the Atom. My primary resource was a Disney book by that name, a book intended to teach children about atoms. With the same optimism that created the "World of Tomorrow" ride in the Disney theme parks, Our Friend the Atom showed how we would someday meet and exceed all of our energy needs with the wonderful power waiting to be released for us from the nucleus of Our Friend the Atom.
Meeting this new "Friend" was a journey into mystery and wonder for me. It had the same effect on my finite mind as the first time someone suggested to me that God always was and always will be. That one still causes me to ponder. How could God always be? Somehow I could imagine an "always will be." It's not too big of a stretch of the imagination to think of something -- a life, a being -- living on forever and ever into an infinite future that never ends. In a way that's rather comforting. It removes the ugly consequences of death, of non-being.
But "always was"? I spent a long time thinking about that. How could anything, anyone have no beginning? Everything has to start somewhere, doesn't it? The thought of God having no beginning and no end made God seem so utterly different, alien, and so far away.
Our Friend the Atom held some different mysteries and wonders for me. My favorite illustration was one intended to show how small an atom is. Did you know, that if you were to go to any beach and take a glass, dip it into the ocean and fill it with water, and if you could study that glass so deeply that you could identify and name every individual atom in that glass, like you can identify and name every friend in your classroom... Then, if you travel to the ocean, anywhere in the world, and pour the water in your glass back into the sea, returning each of your friends the atoms back to their origin... Then, if you were to wait a while for the atoms to disburse... Then fly to any other beach of any ocean in the world and dip another glass into the sea and look at the atoms in that glass. How many of the atoms from your original glass would you recognize? How many of your old friends would be in your new glass of water from the other side of the world?
...Four. Four was the answer, according to the Disney book Our Friend the Atom.
I spent a long time thinking about that. How small must an atom be for that to be true? And how do they get around, all over the ocean like that?
There was another illustration that poised the question: How many oxygen atoms in your next breath were also breathed by Leonardo daVinci? He was a wonderful and mysterious character from centuries ago, wasn't he? Disney was probably looking for the name of a scientist who would be familiar yet ancient. Do you know how many of Leonardo's atoms your next breath will absorb? Well I forget the exact number, but it was a lot. Tens of thousands. (Another mystery of the DaVinci Code?)
+ + +
Vince Chadick gave me a book a few weeks ago by the scientist who headed the recent Human Genome Project. On June 26, 2000, Dr. Francis Collins joined others in the East Room of the White House to announce that the first draft of the complete human sequence of DNA sequence had been determined. He calls DNA the language by which God spoke life into being. Collins says that he was surprised by several things in his research on the Human Genome. Although there are 3.1 billion letters of the human DNA code, there are only about 20,000 to 25,000 protein-coding genes that do the heavy instruction work, only 1.5% of the total. Worms, flies, and simple plants have a similar gene count of around 20,000. Of course we share stretches of DNA sequences with other mammals. Chimpanzees and humans are 96% identical at the DNA level. Our genetic code reveals conclusively that humans and mice share a common ancestor. We also have some discernible DNA matches to fish and fruit flies and roundworms, even yeast and bacteria -- bread and wine.
More striking, says Collins, is how similar all human beings are at the DNA level. We are all 99.9% identical, regardless of which two individuals from anywhere in the world you might choose to compare. He says that within our own species, there is a remarkably low level of genetic diversity. Collins says "we humans are truly part of one family... having descended from a common set of founders, ...who lived about 100,000 to 150,000 years ago, ...most likely in East Africa." (Francis S. Collins, The Language of God, p. 124-130)
Jesus prayed for his disciples "that they may all be one." We are all one. We share virtually identical DNA coding; we breathe the same air; our atoms intermingle. That interrelationship stretches all the way down to the mice and bacteria and the water we drink. And the interrelationship also stretches infinitely upward into God. Jesus speaks to God: "As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us... The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have ...loved them even as you have loved me."
We are not just one family, one species, we are also one with God. The word we use for God's presence with us is Spirit -- the same word that translates as breath and wind. We breathe God into us; or more precisely, God breathes us into being. We are one -- one with each other as the human family; one with the creation; one with God. So to be -- simply be -- is to be one with God, one with neighbor, one with self. That is who you are; that is your essential nature.
Listen to how Richard Rohr thinks about it:
We are in union. There is nothing to prove. Nothing to attain. Everything is already there. It is simply a matter of recognizing and honoring and trusting. All spiritual disciplines are to help you trust this personal experience of yourself, which is, not surprisingly, also an experience of God. People are usually amazed that the two experiences coincide: when we know God, we seem to know and accept our own humanity; when we meet ourselves at profound levels of recognition, we also meet God. We don't have any real access to who we are except through God, and we don't have any real access to God except through forgiving and rejoicing in our own humanity. (Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, p. 76)
Science has revealed that we are one with each other and with all creation. Jesus has revealed that we are one with each other and with God.
Everything comes together in the mystery and wonder of the sacramental act of communion. We experience our union as we take bread and wine -- elements from the earth, humble creatures of wheat and yeast, grape and bacteria. We consume them and are constituted by their very atoms -- our friends the atoms. We who are many are one body, because we share one bread, one cup.
We experience this as our communion with the whole of the Body -- the Body of Christ. We also experience this as our communion with God through Christ who has made us one with God. The glory that God has given to Christ, Christ gives to us, so that we may be one as Christ and the Father are one. God loves us even as God has loved Jesus. God has already created a loving "World of Tomorrow" where the presence of God meets and exceeds all of our energy needs through the resurrection of Jesus who has endured the collision of Christ and Cross, and released infinite spiritual power into the universe. This is the Spirit, the breath we breathe as one people who live and move and have our being in God.
Do you know how many oxygen atoms in your next breath were also breathed by Jesus of Nazareth?
________________________________
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.
For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
This sermon and others are on our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Please visit our partner web ministry also at www.ExploreFaith.org
The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.
For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
This sermon and others are on our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Please visit our partner web ministry also at www.ExploreFaith.org
posted by Lowell @ 5/19/2007 09:23:00 AM
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