Interpreting the Present Time

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, O.A., Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

August 14, 2016;  Proper 15, Year C, Track 2

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 12:49-56)  Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

                father against son
                                and son against father,

                mother against daughter
                                and daughter against mother,

                mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
                                and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

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[NOTE: I wrote and preached this sermon fifteen years ago, August 2001. This week has been a busy one, and I didn't come up with a good sermon idea, so I'm pulling this one out of the barrel. Lowell]

"You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"  (Luke 12:56)

Whenever the natural forces of destruction, storm or wind, are active anywhere in Asia, the skies of Utah light up.  The visiting dust shimmers red in the air, painting vast vibrant colors against the magenta mountains.  That evening sky is a metaphor of a fundamentally new way of understanding the world as an interconnected Web of Life.  Scientists tell us that there are unseen connections between what were previously thought to be separate entities.  Those who will thrive now and in the age to come are those who can interpret the appearance of earth and sky, and adapt to reality, the world the way it is.  The problem is this: for those of us who are about age 45 and above, reality is dramatically different from the way we learned about it.

The new science of quantum and chaos has changed our fundamental understanding of life.  We are going through a period of new learning that is comparable to the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.  It is an apocalyptic time of change.  And change brings conflict.

Some people wring their hands and produce words of woe, trying to build walls of protection around their old certainties as they prophesy doom with a grim glee.  Their world is dying in the new fire.  Their words are words of straw.  The prophet Jeremiah says, "What has straw in common with wheat?"

But all around us are words of wheat, planting seeds of a new future, recognizing what God is doing in our time. 

Apocalyptic times are times of fire and hammer, when old ways are destroyed, and the energy of fire and hammer are constructing new ways out of the old.  It is an extraordinarily exciting time to be alive.  I once thought, how lucky those who were alive in Renaissance Italy.  No more.  Generations will look back at this age and say, "How thrilling it must have been to be alive when such secrets of the universe were being revealed!"

The fire and hammer is on our front pages and our cell phones.  Globalization.  Genetic modification.  Human sexuality.  Climate change.  Immigration and refugees.  Twitter.  Bike trails.  Hybrid self-driving cars.

The voices of control and protectionism are anxiously trying to build walls around themselves, while the ground under their feet is moving and shaking.

For nearly four hundred years we've lived in the shadow of Newton=s understanding of reality: Newton said that our universe is like a machine.  To understand it, just analyze the parts and put them back together.  We can control machines.

No more.  We now recognize that reality is a dance of chaos and order.  There is no simple, objective truth out there somewhere – a book of rules that you can follow and know that you are right and those others are wrong.  No, everything is in relationship to everything else, changing and learning and evolving.

Life is not like a machine.  It's more like jazz.  There is some structure.  The musicians agree about melody, tempo and key.  Then they play, listening carefully, communicating constantly.  What happens is a surprise.  Music beyond what we imagined.  It seems to come from somewhere else, from a spirit or energy that the musicians have accessed among themselves, a relationship that transcends our false sense of separateness.  When it happens; it appears.  And the musicians are amazed, joyful, grateful.

In natural systems, there is some structure, some boundaries that keep a weather system or chemical interaction related.  But then begins the dance between chaos and order.  What the scientists have discovered is that if a chaotic system stays open and has the capacity to change, it will reorganize itself at a higher level of organization. That's important. Let me say it again. If a chaotic system stays open and has the capacity to change, it will reorganize itself at a higher level of organization.

You've experienced that in your life.  Everything begins to unravel.  You can=t stay ahead of the curve.  Events happen and you can=t control things.  You feel anxious and pulled apart.  But if you let go of your anxiety, listen and look and learn, waiting patiently for what you do not know:  without your realizing it, something emerges that brings a new order and consciousness.

People my age and older have watched that happen to our world.  When I was a child, there were separate bathrooms and waiting rooms, for colored and white.  Women could be secretaries or nurses or teachers.  No one was homosexual; no one had heard of transsexual.  Schools were "separate but equal." 

People were so afraid when that world began to fall into chaos.  I remember the fears.  What will happen when black children swim with white children?  What if a man has to take orders from a woman?  Gay people will love each other if we don=t stop them.  There=s no telling what will come if we let negroes have an education with white folks.  For many people, those changes felt like their world was crumbling apart. 

But, if a system stays open and has the capacity to respond to change by reorganizing itself at a higher level of consciousness, there can be new and healthier relationships between black and white, woman and man, gay and straight.  We can evolve and become co-creators with God of a new and more whole universe.

Those who have vision and trust will help midwife the new world that God is creating.  But it will take a new way of being.  Listen to what science is telling us:  The new reality rewards curiosity, not certainty.  The new reality comes with truth in paradox, not absolutes.  Relationship is everything, and everything is in relationship.  It's all one.  You can=t just ignore the different.  The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  No single person or school of thought has the answer.  We're in this together. 

Einstein said, "No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it."   And, as Niels Bohr discovered the fundamentals of quantum theory he concluded, "If an idea does not appear bizarre, there is no hope for it."  In the new reality we will have less intellectual confidence, but life will be infinitely more interesting.  We'll have to be comfortable with uncertainty, and appreciative of the role of chaos.  We'll need to stay together to share each other's curiosity, wisdom and courage.

What an exciting time it is to be alive!  What a great time to be religious!  For religion is what holds us together when the conflicting desires within us threaten to pull us apart.  I want to be part of a church and a community that enters fearlessly into this new reality, trusting that God is bringing about the fulfilling of the divine vision.

Listen to what the organizational development specialist Margaret Wheatley says about her own yearnings in a quantum universe.  These are words I can embrace as well: "I want to trust in this universe so much that I give up playing God.  I want to stop struggling to hold things together.  I want to experience such security that the concept of 'allowing' – trusting that the appropriate forms will emerge – ceases to be scary.  I want to surrender my fear of the universe and join with everyone I know in an organization that opens willingly to its environment, participating gracefully in the unfolding dance of order."[i]

She's described a healthy church and a healthy person of faith.  I pray that we will be people who are able to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; people who will know how to interpret the present time: people who live with hope, openness, and trust; curiosity, wisdom and courage; connected to the whole.  If we can embrace that spirit, we can cooperate with the new creation that God is bringing about in our generation.

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[i] Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, 3^rd Edition, Barrett-Koehler, 2006, p. 25