Karl Barth, considered by many to be the greatest Reformed
theologians of the 20th century, transcended academic and theological circles
into popular culture as evidenced by making the cover of Time magazine in 1962.
Barth told his students, "Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and
read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible." It was this quote
that was running through my head as I reflected on this passage for the first Sunday in Advent. I don't think Barth ever could have imagined the day
when our newspapers and our Bibles would be read on glowing screens, or that an episode of The Twilight Zone, a truly cultural phenomena, would ever make its way into a sermon. Regardless
of how we get our news, or entertainment, I believe it remains imperative that we examine our world through Biblical lenses.
So when I
read that theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking proposed we only have 1000
years left on earth, I read it through the lens of Matthew's Gospel...
36“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels
of heaven, or the Son, but only the Father."
1,000 years, does Stephen Hawking know something that Jesus
didn't? According to Prof. Hawking we are in deep trouble and the only hope is
out in deep space. Nuclear war, global warming, super-bacteria, our propensity
to violence, and the development of artificial intelligence that may someday
have a mind of its own, all pose existential threats to our existence. The only viable solution he sees is launching ourselves into space to colonize other planets so that the human race can survive our inevitable destruction.
I have a great deal of
respect for Stephen Hawking. He knows so much about the who, what, when, where,
and how of our universe. But the question that science is not able to answer is
the why. It seems to me what Prof. Hawking is observing is sin. I would even take it a step further to say that blasting out
into space to escape our sins is another sin. The sin of pride. Let's
go back to the beginning...
When God began creating the heavens and the earth (Genesis
1-2:4) we are told that God saw creation as good. God created humanity in God's
image and saw that it was very good. God
even entrusted this good creation to humanity, giving humanity dominion over
creation. It would seem to me that the
existential threat to humanity is humanity. We have not been very good stewards
of all that has been entrusted to us. We wage wars for power and wealth. We
develop even more effective ways of killing each other, ignoring the fact that
we are all created in God's image. We strip mine our natural resources, pump
pollution into the air and into the ground, have a voracious appetite for
fossil fuels, ignoring the clear evidence that it is causing global warming and denying any responsibility for our
actions. Blasting into space to escape our sin is futile because we are taking ourselves with us. If we do not deal with our sin, then whether
we end up on Mars or the Kanamit's planet, we will only have the illusion of being
free.
Kanamit's planet? Back to The Twilight Zone. Kanamits are
the aliens who arrive and share their advanced technology, putting an end to
hunger, energy shortages, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Deserts
become fields of blooming plant life and everything is better. Everybody puts
their trust in the Kanamits. Then the cryptographer cracks the title of a
Kanamit book, To Serve Man. I cannot help but make the connections
between Prof. Hawking's solutions and the Kanamits. Unfortunately,
the world discovers only too late that the book is not about helping humanity. Either we devour our
planet with a voracious appetite for power, military might, and consumerism, or
we get devoured on some far away planet. "It's a cookbook!", the cryptographer cries out as her boss is dragged onto the alien space ship.
The
Gospel of Matthew tells us that Christ did not come to be served, but to serve. Christ came to serve man! Indeed, Christ tells us that in order to be counted as first among the people we must be a servant to
the least among us. Christ said that everything hangs on loving God and loving
neighbor. This love of God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ, was a prominent theme in the writings of Saint Augustine.
Saint Augustine lived from
354-430 and is regarded as the most important theologian in the first 1,000
years of the church. He was a north African and lived in modern day Algeria for
many years. He is remembered for his theological conflict with Pelagius, who taught that salvation could be
achieved by human action, by choosing to live a good life. Augustine argued that salvation was something
that God offers us and we know it when God puts God's love in our hearts.
“This is how the love of God
is shown among us.” The reason why the writer exhorts us, is so that we may
come to love God. Could we love him, unless he first loved us? Though we were
slow to love, let us not be slow to love in return. He loved us first. We do
not even love in the same way as he. He loved the unrighteous, but he took away
the unrighteousness. He loved the sick, but he visited them to make them whole.
Love, then, is God. “This is how the love of God is shown among us: God sent
his only Son into the world, that we may live through him.”
The only way forward for humanity is found in reconciliation.
Reconciliation with God means a lot of things. It means rushing into the loving embrace of God and loving God with all our mind, body, and soul. It means confessing our neglect
of the gift of God's creation and our neglect of our brothers and sisters who
were also created in God's image. It means honoring our charge to be good
stewards of this planet and the relationships that have been entrusted to us.
We cannot pump pollution into the air, into the ground, into the water and
claim that we are being good stewards. We cannot create weapons that can
destroy this planet and claim that the only way we can be safe is mutual
assured destruction. Sin has driven us mad.
In our madness we have lost sight of who we are and to whom we belong.
We have long trusted our ingenuity and creativeness to solve our problems and
failed to trust God. But we can overcome our prideful blindness and see God clearly again in the light of Advent.
Advent is a time of expectant waiting. We cannot know the hour
of Christ's return. In fact Christ is pretty clear that we shouldn't waste our
time trying to figure out when; it is not very useful to us. It is not at all important to God that we know. What is important is how we spend our time! Do we spend our time alert, watching for signs of God's return? Do we spend it looking for ways in
which we can be of service to others? Do we spend it looking for where God is
already active in our lives? Or do we spend our Advent, a time for watchfulness
and alertness to God's in-breaking Kingdom, watching for the best deal on a
sweater for aunt Judy, alert to every Black Friday deal that pops up on our smart phone?
I was at a Bible study with the women of the church and the
question was asked, "Where do you see God?" I was struck by how many
of them saw God in the natural wonders of Creation. God was found in the
majesty of the oceans, the stars, and in the delicacy of a bird that visited
each day outside the bedroom window. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas would
be proud. Natural theology is born out of our wonder, awe, and reason. The
observable world around us is constantly confirming God's glorious works if we would only take the time to appreciate it. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote:
“There is a twofold mode of
truth in what we profess about God. Some truths about God exceed all the
ability of human reason. Such is the truth that God is triune. But there are some truths which the natural
reason also is able to reach. Such are the truth that God exists, that he is
one, and the like. In fact, such truths about God have been proved
demonstratively by the philosophers, guided by the light of natural reason.”
(SCG I, ch.3, n.2)
Who knew we had so many
natural theologians in our midst?
Which brings me back to Karl Barth, whose theology was
developed in a time of chaos. His reformed approach to theology was called dialectical
theology. It stressed the paradoxical nature of God in relation to humanity.
The God of love is simultaneously full of grace and judgment. Barth's theology was born
in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party and was a reaction to the
Protestant Liberalism which produced a human-centered approach to theology, deeply embedded in German culture. Natural theology, and its ties to a German
national volk-religion, was placed in contrast to the revealed Word of God.
Christ revealed in scripture. His
biblical theology had no use for natural theology. God makes God's self
known through scripture and only humanity's sinfulness would make it possible
for humanity to believe that it could come to know God outside of scripture.
God's self-revelation in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is a gift. No human effort, or reasoning, can bring us to the
knowledge and love of God. The Barmen
Declaration, one of the confessions of the Presbyterian church co-authored by
Barth in 1934, makes his position clear:
We reject the false
doctrine, as though the Church could and would have to acknowledge as a source
of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other
events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation ... as though there were
areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ ... as though
the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message ... to changes in
prevailing ideological and political convictions.
Do we look to the stars and see evidence of God's majesty
or an escape from our current realities? Do we see our faith through cultural
lenses or our culture through lenses of faith?
Advent is a time for
alertness! A time for keeping a watchful eye on the things around us. A time
for self-reflection, repentance, and reconciliation. Advent, like Lent, is a
time set aside to make an honest assessment of our lives and to give thanks to
God for the gift of each and every day. I hope you will add your voice to the
conversation, not to find the answer, but to ask the better question.
Awaiting the Parousia,
George
