THIS CLOSE….
Genesis 6:5-7; 9:8-11; Philippians 2:3-8
I could have been famous. I mean, I could really have been important and remembered by posterity. There were so many times when I came this close to getting it right. For instance, several years ago, I had this idea of making a lemon-lime soft drink. The formula was simple enough; what I needed was a catchy name. So I named it "Six Up." I mean, how was I to know that Seven-Up was the name that would really work….this close. Then, I had this idea for a Broadway musical. I had everything in line and all I needed was a good title. I thought and thought and finally got the idea of naming it after a street in New York City. I called it "41st Street." Complete failure; opened and closed the same day…and then some guy comes along with 42nd Street and makes a small fortune. It's not fair. Then I had this idea for a catchy tune about a famous road in the western U.S. I called it "Get Your Kicks on Route Sixty-Five." Same thing, no one was interested and then somebody gets the bright idea of publishing "Get Your Kicks on Route Sixty-Six" and it becomes an overnight hit. I could go on and on--a convenience store called Seven-Ten; a baking soda product called Arm and Pliers….none of them worked. Every time I was this close ….
At the risk of offending those who are far more biblically literate than I, it seems to me that the Bible is an account of God's efforts to close the gap between Creator and Creature. It could also be seen as humanity's evolving efforts to understand just what God is about and what God wants for his creation. A couple of years ago, I set out to re-read the Old Testament and I was struck by the gradual change in the ways in which God is portrayed. To a large extent, the God of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Isaac and other pivotal biblical figures is wrathful, distant, jealous and easily provoked. This God clearly loves and cares for his creation and it's creatures but his actions don't seem to get the message across. God is often portrayed as an angry and frustrated father who cannot control his unruly children and relies heavily on threat and violence. Contention and strife are the hallmarks of most of God's interactions with humanity. God raises up strong leaders in the time of the early kings, Samuel, Saul and David, but despite promising starts, they all fail at leadership and all seem unable to "get" just what it is that this omnipotent, loving, but very distant God wants.
Then God sends the Prophets. Some of them seem to get the message across, or at least to get close to doing so. They spell out what God's purposes are for his creation; what God means by stewardship and what it means to be a responsible human being. But, on balance, the history of Israel from the time of Isaiah to that of the later prophets is marked by a series of successes and failures; a historical dialectic wherein Israel comes this close to living the life God intended, only to fall away again into confusion, squabbling, and ungodly conduct. Throughout, God remains distant and indirect. God's will is given to the people by intermediaries. They refine, state and restate God's message, but it never quite seems to get through in a lasting way. I would not in the least suggest that God is in any way to blame for this "failure to communicate". From the earliest stories in the Old Testament, it is clear that as often as not, humanity has simply chosen not to listen; to ignore both the love and correction God tried to communicate in favor of self-will and self-seeking. Power and prestige are what we wanted; victory and vanquishing of those we consider "enemies" become the driving forces of human history. When things go wrong, the "Adam and Eve" solution becomes our mantra: "Hey, don't blame me, it was the snake, or my parents, or society, that made me do it…." In short, while our notion or apprehension of God had evolved; while we were at times this close to grasping and becoming one with God's will for us, the final gap remained elusive and we remained unable, or unwilling, or both to be the creatures God wants us to be.
This morning's Scripture reading from Paul's letter to the Philippians describes one of the core messages of the Gospel: In Jesus Christ, God is no longer distant, no longer "seen through distorted glass." In effect, it is saying that God moved from a distant horizon to an immanent presence. Jesus is not just another prophet mouthing pleasant notions of love and reconciliation. Jesus is God! Beyond this, God in Christ is no longer some thundering, distant, transcendent and unknowable figure but rather a power, a force, a person who is right next to us. The German theologian, Paul Tillich says that in Christ, God has become "nearer to I than I." And in Christ, God has chosen to be, not an all-powerful political force, but a humble servant; a person who humbled himself and was willing to go to the cross for us.
Alcoholism has been with us since humanity first discovered that if you let grape juice sit around for awhile it undergoes an interesting chemical change. Efforts at dealing with alcoholism have been around almost as long and have generally been ineffective. In the late 1800s a group of men discovered a "cure" for alcoholism that almost worked. This group, called the The Washingtonian Society, developed a program which at first had remarkable results. People who joined the Washingtonians got and stayed sober. This group had one and only one goal: to help those who wanted to recover from alcoholism to get and stay sober. And as long as they stuck to this one goal, the results were amazing. But then, something happened. Members of this group decided that there were other social problems that needed help and the movement spread into other very controversial issues. Some members took up the banner of total abstinence, saying that no one, alcoholic or not, should drink alcohol. Since most people who drink alcohol have no trouble with it, this effort became extremely controversial and it split the Washingtonians into feuding camps. The same thing happened with the issue of slavery. In a very short time, this promising movement had degenerated into contentious splinter groups and it soon fell totally apart. They had come this close, but they failed.
In the mid-1930's two alcoholic businessmen rediscovered the essential tenets of the Washingtonians and formed what was to become known as Alcoholics Anonymous. They learned from the mistakes of the Washingtonians and made it clear that A.A. had but one purpose: to help alcoholics get and stay sober. Since then A.A. has been remarkably successful perhaps because it has rigidly avoided getting involved with other contentious issues. A.A. has no opinion about whether "normal" people should drink alcohol or not. It takes no stand on any other social issues; it does not proselytize or try to "convert" drunks. This simple program simply offers a spiritual path to sobriety for those whose lives have been destroyed by alcoholism. The Washingtonians got this close; A.A., with its singleness of purpose, got it right.
Last year I retired from a large pharmaceutical company. During my time there, I had the opportunity to talk with research scientists who told me how difficult it is to find and develop a new drug. It typically takes months or years and several million dollars to find the combination of molecules that will produce a safe and effective drug. Along the path to development, there are myriad "this close" experiences. Something that initially looked quite promising will turn out to have unacceptable side effects. Something that seemed devoid of harmful side effects will turn out to be ineffective. Time after time they will get "this close" only to find that the time and money spent have produced nothing of value. In pharmaceutical development, "this close" is not close enough.
And now for my annual baseball story…. A few years ago, while playing for the Over Forty Patriots baseball team, I did something quite unusual for me: I hit the ball out of the infield. More than that, I really hit the ball hard. This surprised me and my teammates and I stood briefly at home plate and watched the ball sail out into left field. I don't think I have ever hit a baseball that hard and for a brief moment I considered just how I was going to do my "homerun trot," casually loping around the bases while looking disinterested, as if I do this kind of thing all the time. Now, normally, outfielders tended to play very shallow since they had come to know that I was unlikely to hit the ball very far. Regrettably, the left fielder had not been told to play in and was playing a rather deep left field. He took a few steps back, reached up casually, and caught my fly ball. I was this close to glory….but instead my blast was just another easily caught fly ball. I suppose there is no great theological message in this story but it does remind me that in baseball as in many other things in life, being close doesn't count.
In Christ, God emptied himself, gave up the part of being God that required distance and transcendence and made contact with God so hard to grasp, and became one of us. So what does it mean that God finally found a way to break through to us once and for all? For one thing, it means that in Christ God has experienced all that it means to be fully human--both the joy and fear of human existence. Are you afraid? Know that Jesus too knew fear as he prayed in the garden at Gethsemane. Are you feeling like a celebration? Know that Jesus danced at the wedding in Cana. Are you angry? Know that Jesus felt and expressed anger when he saw what the "religious people" of his time had done with God's word. Are you tempted by power, prestige, the desire to be "better than" or the kind of magical thinking that says you are entitled to whatever you want? Know that Jesus too was tempted when confronted by the power of evil when he was in the desert. Do you feel sorrow when you see the faces of those in war torn countries and exasperation when you wonder why the best we can do, after thousands of years of trying, is to drop bombs and use military force to get others to do things our way? Know that Jesus too wept when he beheld the political and religious confusion of Jerusalem. God loved the creation so much that in Christ God became one of us; became this close to us.
A quick digression into an Old Testament this close situation: The story of Noah's Ark is known to practically everyone. It is often seen as an etiological myth; a story devised to explain some natural phenomenon. In fact, most of the world's older religions have some similar account in which the earth is covered by water and almost destroyed. This morning's Scripture lesson, however, points to an additional meaning or explanation: putting it in perhaps too-human terms, God was just flat out fed up with humanity. What had begun as a promising start had degenerated into self-will run riot, lawlessness and near chaos. God came this close to wiping out all of creation, perhaps just writing it off as a good idea gone bad. But even then, so great was God's love for this creation that God gave it a second thought and decided on another try. We see this kind of thing over and over again in our own lives: the parents who are fed up with their wayward child and who are this close to "throwing him out for good" who reconsider and, in touch with the love that has always been there, decide to give him another chance. The judge who mandates the drug-addicted felon to rehab instead of jail; the married couple who have every reason to call it quits, yet decide to try again to find some way to reinvent what had once been a loving relationship; the church members who have become numbed by the staggering list of hardships which nightly parade across our TV screens who nonetheless leave the comfort of their homes to go to Haiti, or areas ravaged by hurricane Katrina, or Africa or Palestine or other places where their being this close will make a difference. In these and so many other instances, the this close phenomenon is at work.
This idea, the notion, that the distant, transcendent, all-powerful God in some manner chose to leap the chasm between Creator and Creature is at the core of the Gospel. It is also, for many, one of the most absurd assertions that religious folk can make. It's one thing to entertain the idea that there just might be some vaguely definable, abstract, First Cause or uninvolved God, perhaps some force which initially ordained the laws of physics and dropped out of history to watch from a great distance. But to say that this God has always loved the creation and has even gone to the unimaginable extreme of becoming one with it, that is to say that the impossible has become possible; the absurd made real; the safely distant and abstract made this close and more real than we can imagine. As Paul says in another letter to the early Christian church: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world onto himself."
To say that God has moved this close to us, has become one of us in Christ, does not, it seems to me, mean that Jesus is now my best buddy, or "just one of the guys," or a pal that I can chat casually with about how the Phillies are doing this year and, oh by the way Jesus, if you could help Ryan Howard get to 60 home runs, and let the Phillies win the pennant, that would be really cool…. Rather, it means that in the things which mean most: the moments of fear or joy, certainty or questioning; should I or shouldn't I, God in Christ is immediately available to us. When our own strength, resolve or resources fail, there is a power which can move us to do the next right thing in our lives.
There is one big problem or dilemma in this close situations: they can sometimes make us afraid or demand more of us than we might like to give. A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went with two friends to see a Phillies game. We had seats in the lower stands in right field and arrived early so we could watch batting practice and maybe even retrieve a ball hit into the stands. I always take my baseball glove, for two reasons: you never know when as the result of multiple on the field injuries, the Phillies will run out of players and may need a quick replacement from the stands, in which case I would be an obvious choice; and you never know when a ball will leave the park and you might be able to catch it. As we sat there in batting practice, baseballs were landing all around us, some came very close but none were close enough for me to try to catch. Here's the problem: truth to tell, I was just as glad I didn't have to try to catch one of those balls. They were coming from over 400 feet away and a pretty good speed and I just wasn't sure I had the agility or ability to actually catch one. I was, frankly, just as happy to have someone else make the effort. And that, in a way, is similar to what happens when God moves close to us. We are daily presented with opportunities to do the next right thing; to move out of the relative comfort of our lives to a place where we can incarnate God's love by helping others. It's one thing to lament the world's sorrows from a safe distance, it's another to actually get involved, to move close enough so that, in some small way, we can do for others what God in Christ has done for us. This fall, our church will offer us many opportunities to move closer: perhaps we'll volunteer to teach a Sunday School class; or prepare meals for the homeless, or sign up for another trip for home repairs in Biloxi, or join a group seeking nonviolent solutions to the war in Iraq, or just go out of our way to talk with a friend who is having a tough time. This list of opportunities is almost endless and all of them will require that we, in effect, move closer and get involved. Left to our own resources, the fear and uncertainty might be overwhelming, but we have one who has already shown us the way and who has promised to walk this close to us.
Prayer: Lord of Life, we are grateful that in Christ you have moved so close to us. We know that there is now nothing that can separate us from your love and care. We know that in Christ you have reconciled this wayward world and given us the power to overcome fear, loneliness and separation. Grant us the faith and courage to walk next to you and to embrace the life that you have given us.
In Christ's name we pray, AMEN.
September 2 , 2007
Tom Baker
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