Astronaut Sultan Bin Salman al-Saud from Saudi Arabia remarked after his space trip 30 some years ago: “The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were aware of only one Earth.” (Quoted in The Home Planet, ed. Kevin W. Kelley (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1988), 82.)

The world is a smaller place these days. Everything is now global, as we have been reminded in the recent economic crash. We still struggle to think in terms of other cultures. Our abysmal ignorance of other cultures is illustrated in the inaugural address given by Susan Resneck Pierce as President of the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington, 15 years ago.

When Coca-Cola went into China, they were determined to use a symbol that phonetically represented the sounds of their name. It was only after their marketing campaign was a failure that Coke learned that their new symbol translated, ‘Bite the wax tadpole.’ When they changed their name to mean, ‘May the mouth rejoice,’ they began to sell their product. When Chevrolet took the Nova to Latin America, they neglected the fact that the name meant ‘Won’t go’ in Spanish. Pepsi’s campaign in Taiwan translated the invitation to ‘Come alive with Pepsi’ into ‘Pepsi brings your ancestors back alive from the grave.’ Eastern’s ‘We earn our wings daily’ promised in Spanish that passengers would arrive at their destination as angels. Parker Pen made even more extravagant claims in Flemish, asserting that their newly created leak-proof cartridges would prevent unwanted pregnancies. But perhaps most stunningly, Frank Perdue’s slogan, ‘It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken,’ in Spanish announced that ‘It takes a virile man to make a chicken affectionate.’ (Pierce, “Can the Center Hold,” Presidential Papers 10 (September 1994): 5-6.)

Now more than ever we need to be reminded of one thing: “God so loved the world.” It is as true in this war-torn age as it was then in that time of terrible unrest and persecution for the early Christians of John’s Gospel. Psalm 8 speaks to us about the dignity of all humanity: we are the crown of God’s creation; we are made just a little lower than God, or as older translations put it, just a little lower than the angels. We are all children of God, created in the image of God. And when God looked upon the latest and greatest product of divine procreation, God said it was very good. Very good. For  God so loved the world….

We are all children of God, created in the image of God. I know that we are tempted to believe that some people are members of our “tribe” and others definitely are not, but what do we say to the estimate that the average white American is 6 percent black (or put another way, 95 percent of white Americans are 5 to 80 percent black?)

Carl Sandburg wrote, in his prologue to The Family of Man, these words: “The first cry of a newborn baby in Chicago or Zamboanga, in Amsterdam or Rangoon, has the same pitch and key, each saying, ‘I am! I have come through! I belong! I am a member of the Family.’”

Modern physics is saying the same thing, though not quite in the same words. Quantum theory describes the microscopic world as a place where everything is everything else, everything is everywhere at the same time. Ours is a world of microscopic particles in mind-blowing relationships. All of life is made up of the same particles; we are related to everyone and everything in the universe—all made up of what I call “God-stuff.”

You may have heard of the Butterfly Effect, but have you heard of the Theory of Morphogenic Fields, or the Theory of Holons, or Entanglement Theory?

In her book Radical Amazement, Judy Cannato reminds us that we are called to expand our hearts to include all of creation. Modern physics describes how we are all connected, and we cannot separate from this truth no matter how hard we try. Albert Einstein called the notion of separation an “optical delusion.” 14^th century German mystic Meister Eckhart said “Relation is the essence of everything that is.” Barbara Hagerty in her new book The Fingerprints of God quotes a scientist who describes Einstien’s quantum theory of entanglement as a Jell-O-like reality. If you push on one side of the Jell-O, the other side moves. When two bonded particles of light are separated, they continue to behave as though they are still connected. Einstein described it as “spooky action at a distance.” When a husband sends loving thoughts to his wife, who is wired to an electronic sensor, her body reacts to those thoughts, and she later reports feeling a sense of happiness at the same time.

We are all children of God, created in the image of God. What we do, say, and even think, affects other people, our sisters and brothers. And God so loved the world…

Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis once described an experience of returning to his native Crete. As he walked along, an elderly woman passed by, carrying a basket of figs. “She halted and lifting the fig leaves which covered the basket, she picked out two figs and presented them to me. ‘Do you know me, old lady?’ I asked. She glanced at me in amazement. ‘No, my boy. Do I have to know you to give you something? You are a human being, aren’t you? So am I. Isn’t that enough?’”

We are all children of God, created in the image of God. And God so loved the world… 

In the movie “A Family Thing,” the character played by Robert Duvall, your basic southern redneck, discovers that his birth mother was black. The movie involves his search for his mother’s family, and the process of getting acquainted across what he though were rigid racial divides. His newly discovered Aunt Tee says to Earl, “Son, you can’t help how you was born, and you can’t help how you was raised. That’s the way it is. But I loved my sister, and you’re her boy, and I love you, too. And there ain’t nothing you can do about  it.”

“You are a child, I am a mother. That’s enough. You are a son, I am a father. That’s enough. We are brothers and sisters. That’s enough. I am your God, you are my people. That’s enough.” (J. Walter Cross, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” Bradenton, Florida, 6.)

And there ain’t nothing you can do about it.

A favorite childhood story tells the tale of a peasant, his wife, and their tiny cottage. The place was simply too small. They never had guests because there was no room at the table. They couldn’t raise a family because there was no place for children to sleep. There was barely room for the two of them in that house, and they were starting to get in each other’s way and on each other’s nerves. They needed a bigger house.

Well, as fairy tales would have it, a wizard arrived to grant their desires. “You shall have a bigger house,” he said, “but you must do as I tell you. First, you must bring all your chickens, ducks, geese, and fowl into the house with you. Next, bring in the dogs and the cats and the pigs and the cows and the horses and the goat.”

The peasant and his wife pushed, and they shoved, and they squeezed them all tight. But the wizard demanded they do more. ”Now,” he proclaimed, “invite all your neighbors and all of their animals, too. Put on a feast for them, and by tonight you shall have your big house.”

It didn’t seem possible that the entire neighborhood could fit into the overstuffed cottage, but the invitations were sent and soon the banquet had begun. It was a noisy and crowded affair, but a festive one. Eventually, every neighbor, beast, fish, and fowl had been welcomed, wined and dined.

When all had finished and bade their farewells, the peasant and his wife collapsed in happy exhaustion and put up their feet to rest. It was then that they noticed how spacious their home had become. There was actually room to stretch out and relax. The wizard had granted their wish. That night they decided to start a family. (Dwight Currie, How We Behave at the Feast (New York: Cliff Street Books, 2000), 67.)

There is room in God’s heart for all God’s children. And here, in our hearts, there is room enough for all our sisters and brothers. And there ain’t nothin’ anybody can do about it. Amen.

Archived Sermons

2009

July 5, 2009  "In the body, or out of the body"

June 28, 2009  "The Healer"  (mp3 audio file)

June 28, 2009  "The Healer"  (text)

June 21, 2009  "Step up, little David, and take him down"

June 7, 2009  "What does eternal life mean for us today?" 

(sermon based on a song by T.C. Smythe/Gary Taylor)  (mp3 file)

May 24, 2009  "The Image of God"

May 16, 2009  "The Harmony of God"

May 10, 2009  "The Fecundity of God"

May 3, 2009  "The Wildness of God"

April 26, 2009  "Earth's crammed with heaven"

April 19, 2009  "Going public"

April 12, 2009  "The glorius you"  Easter Sunday

April 5, 2009  "A Tale of Two Kingdoms"  Palm/Passion Sunday (B. Allen)

March 29, 2009  "Unless you die"

March 15, 2009  "Looking at the Finger"

March 8, 2009  "Trade Your Soul?"

February 25, 2009  "Hot Coals in the Ashes"

February 22, 2009  "High on a Mountain Top"

February 8, 2009  "Healing Through Jesus' Hands - And Ours!"  (S. Larson)

February 1, 2009  "Sharing the Light" (B. Allen)

January 9, 2009  "Come on in, The Water is Fine"

January 4, 2009  "One Little Candle"

2008

May 4, 2008  "Wait, Pray, Love (B. Allen)
April 27, 2008  "The God Gene"
April 20, 2008  "A Dangerous Christ" (Oscar Romero)
April 13, 2008  "I Am the Good Gate"
April 7  "One Hand Clapping"
March 23  "Openings Without End" (Easter)
March 20  "Judas" (Holy Thursday)
March 16  "Christ and Pilate:  Clean Hands, Dirty Heart"
March 9  "Dry Bones in the Valley"
March 2  "Earth in Eyes"
February 24, 2008  "Thirst"  (B. Allen)
February 17, 2008  "Wind and Wonder"
February 6  (Ash Wednesday) "Hot Coals in the Ashes"
February 3  "Transfiguration"
January 27, 2008  "Salt and Light"
January 20, 2008  "Bless You!"
January 13, 2008 "A Feather on the Breath of God"
January 6, 2008  "Arise, Shine!"

2007

November 4  "This Table Belongs to Jesus"
September 16  "Jesus and Mohammed"
September 9  "What is the church?  Perseverence"
July 22, 2007  "How to get out of doing the dishes"
July 15, 2007  "The stupid Samaritan"
July 8, 2007  "Gonna step right in"
July 1, 2007  "Going to Jerusalem"