Words for Worship

Ministry Today

It’s a great Scottish word – stuchie.

 

Well, there has been

a stuchie

at the Royal Society in London.

 

Now this august body

is not normally given

to political controversy.

 

But it has entered

the creation debate

by sacking

one of its members

who suggested

that science teachers

should engage their students

in religious discussions.

 

To that end,

they fielded

a Professor

of something or other

against a bishop

on the religious affairs programme

broadcast

early last Sunday morning.  

 

Well, this very narrow minded individual said that

science should debate

with religion

in order to demolish sentimentality,

nonsense and wishful thinking.  

 

He had obvious forgotten

the words of that

far greater scientist and believer –

Albert Einstein who said - science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

 

But then our prophet

of atheism

let down his guard

for a fair punch.

 

Because he next

pompously proclaimed

that science alone

was leading all to the light.

 

Now our worthy bishop

missed this knockout opportunity –

but let us not make

the same mistake.

 

In fact, let us explore

what that statement opens up.

 

 

For, first of all,

our professor obviously

wasn’t saying

that science

was leading us all

to a 60 watt light bulb.

 

Of course,

he was speaking

in a metaphor;

he was using poetry;

he was using imagery.

 

In truth, he was speaking

the language of imagination rather than proof and fact.

 

 Now here is

a massive own goal.

 

For, whilst denying divinity,

the professor

had to invoke

the very purpose of religious faith.

 

Because it is only religious faith that can imagine

what is beyond

the very limited knowledge that humans have.

 

 It is only belief

that can express

certainty

in a wonderful destination

for creation.  

 

And therefore this obscure academic needs

to take another lesson

from Einstein,

when he remarked - Imagination is more important than knowledge...

 

 

 However, I have to admit

that he used

a good metaphor

in light

when considering religion.

 

For as a scientist,

I believe I speak

with some certainty

when I say that

we do not yet

fully understand the nature of light.

 

But our lack knowledge

is not the first thing

we think of

when we reach

for the light switch

to stop our stubbing a toe

in the night.

 

In fact, a definition of it

is immaterial

to our experiencing

its help

in prevent us

hurting ourselves.

 

So too it is with God.

 

For it is entirely understandable

that we cannot define,

contain

and experiment on God.

 

For, as maker of this

and any other universe,

he is more than able

to retain his dignity

in the face

of impudent enquirers.

 

Yet, like the wonder of light,

his wonder

is most easily experienced.

 

Let then faith and experience chase understanding if it must - but let it first accept

our experiencing of God.

 

For the feeling

of his presence in a sunset,

on a windy coastline

or in the quiet

of an old church

is not fancy but real.

 

 In the genuine sense

of a sharp prompt

when we contemplate wrong

is affirmation

of an external authority

not of our making.

 

 In the finding of hope

and comfort

when the facts

are utterly against them

speak volumes

that our own story

has a divine quality

within it

and that God was there.

 

Indeed, come on

and admit it –

even at this moment –

deep down

beneath our understanding-

we just know God is here.

 

However, there is another strange quality of light

and it is this!

 

Light in itself cannot be seen – we only detect it

when it is reflected back

to our eyes

by an object in its path.

 

Doesn’t that seem familiar

in the realm of religion as well?

 

For God like light

obviously cannot be seen

with the naked eye.

 

Yet that doesn’t stop

his power being reflected back to us

by created life.

 

For who has found

Wonder

when we look

at the abundance of life

on this blue planet.

 

Who has not felt a sense

of a greater being

when surveying

life’s variety and beauty?

 

Who indeed

has not thought to themselves – there must be something more than I can see –

when we encounter life’s potential,

adaptability and shear survivability

sometimes in the face of overwhelming odds.

 

And this truth is admitted

to even by

the most atheist of physicists.

 

Because most of them agree that the chances

of the creation

of a stable universe

was so slight

that some

as yet unknown guiding factor must exist.

 

And that factor I suggest

is what Yahudi Menuhin

called the universal mind.

 

For as Einstein also said –

My religion consists

of a humble admiration

of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself

in the slight details

we are able to perceive

with our frail and feeble mind.

 

But religion also enlightens

our individual lives

in a way science

on its own cannot.

 

 

If I might explain?

 

Last week we watched

a film that really epitomised what good cinema

is all about.

 

It won an Oscar

and is called Atonement.  

 

It has a complex structure

and shows several times

from different perspectives.

 

Now Briony is a 13-year-old girl from an upper-class

English family

 and an aspiring writer.

 

Her older sister Cecilia

was educated

at Cambridge University alongside Robbie

the son of their housekeeper whose school fees

are currently paid

by Cecilia's father.

 

Though Robbie is headed

for medical school soon,

he is currently spending

the summer gardening

on the Tallis estate.

 

It is obvious from

the beginning of the film

that Briony

has a crush on Robbie

and is jealous

of his relationship

with her sister.

 

When the occasion arose Briony bore false witness against Robbie

who is arrested

and sent to prison.

 

 

The story then moves ahead four years,

to the opening of the Second World War.

 

Robbie, having been convicted but released from prison o

n condition that he enlist,

is a private

in the British Expeditionary Force.

 

Cut off from his unit

by the German advance,

he and two other stragglers reach Dunkirk.

 

By now wounded and very ill, he falls asleep

waiting evacuation

and another attempt

at being reunited

with Cecelia.

 

Brony, on the other hand,

Is now filled with remorse, and has now volunteered to be a nurse in St Thomas' in London.

 

She has attempted

to meet up with Celica

who refuses to forgive her.  

 

After some

very harrowing scenes

where she treats

the returning troops

she summons up

the courage to visit

Cecilia's flat

and apologize to both her

and Robbie

who has apparently survived

his ordeal.

 

All fair and square you say – except f

or the occasional breaking in

of a typewriter

into the sound track.

 

Is everything

as we see it to be?

 

Well, the film suddenly shifts forward in time to 1999,

where an elderly Briony  

played by Vanessa Redgrave

is overcome with emotion

and memory.

 

She is being interviewed

about her latest novel, Atonement,

and here Briony reveals

that she is dying

of vascular dementia,

and that this novel is her last, but that she began it first.

 

Briony admits that,

while the novel

is autobiographical,

the ending of the story

has been significantly changed.

 

In reality, she says,

she never could summon

the courage

to see her sister

and tell the truth.

 

Robbie had died

of septicaemia

on the last night of the evacuation at Dunkirk

and Cecilia

was drowned

the following October,

in the Balham tube station disaster during The Blitz.

 

Briony expresses deep remorse and says that this novel,

to which she gave

an ending different

from the reality,

had been her chance

to give her sister and Robbie the hope and the happiness that they had deserved—

and that she had stolen

from them.

 

The novel is, therefore,

her atonement

for the naive

but destructive acts

of a 13-year-old child,

which she has always regretted.

 

The film closes

with a scene of a simple,

joyful moment

that Cecilia and Robbie might have had,

if events had played out differently.

 

Of course

the enduring quality of light

is that it always leads

to a source.

 

 Science no matter

how valuable to humankind, like all works of man

leads only to an end –

an imagined nirvana

set a long time in the future.

 

But if we think about it

that is not enough.

 

It was not enough

for Robbie and Cecilia

and it’s truly

not enough for us to live.

 

For we want our story rewritten now.

 

We desperately want,

in some cases,

the past to be rewritten.

 

And we certainly want

the guarantee

of our future story written

with a happy ending

within our lifetime.  

 

And so it is only the light

of religion

that leads the other way

from an ending.

 

For, it always leads

to a beginning.

 

Because ultimately,

belief leads

not to an inevitable destination, but to he

who began all things.

 

He who can destine

a fresh, better

and happier beginning

if need be.  

 

He who controls

the past and present

at the one time.

 

He who not only at ending

But is the ending.

 

And if none of this

was the case

why did the Divine

rewrite creation

from genesis to John?  

 

What is this story

of a fresh start all about?

 

What indeed else

can be the hopeful meaning

of:

 

In him was life

and that life

was the light of men.

 

That light shines out

into the unknowing

and is misunderstood.

 

Yet, believed in,

that man gives

the right to be

not just of atoms

but the light

to be

the very children of God.

 

Amen

 

HYMN……………….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rewriting Creation