Preached by the Right Reverend Grant Lynn Ford at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, February 12, 2006.
The grace of our Master Teacher — the love of God in the unity of Spirit — be with you all.
Wondrous God, we thank you for the all the opportunities you send our way. We stand in awe of your power that is so often manifested for our benefit and blessing. By your unconditional love, promised by your prophets and demonstrated by your son, Jesus, we are given power to overcome all that is negative, false or evil, and to welcome the Good into our lives and our world.
Yet, we let our fears of the unknown stand in the way of our making the right decisions. Lord have mercy.
We hang onto what is familiar rather than trusting in the new changes you offer us. Christ have mercy.
We forget the power of the Holy Spirit to change our reality. Lord have mercy.
We now say no to those things that try to persuade us to not be true to you. We affirm that we are your daughters and sons, and that we have your authority to change, to grow, to resist evil and reveal your Good. As your Spirit fills us we will do it; we will change our world, we will embrace your Realm, just as Jesus did. Amen.
Deuteronomy 18:15-19
15Your Sovereign God will raise up for you a prophet from among our own people. Listen to him! 16Remember, this is what you asked for. You said to God when we gathered at Horeb: “We don’t want to hear the Holy One speak directly to us. We can’t stand the heat! We’ll die!”
17The Eternal said to me: “Good idea! 18I’ll raise up a prophet; I’ll put words in his mouth, and he’ll give them my message. 19Then the people will be accountable for what he tells them.”
A Vedic Hymn
I salute the supreme teacher, the Truth whose nature is bliss, who is the giver of the highest happiness, who is pure wisdom, who is beyond all qualities and infinite like the sky, who is beyond words, who is one and eternal, pure and still, who is beyond all change and phenomena and who is the silent witness to all our thoughts and emotions. I salute Truth, the supreme teacher.
Mark 1:23-28
23As Jesus was speaking, a man entered the synagogue. He was a troubled man, disturbed by negative spiritual influences. He began shouting: 24“What’s your business here? Are you here to make trouble for us? I know who you are, Jesus of Nazareth. You’re the Holy One of God!”
25“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!”
26This threw the man into spasms as the inner turmoil erupted in him. The negative spiritual forces came out with a shriek! 27The people were shocked by it all, and began to ask each other: “What’s going on! Have you ever seen such authority? Even the evil spirits obey his orders!” 28News about this incident traveled like hot gossip throughout the entire region of Galilee.
The doctors were really quite confused. They had tried everything to help the man, including psychotropic drugs, but he was still convinced that he was Jesus Christ. Finally the psychiatrist in charge asked him, “Who in the world told you that you were Jesus Christ?”
“John the Baptist,” replied the patient.
A voice from the back of the room cried out, “I certainly did not!”
Now that’s crazy!
You know what else is crazy? When we think religion can answer the questions science is asking, that’s crazy. And when we think science can answer the questions religion is asking, that too is crazy.
Of course, we know that religion has often been at odds with science. Copernicus and Galileo would agree with that!
On March 5th, 1616, the Roman Catholic Church, through Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, declared that the teaching of Copernicus—the idea that the earth revolved around the sun—to be a “false and erroneous” doctrine. His writing was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books, thus proving that religion should not set the standard for science.
Galileo followed in the footsteps of Copernicus, suggesting that doctrinaire religion should not put limits on science, saying: “Who can set bounds to the mind of man? Who dares assert that he already knows all that in this universe is knowable?”
As he continued to teach and write, his former friend—now Pope Urban VIII—had
the Inquisition condemn him in 1633 and had him placed under house arrest for
the rest of his life. Nevertheless he said: “I do not feel obliged to believe
that the same
God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo
their use.”
It was not until October 31st, 1992, that Pope John Paul II admitted that errors had been made by the theological advisors in the case of Galileo. The Roman Church, however, still has not admitted any wrongdoing in convicting Galileo of heresy for teaching that the earth rotates round the sun.
So what does this have to do with the Gospel story today? Our story, first told almost two thousand years ago, attributes mental illness to demon-possession. The translator of our version attributes the behavior of the man to “negative spiritual influences”, but the original text is more explicit: “There was in their synagogue a man with an pneuma akath’artos, a foul, unclean spirit.”
Remember, this is not a story Jesus is telling, but a story told about Jesus. And please don’t be too hard on the story-tellers. This understanding of unclean spirits was the latest understanding—both scientific and religious—of his condition.
Today, science informs religion that the condition is medical, not spiritual, and can often be treated with drugs and psychotherapeutic intervention. Must we then continue to believe in evil spirits, all the while making silly Hollywood sagas that stir up primeval fears of noises out in the dark beyond the campfire? Must we cling to their ignorance, or can we graciously understand the story in the light of current scientific knowledge?
How does religion become the loser when we understand our stories in a new light? And where does science get the chutzpah to ridicule religion for believing something two thousand years ago that science believed as well?
Yes, there are people who believe the Bible must be accepted as it was written, with no modern critical interpretation: they are called literalists. There are also scientists who believe that in order to be true to science one must be an atheist. But I suggest that these are extreme positions, and that extremism in defense of either religion or science is no proper defense at all.
Albert Einstein puts it better than I when he says: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
It is time for both religion and science to sing the song of the Vedic Hymn: “I salute Truth, the supreme teacher.”
The great theologian Paul Tillich, in his book Dynamics of Faith, said: “The distinction between the truth of faith and the truth of science leads to a warning, directed to theologians, not to use recent scientific discoveries to confirm the truth of faith.” He goes on to say, “The truth of faith cannot be confirmed by latest physical or biological or psychological discoveries—as it cannot be denied by them.”
Yet Larry Dossey, in Space, Time, and Medicine, admits our “…search for unity with nature has gone beyond poetry and mysticism—or perhaps has fused to some degree with them—to form a vision that is unique for our time. This interweaving of science and mysticism is a new event in human history, and it places fresh demands on the scientist.”
We have looked beyond the atom. We have seen the subatomic particles revolving around the nucleus. We know that there is something keeping those particles in place, an energy field. Now science tells religion that the basis of all existence is the organized chaos of energy fields. Nothing is solid anymore; everything is in dynamic relationship. And to think that organized chaos was once oxymoronic!
So where do we stand with religion and science? How do we distinguish between creation and evolution?
Perhaps it is best understood when we say that science can tell us how the universe is fashioned, but religion may tell us who fashioned it. Science can tell us the neurochemical reasons for how the body heals itself, but religion may tell us why we are constantly being drawn to our own good, our own health, our own wellbeing.
Science can tell us how the body releases endorphins and plays with hormones, but cannot tell us why we fall in love. It’s more than biology, though biology plays its part!
Science can study reproduction and sexology, but what of that attraction to another person that is all consuming? That’s the realm of poetry and music and drama…and religion.
Science can examine our Gospel lesson today and determine whether the man is bipolar or paranoid schizophrenic. But we see something science misses; we see the loving, healing power of Jesus reaching into the man’s psyche, calling forth his healing.
Science, history, archeology and biblical scholarship can tell us there was a man named Jesus. Religion tells us he is—to borrow the words of the Vedic Hymn—the one “who is pure wisdom, who is beyond all qualities and infinite like the sky, who is beyond words, who is one and eternal, pure and still, who is beyond all change and phenomena and who is the silent witness to all our thoughts and emotions.”
Or quote the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Colossians: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” Colossians 1:15-18
It is scientific knowledge which creates medicines to kill harmful bacteria or to treat symptoms caused by a virus. But that doesn’t make our body heal itself. Could it be faith…faith in a good God who is revealed in Jesus Christ? Could it be that even our bodies strive for that good, yes, even when we hold back in the ‘faith’ department? Yet why would we refuse medicine, when that same Good we call God has provided medicine for us, even in the plants and herbs we consume?
Rabindranath Tagore said, “By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.” Science tells us how a flower grows and why it smells so good. Only our spirit can “gather the beauty of the flower.”
And that’s the truth!
I am grateful for human knowledge.
It is the gift of ‘knowing’.
I am grateful for all God’s good.
It is the gift of ‘living’.
I live and move and have my being…
in the goodness of all creation,
and the goodness of Spirit.Life is wonderful!
Life is grand!
And I like it like that! Amen!
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said: “Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.” So let us appropriately allow science to make inquiry of the universe while we are caught up in awe of creation itself.
