All Saints Episcopal Church, Thomasville
Trinity 15, 2006

"Know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whosever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."
(St James 3)

"Let might be our law of right."  (Wisdom 2:11)
 

 At the beginning of Genesis, as God places the finishing touches on His grandest creation, He breathes into Adam His own breath.  The passage reads as follows:  "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."  The Hebrew word "being" is "nephesh", whic can also be translated as "soul". 

The point of the J-writer, the name scholars have dubbed this anonymous author, is that although Adam was alive as soon as God formed him from the dust of the earth, that he did not become a living soul -- or living being -- until God breathed His own breath into His creature.  God's spirit or breath (ruach) is what gives man his soul or being, our (nephesh).  It is our soul which makes us truly human.  It is what constitutes our "self".  Until we have our self, or soul, we are little more than walking zombies.  Now please hold that lovely thought for a few minutes.

 The course of the Old Testament proceeds from that moment of God creating humankind through all the events which you all are so familiar with.  The stories of the Fall, Noah and the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the stories of the patriarchs and their families, Moses, and finally the climactic event of the Old Testament:  the Exodus, and God establishing His covenant with his people on Mount Sinai.

The Sinai Covenant (the Ten Commandments as well as all the other thou shalts and thou shalt nots) which we call The Law was recognized by the Old Testament Prophets, as well as St. Paul (not to mention our Lord), as a set of guidelines by which we might become a holy people.  It was to set us apart from the animals, the four-legged as well as the two legged animals -- if you know what I mean.  It was to serve mankind as a rule for not only loving our neighbor, but nurturing our neighbor as well -- for we cannot do the former without doing the latter. 

 Jesus of course expanded this Law as well as the definition of sin in the Sermon on the Mount with statements like:  "Anyone who is angry with his neighbor without a cause has already committed murder". And in the Parable of the Good Samaritan He redefined neighbor to mean not just the folks living next door to you and me, but every other human being we might ever encounter.  In that parable, Jesus said we should not be as concerned about who our neighbor is, as we should ourselves be concerned about being neighborly -- as was the Good Samaritan. If we read between the lines of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we can hear jesus telling us that we are spending too much of our own time and power worrying about ourselves, instead of spending that energy being concerned about others.

 It should not surprise us then to be reminded that as soon as Israel was consolidated as a nation under King David, that this theme of neighborliness so powerfully enshrined in the Old Testament Covenants, was hijacked by the new nation's quest for power, wealth, and self- aggrandizement.  And not too long after David turned the throne over to his son Solomon, the Davidic kingdom was rent asunder, never to be re-united.

 The clergy of the Diocese of Georgia were very powerfully reminded of this process of events two weeks ago at our annual Clergy Conference, led by Dr. Walter Brueggeman, who now near his retirement, is probably the foremost professor of Old Testament History in the United States if not the world.  Dr. Brueggeman's politics were somewhat different than most of his audience that week. 

Indeed he made for many of us the rather astounding statement that we need not be so worried about the terrorists, because there are "only a handful that would do us any real harm."  I think that's a rather naïve opinion to hold.  Perhaps in the short run he's correct in believing the war on terror has done more harm than good.  Only time will tell about that, but most of us were grateful that that war on terror at least prevented another airline attack a few weeks ago.  Arguable it's prevented many more than that.  Enough of politics.

 My point is that no matter his politics, Dr. Brueggeman reminded us at times rather bluntly -- and at others quite beautifully and poetically -- that beginning with David Solomon and on through to today, despite the warnings of almost all the Old Testament prophets and our Lord Himself, that much of Christendom has built itself not on the model espoused at Sinai -- a model based upon grace, justice, and righteousness -- all of which would lead to fostering that spirit of neighborliness.

Instead much of Christendom has built its world upon financial wealth, military power, and a rather large intelligence apparatus, all of which has led to foster in us not so much a spirit of constant neighborliness, but a spirit of anxiety -- and that as human beings we are not as whole or complete as we might be.  You and I are not so much the living soul or living being that we might be.

 Please don't get me wrong.  If Dr. Brueggeman is correct, I recognize I'm just as much a material beneficiary of this society as anyone here, and I'm more than grateful to be a citizen of the USA.  And yet, if there is a shred of truth to his argument, and I think we have to confess that there's at least a little more than a shred, then perhaps we as human beings really are not as complete a creature as our Creator meant for us to be when He breathed His breath into us and we became living souls and beings.  I say this because most of us carry around in our souls more than a shred of anxiety.  And personal anxiety will trump or defeat neighborliness just about any day of the week.

Think for a moment for instance of Jesus' words about anxiety in the Sermon on the Mount:  "Why are ye anxious for raiment?  Consider the lilies of the field how they grow.  They toil not, neither do they spin.  And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."  As our professor reminded us, there's more than a little gravitas in that statement -- more at least than we often acknowledge.  Could  Jesus be saying that perhaps there's more real humanity in a lily, than there was in Solomon himself?  Or is he saying there's more humanity in those lilies than there are in many of us because of our inordinate anxiety?

 And, what is it which causes such anxiety?  Could it possibly be because, in the words of the First Lesson we really have let "might be our right, for what is weak proves itself to be useless."?  Or, as in the Second Lesson from James the Lord's brother:  "Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work."?  And that "friendship with the world is enmity with God?"

T. S. Eliot in "The Cocktail Party" wrote that "Half the harm that is done in the world is done by people who want to feel important."  He might have said that half the harm is done by people driven by anxiety.  And James shows us the end of the road for such a mindset:  "Ye lust, and have not:  ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain:  ye fight and war, yet ye have not..."  Those are terrifying words.  They show us a picture of a man or woman or a society with no soul.

I say "soul -- less" because what James is describing here is a central tenet of moral and ascetical theology.  That is, any sin persisted in leads us to an ever-increasing desire for an ever-diminishing pleasure.  "Ye lust, and cannot have:  ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain.  Ye fight and war, yet ye have not."  An ever-increasing desire for an ever diminishing pleasure:  a sure-fire recipe for or result of anxiety, if there ever was one.  Perhaps such lust and anxiety are two sides of the same coin.

 Nevertheless what brought all this to mind was the furor this past week over Pope Benedict's address at Regensburg when he received (and I think he knew more than well-enough what he was doing); when he received all the flack not only from Islam but from much our enlightentened Western civilization about how a 14th century emperor said that the only new thing Mohammed brought to religion was "evil and inhuman, such as to spread by the sword the faith he preached."  That emperor went on to say that violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. 

Violence that is, in any form -- even in a just war -- makes us less human than God intended, and certainly more anxious.  Of course, if radical Islam thought the Pope's words to be true (and remember he was quoting a quote); if radical Islam really did believe that violence is incompatible with the nature of God, they would not have reacted as violently as they have -- and the Pope was correct not to apologize for his remarks -- at least I read no apology in his remarks.

 What I hope we're beginning to perceive is that today, Dr. Brueggeman's words to the clergy two weeks ago, as well as the Pope's remarks a week ago, as well as both our lessons  and collect today all converge.  The theme of each is that too much of our society has made too much peace with our world. 

We have not only allowed but sought to have might as our right -- and I'm not preaching politics.  Rather we have believed the lie told us by the devil in the Garden of Eden.  God told us then that our disobedience would lead to our death.  The devil instead told us that we would be like God, knowing good and evil.  But what we need to remember is that our disobedience -- as well as every sin we commit -- is not so much about disobedience as it is about our lust for power.  When we sin we exalt our lust for power.  We want God's throne for own, and we take God out of the equation.  And when we take God out of the equation, we become friends with the world. 

Worse, when we take God out of the equation, we make ourselves less human.  It's like our taking God's breath which He gave us in the beginning, and blowing it right back in his face.  In a nutshell this was the gist of the Pope Benedict's address, and it was directed not so much at Islam, nor was it directed at George Bush.  It was however directed to Western Christendom (which means you and me), and our so-called enlightened attempt to go at it all on our own -- and how this attempt to "go at it all on our own" in consort with the world will lead us down the path to nowhere but spiritual death:  "Ye lust and have not; ye kill and cannot obtain.   To have that ever-increasing desire for that ever-diminishing pleasure is the mark of a person in search of his soul.

 Allow me three brief quotes from the leader of the Western Church -- and I might gratefully add his thoughts have been lauded by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  First, and I'm slightly editing for time:

"It must be observed that any attempt to maintain [the present day Church's and society's] claim to be [solely] scientific would end up reducing Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self.  But we must say more.  It is man himself who ends up being reduced."  That is, not only is radical Islam guilty.  Our western culture today has knowingly set herself on a path to deconstruct itself.

Second:  "In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on positivistic reason are universally valid.  Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions."  (That is, we ought to see our world's attempt to exclude the divine from our common discourse as an attack upon our most profound convictions.  Again he's talking to us, not to Islam.) The Pope continues: "A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures."  Essentially he's quoting James:  "Friendship with the world is enmity with God."

 What he means is that if our Church -- along with you and me -- continue to play footsie with the world; if we insist on our own self-aggrandizement and the building up of our own power solely for the sake of power -- remembering that at His Temptation Jesus renounced not only social and financial, but also military and political power -- ; if we continue to believe that the only things which are real are those which can be measured and physically obserlved, then we (like radical Islam) essentially make God out to be whomever or whatever we want Him to be.  The result of which is that we become 1) Incapable of entering into that dialogue of cultures of which the Pope speaks (or to use Dr. Brueggeman's words we cease to foster the culture of neighborliness).   2) We increase our own anxiety, and 3) We cease to be human, blowing God's breath back into His face.  Essentially we become like radical Islam.  I'm not knocking either George Bush or Howard Dean, but simply stating that to some extent you and I are all guilty of this to some degree.

 What then might you and I be capable of doing about this situation?  Probably more than we're ready to believe.  We could begin by memorizing our Collect of the Day and using it regularly.  Dr. Brueggeman had at least one other suggestion, or rather an observation.  He said (and he may not be far from the truth), that probably right now the most important of the Ten Commandments is Number Four:  "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day.  Remember that "Sabbath" means "rest".  And the verb "to Sabbath" means to re-conncect with God.  To Sabbath properly may be the only way you and I can confront the anxiety which consumes so much of our selves, driving us further into the vice-like grip of the world.  He said the Church has an enormous stake in encouraging people to Sabbath, to take time out truly to rest and re-create our "selves".  Obviously if we're anxious, we can't nurture others; much less nurture ourselves to neighborliness.

 And our present day technology doesn't help us in this endeavor. I think of the scene I experienced in New York a few months ago with practically everyone on the streets and in the subway engulfed in their own little worlds of lap tops, cell phones, and I-Pods.   We think we're staying connected, but are we really?  How much of our obsession with our lap tops, cell phones, and I-pods is a manifestation of our own level of anxiety and ties to this world- and I'm not excluding myself.  How much of this obsession is a manifestation of what we might subconsciously render as a lack of our own humanity, or a lack or soul -- or a lack of our truly being living beings happily alive to God?  Does our technology really make us more human?  Does it make us more neighborly?  How much of our technology, and to what extent does our culture have a stake in our not being capable to sabbbath properly?

 In Genesis 2: 3 we read:  "So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all His work which He had done in creation."  In Exodus 31, another writer quotes that same verse but adds something very interesting:  "...On the seventh day God rested -- and God was refreshed."  The word for "refreshed" is that same word "nephesh" which I spoke of at the beginning of this sermon.  Again it means soul, or self -- in the sense of being truly alive.

"Nephesh" or "soul" or "self" is a noun.  Dr. Brueggeman told us that here it is used as a verb:  "On the seventh day God rested -- and God was refreshed".  What it means, is that God got God's self back.  What a wonderfully provoking but strange thought:  God got God's self back.  May we with His grace remember always to attempt the same.

'Grant us O Lord, not to mind earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now while we are placed in the midst of things passing away, to cleave to those that shall abide; through Jesus Christ our Lord."