Sermon Notes for August 27th

August 27, 2006
“You are the Holy One of God”
John 6:56-59

1. I have been talking and writing about the concept of “thin places” off and on for some time now. The concept comes from the ancient Celts in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The idea being that at certain times of the year and in certain places, the spiritual world comes closer to the physical world. One of those times was Halloween which was called Samhain in the Celtic language. This was a spooky time when the spirits of the departed were said to visit the earth. It was also, for the Celts, the end of the harvest and therefore the end of the year.

The Catholic Church attempted to Christianize Samhain and so it created All Saints Day and All Hallows Eve (from which we get Halloween). And in Celtic Christianity, the idea of thin places remains and important concept. Today, thousands of people travel to Iona and Lindisfarne on the east and west coasts of Britain to experience the holy or the sacred spiritual presence of God. Someday, perhaps, I would like to go there, too, because I have for one reason or another associated certain aspects of nature with the spiritual realm.

I don’t exactly know why this is … nor do I suggest that everyone should be like that. For, in fact, people are very diverse. Some people, I think, are more likely to be affected by auditory sensations rather than visual, like myself. It’s just the way we are made.

2. For instance, it was the great French mystic, Simone Weil, who intensely distrusted religious ritual, who found herself deeply affected by hearing Gregorian Chants performed at Easter. And another, more modern atheist and writer, Ann LaMott, a single mom who was addicted to drugs and alcohol, tells about how she would stand outside a small church in her neighborhood on Sunday mornings listening to the singing until she got up the courage to go inside. So music, then, for some is an experience of the “holy.”

For others, it may be art. While still a young man, the famous poet, T. S. Eliot, while visiting Rome with his brother and sister-in-law, surprised everyone by kneeling before Michelango's "Pieta." What was that all about? Well, "Here was a spiritually humble, contrite man ritualizing his acceptance of a higher authority" According to Peter Ackroyd, his biographer. Ackroyd further notes that “Eliot had a sense of tradition and an instinct for order within himself and found the church and faith gave him this security within a life of frustrations and struggles. He was aware of what he called 'the void' in all human affairs--the disorder, meaninglessness, and futility which he found in his own experience; and while it was inexplicable intellectually . . . and it could only be understood or endured by means of a larger faith."

I must add that a close friend of mine, who is not particularly religious, had a similar experience while in Rome while observing some of the great paintings which are there. It wasn’t just the exercise, it was a spiritual experience.

3. For me, it often is the mountains. I love to go to the mountains. When I was in school I managed to backpack in most of the national parks out west.

Since I had not done this for a long time, and having six weeks off this past summer, I drove out to California rather than fly. This allowed me one week going out and one week coming back to see some mountains and do some day-hiking. All in all, I hiked in the Black Hills and the Wind River Range in Wyoming (were I stayed at a religious retreat called Ring Lake Ranch. This was on the way out. And on the way back, I visited the Olympic National Park, Mount Rainer, and Glacier Park. It was tremendous.

What is it about these places that makes them “holy” for me?

It is hard to put into words. In fact, one of the things about the sacred is that it is not easy to describe.

In fact, William James, in his book, Varieties of Religious Experience, writes about the experience of the holy … “for a moment there is nothing but ineffable joy and exaltation. It is impossible to describe the experience. It is like the effect of some great orchestra, when all the separate notes have melted into one swelling harmony, that leaves the listener conscious of nothing save that his soul is being wafted upwards and almost bursting with its own emotion.”

Well, I like music, but I am not a musician, but when I see the mountains it truly is like a visual symphony. The ocean can be like that for me sometimes, too.

4. Part of it has to do with the fact that in our National Parks there is no advertising and nothing man-made. It is all nature. Just the way it was created. And there is less and less of this all the time. For better or worse, we human beings have taken over every corner of the earth and made it over to suit our purposes.

And, yet when you drive up through layers of clouds and finally come out on top at Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic mountains and look across at the sun shining through the clouds on the white capped mountains, it is almost like seeing the world the way it was for thousands of years before mankind ever existed. It is just the way God made it. This, and the fact that one feels so very small in the face of it all, creates for me a sense of wonder and awe that is truly amazing.

It also doesn’t hurt that I am, for the most part, a very visual person.
I didn’t fully realize this, until a few years ago, when I took a little personality test on the internet and made this rather startlingly made this discovery, which explained to me why I am the way I am.

Which is also why some other people, I suppose, maybe more affected by sound rather than sight and for whom music may have a more profound effect.

And, yet both seeing and hearing are very basic elements in the way we understand the world. For a small baby, seeing and hearing are the two keys to its expanding consciousness … along with touch.

5. Whatever the case, it is important to understand, I think, the God can become present to us … in a variety of ways … and directly or indirectly through the senses … for the Bible is full of metaphors about how we are to “hear God speaking to us” and how we are to “see God” in various ways.

Another way we experience God is to “hear” his Word. This, we say is found particularly through the reading of the Scriptures … or, as it is sometimes referred to as the “Holy Scriptures” or the “Holy Bible.

So, what then, does the word “Holy Mean?” – As in the Scripture today when Peter answers Jesus’ question by saying “We have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God?”

According to Webster, “holy” can mean a variety of things:

It can mean something religious which belongs to or comes from God and therefore something to be revered or worshipped.

It may also mean something pure or perfect which is untainted by evil or sin – such as spiritual purity. That is sort of what “holy” means.

6. So, we can say, then, as Peter does, that Jesus is the Holy One means that Jesus is or comes from God. Jesus is, in short, to be revered or worshipped and also that Jesus is the “pure” or the “real” thing.

And this is the whole thrust of the passage we read today.

It is there because in the early church (the one to which John is writing) there was controversy about who Jesus was and what his relationship with God was. And, two weeks ago, I talked about the controversy over the Gospel of Thomas and the Gnostics and also with the Jews in the synagogues … the first, who believed that Jesus was not really a physical person and the second, who believed that Jesus was not really divine.

And still today, people wonder about this. And, of course, the orthodox understanding is contained in the Creeds which say that Jesus was both. He was both man … and at the same Time Divine. In other words … he was a Divine Man … or a Holy Man … or, as Peter puts it the Holy One of God. Jesus was, in other words, a thing place where God’s broke through into human consciousness.

7. Now this business of the Divinity of Jesus … which is often referred to theologically as the Incarnation … the “indwelling of God” in the flesh, as it were … is, in all reality, a mystery. It cannot be explained rationally, it cannot be believed rationally … it is a matter of faith … and as Jesus points out … that this faith in Jesus … is a gift of the spirit … it is a gift of God … which means that we cannot, of ourselves, alone make ourselves believe … for the door, as it were, must be opened … by God. We believe, in other words, because our hearts are opened by God’s Holy Spirit. Faith is not something that we alone create. It is our willingness, however, to be humble and to allow our hearts to be open which allows God’s Spirit to come in.



And this why, for mysterious reasons, even the most dedicated atheist can suddenly find him or herself, caught up by the spirit … as Ann LaMott was … merely by listening to people singing in a church as she stood in the doorway. Think about it. It was truly shocking, as she writes, for her friends to see this tremendous change in her life.

And, so I want to tell you, in the spirit of John Wesley and the Methodist movement we truly believe that God’s spirit is always seeking us out … trying to get our attention … working to open our hearts that we my understand His love for us … for, unlike those in the Calvinist tradition, we do not believe in predestination … that only some will be saved and that this is all preordained by God. No, we don’t think that way. We believe God does not give up on anyone, ever. And that means you and me and your neighbors, too.

8. Now, I should also say that there are other ways to discover God … in our midst … other thin places … which we call people …
Yes, what this means is that not only was Jesus a “thin place” or a “holy person” … but also other people can be a thin place in which God relates to us. For one of the most important aspects of the church is that we are all here to be spiritual doors and windows for each other.

Now, like Ann LaMott, I was pretty skeptical about religion when I was growing up and in college, as well. Yet, something kept telling me that God was very much a reality, despite the way things looked.

And this was all because of my great aunt who had been the greatest thin place I had known while I was growing up. For it was she who had taught me about the Bible and about prayer … even though my parents were largely agnostic and didn’t attend church. And there she was right in my own home quietly going about her way.

I especially remember going in her room at night. Now I was one of those hard to get to sleep kids. So, I would run down the hall and go talk to her as she was lying in bed waiting to go sleep. And, instead of getting mad, she would talk to me about God and about prayer. It was all so natural for her that it felt just like God was right there in the room.

And, so for you who are parents and grandparents, don’t underestimate the influence you have on small children. For just when you think they aren’t paying attention, they are soaking it all in. Yet, it may be many years before they are able to fully understand what is going on.

Now, later on, I found myself in college and across the street from the dormitory was a Lutheran church … and so I began attending. But, like LaMott, I wasn’t interested in getting too involved, right away.

9. This was demonstrated by the fact that I always sat in the back row! And I did this for some five years…

But, the rest of the story is that my spiritual development was continuously being fed and nourished … and the seed had been planted … was watered … in spite of the fact that I wasn’t really ready to admit it. For I can’t tell you how many times God has worked in my life through other people.

And what it finally came down to was the pastor, who later became my lifelong friend, who became the “thin place” where God was able to touch my life. And, as I look back on it, it was those many lunches I shared with him and how his confidence in me really paved the way for me to be here today. Without him it would not have happened. And I humbly hope in some ways I have been a thin place for others - like Brian Manly – as he embarks on his life in the ministry.

And, if we follow this analogy, then we can explain the mystery of who Jesus was … because … he was a “thin place” for the disciples. It was through him that God came into their lives.

This also goes a long way toward explaining the meaning of Peter’s words … when he says “You are the Holy One.”

So, while the total reality of Jesus relationship to God remains a mystery … we can see that there doesn’t need to be a mystery about Peter’s words … because what he is saying is that in Jesus we experience God because he was a “thin” place.

10. So, we can begin to understand how God can become present to us in a variety of ways … because almost anything can be a thin place …

And maybe sometime, I will tell you about the class I took on Spirituality and Dream interpretation, one of my favorite subjects. For in this course, I learned that God, just as the Bible tells, can also be in touch with us through our unconscious as revealed in our dreams.

In fact, there is nowhere God is not … not even when we sleep! As is so powerfully described in the 139th Psalm. Let me read parts of it now:

6 GOD, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
I'm an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I'm never out of your sight.
You know everything I'm going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you're there,
then up ahead and you're there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can't take it all in!

7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you're there!
If I go underground, you're there!
If I flew on morning's wings
to the far western horizon,
You'd find me in a minute—
you're already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I'm immersed in the light!"
It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.

13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day.

17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I'll never comprehend them!
I couldn't even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!

11. And I am not going to say any more this morning. Instead, take moment now, or later today … or this week … to ask yourself … where are the thin places in my life … what time of day … what persons … what season of the year … what passage of scripture … what special hymn …what is it that draws my consciousness closer to God … this is very important to your spiritual life.

And, as I have said, we are a little different … that’s okay … it is the way God intends it … so don’t be put off by someone telling you that you have to find Jesus in this or that particular way … maybe it works for them … but not for you …
And yet, all the same, know that God is here … now … today … whispering in our ear … shining through the trees … smiling to us through another persons face … humming a tune as the wind blows through the trees … all the time.

How about practicing a little God consciousness this week …?

You might be surprised … at what happens.

Let us pray …