 |
|
The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost When was the last time you saw the Milky Way, or traced the lines of the Big Dipper, or watched a falling star? Do you remember when there seemed to be so many more stars in the night sky? Sadly, with the growth of urban areas, ambient light pollution makes this more and more difficult, causing stars to fade away. At least once a year, though, I get far away from the plugged in world to really see the stars, and it makes my head spin. A couple weeks ago, I was in Maine, and it was an especially clear night. As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, more and more stars appeared. It was as if the whole sky was ablaze. And it set my mind to wandering down a meandering stream of consciousness. It brought to mind the spectacular pictures the Hubble Space Telescope beams back to us on earth, displaying a universe of infinite magnitude. Think about it. In our galaxy alone, there are some 400 billion stars. And our galaxy is one solitary point of light among 240 billion other such observable galaxies in the universe. Back when Hubble was first launched in the 1980’s, there was a cover article in Life magazine entitled Seeing Beyond the Stars. Among other things, it was an optimistic, laudatory appraisal of space exploration in the modern area. And I have never forgotten it, because it featured a little known social studies teacher named Christa MacCauliffe, bright-eyed and convinced that she too would soon be able to see beyond the stars. January 28th, 1986. It’s one of those dates we will never forget. Back then, our technology had progressed to the point of assuring us of powers and comforts never dreamed of by our recent ancestors. Technology itself seemed worthy of something to believe in, truly a way for seeing beyond the stars. But in the Challenger disaster, we were once again reminded of the hard truth written in the words of novelist Nikos Kazantzakis that “the doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical. Reminded, too, that our technology has a way of propelling us unpredictably to either side of this great divide. Strangely enough, that night in Maine, lying still under the vault of stars above me, these are the free associations that came to me. And also this question of the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxamenes: “To what purpose should I trouble myself in searching out the secret of the stars, having death and slavery continually before my eyes?” It is a good question. Why should we trouble ourselves in searching out the secret of the stars? After all, like them, we but are only dust and to dust we shall return. For 4.5 billion years, our planet, this cosmic speck of carbon dust, has been home to myriad life forms, which have evolved to produce and ingenious species of self-conscious creatures; who, only yesterday, in geologic time, discovered what they are, and only now are beginning to discover who they are. Yet this very same planet is threatened now by the crown of its terrestrial life, to be thrown back into the inchoate darkness from which it came. Although these questions have a special urgency now, they are not new. And they most certainly were asked by the one we trace our lineage of faith to, the wandering Aramean, Abram of Ur. Abram was also anxious about the future. Nearly eighty years old, he had willingly followed God’s call to a distant land, and now, incredibly, God tells Abram the land will be his. What a cruel joke! For Abram and Sarah are childless. Nevertheless, God insists. In the dead of night, God takes Abram out under the sky to count the stars, and to number his descendants. Your descendants, says God, shall be like the stars, not only in number, but in brilliance, not only in brilliance but in longevity, not only in longevity but in substance, not only in substance, but in destiny. Now since the time of Abram, three or four thousand years ago, the constellations have not changed, the midnight sky still numbers the same clusters of galaxies, the same billions upon billions of heavenly host grace the darkness as they did for that old nomad. And God’s promise has not wavered. For we, we are those stars Abram beheld. We are the recipients of al that matter and spirit have exerted over the face of our planet until now. And if there is hope for our species, and for this earth, it is hope for the future. Not a future held in a benignly indifferent universe, but in the hand of a loving, merciful God. It is hope that is seen and experienced not beyond the stars, but in the very stars themselves, in this very creation made good and purposeful by its Creator. We are born out of this hope. We learn to walk by this hope. We live, marry, love and suffer with this hope, and finally, we die in this hope. Abram and Sarah, octogenarians, believed, and bore a child, and insodoing gave to us a hope that passes through us to all future generations. They looked to the stars and discerned their destiny. We are but dust, but into this dust God has breathed the Spirit of Life, and from this dust, life springs eternal. In the end, friends, we either choose to praise ourselves and our achievements, or we choose to praise God. We either reach for the stars, seeking to possess their secrets, or we, with the heavenly host shine forth with radiance and beauty with which they have been endowed. We either crave the power of the stars, which in essence is nuclear fusion, or we come to understand ourselves and our world as part of a cosmos that is interdependent and created to the glory of its Creator. Vincent Van Gogh, toward the end of his troubled life, wrote: “When I have a terrible need, shall I say the word, of religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.”
|
|