Sunday 22nd May
Psalm 8
“When I look at your heavens ….
the moon and stars that you have established
what are human beings that you are mindful of them?
I have a close friend who for many years served as a UCA minister. He developed a passion for astronomy. His first training was as an engineer and he was able to design, build and polish his first telescope. Later he became a school chaplain and used this love of the night sky with many students.
Today he runs a small business imparting his passion for astronomy with anyone who cares pay him for a tour beyond the city where the night skies are alive with stars. Or he takes his portable night dome into schools and uses it to help students wonder about the universe.
When was the last time you really looked at the night sky?
It’s usually difficult in Melbourne where artificial lights smear the sky, fading many constellations from view.
Some years ago we visited our son in the outback town of Amata. One night we went star-gazing. We were rugged up for the cold and the stars twinkled, shone, blazed upon us – it was extraordinary. The indigenous guide told us how his people read the stars – by looking at, the aninmal shapes made by the darkness, shapes that I took considerable time to see. The night sky stories were very different from European depictions.
When we look into the night skies, no matter the constellation, today we know through the work of astronomers that we are seeing light emitted from the deep past. Light travelling at roughly 300 metres per second! Can you believe it?
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Today, for the ecumenical church it is Trinity Sunday. The doctrine of the Trinity is for many one of the most confusing, and difficult doctrines of the Christian church. It came into being because Christians in the third century CE were trying to pin down the answer to controversies over the Jesus in relation to the invisible God, and ( although this didn’t receive anywhere as much attention) who is the Holy Spirit. It was a doctrine which caused controversy – both verbal and physical, debate and brutality. The hammering of the Nicene Creed was not an edifying episode in church history.
But, if you think Trinity is a difficult concept – God as three-in-one, then thinking about modern theories of the nature of the universe is far more complex … and fascinating.
Just think about concepts which trip off the tongue and are part of space and time. The Big Bang. An expanding universe. Quarks and quasars. Relativity. Deep time. Black holes. The possibility of a multiverse. The God particle.
The Psalmist had no inkling of such concepts when he penned his poem of awe and wonder.
He looked up at the night sky and in that inky blackness the light poured out on him. In that three-story universe it was the very light of heaven. The sun and the moon gave sustenance and guidance to the earth – but, how, he was at a loss to explain. It was just – marvellous!
He thought of himself, his family, his kin and their brief lives. What would it have been back then? Possibly half the life-time we know – old at 40. He thought of God as Creator and Sustainer and wondered why that God ever thought about humanity. “What are mortals that you care for them?”
Of course, that conviction has underpinned all the great monotheist religions – that humans have importance ( not all importance) in the purposes of the Divine. It’s a major reason that we gather on Sunday mornings to give thanks to the Life-giver.
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Our contemporary, post-Christian world has a lot of trouble with the idea of God. In a couple of generations people have shifted from assuming God to a kind of disbelief. It’s not outright atheism, but a low-level awareness that the meaning of God does not carry the certainty, security of comfort that it did for earlier generations. There is also a low-level awareness that science has the upper hand in its discoveries, and unravelling of the mysteries of the Universe.
Think of the Human Genome Project. Think of many science experiments which lead to healing, maintaining and enriching human life. Think of the many wonders that have been discovered.
So, when many people think of God – many are trapped in a little, pokey, hard-to-believe idea that God is male, sitting on a throne, possibly with a beard, unbelievably having the whole world in his hands. And, as it has been said by others, that kind of God I don’t believe in either.
Often the Church spends its energies trying to defend old ideas, and concepts of God – ideas which have long passed their use-by date. The problem with many hymns are they were written in times when people still imagined a three-tier universe.
Most of us want to focus with getting on in life, with all its challenges, dreams and possibilities, as best as we can and re-imagining God is not high on our list. It’s easier to either give up on the idea of God altogether, or simply go with whatever flows at a church. I suspect many people “out there” would imagine that we believe in a God “up there”, a supernatural, fix-it deity. The image of God that 50 years Bishop John Robinson said must go, and indeed for many it has disappeared like the Cheshire cat’s smile.
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But, we might stop and ponder the mysteries of the universe just for a while. Think about it – the basic elements of physics are is right for life. Prof Paul Davies calls it the Goldilocks Universe, that is, everything, yes, everything is finely-tuned and balanced.
Life evolves, transforms and responds in millions of inter-relationships that it is phenomenal.Human beings are ( as far as we are aware) the only creatures capable of thinking and reflecting upon the mystery of life we call God. The psalmist had his inkling in pre-scientific times as he exclaimed “You have made (humans) a little lower than God , and crowned them with glory and honour.”
A favourite book of mine is “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. It was a best seller. It won a prestigious prize for science books in 2004. However it wasn’t written by a scientist, but someone who just wanted to communicate the stories of geology, biology, physics in layman’s terms. As Molly Meldrum used to say ‘do yourself a favour’ and read it. I have three copies, including the illustrated volume! It helps you wonder, consider, laugh about the oddities of life, especially human beings in the search of science.
He invites us to wonder –
“Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted you could make it. Getting here wasn’t easy, I know. In fact I suspect that it was a little tougher than you realise. To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in a curiously obliging manner to create you. It’s an arrangement so specialised and particular that it has never been tried before and will exist only this once. For the next many years ( we hope) these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, co-operative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally under-appreciated state known as existence.”
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We exist in a wonderful, miraculous universe. They happen all the time, not in an instant, but the gift of life is full of awe and wonder as the universe gives life in a multitude of ways.
One of the greatest mysteries is consciousness. This small part of the universe is full of creatures, great and small, in relationship. As far as we know, only human beings can ask the self-aware question: who am I? But all of you who have ever had a close relationship with a pet will know that they are not dumb animals. The universe is constantly speaking – if we have ears to hear and eyes to perceive, Rabbi Abraham Heschel said Awe is the beginning of wisdom
The psalmist knew this as he asked a question: what are human beings that you are mindful of them? He knew deep within that the universe, that which we call God, is personal, relational, connecting.
It is humans who are shaped by the conviction that life is personal, that relationships are embedded into the very heart of the universe – from the very beginning. That is part of what it means to confess I believe, I trust in God the Three in One
This vast, expanding universe is filled with a glory that we only glimpse when we take time to stop, look up at the stars, reflect on the brevity of human life and listen to the gospel which sings that in life, in death and in life beyond death God is with us.
Rev David Carter