Feb 3, 2008: Evolution Sunday
Ecclesiasticus 42:15-25
I will now call to mind the works of the Lord,
and will declare what I have seen.
By the word of the Lord his works are made;
and all his creatures do his will.
The sun looks down on everything with its light,
and the work of the Lord is full of his glory.
The Lord has not empowered even his holy ones
to recount all his marvelous works,
which the Lord the Almighty has established
so that the universe may stand firm in his glory.
He searches out the abyss and the human heart;
he understands their innermost secrets.
For the Most High knows all that may be known;
he sees from of old the things that are to come.
He discloses what has been and what is to be,
and he reveals the traces of hidden things.
No thought escapes him,
and nothing is hidden from him.
He has set in order the splendors of his wisdom;
he is from all eternity one and the same.
Nothing can be added or taken away,
and he needs no one to be his counselor.
How desirable are all his works,
and how sparkling they are to see!
All these things live and remain for ever;
each creature is preserved to meet a particular need.
All things come in pairs, one opposite to the other,
and he has made nothing incomplete.
Each supplements the virtues of the other.
Who could ever tire of seeing his glory?
Psalm 8
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honour.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Colossians 1:15-20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
John 1:1-5, 9-14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.
Sermon
The Reverend Dr. Lucas Mix
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
I have always loved this line from psalm 8.
The reasons change, but there is something fascinating about this one line.
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
God seems to have a special relationship with humanity,
one we treasure without fully understanding.
God visited us.
Dwelt among us.
And, as Claire of Assisi has said, cares for us as a mother.
Why do we deserve this special treatment?
I find myself in the rather awkward position of preaching on evolution Sunday.
On the one hand we celebrate creation
And the presence of God in Christ in all things.
God is working his purpose out, as the psalmist would say.
I believe this.
I believe that God has a will for each of us and for all creation.
What is more, I believe
that we are each created
in the image and likeness of God.
On the other hand, we are celebrating the 199th birthday of Charles Darwin
and his peculiar notion, commonly called evolution.
I observe this to be the case,
that species, through passing on their genes imperfectly,
and through the death of some more frequently than others,
change and divide, come into being and pass out of being.
Most notably, humans seem to have come to be in this fashion.
We share one family with apes, and are kin to chimpanzees.
Worse yet, as far as I can tell,
and as far as we know as scientists
the process admits of no intention or purpose.
And yet, I am both a creationist and a student of evolution.
And this what I must preach to you today.
There are two hearts to the problem.
First we must place humanity in the balance.
How can we come in the form of apes and yet be in the image of God?
Second we must question God's will for creation.
How can the universe follow God's plan and yet act in random ways?
Are we an important part of the story of history,
or just so much dust clumped together in a remote corner
of the cosmos?
And so we say,
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
And you thought it was a new question.
The two questions:
How can we come in the form of apes and yet be in the image of God?
How can the universe follow God's plan and yet act in random ways?
Are interesting.
They have become exceptionally important in public discourse,
and so I want to touch on each one briefly.
After much reading and reflection,
I think that there are answers to these questions.
The answers are logical and valid.
And yet, I was unsatisfied.
And the reason I was unsatisfied is that they put my mind at rest
but not my soul.
They are not enough to convince the unbeliever
or to ease the troubled conscience.
They do not give me answers about my relationship with God.
Who are we that God should care so much?
I will return to that in a moment,
but first the formal answers.
Take out your pencils if you have them.
How can we come in the form of apes and yet be in the image of God?
The theologian AH Strong has said,
"The wine in the miracle was not water because water had been used in the making of it, nor is man a brute because the brute has made some contributions to its creation."
At this very table, we celebrate the miracle of bread and wine made flesh and blood.
Will we not accept the miracle of dust made flesh?
Can we not turn to our Bibles
and see that our humanity comes from God breathing life into us?
A tale is told of a 19th century bishop's wife who was confronted with this theory.
Confronted with the idea of descent from apes, she said,
"My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it may not become widely known."
I suspect our rejection of ape ancestors
comes more from a lack of humility
than a lack of imagination.
Our second question is a bit more difficult.
How can the universe follow God's plan and yet act in random ways?
This touches more deeply on how we understand God,
whether we understand God to be at work in the universe,
and how.
Still, evolution should not be such a bizarre example.
Matthew's gospel tells us that the Lord makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
We have no trouble imagining that
the weather behaves according to statistical laws.
We know that gravity works as a function of mass.
We long ago gave up the idea that angels push the planets in their course.
God may act in these things,
and yet
we cannot use them to prove God acts.
Nor do we try to, for the most part.
Why should evolution be any different?
I think it has something to do with the idea
that we are uniquely important,
that God brought us about for some special purpose.
Human's after all are important.
Aren't they?
In some sense, the problem we have is vanity.
We cannot accept that humans do not have pride of place.
But the concerns of creationists cannot be dismissed so easily.
Nor will these arguments be convincing,
for all their logical rigor and Biblical backup,
because we still need to resolve the most important issue.
We still need to address our relationship with God,
what it means and where it's going.
We turn to God and say,
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Regardless of the findings of science;
no matter if we find life on another planet,
or don't;
no matter if we discover or reproduce the biochemical
origins of life,
or don't;
no matter if we finally figure out all the secrets of the human brain.
We will still have one central truth to witness.
Christians will hold fast to the love of God known in Christ Jesus.God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
The Christian response, then, to evolution must address this concern.
It is not enough to say that evolution is consistent with the world
with scripture, tradition, and reason.
It most certainly is.
But I'm not sure that's the point.
The point is that we are insecure about our relationship with God.
And here, the truly spectacular nature of God's love shines through.
God does not love us because we were created specially for that purpose.
God loves us without restraint or reason.
God is love.
And this, too, is testified in scripture.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
We are not saved by our own perfection, but by the grace of God.
God does not love us because we understand the Divine purpose
or perceive the Divine craftsman at work.
We see in scripture that we do not understand the workings of God's will.
The Lord has not empowered even his holy ones
to recount all his marvelous works,
There is so much more to God's glory than could ever be
accounted for in the minds of mortals.
This does not mean that we should not look
and listen, and learn.
All these are praiseworthy.
But we should not be disappointed if one corner of creation
fails to provide the evidence of God we seek.
That evidence may be found elsewhere in the world of nature.
Or it may only be in our hearts.
Still, it is not evidence we witness to, but love.
And this, I think is where we must go with evolution.
It is an amazing, and beautiful, and noteworthy thing.
It helps us explore the wonders of creation, in which Christ is present.
Beyond that, it challenges us to question ourselves.
Who are we in relation to the chimpanzee?
To the otter and the horse, the heron, and even the slug?
Evolution would teach us that these are our brothers and sisters.
Strange as it may seem, we do not hold pride of place in biology.
And perhaps that tells us something interesting about God.
Evolution does not prove that God exists,
or disprove the special relationship between God and humans,
but it may open our hearts to a better love of all creation
and to a better understanding of our roles
as stewards, neighbors, and even family
to every living thing.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
If we are to be honest,
truly honest to scripture, tradition and reason
we must confess this truth:
God loves us for who we are,
in spite of the fact that we are related to monkeys,
or perhaps because of it.
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Last Modified Feb 7, 2008