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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
12 August 2007Heb. 11“The Unseen”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
Atheism is a hot topic these days. Several anti-religious books have recently made the best-seller lists, and various unbelieving scientists and journalists have been appearing on the talk shows.
This phenomenon isn't new. Throughout American history, there have been skeptics — such as Thomas Paine during the revolutionary period, Robert Ingersoll and Mark Twain in the nineteenth century, and Madelyn Murray in the twentieth century.
Anti-religious intellectuals have also made their presence known in Great Britain; George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell enjoyed challenging the religious beliefs of their time.
When I was doing graduate work in philosophy in London in the early 1970's, the best-known skeptics were philosophers. Most of the prominent professors of philosophy in British universities at that time were atheists; some of them went out of their way to argue that religious belief was irrational.
One philosopher, AJ Ayer, claimed that religious language was utterly meaningless. Religion referred to nothing at all. Thus it was quite a surprise when, late in his life in 1988, Professor Ayer had a vision. He was being treated for an illness in the hospital when he went into cardiac arrest. His heart stopped for about four minutes.
Later, Professor Ayer reported that while he was unconscious he had seen a red light and he had communed with beings he called "ministers of the universe."
This apparently was what is called, a "near-death experience." The exact nature of Ayer's experience is still being debated, since Professor Ayer offered several conflicting accounts of if before he died, a year later.
But Alfred Ayer grudgingly admitted that, despite his philosophical skepticism, he had come to believe that life after death was possible.
Religious people, of course, accept this prospect as an integral part of their belief in a loving God. So today's First Lesson, from the Letter to the Hebrews, discusses the faith of some historic figures portrayed in the Old Testament.
The author of Hebrews notes that Noah and Abraham and Sarah and the others never entered the promised land of Israel. He writes, "All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them."
And the author of the Letter of the Hebrews goes on to use the image of these leaders looking to the Promised Land as a way to represent the spiritual need humans feel in this mortal world. Abraham and Sarah and the others "confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth ..."
The Letter to the Hebrews speculates that while they were people who were "seeking a homeland," they really desired "a better country, that is, a heavenly one."
And the author goes on to speculate that, deep down, we all desire a heavenly home. We won't be truly satisfied until we have found our perfect fulfillment with God.
"Therefore," the author writes, "God ... has prepared a city for" the people of Israel, and he has prepared a city for us.
Now this passage points to a profound difference between skeptics and people of faith. Skeptics believe that whatever satisfactions human beings receive come from this material world; religious people, on the other hand, believe that true happiness depends on our relationship with another world beyond this one.
Thus people of faith sense a dislocation between life as it is and life as it should be. We can never feel completely at home in this world amidst the floods and the droughts, the war and the disease, the poverty and the excess. We are "strangers in a strange land," bound for what Jesus called, the Kingdom of God.
Of course, Christians can enjoy God's created world as much as anyone. We can delight in the pleasures of life that God gives us as much as skeptics enjoy them.
In fact, I would claim that far from making us want to escape from this world, God's promise of the "heavenly country" makes this world more attractive.
For the Christian philosophy propounded by the Letter to the Hebrews explains why we feel like strangers.
As much as we enjoy life, we human beings will always be dissatisfied with things as they are. And skeptics, unfortunately, can do nothing about their dissatisfaction. As Jesus observed, all they can do is "eat, drink and be merry" in the face of their mortality.
Their merry-making behavior can't avoid misfortune or postpone their ultimate fate. Indeed, as we now know, extreme forms of eating and drinking can shorten one's time on earth!
But the vision portrayed in the Letter to the Hebrews suggests that we don't have to "self-medicate" in order to bear the disappointments of this life. Sometimes, for example, these disappointments are sacrifices that we are called to make as part of God's plan.
And, as Hebrews teaches us, this plan spans out from this world into the next. We are children of God, and so we will inherit citizenship in an eternal Realm where we will never feel that we are strangers.
Thus the hope of life with God isn't an impractical dream. Our hope makes this life better. The promise of eternity especially encourages us during the times when this life doesn't give us all that we want from it.
But what about people who are satisfied with this life? Who are robust and full of energy and enjoying their work and their play? Who, even if they have problems, find plenty of things in this world to absorb their attention without worrying about eternity?
Well, the Letter to the Hebrews speaks to these people as well. For the satisfied, God's promise provides a gauge that can help them evaluate their commitments to this life.
The Christian philosophy leads them to see where their ways of life are leading. When these satisfied souls view events in the context of God's Kingdom, they will be prepared for the inevitable dislocations life brings.
So looking just at New York City, at this moment in time, we know that the current financial boom won't continue forever, and there will eventually be a downturn in the markets; I wrote these words almost three weeks ago, before I went on vacation, and they look prophetic! Anyway we know there will be a crisis in the city budget at some time, and layoffs. Even our rich and prosperous city will face disappointments in the future.
We can never be certain that the world will go the way we want it to go. Even the most successful among us will have times when they feel like strangers in this world.
The passage we heard from the Letter to the Hebrews began with what are perhaps the most famous words in the Letter: These are the words about faith: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
When A. J. Ayer had his experience of a new reality, he wasn't looking for the assurance of faith. Nor did he become a churchgoer after his four minutes of clinical death.
But Ayer's wife and others who knew him did notice that he was a changed person. Famously arrogant, after he left the hospital, his wife said that he became less boastful — "much nicer." A lifelong skeptic, Ayer's closest friend in the last months of his life was a Jesuit priest whom he had once debated on the BBC.
We can't know what went through Professor Ayer's mind as his life drew to a close. But, his wife said this, "It was really quite extraordinary. As he got older, Freddie realized more and more that philosophy was just chasing its own tail."
As it happens, today most of the leading philosophers in Britain are religious. Perhaps, they agree that if philosophy isn't just "to chase its own tail," it needs to glimpse a better country.
Philosophers and the rest of us need to look for faith, for the "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.