In 2017, Margaret and I made our final pilgrimage to The Church of the Saviour in Washington DC. Its inspiration and driving force, Gordon Cosby, died in 2013. Ours was a longstanding association going back over fifty years. In the “Miscellaneous” section of this website there are recordings of sermons I preached there – a rare compliment. Gordon was very particular as to whom he let into his pulpit.
On the way to the Church of the Saviour, Margaret fell and broke her elbow and we had to fly home for medical treatment, and the sermon I had prepared was never preached. It is reproduced here in an attempt to placate a frustrated desire to pay tribute to a great guy and a great Church.
It presents and re-presents a summary of my understanding of the Christian faith and themes that have been preached ad nauseam within the sermons that follow.
There is a standing joke in the Wembley Downs Congregation over me preaching a number of “Penultimate sermons”. How ironical it is that what may well be my “Ultimate sermon” was never preached!
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Thank you for the privilege of speaking this morning. It’s good to be here. At my age it’s good to be anywhere, but it is especially good to be here today.
And let me start by a giving a few details of how Margaret and I come to be here and our association with the Church of the Saviour over the years. Gordon used to introduce us as coming from the ends of the earth. And he was quite right about that. If you placed a stake in the ground in Washington DC and kept on driving it into the ground, it would come out a few miles from where we live in Perth Western Australia. In 1963 I was about to set up in Perth what in those days was called “A Lay Training Centre” – a centre for training, not the clergy, but the laity. These were a post war phenomenon and there were quite a few dotted around the world: Iona, Bad Boll, Kerk en World and many others. I decided it would be wise to visit them and see what was being done by them before setting one up in Perth. Accordingly I wrote to them and received gracious invitations to visit. My letter to the Church of the Saviour however received a different response. They simply said they were too busy to receive visitors. My reaction of course was “Now that is a place I would really like to see!” And so in 1963 I crept un-named into one of their meetings in Washington DC and heard Gordon preach a magnificent sermon on “Calling Forth the Charisma”. The thrust of it was that each of us has a gift given to us by God and we better find out what it is because nothing else is worth doing. I met Gordon after the meeting and there began a long and fruitful relationship with the Church of the Saviour.
In the seventies and eighties we used to visit every three years or so and it was said that Elizabeth O’Connor and I used to restart the conversation where we had left off three years earlier. One of the treasures in my library is a copy of “Cry Pain Cry Hope” inscribed by Elisabeth “To Margaret and Neville, thank you for the extravagant gift of your friendship. It has been precious and sustaining to me and the community of the Church of the Saviour”. What more could one ask for than that?
And then there was Gordon’s preaching. He preached his ultimate sermon a few weeks before his death and who could forget the words. “The world needs to see in a new way…. A successful life in our culture is the exact opposite to that which Jesus calls us. If one is successful in the world’s sense then the very things we boast about are the sins of our failure.”
Four years after his death his voice still rings out. The world really does need to see in a new way. The way of the world must be confronted. This is the thrust of the scripture passage we read today (Matthew 17:13-21). Jesus asks the question of Peter “Who do you say I am?’ And Peter replies “You are the long awaited deliverer”. And Jesus says “ You’ve got it Peter! Pack your bags. We are off to Jerusalem. ” And Jerusalem was the place where Pilate unconsciously stated the fundamental premise of the Christian faith: “Behold the man!” And they didn’t! They crucified him – and they still crucify him! The world really does need to see in a new way!
What then should I preach about today? The old advice “preach about God and about fifteen minutes” still rings true. But what text should I choose. At home I have about a hundred of Gordon’s sermons on tape which shows how long our relationship has been. Of all those sermons that I used to listen to when on retreat each week, what are the words that I find so relevant to today. The words I have chosen are not the first I heard him say, nor the last, but words that he said again and again. “Hope is the ability to sense a deeper reality than what is visible, and to commit oneself to that reality – despite the data and regardless of the cost”. I have read widely and thought deeply, and I have never heard it expressed better than that. “Hope is the ability to sense a deeper reality than what is visible, and to commit oneself to that reality – despite the data and regardless of the cost”. The only other thing that comes close to it is another statement of Gordon “Without a vision the people perish – and the people are perishing!” Take the two of them together and you have precisely what I want to preach about today.
Let me then make some suggestions as to what this new way of seeing, this new vision, might involve. And let me be clear. I am not asking you to agree with me. I seek only to share with you how I see the situation. In summary it is that the past, present and future are part of the same reality, and the key to that reality is hope
And if you think you have heard something like this before, you’re right. It was when the greatest mind of our century propounded his theory of relativity. When his friend Besso died, Albert Einstein wrote to Besso’s family and said two things. One was how much he admired Besso for his long lasting marriage relationship. The other thing he said was “Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. People like us know that the distinction between past present and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion”. Past, present and future are part of the one reality.
Albert’s letter to Besso at his moment is being auctioned at Christies where the cataloguer described them in these words “Above all, there is his delight in his work, his relish for a new theory, his sense of elevation when grasping at fundamental truths – which he expresses in one letter as ‘getting closer to God’. The cataloguer’s final comment is interesting “After I had finished cataloguing this letter, I sat staring at my computer for a moment, and then I did something I’ve never done before in nearly 20 years. I burst into tears.” I know exactly how he felt, and if I had a spare two hundred thousand I would buy the letter.
Past Present and future are part of the one reality and when you recognise this everything changes. For example, prayer is not seen in terms of asking for something to change. Prayer becomes in the words of Simone Weil “Attention taken to its highest degree”. It is our attention to God that changes things. Elizabeth O’Connor said much the same thing “Prayer is resting in a state of open attentiveness to God”.
God is not a guy in the sky who controls the levers of life. God is the energy, the Spirit, of life, the ground of our being or however you wish to describe the overarching reality of life with past, present and future being seen as one inherent whole. Creation isn’t something that happened in the past. It is something that is going on right now, and it is going to affect the future, for better for worse. Fullness of life is what it is all about and is the way that Jesus expressed it, and lived it, in the first century. “I have come,” he said “that you might have life in all its fullness” (John 10:10) And once you see that, once you get it, you are hooked for life and nothing else will satisfy.
Let me before going any further clear the deck, get rid of the rubble that lies on the building site.
(1) Firstly, I reject the idea of “Que sera, sera”, that “whatever will be, will be”. I have no time for what is known as “determinism” – be it philosophical, genetic or religious. The idea of predestination as expounded by Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin or Barth is based on the idea of heavenly life after death, which some of us now see as of little or no importance. They confidently assert that the future is in God’s hands. I beg to differ. God is not a despotic ruler arbitrarily determining our lives. God is the creative energy of life in our midst, the energy of newness, the catalyst of the new. God did not create the world. God is creating the world and we are called to love it into being. The future is not determined! It is wide open. The universe is a work in process. It is not fixed or final. Forget about God as the great ruler in the sky determining the future. God is the energy of creative love inviting humanity to fullness of life.
Charles Birch, an Australian biologist, was very good on this. He saw God not as the external maker of the world but as the Spirit of life within the world and he goes on to say “It is God’s presence in the occasion that enables it to be something more than the determined outcome of the past”. God is the energy of newness, the creative energy of life. God is a verb not a noun, as Moses found out in front of a burning bush. “Who will I say has sent me to free the people from slavery” “Say ‘I am’ (the verb to be) has sent you.” We live in a world in process. We live within an evolving and incomplete universe and God is at the heart of it, the creative impulse inviting us forward.
(2) The second bit of site clearing that needs to be done is to recognise that the scriptures are not of much use to us as far as the future is concerned. There are two reasons for this.
(a) The word hope in the New Testament refers primarily to the hope of life after death, a subject which obsessed the minds of the people of those days. Their hope was in heaven. As Paul puts it “If it is for this life only that Christ has given us hope, we of all men are most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:9)
(b) They saw the end of the world as imminent. As Paul again put it to the Corinthians “The time we live in will not last long” (1 Corinthians 7:29). Jesus of Nazareth, however, spoke of a new world order which he called “The Kingdom of God”. It was the dominant theme of everything he said and did.
The scriptures, of course, remain of huge importance and there are many great statements within them, one of my favourites being that “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God”. The scriptures are our link with the past and without them we would know little of the one whom I now refer to as “The Man from God’s tomorrow”. The problem was that the people of those days saw the world ending in the very near future – a concept that has been proved wrong by the passage of time They saw it in graphic terms of Jesus ascending to heaven and then descending to bring the world to an end. Great artistry but lousy theology!
Far closer to it were the Hebrew prophets who denounced injustice and looked forward to the day when justice would flow like a mighty river, peace would replace war, barriers between people would be broken down, and where food and wealth would be shared among all. They pictured this in terms of a great feast enjoyed by all – a good picture and good theology, a picture picked up by Jesus in the Upper Room on the night before he was murdered.
The point I am making? Apart from Jesus and the Prophets, don’t expect too many insights about the future from the Scriptures. One should not expect from them insights and understanding now available to us.
(3) The last piece of garbage to be cleared from the building site what I call the disaster of dualism – the way we are encouraged to think in terms of alternatives: subject and object, science and religion, public and private, faith and reason, past and present and so on. The duality that really bugs me is that of “rational and irrational” – a polarity which completely leaves out the “non rational”. I look forward to the day when we think in terms of “both/and” rather than “either/or. “
I read the other day a striking statement from an agricultural scientist, Fred Provenza, who speaks of the world being full of passion but devoid of compassion, how he has come to see life as the stage upon which we learn to love one another, and how creativity is the uniting of what appears to be opposites. “The courage to transcend boundaries is the source of creativity”. He then goes on to say something that almost sounds like scripture: “Faith, hope and love collectively are energies of transformation of the world, but love is the source of creativity. When people lose the capacity to love one another, they lose hope. When they lose hope they lose the ability to imagine the future, and in the process they lose faith in their capacity to participate in creating it. Compassion dissolves boundaries by transcending pairs of opposites.“
Let’s not today think in terms of opposites as far as the future is concerned. Such dualism misses the point completely. For example if someone asked me “Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the world, my answer would be “I am neither optimistic or pessimistic. I am hopeful!” It isn’t a case of optimism or pessimism. It is a matter of hope. It is the ability to see through the naïve optimism of our day, and to see through the potential for destruction, and to see hope in Jesus of Nazareth. As Jim Wallis puts it “The future belongs to those who can see it and begin to live it. Our society today is crumbling for want of a vision” (Call to Conversion p 136) He is affirming what Gordon said “Without a vision the people perish – and the people are perishing.” It is a vision that goes way beyond the current discussion in political circles and financial circles of whether the glass is half full or half empty – a discussion that highlights the disaster of dualism, and the simplistic nature of politics today. It is irrelevant whether it is half full or half empty. The question is how do you fill it?
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Having cleared the building site, let me now try and clarify how the past, present and future are part of the one reality, and how “Hope is the ability to sense a deeper reality than what is visible, and to commit oneself to that reality – despite the data and regardless of the cost”.
I start with the important words of Keith Rowe that I never tire of repeating: “We need to rethink Christian belief in the light of insights and understanding not available to earlier generations, and to recapture the radical social implications of the way of life embodied in Jesus of Nazareth”. In the first century, they used to speak in terms of a flat earth with heaven above and hell below. Such is not the case today. So why in the name of God do we speak in terms of God being in heaven, and Jesus descending into hell and rising into heaven. It is nonsense! God is not a being in heaven pulling the levers of life, God is the energy of life, the creativeness of life, the Spirit of life, the ground of our being, and to continue to speak in terms of the first century is a recipe for disaster – the very kind of disaster which the Church is now experiencing. As John Carroll says “The waning of Christianity as practiced in the west is easy to explain. The Christian Church has failed in its central task: to retell the foundation story in a way that might speak to our times.” Time changes things. The world needs to see in a new way! The first car I bought was an Austin seven, an English car that was described as a “Butterbox”. They don’t make Austin Seven’s any more. And if they did, I wouldn’t buy one!
What is the essential problem we face today? I have the feeling that it has to do with the nature of time – a subject that minds far greater than mine have been grappling with for thousands of years but which at this point in our history is becoming crucial.
One of the problems we face today is that we look to the past for significance. A conservative party was recently created in Australia and the leader in establishing it said “We should look to the past for all that is good and great, and that which can inform the future”. Not co-incidentally he is a staunch Catholic. And I believe that he is fundamentally wrong. To see the truth as located in the past is fundamentally flawed.
But to see the truth as being located in the present is likewise flawed and lies at the heart of so many of our problems. It lies at the heart of the drug culture and the attitude of “Eat drink and feel happy for tomorrow we die”. To see life in this way is also fundamentally flawed. It diminishes the significance of the past and the future.
And so is that which sees truth as being located in the future. Many people live for the future, and books and movies about the future are in plague proportions. Included among them are those who spend their lives preparing for life in the heavens. I used to love the bumper sticker that said “Caution, when the Rapture comes this car will be driverless”. A fine sense of humour! But what is the all time best seller in the US. It is Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series about people who are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly use. I am not greatly concerned about those kind of futurists. I am however concerned about our digital future and where it is taking us. In Melbourne now we have traffic lights built into the pavement so you don’t have to take your eyes off the phone screen as you approach the intersection. We are just starting to see the problems of the digital age with our lives being controlled by logarithms. It is no accident of course that the computer is based on the digital principle of on/off and is having and going to have, going to have a huge effect on our society.
Be all this as it may, the point I am making is that when you take a part of the truth and make it the whole truth, it ceases to be the truth. The past the present and the future must be held together. They are parts of the one reality. And over and above them all lies the concept of hope. What is hope? “Hope is the ability to sense a deeper reality than what is visible, and to commit oneself to that reality – despite the data and regardless of the cost”.
And this is of course is what the Church is about. As we say in our third Sunday liturgy; “Jesus gives us real eyes to realise where the real lies”. This is the story of Jesus. On that first Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem, and Pilate entered on a prancing war horse, the gauntlet was thrown down and the outcome a foregone conclusion. And at the end of the day, the powers that be thought they had done way with the Man from God’s tomorrow. No way! He lives today in the hearts and minds of his followers as he did then. In Jesus of Nazareth lies our hope! The story of Jesus is the story of life incarnate, life in all its fullness. It is about life in the presence of death, life in the absence of life. It is about hope being enacted in the presence of optimism and pessimism. I’m not sure that the lion will lie down with the lamb but I certainly get the message that Jesus is the man from God’s tomorrow and we live today within the hope that someday peace rather than violence, sharing rather than selfishness, unity rather than division shall someday become the reality in which the world shall live. We see in Jesus of Nazareth the Hope of the world.
Hope then consists of standing outside the system and sensing the deeper reality which it could become. God is the ongoing thrust of life towards fullness of life. It is what hope is all about. Hope is the ability to sense a deeper reality than what is visible and to commit oneself to that reality – despite the data, despite the evidence and regardless of the cost .
Change is the name of the game, and change is not going to come from the wealthy and the successful – nor is it likely to come from the oppressed who are without a voice. Change will only come, hope will only be realised, when someone enters the silent grief and suffering and oppression and brings it to speech. And if you can’t see the relevance of this to Jesus of Nazareth you haven’t read the New Testament. The story of Jesus is the story of hope and every Communion Service at Wembley Downs bears witness to this as the celebrant calls out “Where lies our hope?” and the answer rings out “Our hope is in Jesus of Nazareth”. So be it. Let us commit ourselves in hope – regardless of the consequences – commit ourselves to that deeper reality of life until the evidence changes and fullness of life becomes a reality.
Faith enables us to see it, love puts us on the road and hope keeps us there.
So be it, and if it be so then to God be the glory
Let me finish with a story that Gordon used to love and on more than one occasion said in a group “Tell them about Dayspring, Nev.” So let me finish by telling you about Dayspring where we used to spend time every time we visited.
On one occasion when we were visiting and staying at Sharon Lundahl’s house I received a phone call at 8am in the morning asking if I could appear before a commission proposing to put a highway through Dayspring. I asked why they wanted me to speak and they said they thought that an international viewpoint could be helpful. I asked when it was being held and the person at the other end of the phone said “Well actually its being held this morning at 9.15”. Germantown was miles away and I was still in my pyjamas. To cut a long story short we arrived breathless to be met with the words. “Good timing you’re on in in three minutes.” And such was the case. Without an idea in my head, I stood and was asked to identify myself. I thought I may as well enter into the spirit of it all and introduced myself as “Neville Watson, Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia.” They got the impression that I had made the trip especially to represent Dayspring at the hearing – and who was I to correct such an august body. For about five minutes, I outlined the international standing of Dayspring and was wondering how to wind up when I remembered hearing a tape by the great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick. It was so clear in my mind that I could remember the intonation of the voice. And so I started. “You will of course be aware, gentlemen of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address about the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, not vanishing from earth. But you may not know that at Gettysburg that day there was a newspaper reporter who wrote in his newspaper the next day words to the effect that “We pass over the brief remarks of the of the President.” At this point I paused to put on my Harry Emerson Fosdick voice and words. “The fool, the stupid fool! He stood in the presence of greatness and he disbelieved”. I finished with the words “I hope it will not be said that this Commission stood in the presence of greatness – and they put a road through it!” If memory serves me right, the assembled gathering rose to their feet in tumultuous applause.
They never did put a highway through Dayspring – probably for different reasons – but Gordon used to love the story – as I did his – and I will ever be grateful that in 1963, I sneaked in that door to hear him preach. Jim Wallis summed it up nicely when he said: “Gordon never wrote a book, went on television, talked to Presidents, built national movements, or travelled around the world. He just inspired everyone else to do those things and much more. And the world came to him.”
And I am very thankful that I was part of that world that came to him.
