Stardust

You shine like stars in the world!

(Philippians 2:15c)

 

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the Third Sunday of Advent, December 16, 2007

Volume 2 Number 23

First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6^th, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

(For other sermons by Rev. Johnson, see our website at www.fumcmh.org)

 

 

Charlie Brown is on the mound.  Lucy, harmlessly tucked away in distant right field, manages to get the pitcher’s attention.  “Hey manager!” Lucy yells.  “Ask your catcher if he still loves me.”

 

Charlie Brown sighs, but reluctantly heeds the request of his teammate.  Turning toward home plate he calls to his catcher, “She wants to know if you still love her.”

 

Receiving his catcher’s reply, Charlie Brown turns again to face the outfield.  “He says . . . no!”

 

The remote loneliness of right field obscurity doesn’t deter Lucy.  “Why not?” she objects, wanting to know the catcher’s reasons.  Charlie Brown sighs in disappointment that his mediation is not yet complete, rotates back toward home plate.  Receiving the catcher’s answer he swivels around again to face the outfield and yells back to Lucy, “He says there are so many reasons — he can’t remember them all.”

 

Lucy is deeply upset.  She yells back to Charlie Brown, “Really?  That’s very depressing.”

 

Charlie Brown, by now exasperated, cries out, “Do you mind if we get on with the game?”

 

Lucy looks up, startled.  “Game?  What game?”

 

“The baseball game!” says Charlie Brown.

 

Looking down, Lucy murmurs.  “Oh, that’s right.  I was wondering why I was standing out here.”

 

“I was wondering why I was standing out here” seems a very good Advent question for the six billion or so residents of Planet Earth.  Science has shown the universe to be, as Carl Sagan wrote, “a cosmic ocean vast beyond our most courageous imaginings.”  In the past 500 years our little blue planet has been nudged more and more into the obscure loneliness of the universe’s distant right field.  We’ve learned that we are but a minuscule spot in a colossal creation.  So, like Lucy, we are left to ponder, “What is our purpose out here, after all?” 

 

What do our lives amount to, do we have any meaning, any purpose beyond the obvious -- that we are alive and will die?  If there is no mystery beyond these dimensions of time and space, where can we find Wonder, such a Wonder that meets our innate yearning for a reality transcending our earthly experience?

 

Wonder is a key word for understanding the Christmas event.  The eyes of those in the Christmas story are drawn heavenward, beckoned to wonder, to marvel at a God who “so loved the world” that he would give his only Son.  Mary and Joseph’s eyes are drawn upward, visited by angels who proclaim the virgin miracle.  The shepherds in the fields around Bethlehem cast their eyes heavenward when the angel of the Lord announces, “Do not be afraid, for I am bringing you good news of great joy — to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord.”  They lift their eyes to the multitude of the heavenly hosts who proclaim, “Glory to God in the highest heaven!”  The wise men of the Orient began their long journey to the Holy Land when their eyes fix in Wonder on the appearance of an unusual star. 

 

Perhaps, before we look down to the manger in a cave in Bethlehem, we must look up to receive the message of Christmas.  How could God so love us, we who are but a cohesion of dust particles animated by the warm aliveness of God’s breath?  Surely nothing on earth would suggest such a divine story.  So then, let us look up.

 

The psalmist, too, looked heavenward with Wonder, pitting our smallness against the vastness of the universe, and wondering that a Creator of such grandeur could love us.  “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!  You have set your glory above the heavens . . . 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?”

 

Christmas draws our eyes toward heaven in Wonder and, gazing into heaven, we sense its immensity.  Seems logical to assume that, as our scientific self-awareness was enlarged, our own claim to uniqueness would necessarily be diminished.  Science seems to have relegated earth more and more to the remote outfield of the cosmic ballgame.  By the sheer measure of time and space we are insignificant, so much so that, like Lucy, our questions of love and life seem petty as they endlessly swirl around us.  Like Lucy, are we craving love from someone who is too distant to care? 

 

Mark Twain argued against humans thinking too much of our species.  “Don’t expect too much of human beings.  We were created at the end of the week, when God was tired and looking forward to a day off.”  Fact is, for much of human history mankind assumed earth to be the pitcher’s mound of the universe.  Scientific discovery seems to have progressively moved earth away from the mound — to the infield, the outfield, the bleachers, and who knows?  Every step in the scientific quest has moved us further from center stage in the cosmic drama.  A pre-scientific race assumed a geo-centric view of creation.  Planet Earth alone was Terra Firma.  As for the rest of creation, the stars cascaded into and out of our field of vision, our language developing phrases descriptive of perceived reality.  To speak of the sun “rising” and “setting” assigns to the sun a remote outfield position, as if the sun were moving around Mound Earth.

 

When 15^th and 16^th century astronomers like Copernicus and Johannes Kepler proposed a helio-centric arrangement of the cosmos, it was a new understanding more than a tad unwelcome. 

 

Some felt, then and now, that science unbridled by religion would rip apart the fabric of our faith. Science and religion were thus cast as irreconcilable enemies. 

 

What exciting times in which we live, as science and religion find themselves creating arenas of dialogue.  Both fields are learning that for either science or religion to feel threatened by the other is a condescension truly breathtaking.  Science is learning its need of philosophy to navigate new territory, and religion has discovered its need to appreciate scientific inquiry.

 

If the sun became the new center of the cosmos, it would not be for long.  Soon it was the sun’s turn to head out into right field, shown to be a humdrum star lost between two outer spiral arms of but one of the millions of galaxies and billions of stars.  Look heavenward with me, as did the psalmist, and consider the vastness of the universe.  Our sun is eight light minutes from earth, 90 million miles.  The light bathing our blue planet just now set out on its journey a mere eight minutes ago. The next closest star system, Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri, is closer to eight light years away than eight light minutes.  If one of those stars blew up today, our elementary kids will be settled in junior and senior high school before the light of the explosion reaches us.  And those are our nearest neighbors among the stars, stuck out in right field with us. The Hubble space telescope is taking pictures of light that has crossed enormous interstellar distances, setting out on its journey long, long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, thousands of light years distant, in fact, we can now see remote history from long before earth was in existence, billions of light years ago. 

 

Dr. Leonard Sweet reminds us that we are part of that history.  “What makes blood red?  Hemoglobin.  What makes hemoglobin?  Iron.  Where do we get iron?  Only from the stars . . . made in a supernova.  In other words, we do not have an atom in our bodies that isn’t the product of some dead star.  God made us from the dust of the ground, Genesis declares, but it must have been Stardust, the swirling stuff of exploding gas and dust that is flung into interstellar space as a dying star’s core collapses . . . If we can look at the vastness of the universe and see within it the design and handiwork of God’s eternal plan for our redemption, then we can joyfully claim our stardust heritage.” 

 

Perhaps Paul said more than he knew when he wrote, “You shine like stars in the world.”  Made of star stuff, we really do shine as stars.  That’s cause for Wonder.  While we may occupy but a tiny place in the vast ocean of the cosmos, we occupy a gigantic place in God’s heart, the vastness of whose love exceeds our most courageous imaginings. 

 

Sue Kidd tells about her daughter having the part of the Bethlehem Star in the church Christmas play.  Her child burst through the door with her costume after the play’s first rehearsal, a five pointed star lined in shiny gold tinsel designed to drape over her like a sandwich board.  Sue stopped what she was doing, smiled at the sight and asked, “What exactly will you be doing in the Christmas play?”  Sue wanted to know if she had a speaking part.

 

Her little girl beamed and said, “Mommy, I just stand there and shine!” 

 

Yes, and so do we all, we who, filled with the growing light of Advent, “shine like stars in the world.”

 

Sources:

“Destined to Have a Great Year,” a sermon by Rev. King Duncan in Dynamic Preaching, Volume 12, Number 1.

 

Carl Sagan, Cosmos, Ballantine Books, New York, 1980.

 

“Keep the Stars in Your Eyes,” a sermon in HOMILETICS, Volume 9, Number 1.