OF THE FATHER’S LOVE BEGOTTEN

                  Poets and scientists speak two different languages. Mystics and poets tell us that God prepared the earth for human habitation in six days (on the seventh day God rested).   A prophet cried from the wild places, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”  Scientists tell us that the preparation for human life took 13 billion years.  Two voices tell us about this preparation.  One tells the story of “how” and the other tells the story of “Why”.  Poets, philosophers, intuitives, and mystics speak in the language of Spirit. This is the broad, watercolor- like language of abstractions, poetry, prayer, and glimpses of  the Holy. This is the voice that tells us “Why”. The scientists, more recently evolved in human history, speak from behind telescopes and microscopes about details our early ancestors could never have understood. This is the voice that tells us “What” and “How”. The voices are not in competition.

                  The modern language of science was never meant to be a correction to the language of Spirit, rather a complement.  The first to understand the direction of the stars, the roundness of the planet, the process of evolution, were never meant to be the enemies of God’s story and God’s people.  That conflict has been a tragic misunderstanding about the nature of God’s language, a misinterpretation of religious words and “The Word”.  Ancient writings were never meant to be translated into modern science. An entire library of various types of documents cannot be reduced to modern horoscopes and self-help for living. Our religious texts were never meant to be read without the lens of poets, mystics, and faith. Unfortunately, we have been on a collision course.

It is time for the two voices to be synced to prevent further warfare between science and religion.

    To that end, consider: so far in earth’s 13.7 billion years of existence, the various dominant species have gone extinct five times. We are now the dominant species, fearful for our survival. We have a much better chance of winning this fight if we become bilingual and begin to let our existing knowledge inform both our hearts and our minds. The origin of the planet and its processes and the origin of God’s preparation and contact with human beings are not mutually exclusive. As these stories are synced, we can glimpse the great whispers from beyond that give science meaning and give religion intelligence and clarity.   Science can now tell us how we got here, but faith tells us why. Only listening to the wisdom of God can give existence meaning.

I offer here a short example of two voices informing each other and how that might look at Christmas time.

         Science tells us that 13.7 billion years ago energy erupted in an explosion of light and energy. They cannot explain the origin of that explosion. Perhaps this was the first step in preparation: the creation of a swirling, burning, molten surface that didn’t cool for millions of years.  This original explosion created the stars, the light that broke the darkness. The stars contained all that helped create the processes that followed. Genesis got a few things scientifically accurate. Creation didn’t happen all at once, for instance. The stars became factories for all that earth needed, the twenty-five necessary earth elements. Hydrogen, Helium, Gravity and all the rest were released to the earth in “super Novas”. This led to the next “day” or step in creation.

After 11 billion years, land masses arose from the sea. Think like a scientist for just a bit longer before we turn back to our spiritual story.  Oxygen was necessary for life to begin. Oxygen triggered biology’s “big bang” 550 million years ago. Then life began. Plants in the sea, then ancient fish with eyes and back bones. Amphibians eventually walked upon the land at 400 million years.  This preparation was a long process.

Oxygen is necessary for fire. As far as we know now, earth is the only planet in the solar system with oxygen. Therefore, it is the only planet that has fire.  The ability to control fire made the consumption of more calories possible by cooking meat. More calories paved the way for growth in brains which eventually made us “human”.

Before the ability to control fire began 800,000 years ago, creatures the ancient scribes and poets never mentioned and confirmation students still ask about roamed the land. The age of dinosaurs lasted 165 million years.  They were the dominant life form. In comparison, humans have a history of only 300,000 years as the dominant species.

Does the hearing of creation through evolution and the origin story in Genesis together create dissonance in your thinking? Pain in your heart? Why do so many treat these languages as either/or?  Science and Spirit are not in opposition. It is science that may help us step through fear of impending doom to move in impactful action. But it is finally God that motivates us to risk the sacrifices needed for a change in direction.

When the last ice age led to the extinction of dinosaurs, mammals became the dominant species. These endless details are covered poetically in the description of seven days in creation, sensed but not seen clearly by God’s people. Cross over into our story.  God spoke to Moses (Genesis 3:14) and said, “I am”.  God declared the reality of a holy other by saying “I exist”. The five major monotheistic world religions all surfaced during the Iron Age. They don’t share the same details, but they all understood that a spiritual power was announcing, “I am”.  Holy Epiphanies happened around the world. Stand back and look at this as one more evolutionary step in human development: the comprehension of the spiritual realm.  They understood that God had been attempting contact. Like the days when grass simultaneously spread across the earth, religious awareness developed and spread across the earth.

We trace our history with God through the descendants of Abraham, from Abraham to Moses down through the generations, until finally God came to dwell with the spiritual adolescents of Israel, a people God had hoped would become priests to the nations, revealing both God’s existence and God’s heart.

Watch how primitive glimpses of what we now call science show up again and again in our Scriptures. Look at the Christmas story.  This birth was not a new idea but continues the theme of “light piercing the darkness”:

John 1:1 ff  In the beginning was the Word and the Word was…..

Stars in the heavens provided what was needed for a holy birth announcement.  The famous Star of Bethlehem was a God positioning system (GPS) for guiding people to a manger where the holy child entered our world.  Shepherds, as close to ancient hunter/gatherers as Israel knew, people of the earth, were the first to be invited.  These Humans, perhaps gathered around a fire one night, suddenly saw an explosion of heavenly light that illuminated creatures from another time or space, singing news of an event that eventually circled the globe. I like to think of those angels as the first Christmas choir.

The First Noel the Angels Did Say….

And in a stable, or a cave, somewhere with our earth partners gathered around a food box in a place of shelter; a god-child was born. Perhaps surrounded by the ox and lamb, the donkey and ram, God reminded us that this is our place: among and with the other life forms dwelling on the earth. We are all of the earth, on the earth, and God now entered our earth as an infant born to a human mother.  In mythic legends from every culture this story had been told in some form. Various gods gave birth to human heroes. It was an idea familiar enough in the ancient world that it wasn’t difficult for Israel to accept. They were prepared to hear and believe by centuries of humans musing about powers other than our own. Perhaps that was all part of preparing the way “of the Lord”.

The sea danced, and all creation sang. This child is God with us, the perfection of what it is to be human.  God’s model for peace, justice and relationships among us. The value, the meaning, the song and mystery, the “why”; this is the stuff of the Spiritually fluent. The details, the dating, the “what” and “how” -specifics of how we got here?  That’s the complement of science we have no reason to fear. Two languages, one story. It is all God’s story, a story of love and invitation.

Suggested hymns (and their approximate dates)

All from Evangelical Lutheran Worship

1.        Of the Father’s Love Begotten #295  AD348 -413

2.         T’was In the Moon of Wintertime   #284  Native American  15^th century

3.        Joy to the Word  #267        17^th-18^th century

4.        Prepare the Royal Highway  (first verse) #264    18^th Century

5.        The First Noel #300  19^th Century

6.        Earth and All Stars #731  Contemporary