This is the first of a series of Advent Sermons I preached in Year A, 1998.  I present it to you for critique and/or other comments.  I had just become Rector of a parish for the first time in 25 years; although I had been in charge of Missions or troubled parishes for about 15 of those years.  The Bible translation is The Revised English Bible.

Perren


Advent I, 1998, Series, Croom
In the beginning, God created. . .  (Genesis 1:1)

Being left-brained and literal – male in other words – I have always had trouble with subtlety in general, and poetry in particular.  I’m uncomfortable with ambiguity.  If I’m not “getting” what someone else is “getting,” is anybody “getting” anything?’  So begins an article in a magazine dedicated to success and power that came my way recently.  It occurred to me that this also applies in the field of religion, that is,  the field of living meaningfully.

We live in a nation, a society, a culture, which is perhaps the most left-brained, the most literal, the least subtle – or most unsubtle – nation, society or culture that ever existed.  According to the people who study these things, our brains are made up of two parts.  One, the left side, deals primarily with logic, math, precision, organization.  The right side deals primarily with art, colors, gestalt or intuition, subtlety poetry. Each of us is, in fact, a combination of the two parts: but still, the vast majority of us has the left side far more predominant in the way we understand and relate to the world around us.  And it is precisely this fact that has made us the nation, society and culture we are.

Now don’t misread me; I am not condemning this; I am not complaining about this; I am not wishing that things were different.  It is this left brain emphasis that has enabled us to produce all the wonderful things that we have to make our society so pleasant to live in: microwaves, TVs, radio, bumper food crops, tall buildings, space stations and all the rest.  

But I am absolutely convinced that religion is primarily a right brain function.  Yet, because we most often approach religion with a left-brain dominated mind, we miss much, if not most, of what religion has to offer us.  And that is unfortunate, because most of what religion has to offer us is what our nation, our society and our culture really needs.  We need to understand about power, about selfishness, about relationships with others and with the world in which we live.  Our left-brain orientation tells us we need something, but we are often mystified about where to begin.  That is why I have chosen to use the sermon time this Advent to speak about four absolute essentials: Creation; Sin; Judgement; Redemption.  If we do not have some insight into the meaning of these four things – Creation; Sin; Judgement; Redemption – we will miss the meaning of Christmass; we will not understand our Liturgy; we will find spirituality incomprehensible; we will relate to others and to the world around us on a basis of law and/or materialism.  Our religion will then become what left-brain orientation is best at: formalizing, stereotyping, standardizing, atomizing, studying, compartmentalizing.

The religion of the Book of Common Prayer, the religion of the Episcopal Church, the religion of the Bible: these do not conform to any left-brain concept.  True religion and undefiled (to quote the Epistle of James) begins with what is unknowable to the left-brain.  True religion tries to give us an understanding of those things that the left-brain finds unknowable: things we cannot see, hear, smell, touch, or taste.  Yet, the right-brain insists, these things are just as real, just as knowable, just as important as are left-brain perceptions. Indeed, since we each have both parts to our brain, if we are to be whole, healthy, realistic people; there must be a balance between the parts: the two parts must work together to provide us with a balanced life.  That is why, a week or so ago, we mentioned the four things that are distinctive of the Episcopal Church: Bible, Ministry, Creeds, Sacraments.  Bible and Sacraments are right brain functions;  Ministry and Creeds are left brain functions.  Together, they provide a balanced Christian.

The Bible provides us with the results of centuries of right brain contemplation of reality.  The Bible begins with these words: “In the beginning, God created. . . “ Reality, the world, the universe, clearly was not made by humans, even though humans seems to be the most intelligent or intellectual or creative beings in reality; nor was it made from anything; there must have been a time when it did not exist; who, or what ever made it, must exist separately from perceptible reality.  That Creative Being, or Energy, we call by the name “God.”  Who, or what God truly is we cannot comprehend.  It is no accident, however, that the Hebrews gave God the name “Yahweh”: it is a form of the verb “to be”, and can be translated as “Reality.”  But we can come to know and appreciate this God by the examination of “Reality”, the universe, the world,  in which we live.

Do we make God in our image?  Only if we see God from the left!  If we look from the right, we will see that our ability to create, develop and manufacture and rationalize, are all reflections from the Reality who made us.  We ‘image’ or ‘mirror’ the Creator.  As wonderful and marvelous as are the incredible accomplishments that have come to humans because of this examination of Reality, we still cannot make anything from nothing.   We are not origin/creative; we are only pro/creative.  All Reality exists to work together for the furthering of whatever prompted God to make it (directly or indirectly) in the first place; as such it has a good purpose; known to God.    Clearly that means we are caretakers, stewards, of Reality.  We are not owners; we are servants, slaves, stewards, employees.  We must start there: God, not we, made everything; God made it all good; for a purpose; our greatest fullilment comes from living in accord with this view, and saying “Thank you.”