(Note: This blog entry is based on
the text for “Transcendence” originally shared on June 5, 2024. It was the 314th
video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced
with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
There are people in our culture who are
looking for transcendence in their lives. They’re not finding it in our
churches. Why? How do we present a sense of transcendence in our worship, and
in our lives? Is that even possible? Today, were going to find out.
I’ve seen articles for many years that claim
that young people are done with worship bands and light shows and empty
architecture and are seeking worship liturgy that is rooted in a history that
goes beyond the soft rock of the 1980’s.
I’ve read about it,
but I’ve never seen it.
More recently, though,
I’ve seen articles on the growth in popularity of the Latin Mass in the Roman
Catholic Church, especially among young people.
I’ve read reports
from pastors who say that the only churches that are growing in their
communities are the Eastern Orthodox churches whose roots go back to the Early
Church roots that are still evident.
What all three have
in common is a desire for transcendence, for a sense of the holy, for a sense
of what is beyond ordinary human experience, for a sense of more than what can
be understood through the senses in the normal physical world.
They are not
finding it in our Churches, but that’s not surprising.
Fourth century
theologian, and author of some of the foundational works of Western literature,
Augustine of Hippo [fun fact: Martin Luther was a monk of the Augustinian Order
prior to the Reformation], wrote, "Our hearts are restless until they rest
in thee, O Lord". It’s part of a longer writing in his book Confessions
that includes, "Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast
formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in
Thee".
We are made for God
and we know that something’s wrong if we aren’t living in the relationship with
God for which we were created.
How can churches
place a renewed emphasis on the Transcendent.
One of the few
bright spots among movies this year has been the box office success of “Godzilla
x Kong: The New Empire”, hot on the heels of the award winning 2023 movie “Godzilla
Minus One”. They are the most recent in the long-running Godzilla franchise.
Godzilla (a
combination of the Japanese words for “gorilla” and “whale”) movies began as a
metaphor for fears of nuclear war, but later became about Godzilla as a
protector from worse monsters and a source of hope for the future. What does it
mean that we are still watching?
God brought the
world into being from nothing, as an act of will. We see in John 1:1,
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
We are made for a
relationship with the one true living God.
When belief in God
declines and when forces arise that are beyond our control, we want to be protected.
When we realize that we are not in control, we long to know who is in control.
When our own efforts have failed us, we want to know that we have a God. We are
made for a relationship with God, and we want to know him, and that we are
loved by God.
Are you a
Christian?
Does that question
make us uncomfortable, like we’d like to think so, but we’re not meeting an
external standard?
Or does that
question make us feel indignant, like we’ve defined our own standard and we’ve
met it?
If you say you are
a Christian, how long have you been a Christian? Are you satisfied with your
growth in understanding? Are you living the life? Can you defend your faith? Do
you want to?
If we aren’t sure, after
some time, is that why we don’t witness? Is that why the boldest witness comes
from people who know that they have been saved, and therefore who have no
pretense of holiness by their own efforts?
God, who is wholly beyond
us, enters into human history and redeems us on the cross.
God, who is wholly
beyond us, enters into our lives and gives us a new life that transcends
anything that we could do for ourselves.
There are
standards in the Christian life, but they follow that God-given relationship
with God, they don’t qualify us for it.
Being a Christian is
not what we do by our own efforts, it is not “doing good works”. That’s a by-product
of the Christian life. We have standards, and we fail to meet them. And when we fail the world points with glee
and says, “See. You aren’t any better than us.” And they are right. We fail
daily, but our relationship with God never ends because it is transcendent. It
is a gift from God. And that relationship draws us to being better.
The world likes the
good works, though, because they reject the rest. Good works make us
seem useful to them. And we love it because it makes us feel legitimatized in
the eyes of the world, our despisers.
But the works Christians
do are a gift of the transcendent, and lived in the community of faith, the
people of God. They are not burdens.
G.K. Chesterton once
said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been
found difficult; and left untried.”
The world sees
Christianity as a challenge to it and it loves to see it go down.
We live and do what
we do out of a living relationship with God that has changed our hearts.
Here’s a riddle:
What did the
Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor? “Make me one with everything.” 😊
But that’s not
transcendence as Christians understand it.
Transcendence is
not a denial of personal being, but the experience of it as it was intended to
be lived, as a living relationship with the one true living God.
What then does it mean
to be a Christian?
It means what a
friend’s seminary professor once said about the meaning of the Bible’s book of
Job, “I’m God and you’re not.”
It means that God
is transcendent, yet present in everything.
As Paul writes, in Romans
11:33-36,
33 O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of
God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has
known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been
his counselor?”
35 “Or who has
given a gift to him,
to receive a gift
in return?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all
things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
We can only resonate
with what God has revealed to us of God. It’s like a sympathetic vibration,
where God, the source, produces in us the same tone. That’s what it means to be
created in God’s image. We encounter God because we resonate with God at the
spiritual pitch that God has given and revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. We
are created to do that.
We can’t
experience that resonance unless it is given by God. God is holy and we are
sinners (that means we are naturally cut off from God) but God has given
himself on the cross to restore that harmonic relationship.
When people say
they are looking for transcendence, I think that they are also looking for what
is real, what is beyond them, what will ground them.
Transparency,
authenticity, and reality are all things that are very close to transcendence,
but not quite there. But they do come with repentance and forgiveness.
So why aren’t
people finding transcendence in our churches?
The short answer
is, “Because we aren’t offering it.”
Wanting to be seen
and approved, and to be validated and affirmed, leads people away from transcendence
because the focus is on “me”. And that’s what we are offering.
People don’t come
to churches to join a friendly social club, or a social service agency using
religious language, or an organization needing to maintain a building and make
a budget, or to sustain someone’s legacy, or to stoke someone’s ego.
Most people know
that there is something more, something transcendent, even if they cannot name
the name.
It’s hard to find
it in a church when the church appropriates the world and calls it relevance,
when it trivializes and dumbs down its presentation to make it more
“accessible”, and when it lowers expectations to gain the world’s approval.
We don’t have much
to offer when Jesus is presented as a nice human, made manageable, and treated
as a personal pet.
He may be awesome,
like a good latte, but, when, as in the title of one of the tunes from the 2014
“The Lego Movie” says, “Everything is Awesome”, nothing is awesome.
God exists both beyond us and transforms us from within.
How do we bring transcendence
into worship? Can we?
Can we make worship
space a place where we enter with quiet expectation and anticipation?
Can we
facilitate, the presence of God, or at least get out of God’s way?
Can we bring
transcendence into our daily lives?
We can, if we live
each moment from the living relationship with the one true living God for which
we were created.
Paul says, in 1
Thessalonians 5:17, pray without ceasing,
How can we possibly do that without living from an all
defining relationship with God in every moment?
Sally and I
attended a horse show and dinner last weekend to raise money to help children
with challenges and returning soldiers with PTSD.
The dinner
entertainment was an Elvis impersonator. He whipped up the crowd with a
well-crafted show.
The Church has something
more to offer than that.
We point to Christ
crucified and new life in Him. We point to the power of God for good in the
Holy Spirit. God is both present and transcendent. We offer something more than
what can be known by human beings alone. We point the way to new life in Jesus
Christ. God transcendent, beyond us and within us. God the Creator. New life
that is not something we achieve, but something we receive from beyond
ourselves, from God’s unearned grace, as Paul writes in Philippians 2:5-11,
5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the
form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point
of death—
even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God also highly
exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under
the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
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