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In the Beginning
Sermon by Rev. Sarah Buteux
for Sunday, 2003
Scripture: Genesis 1:1-5
This past summer I had the opportunity to visit Ireland for the first time
along with my family. While we were there we visited a neolithic tomb in a
place called Newgrange. This tomb is 5000 years old. Just to give you an
idea of how old that is, it was built by people we would consider primitive
over 3000 years before the birth of Christ. You can see the tomb from miles
away. It appears like a little hill with a white band at its base that sits
on top of a larger hill. But the little hill is actually a grass covered tomb
of stone. Stones, some of which weigh over 800 pounds, and some stones,
namely the white ones which make up the lower rim, which came from some 80
miles away. The stones are so cleverly fitted together that to this day, and
keep in mind that this is Ireland, the tomb does not leak when it rains.
You approach the tomb at Newgrange by foot and you stand outside for a time
when you get there while the tour guide tells you all sorts of fascinating
things, much of which is conjecture because nobody actually knows anything
about these people since they lived so long ago. But after the talk, they
actually let you walk inside. There is only one little entrance, and the whole
huge structure which must be 50 yards in diameter, houses only a narrow
passage way that leads to a tiny burial chamber about 40 feet from the door.
Now the most fascinating thing about the tomb is that it is designed to catch
the light of the sun in this rear chamber for just a few minutes, once a year,
during the winter solstice.
And, what is really cool, is that the tour guide takes you into the tomb, down
the passageway (which is not for the claustrophobic), and into the burial
chamber. Then they turn out all the lights (which is very eerie) and have it
rigged up in such a way that they can recreate the progression of the sun’s
light on its way in and out of the chamber on that one important day of the
year. The tomb is actually so old, that according to my guidebook, when the
winter solstice occurs now, the sunlight is a few inches off because the
rotation pattern of the earth has shifted some since it was built. After the
fake sunlight disappears they turn the lights back on and, in keeping with the
local custom, let you out of the tomb and send you back to the gift shop.
Now scholars have many theories about why a people would build such an
elaborate structure. Some speculate that these primitive people believed they
were creating a womb like structure and allowing the sun to fertilize the womb
and bring back new life to the earth. Others think that the dead were
cremated, their ashes placed in the great stone basin that still lies in the
tomb, and that when the sunlight would appear once a year, it would take the
souls of the dead to the next life. I myself have no idea what the makers of
the tomb were trying to accomplish in building Newgrange, but I can tell you
one thing. It took these people generations to complete the tomb.
Those who began the project were long dead when their great grandchildren put
the final stone in place. These people labored years and years, taking time
away from hunting, gathering, planting, and all the day to day activities that
would have been vital to their survival, to build this structure. No one knows
exactly why they created this tomb, but it is clear, at least to me, that the
people who made this tomb were not making some sort of symbolic structure,
they must have believed in the immediate power of their creation. If they
believed that the light fertilized the depths of the earth, or that the light
was meant to carry the souls of the dead to their next resting place or future
incarnation, then I think they believed the light would actually do so. You
would only engage in a project of that size and magnitude if you believed in
its power.
I don’t think the tomb was a symbol for them. I don’t think the sunlight
finding its way into the chamber was for them anything less than a powerful
actual occurrence. The sun’s light did not represent something in the minds
of these people, it did something. It’s power was real. If it was there to
fertilize the earth, or carry with it the souls of the dead, then in their
minds, that is exactly what they believed it was doing.
I think we have lost this sense of the holy and mystical in our day. Our
sacred spaces are not, in and of themselves, holy, but representative of what
is true and powerful and divine. We believe in the power of symbols, but
symbols speak about what is holy, rather than constitute what is holy.
They point to the source of reality, but they are not, in and of themselves,
that ultimate reality. We are further removed from a sense of the holy now
then they were back when Newgrange was built. What is real to us is what we
can experience with our senses. What we can taste, see, hear, smell, and
touch. This physical reality can help us be mindful of spiritual reality, but
it is not the same thing. The angels on the altar behind me are stone. The
Word is written in ink on paper, and bound as a book just like other books.
The verses, the paint, the carvings, the cross, all of it symbolizes that
which we hold to be sacred, but it is not sacred itself, nor is it the source
of the sacred. It stands before us as a particularly effective representation.
And those who designed and built this church labored long and hard to create
such an effective space. But I know the people who built Newgrange labored
longer and harder, and I think they did so because, whereas our church is a
holy space because it represents what is holy, their tomb was a holy space
because it was a holy space. For us the sunlight falling on the altar
corresponds to aspects of the Divine. To them, however they would have
understood it, the light on the altar was a direct agent of the Divine.
We are different now. Not wrong, not lost, just, according to the natural
course of God’s providence, different. We see and understand and process the
sacred in a more removed way. I think the Lord knew this would happen, but in
his divine love and wisdom, he created the world in such a way that it would
always speak to us, even if now, in our later days we need a translator to
understand what it is he is saying. For us, that translator is Swedenborg.
He believed that everything in the natural world corresponded to something in
the spiritual one. And in his understanding correspondence is not just a
symbol or representation, but in some way it constitutes an intimate
connection between a natural object and the spiritual truth it seeks to
communicate. We may perceive correspondences as merely symbolic, but there is
more at work than mere representation.
For example, one of the most accessible correspondences is the link between
the sun and the Lord. The way Swedenborg explains it, the sun’s light and
heat is not just a convenient metaphor for the wisdom and love of God, it
actively affects the world like God’s love and wisdom actively affect our
souls. The sun falls on the earth and warms each seed, even as it lies
beneath the soil in total darkness. The warmth coaxes that seed to sprout and
reach its way up to the light. Once the sprout reaches the light, a process
begins which we call photosynthesis, utilizing the energy of the sun to
promote new growth throughout the plant. God’s love functions much the same
way, finding us deep in the midst of ourselves. Coaxing us out of the narrow
and dark limitations of our self love, into a brighter and more open existence
that allows us to love others. As we love and receive love in return, we
utilize the energy of that love to grow in spirit.
The power of light in the midst of darkness remains a powerful metaphor for
us, but it is more than that. It is a powerful correspondence. We see how the
power of light manifests itself in the context of darkness. The way light
functions in our physical reality testifies to how God’s light, his love and
wisdom, functions within our own spiritual reality. Have you ever turned the
lights on at dusk because you are having trouble seeing or reading, but you
find that the light isn’t really that helpful yet? You actually have to wait
for it to get a little darker before the light can truly illumine your
surroundings. I also notice this with candles. If I light the candles here
for a wedding, they seem so small and insignificant if the sun’s light is
still shining outside, and so vibrant and bright, once the sun has set. The
darker it is around you, the brighter even the smallest light appears. This
is a physical reality we observe with our physical eyes, and it corresponds to
a spiritual reality we can see with our inner eyes.
It is in times of great darkness that we become more aware of God’s love and
wisdom at work within us and around us. Our scripture reading is, perhaps, the
most dramatic example in the Word of light at work in the midst of darkness.
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a
formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God
swept over the face of the waters. Then God said , “Let there be light;” and
there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the
light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called
Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Genesis 1:1-
5
In the beginning, there was something - not nothing - but that something was
formless and void, roiling and dark, seething with potential, but lacking true
life. In the beginning the “deep was not barren but pregnant, an emptiness
teeming with the promise of life” (Wayne Muller, Sabbath, 35). But it took an
act of God. A dramatic act. Not a whisper but a great cry, “Let there be
light!” and there was light. And that light shone on the waters, it warmed the
face of the deep, it found its place aside the night and began its work of
teasing life out of this great mass of earth.
Swedenborg believes that even this, the first great act of creation as
expressed in the word, represents who we are and who we are becoming. Or maybe
I should say how we are and how we are becoming. He writes:
“The six days (of creation) which are successive states (represent) the
regeneration of man … as follows. The first state … immediately before
regeneration… is called a “void,” an “emptiness,” a “thick darkness.” And the
first motion, which is the Lord’s mercy, is “the Spirit of God moving upon the
face of the waters.”
That is to say, God’s mercy is present with us even in our deepest darkness,
and it acts in much the way the God acted upon the earth, bringing light to
our darkness, wisdom in the midst of our confusion, love in the face of
despair. But he goes on:
The second state is when a distinction is made between those things that are
of the Lord, and those which are proper to man. The things which are proper to
the Lord are … especially knowledges of faith, … which are stored up, and are
not manifested until the man comes into this state. At the present day this
state seldom exists without temptation, misfortune, or sorrow, by which the
things of the body and the world, that is, such as are proper to man, are
brought into quiescence and as it were die. Thus the things that belong to the
external man are separated from those which belong to the internal man. (AC 6,
7, 8)
Often, it is in times of great need, of severe temptation, in times of trial
or sorrow that we most clearly feel the presence of God hovering near us. And
God makes his light available to us, a light that guides us forward, even in
the midst of our doubt and confusion, leading us toward new growth. We see
the darkness for what it is and leave it behind in favor of the light. We
leave the dim shadows of our understanding, like the puppets in Plato’s cave,
and find ourselves confronting reality, confronting truth, confronting God.
It is not a comfortable process. The light can hurt our eyes at first, the
day can seem too bright, the solution not yet as appealing as was the problem.
But just as our eyes adjust to light, so our souls adjust to the good, and
gradually we feel more at ease in the presence of God, daring to love others
as we once thought we could only dare to love ourselves.
I think of all this in the context of our present circumstances. I know that
the darker it is the brighter the light shines, and I feel the need to hold
tight to that truth, because our situation here is becoming, by the day, more
serious, more dire. We have 2 and a half months, we have 78 days, we have 1872
hours to raise just under 2 million dollars.
But I have seen God’s light shining in the midst of these dark times in the
form of reporters, friends, and our efforts. In fact, so much good has been
done, so many new developments occur daily, that I feel sure that the light
will triumph and we will see the day dawn when this chapel is safe in the
hands of its congregation. But I think our faith will be tested in the coming
days as well. I think that before the end we will feel how close we are to
losing this place. I believe that the money will come, but we don’t have that
money in hand yet. The time is past for funds to slowly and steadily
accumulate. We cannot continue looking for a gentle progression, a miracle of
increments. I think when our miracle comes it is going to be a dramatic, “Let
there be light! And there was light,” sort of miracle.
It can happen because it has happened. It has happened in our world,
it happens in our souls, and I trust it will happen for this church. Wherever
you find yourself this morning, whatever your struggle, whatever your doubt,
whatever your pain, know that the light shines and the darkness has not and
will not overcome it. But sometimes we cannot fully see the light until the
darkness is complete. For the people at Newgrange, the sun reached the height
of its power on the darkest day of the year. For us it may be that God’s power
is most potent and easily recognized in our darkest moments. We need never
despair. And so I leave you this morning with these hopeful yet challenging
words of John Donne, who wrote; “He brought light out of darkness, not our of
lesser light; he can bring thy summer out of winter, though thou have no
spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou
have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed,
damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee,
not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the Spring, but as the
sun at noon” (John Donne, From a Sermon at Saint Paul’s).
Amen, let us pray…
Copyright 2003 by Rev. Sarah Buteux
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