Creekside Church Sermon of January 11, 2004 "Our Neighborhood God" John 1:1-9	Rev. David Bibbee
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I cannot remember a time when I did not believe in God. As a child I reasoned, "Why would we bother praying at mealtime and bedtime if there wasn't a God? Why would we bother dressing up for church if there was no God? Why bother being good and doing right if there wasn't a God?" God WAS, and that was that.

Years later I read that belief isn't personal belief unless it is questioned. I remember thinking that perhaps I hadn't questioned God's existence because I couldn't bear the thought that God might be a product of wishful thinking. It was too unnerving. It wasn't until I went to college that I met people who had as little difficulty believing God didn't exist as I believed that God did.

We live in a day where truth is relative. Truth has been replaced with truths. There are lots to choose from.... "You have your truth, I'll have mine. One isn't more true than another. Different strokes for different folks." We live in a day where nothing exists until we say it exists. Before we will believe anything, there must be verifiable, irrefutable, indisputable, proof-positive evidence.

John Sibler was president of Boston University. During his first year as a student at Yale Divinity School, the renowned Jewish philosopher Martin Buber came to speak. Silber worked it out that he would drive Dr. Buber to the airport. On their way, he asked, "Dr. Buber, if I asked you to prove to me that God exists, could you do so?" Buber replied, "Are you asking this from a deep concern to know God, or only out of curiosity?" Sibler though a moment and said, "Out of curiosity, I guess." Buber replied, "How Bourgeois," and didn't speak for the rest of the trip.

The fact that you are here is an indication that God is more than an idle curiosity. You've come to learn something about God. You've come to listen to God and experience God's presence. But it is a tall order because God is beyond us-- far beyond our concepts of God and beyond our language about God. God is remote, invisible, silent. How then can we believe?

Probably my most anxious moment at Manchester College was from a test called, "Senior Comprehensives." Before you graduated, you had to pass an exhaustive test in your area of study. Unlike the other majors, Religion and Philosophy students took a written AND an oral exam. You sat before the department faculty who grilled you until you couldn't think straight. I remember being asked to present the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for God's existence, along with the strengths and deficiencies of each.

In the 13th century Thomas Aquinas developed five proofs of God's existence. His first argument was the "first mover." In order for something to be in motion, and external force must move it. One force moves another which moves another. History is a succession of complex moves which Aquinas said began with God being the first mover.

The second argument for Aquinas was "efficient causes." Nothing can create itself. A creator is required. All causes can be traced back to God who always existed. Another argument was the "consideration of grades." We make judgments about things that are good, better, and best. Temperatures range from warm, to hot, to hotter, to hottest. This progression suggests that beyond the best is perfection. Beyond the hottest is the highest degree and the highest degree is God.

Another way Aquinas said God could be proven was the "purposeful progression of life." There is intention in all forms of life. All life grows toward the purpose for which it was created. Seeds don't grow down, but up to the sun. Human beings are hard-wired for love. All life is headed toward a purposeful end, and God is the intelligence directing it.

I'm sure you are enthused by these arguments. Armed with these proofs of God, you're ready to blast the flawed logic of any atheists you encounter this week. What's the matter? Where's your enthusiasm? I'll admit, philosophical proofs seem as dry as burnt toast, and they are only convincing if you already believe in God. I'll also grant that the proof of God's being doesn't tell us anything about God's identity, or what God thinks about us, or how we are to relate to him. Declaring that "God is," isn't enough.

If God cares so much for us and wants to be first in our lives, why doesn't God just show his face or offer some unequivocal sign to give this troubled world hope? I'll borrow something from Frederick Buechner that makes this point. He wondered what would happen if God DID prove his existence in an irrefutable way. Suppose God brightened the Milky Way up a bit and rearranged the stars so that one night everyone in the world saw letters light years high forming the sentence, "I REALLY EXIST."

What might happen? People would sink to their knees in awe. Some would run in terror. Tears would be shed by people thinking that if they had only believed it before, their lives would have been different. Such a sign would inspire hope. Preachers and theologians who lost track of God because they talked about God for a living, would delight in having been right after all. The impact would be extraordinary. Churches would overflow into football stadiums. War and crime would stop. A hush would fall over the world.

For added effect, God would rewrite the message in different languages and in different colors with musical accompaniment to melt the most hardened of skeptical hearts. The star show would go on for years, but Buechner says this is not how the story would end. A child comes along and gazes at the message in the night sky. He turns to his father, or, if he is especially courageous, he looks to the heavens and says, "So what if God exists? What difference does that make?" After his question, the sentence fades away.... or maybe it would remain, but either way, things would likely go back to the way they were before.

Odd as it may seem, it would get old after a while. Like people who live with the Rocky Mountains out their back door, after a while we would get used to it.

We don't need sentences written in stars, signs, or proofs God. None of that, "God, if you're really up there, show me right now or I'll give up on you!" stuff. None of it matters if God is not in the thick of our daily lives, loving us, strengthening us, guiding us, and giving messages to share with the world. Its not the EXISTENCE OF GOD for which we long. It is the EXPERIENCE OF GOD.

The experience of God isn't something we stumbled upon. It is not the product of our intuition, nor the result of strenuous study, nor something we derived from observation of the rocks, the trees, the skies and seas. We do not experience God as a payoff for having patiently plummeted our spiritual depths. It is nothing of our doing. We only know God because God chose to make himself known. God DISCLOSED himself to us in Jesus.

John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. Jesus is a one-of-a-kind God-expression." In the life of Jesus God REVEALED himself. I love how the Message translates it... "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the NEIGHBORHOOD. We saw the glory with our own eyes...."

We don't have to travel light years to find God. We don't have to scale holy mountains or crawl on our knees to holy sites. We don't have to achieve nirvana or enlightenment or sit at the feet of a guru. We don't have to jump ship from Christianity to the eastern religions. We don't have to go anywhere because the everyday, flesh and blood God is in the neighborhood.

In the beginning was the Word. Several weeks ago while visiting Evelyn Miller, we were engaged in a subject bigger than both of us. Given its scientific flavor, it was a lot bigger for me than Evelyn. I shared some of the fascinating things I had heard on a PBS program called, "The Elegant Universe." The topic was parallel universes, black holes, and string theory. String theorists are saying that all matter in the universe is comprised of something far more complex than atoms. Everything is made of unimaginably minuscule strings that are interconnected. If the world was a single atom, then a string would be a single tree!

Evelyn said, "I learned a long time ago that there is far more to this world and the universe than any of us will ever imagine." Then after a reflective pause she said, "There is much more to that verse, 'In the beginning was the Word,' than we ever thought, too!"

Humanity would still be stumbling around in the dark had God not revealed himself by moving into the neighborhood. It always strikes me as presumptuous when I hear someone say they have "found" God. "Yes sir, it was the greatest day of my life when I finally found the Lord." They make it sound as though either God was elusive and it was their tracking ability that caught him, or God was a diamond in the rough they were fortunate to come upon.

The only way we ever could have ever discovered God is if God first made himself "discoverable." Better yet, God not only made himself discoverable-- God was REVEALED in Jesus. In Jesus we have seen as much of God as we are ever going to see in this life. In Jesus, we have all of God we could ever want.

Years ago in a Texas orphanage there lived a awkward girl who was sheer trouble. Things had gotten so bad the superintendent of the orphanage was looking for any excuse possible to throw her out. She kept en eye glued on the girl, and when she couldn't watch, other staff members did, around the clock. Even the most innocent, slight breach of the rules was all that was necessary for expulsion.

One hot August afternoon they finally got what they had been looking for. It was strictly prohibited for students to leave the grounds for any reason without permission. One of the staff had seen the girl walk out the front gate, climb a tree, shinny out on a long limb, and hide a piece of paper. The superintendent and other staff ran to the tree. One of them climbed the tree and retrieved the note.

When the superintendent stared to read it, tears welled up in her eyes. "What does it say?" the others wanted to know. She held it out and asked that everyone hear the one sentence message: "Whoever finds this note, I love you."

A long time ago, God left a note on a tree perched on a hill called Golgotha, outside the walls of Jerusalem. The content of the note has been the subject of countless books and stories written over a span of almost two thousand years. It said, "There is no need to look any further. There is no need to speculate about my being or my intentions. This is who I am. This is my Son. Whoever finds him, you will know that I love you."

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