Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Daniel 4:28-37

August 26, 2007

All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?" While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, "O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field; and you shall be made to eat grass like an ox; and seven times shall pass over you, until you have learned that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will." Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers, and his nails were like birds' claws. At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives for ever; for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing; and he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What doest thou?" At the same time my reason returned to me; and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase.

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There's a wonderful old story that I first heard in a sermon about twenty-five years ago. One time a famous scientist was giving a lecture on astronomy. When he was finished, an elderly woman came up and told him he had it all wrong. "The world" she told him, "is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist asked "And what is the turtle standing on?" To which the lady triumphantly replied: "You're very clever, young man, but it's no use - it's turtles all the way down."

Turtles all the way down. That's perfect. I love people. I truly do. I've been interested in human psychology, philosophy and religion as long as I can remember. I find us an endlessly fascinating species. One thing we are not, though, is entirely rational. We like to think we are. We almost always have our reasons, our explanations, for the things we believe. But it's not at all uncommon for the conclusions we hold dear to fall apart in the harsh light of logic. "It's turtles all the way down." How do you think the scientist responded to that?

You'd be hard pressed to convince a true UFO believer that we haven't been visited by aliens. There are those who genuinely believe that burying a statue of St. Joseph will help them sell their house. And, the last I heard, people in the Philippines are still flocking to "psychic surgeons," who claim they can cure cancer without ever touching their patients. Most of us would probably agree that these beliefs are pretty absurd (though the jury is still out on UFO's) Lately though, the "absurd belief" most people seem to be up in arms about is the Christian faith.

Just in the last couple of years there's been a whole shelf full of new books that dismiss religious faith as superstition at best and horribly destructive at worst: The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins; God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchins; The Case Against God by George Smith; The End of Faith by Sam Harris; and God, The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger, just to name a few. Atheism, it seems, is a growth industry.

Now obviously, I don't find our faith absurd. I certainly wouldn't be here if I did. But in the last few years the worst kind of fundamentalist nonsense has burst out into public view and acts as though it has the God given right to take over the country, as a prelude I suppose to taking over the rest of world. Under these circumstances, a strong atheist backlash probably shouldn't come as a surprise. There's a large and apparently growing number of people out there who are sick and tired of having an irrational Christianity shoved down their throats, and honestly, I don't blame them a bit.

While scouting around on the internet, I came across this following, heartfelt complaint against Christians. The man who wrote it wasn't identified, but he is certainly not alone in his feelings. Listen to this. "I was recently at the grocery store loading my groceries into the front of my vehicle and a woman walked by with her husband and child. She looked at the back of my truck and gasped and then nudged her husband. They all stopped to look in horror at my Darwin Fish." I'm sure most of you have seen a "Darwin Fish." At first glance, it looks like the same fish some Christians put on their cars, but on closer inspection you can see little legs and feet growing out of the bottom. It's a symbol of evolution.

Anyway, the author goes on to say this: "What kind of world do we live in when barbaric Christian symbols are considered acceptable but a man of science is considered evil? Have these people ever stopped to realize that if the myth of Christ had developed in the 20th century, their descendants would all be wearing symbols of electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses? Have they ever considered how archaic and primitive it is to think that the supreme creator of the universe would go down to one small planet and have a child with a mortal woman for the sole purpose of having him brutally killed, all for the sake of saving other mortals from the Hell he created in the first place? How can intelligent people believe such nonsense? Yet, if any of us question such absurd beliefs in a public forum we are immediately ostracized."

Powerful stuff, huh? Actually though, this is pretty tame compared to some of the stuff I've seen. The way this man has chosen to tell the Christian story puts it in the worst possible light. His version of Christianity is certainly not the way I understand my faith. It's not the way I understand what Jesus was about. On the other hand, I'm well aware that my progressive beliefs put me solidly in the minority among the faithful. Truthfully, I would have to agree that his take on Christian theology is pretty much what the majority of Christians are taught to believe. And like him, I've been beaten up by people who think this way. So, as awkward as it is to admit it, in this case, I find that my sympathies lie with the atheist, which is a strange place for a Christian minister to be wouldn't you say.

I don't need to tell you how polarized our country is right at present. Democrats vs. Republicans, rich vs. poor, people of faith vs. people of science, those who believe in Global Warming vs.those who think it's all some kind of elaborate hoax…. Everywhere we look, it seems, people are throwing stones at one another across a great divide, convinced that those on the other side have nothing of value to say. But we don't feel that way, do we? It seems to me that our congregation is, by and large, made up of people of faith who somehow find it entirely possible to respect our God given reason. I'm a reasonable man. At least I like to think so. But these days, all the noise seems to be coming from the extremes. The fundamentalists on the one side and the radical atheists on the other would both like us to believe that there is no middle ground; that reason is the enemy of faith and faith the enemy of reason.

It's not so hard to understand how we got here. Much of the church does take a dim view of reason. There's a site on the web that I find myself visiting regularly. It is a collection of sermon illustrations. Some are good, most are lousy, but I do occasionally find something I can use in my preaching. The site holds a huge collection, with hundreds of categories and thousands of illustrations that have been gathered together and made available, thank goodness, to struggling ministers like myself. There are stories, quotes and quips on virtually every subject you might want to talk about from Abraham to Zeal. However, if you are interested in illustrations about reason or logic, you will look in vain.

Why do you think that is? Don't ministers ever talk about reason? Well, mostly, no they don't. My guess is that ministers are mostly afraid to talk about reason. I don't imagine many of my colleagues would want to call attention to the fact that so much of what we have to talk about is pretty darned unreasonable, at least on the face of it. And if your faith depends on all these unreasonable things being literally true, it's not hard to understand why so many in the church think that reason is the enemy. Neither is it hard to understand why there is currently "An Assault on Reason" in the country, as the title of Al Gore's latest book puts it. People, church people, seem to be afraid that if we set logic loose in the church it will burn the house down. But that's actually not true. In reality, it is too often our fear of logic that destroys the credibility of the church.

What do you think of this morning's story about Nebuchadnezzar? "All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar [as] he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. The king said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?" Then came a voice from heaven, "O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you." The king was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers, and his nails were like birds' claws. Then he blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives for ever. And his reason returned to him.

It's a great story, but do any of us imagine that it is literal history? The king turned into an irrational, grass eating, feather coated and clawed monster by God simply because he dared to take credit for his own accomplishments? If I have to believe that this is literal human history in order to be a "good Christian," then I'm done. I can't with any sense of integrity be a Christian under those circumstances. The story sounds to me more like one of Aesop's Fables. I can't believe it was ever intended to be taken literally, but that doesn't mean it can't teach us something. The point, it seems to me, is that if, like Nebuchadnezzar, we fail to see ourselves under the sovereignty of God, than our arrogant pride will be our downfall. That happens to be true. Whenever we get to thinking that we are the masters of the universe we're in trouble. We're just about to hit the floor. We're lining ourselves up to find out the truth of that old saying, "pride goeth before a fall." And, whether this "truth" is something derived from a story that took place in real human history or not, is entirely beside the point.

However, as you well know, there are many among our Christian brothers and sisters who are deeply committed to the belief that our scriptures are without error of any kind; that everything in the bible is literally true. The problem is, if we start with that belief, it forces us to defend the notion that no matter how crazy some of the stuff in the bible may sound, nonetheless, it all happened just the way it's written. God really did make Nebuchadnezzar eat grass. Now you tell me. How can reasonable people take that seriously? And on the other side, how can people who do believe that be reasonable?

I am a man of faith. I hope you know that. But I've never found it necessary to believe that we have anything to fear from logic. Reason and faith are both "God given." There is no essential conflict between reason and faith unless we are determined to believe things that reason cannot abide. The stories in the bible are true. They carry human truths that even in our modern age we are still trying to learn. It is not necessary to take them literally in order to hear God's voice speaking to us through them. We do not have to close our eyes or our minds to be people of faith. We do not have to believe that there are turtles all the way down. Rather, it is entirely possible for people of faith and people of reason to be tuned in to the same grand mystery of life and learn to respect one another.

As a case in point, towards the end of his life, Sir. Isaac Newtown, one of the great scientific genius' of history, said this: "I do not know [how] I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me." I couldn't have said it better.

Amen.