Christmas 2012 (A sermon on John 1:1-5,14)

“In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. Through him all things were made, and apart from him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and that life brought light to humanity.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never overcome it!”

Yes, it’s time to talk metaphysics!

No, I don’t want to talk metaphysics! I hate metaphysics! I’m too tired to talk metaphysics, and I have no idea what metaphysics is!

Well … metaphysics is the study of the realities that underlie physics – the study of the nature of the cosmos, of the origins of the world and of God.

More specifically, metaphysics is this:

‘In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1:1)

And if there’s any time of year when it is appropriate to talk metaphysics it is today when we remember a very particular event that for the last 2000 years of human history has been proclaimed as one of deep metaphysical significance – the birth of Jesus, the light that shines in the darkness, the Word become flesh!

I am conscious of the fact that we don’t talk metaphysics very often. Partly that’s because it’s not considered to be a polite topic for regular conversation and partly it’s because a lot of people claim to not believe in metaphysical realities any more but, in truth, I don’t think I have ever met anyone yet who doesn’t believe in something beyond the plainly physical.

Some people call it a ‘force’. Some call it ‘values’. At the very least, when I ask my allegedly atheistic friends whether they believe in the reality of right and wrong, they always seem to recognise something that is bigger than themselves – a certain set of truths or something like that that are not of human making and that defy any simple explanation.

Call it the ‘force’, call it the ‘Tao’, call it the ‘moral fabric of the universe’ or call it what you wish – we all believe in something. John calls it ‘the Word’ – our translation of the ancient Greek word ‘logos’ – and it’s worth recognizing that John deliberately chose a word that had broad cultural relevance in his day as a reference to that fundamental metaphysical reality that we all believe in.

It was a term that was not tied to any particular religious tradition. It was a term with strong currency in the philosophical traditions of Socrates and Plato. The Word (the ‘logos’) was simply that all-embracing term that John used to designate that mystical reality that is at the heart of everything, in which all of life and light finds its origin. And John’s testimony is that in Jesus the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth!

We don’t like to talk metaphysics much and, in truth, I don’t like to talk metaphysics much either. Even here in church I don’t talk metaphysics a great deal because metaphysics is theory and it’s all about the intellect, and I’d sooner talk about life and love and human experience than about any esoteric theory. After all, who ever had their life changed by a theory?

I used to spend a lot of time arguing with people at a theoretical level – arguments about prejudice in particular – but I’ve come to realise as I’ve got older that the best of arguments rarely accomplishes much.

Islamophobia was a particular hot-point for me. I would spend any number of hours each week online, arguing with people who claim that the majority of Muslims are wearing suicide vests under their regular attire and simply waiting for the right moment to make their contribution to the destruction of civilization as we know it.

And I would go into great detail pointing out that:

• It wasn’t actually Muslims who invented suicide bombing but the Japanese in World War II, and that it wasn’t Muslims who revived the practice in this generation (an honour that goes to the Tamil Tigers).
• The Muslim world actually has some very genuine grievances with ‘the west’ that need to be taken seriously, including the recent invasion and devastation of numerous Muslim countries and the ongoing tragedy of the Palestinian Occupation which we support.
• Nonetheless, only a very tiny percentage of Muslim people are actually engaged in any form of hostile behavior against ‘western’ countries.

I figured that these impregnable logical arguments would topple all opposition and have Islamophobes everywhere saying “My apologies. I stand corrected”. Unfortunately that did not happen, and this led me to realise an important truth. I realised that people can’t be shifted from their prejudices by the force of logic when they didn’t adopt those prejudices for logical reasons in the first place.

I’ve found a similar truth to operate in religious arguments (which I also rarely engage in nowadays). I have found that most people do not adopt their religious beliefs for logical reasons and indeed that most atheists don’t adopt their non-religious beliefs for logical reasons. Logic has little to do with it!

I’m sure there are some exceptions to this pattern but I have certainly found that with all the people I know who express a hostile disbelief in God it’s not because the force of logic pressed them to abandon religious dogma but because something happened to them – they were abused by the church or had some other horrible experience that made them question their belief that they were truly loved.

Not many people become atheists by the force of pure logic just as not many become religious believers by the force of logic. There are exceptions, of course, and I do actually count myself as one such exception.

I was 18 years old when the compelling logic of religious truth brought me to my knees!

Well … perhaps that’s a slightly inaccurate way of describing what happened, but hear me out:

Shortly after I turned 18 I hit ‘rock bottom’ (as we say in AA circles). At that stage I was involved in a lifestyle that was quite abusive and it was one in which I felt very much alone and where realistically I had a very short life-expectancy.

And I was busy sprouting Atheistic dogmas at the time about there being no such thing as right or wrong and that people should be free to behave exactly as they liked without the force of governments and religious institutions coming down upon them and trying to limit their behavior.

My dad at the time challenged me to look within and to see if I could not find within myself those same moral realities that I claimed to be non-existent. And as I did that I came to the inescapable conclusion that the life I was living was not one that was free, but that I had a genuine sense of the wrongness of so much of what I was doing, and I realised that someone or something out there was genuinely interested in the way I lived my life.

And that led me to prayer, and that led me to an intense religious experience that I have never forgotten!

I guess that’s not really conversion by the force of logic. It’s more a growing religious awareness associated with theories of right and wrong that did indeed lead me to take up philosophy at University for the four years that followed where I specialized in ‘meta-ethics’ which looks at the metaphysical basis of ethical truth. Even so, it was not the theory alone that changed me, and it was not the theory that has stayed with me, but rather that experience of meeting God that I had on that night some 30-something years ago.

So far as the value of logical arguments goes, my understanding now is that a good logical argument will ‘give you permission’ (in a sense) to change your mind about something when you already really wanted to change it anyway.

Logic alone does not change us. Encounter with God and with other people changes us. Good theory just helps our minds to catch up with our hearts!

This is as true for persons who are Islamophobic as it is for atheists! If you want to see someone change their mind about Muslims just organise a dinner where they will be breaking bread alongside their Muslim sisters and brothers! You always find that after a night of warm conversation between people of different faiths, all of a sudden those arguments against Islamophobia look a lot more logically compelling! Logic allows the mind to catch up with the heart, but it is never the leading edge of change!

And the same is true with religious truth. People don’t come to Christ by virtue of the inescapable logic of Christian dogma. They experience Christ and they meet God, and all of a sudden those tired old dogmas take on new life!

And this of course was exactly the experience of the Gospel writer: “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And there is much that can be said about that Word or the force or mystery of the universe that makes a lot of sense:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never overcome it!”

And that may all be true but in and of itself it changes nothing and nobody BUT, the Gospel writer says:

That Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. We have seen His glory – glory as of the only Son of the Father. No one has ever seen God. It is Jesus, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Ah … metaphysics!

No, not more metaphysics! Haven’t we had enough metaphysics by now?

Perhaps we have, and I agree that metaphysics as a purely philosophical discipline involving arguments and counter-arguments that go on endlessly can be as boring as it is useless.

But what we have in the Gospel of John today is not simply metaphysics. Rather, it’s a story of an encounter, and it’s a metaphysic of hope for all humanity that has been built upon the experience of that encounter!

In the beginning there was something – a word, a force, a light shining in the darkness, and that something became flesh and that something had a name and the name of that something was Jesus.

And we met Jesus, and Jesus changed us! He changed the way we think and he changed the way we live because He changed who we are! And people today continue to meet Jesus, and Jesus continues to change people, as He continues to turn our metaphysics upside-down!

The Word became flesh.

We beheld His glory – glory as of the only Son of the Father – full of grace and truth! No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
First preached by Father Dave at Holy Trinity Dulwich Hill on December 25, 2012.

To hear the audio version of the sermon click here.
To see the video version of the sermon click here.