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Ground of our Being                        Acts 17: 22-31                   April 27, 2008

David Brooks, one of my favorite columnists, in his op-ed piece earlier this week in the New York Times, wrote that "Europeans in the Middle Ages lived with an almost childlike emotional intensity. There were stark contrasts," he continued to explain, "between daytime and darkness, between summer heat and winter cold, between misery and exuberance, and good and evil. Certain distinctions were less recognized, namely between the sacred and the profane."

"Material things, Brooks went on to write "were consecrated with spiritual powers. God was thought to live in the stones of the cathedrals, and miracles inhered in the bones of the saints. The world seemed spiritually alive, and the power of spirit could overshadow politics."

It is unusual to read this sort of commentary in the op-ed section of the Times. Brooks and his fellow columnists generally focus their attention on political, social and economic matters. Yet, here it was, on the day of the Pennsylvania primary, no less, a sentimental, longing look at a time when spiritual things mattered more than campaigns and attack ads and Superdelegates. "It's nice to look up from the latest YouTube campaign moment and imagine a sky populated with creatures, symbols and tales," Brooks concluded.

I think Brooks is on to something. All of us, no matter how sophisticated, or cynical or hard-nosed we may be; all of us grab on to moments when we can turn away from what we have become - people who focus on the facts of modern life; the math and science of it all - and instead allow ourselves to experience the spiritual side of things.

Or, to put it a little differently, all of us need to be enchanted every now and then. Enchanted by a pair of g oldfinches pecking away at the bird feeder in our back yard. Enchanted by the soft light of the full moon on a warm spring evening. Enchanted by the sight and sound of ocean waves breaking on the shore. Enchanted by the palpable presence of God's Spirit.

The "childlike emotional intensity" that B rooks reminds us was part of the daily experience of people in the Middle Ages is something we modern folks can not afford to lose. It is a gift from God

And more importantly, our capacity for enchantment or emotional intensity or awe or whatever word or phrase we might like to use to describe this state of being is a key component of our capacity to experience God. In this state of being we don't just think about God, or contemplate God or wonder about God. Rather, we truly experience a connection to the One who, as Paul puts it so well, "is not far from each one of us" but rather is the One in whom "we live and move and have our being."

Paul's wonderful description of God was a part of his sermon to the residents of Athens, which, at the point in history that these words were written, was the intellectual and philosophical epicenter of the known world, the home of the greatest philosophers, orators, sculptors, painters and poets.

In that sermon - the only one we have that was preached to a Gentile audience, by the way - Paul tells his sophisticated, educated listeners that God is not somewhere else. No, God is right here, all around us.

"I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship," Paul says to the Athenians. And "I found among those objects an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.'"

"To those of you who grope for God," Paul continues, "Know this. God is not far from us. In fact, we are God's offspring. God is that close."

In Paul's Athenian sermon he reminds his listeners - and reminds us, as well - that the search for God is not an intellectual exercise. He reminds us that the religious life is not a search for a God that is "out there," but, to the contrary, is a process of entering into a relationship with a God who is "right here."

Another Paul - A 20th Century man named Paul Tillich was one of the great philosopher-theologians of his era. His works have been required reading for literally generations of students of theology. Me included.

Now, I must admit that it has been a long time since I studied the works of this giant of the faith. To give you an indication of how long, my copy of Tillich's masterpiece, The Courage to B, sold for $1.75 - the non-discounted price printed on the cover - when I purchased it.

I will always remember the central concept that Tillich developed, however - the concept that defines his contribution to Christian thought. It is the notion that God is best understood as the Ground of our Being.

"The Bible has always told us of the beginning and the end of the world," Tillich wrote. "It speaks of eternity before the world was founded; it speaks of the time when God laid the foundations of the earth; it speaks of the shaking of these foundations and the crumbling of the world. And it tells us that out of the fertile soil of the earth a being was generated and nourished, who was able to find the key to the foundation of all beings."

The being to which Tillich was refers, of course, is humankind. You and me. And the ground of our very being - the center of our consciousness, the stuff from which we were made, is God.

In our lesson for this morning, Paul points out that even well meaning, generally religious human beings like you and I inevitably turn in wrong directions, but God never abandons us.

He's right, of course. Again and again, throughout history, God has broken through our limited understanding, intervened when we stepped out of line, corrected our wrong images, and opened us to new possibilities.

"I see how extremely religious you are in every way," Paul tells the Athenians. "I walked around this city of yours, looked carefully at the objects of your worship, and was pleased to see that you are looking for God; reaching for God; longing for God. But you are looking in the wrong places. If you want to find God, look to the one who has been raised from the dead."

The miracle of the incarnation, death and resurrection of God in Jesus is the reason God, to use Paul's phrase, "is not far from each one of us." We simply can't make God come any closer to us. In Jesus, God lives in the flesh and redeems the human condition.

The Psalmist beautifully captures this closeness in Psalm 139. "Where can I go from your spirit?" the Psalmist asks. "Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Hell, in the Underworld, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night', even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well."

Somehow, though, we humans still drift away. Push away, sometimes. We still break the connection with the Ground of our Being on a regular basis.

Perhaps it is because the unmerited gift of the grace of God, expressed in the person of Christ and given freely to us in spite of our generally rotten selves, just seems too good to be true.

Or perhaps it is because the thought of a life lived in the presence of God simply causes us to try to hide. Causes us to try to escape.

Or perhaps it is simply because the intensity of an intimate relationship with God is simply not sustainable twenty-four seven. As some of us are fond of saying, "we need our space."

Tillich puts it well in a sermon entitled Escape from God: "God knows what we are, and He knows what we do," he writes, "Who does not hate a companion who is always present on every road and in every place of rest? Who does not want to break through the prison of such a perpetual companionship?"

"None of us wants to be known," Tillich observes, "even when we realize that our health and salvation depend upon such knowledge. At some level, we do not even wish to be known by ourselves. We try to hide the depths of our souls from our own eyes. We refuse to be our own witness. How then can we stand the mirror in which nothing can be hidden?"

These are powerful words. But a question remains. If Tillich is correct, and I believe he is, what are we to do?

On the one hand, God is the very ground of our existence. Why we are who we are. In God we live and move and have our being. With the Athenians of old, we grope for God. We want to feel the presence of God with childlike emotional intensity. We long to let God's presence wash over us like the waves of the ocean.

Yet, on the other hand, the knowledge that the awesome presence of God is inescapable can cause us to retreat and create distance. It can cause us to put up road blocks in an attempt to keep God away.

Paul suggests that the answer to this dilemma, the resolution of this tension, lies in the act of repentance. And the Psalmist, when he pens one of the great prayers of all time, provides us with the words to use to seek that repentance. The words of this prayer are found in the concluding lines of the same Psalm I quoted before.

Let the Psalmist's prayer be our prayer today, my friends, and our prayer each time we stand, open and vulnerable, before the Ground of our Being.

In the words of the Psalmist, pray with me now: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

And again: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. ?ee if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

                                                                             AMEN

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