Transcription
We hope you enjoy the following video presentation, sponsored by the CS Lewis Foundation. We are a nonprofit organization with a mission to equip and encourage Christians to live their faith within the world of ideas and arts. To help us continue to host events and make videos like this one, please make a donation after viewing the video by going to www.c lewis.org or clicking the link below. Thank you.
Let me read to you five glorious verses from Colossians. Colossians 1, uh, 15 to 20. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him all things in heaven and on Earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers. All things have been created through him and for him. He is himself before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have the first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on Earth or in Heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Now may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be now and always acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.
Astonishing that in those five short verses, uh, of Colossians, the phrase, the two words, "all things," occur five times in as many verses. In him all things were created. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things. In him all things hold together. Through him God was pleased to reconcile all things. It doesn't get more inclusive than that.
Sometimes I give the impression in secular universities that wanting to be inclusive is a comparatively recent idea. You don't, you can't include more than everything. So how is it then that we have sometimes given the impression as Christians that we belong to a separated, a segregated, a fenced-off, a privatized religion? How is it that Christ has come to be thought of as this almost kind of wraithlike little apparition that we keep close and personal to ourselves, and when having ignored everything else that is going on everywhere else, and seeded that entire realm as it were to other things and other forces, we can at least get into a huddle in a corner somewhere and and and be at peace with Christ, in whom and for whom and through whom we somehow concede that there are fewer and fewer things, even fewer and fewer things in our own lives as Christians, so that in the end it becomes just one place in our busy lives, a little circle of compensatory pious emotions for a private Jesus. That is not the faith that is declared in Colossians.
Um, Colossians, uh, the faith in Colossians is without question, if I can use a word that I particularly used to use in, uh, in, in, uh, the, uh, the early, going back to the early '70s and the mid '70s, one of my favorite words was "Cosmic." Man, that is really cosmic. Um, and it's a bit like the word "awesome." You know, people use the word "awesome" to describe a pair of running shoes now. And perhaps I was guilty in those days of going "Cosmic" to everything. But finally, when I found Christ, I found something that really was cosmic. I discovered that God so loved the world, actually is God so agape the cosmos. That's what the Greek is saying.
So that's the first thing we have to say. We come to reflect, uh, over these few days on faith, freedom, and the Public Square. So let's begin with the reflection that our faith teaches us that Christ is already there in the Public Square, whichever Public Square you happen to be thinking about. Whether it is the Public Square of university discourse, already mentioned, the Public Square of Higher Learning, whether it's the Public Square of political discourse and debate, whether it's the Public Square of science and the development of the natural sciences, whether it's the Public Square of our way of telling together to ourselves our own particular history, our personal history, our histories as nations, that kind of storytelling that founds us. All of those things are included in the "all things" that is repeated five times in those verses of Colossians.
So Christ is already there in the Public Square. We have the freedom to advance into that Public Square which he already occupies. We have the freedom to find him there. We have, uh, uh, the freedom and indeed the duty and the joy to alert and awaken others in that Public Square to his presence. To his presence there, unnoticed, unmarked. His presence outside our churches. His presence away from holy huddles. His presence in the midst of the secular. His presence in the midst of places that have never named him. Jesus. Doesn't it? Is an astonishing privilege to be able to name Jesus, to be able to put that name. That is an astonishing thing. But it is not a condition of his presence. Throughout the gospels, he's continually doing wonderful things for all kinds of people, meeting them and blessing them, and they don't even know his name. And sometimes when they do know his name, he rather playfully says, "Sh, don't tell anyone." You know, I did it. Of course, they do. He doesn't need to be named, who is the source of every name and being, in order to be a blessing to people. But to speak that name, to awaken somebody, to have them know that every breath they've ever drawn, every pulse in their blood, every beat of their heart, every atom dancing in the smallest bit of their little finger, is held in being and blessed in being and coheres in being in the being of Christ, who is love and who loves them, even though they've never known it or named it. To awaken somebody to that and to be able to say that that being, that goodness, that love, that coherence, in whom and for whom and from whom all things come, may be known, may be named, and made, can it be, may be encountered as a person who loves you. To tell somebody that is astonishing, and that is our duty and joy in the Public Square. To alert people that there is a source of all things, that there is a coherence in all things, that there is indeed a rescuer and reconciler of all things. And most important, in a world that seems to find no sense of direction or purpose, only phantom purposes, as C.S. Lewis called them, to know that he is the end, the fulfillment, the true flowering of all things, the one for whom all things are made.
Now, this reflection that we have the freedom to go into that Public Square which he already occupies, and the duty and the joy to awaken an awareness of a presence that is already there, to point towards that hidden coherence of all things. This reflection should give us, paradoxically, both boldness and humility. Boldness to go to the Public Square with the name of Christ on our lips, because Christ is already there. And humility in going to the Public Square with the name of Christ on our lips. Humility because Christ is already there. We do not bring him there. We do not cause him to be there. We do not have, as it were, have him as it were wrapped up in a particular beloved doctrinal formula or special prayer and venture out into a darkness from which he is utterly absent in order magically, at the right moment, in an emotional conversation, to produce him and say, "Here he is." He is already there.
And one of the first things we have to do when we meet other folk who do not share our faith is to look with great humility, with deep discretion, with as much discernment as we can be given, and see, before the person themselves can see it, how profoundly and beautifully Christ has already known and met and loved and sustained them. To awaken them up to what he is. We cannot, therefore, rush in with formula. And we cannot rush in with ideas. We are right to go into the Public Square of science, of history, of psychology, of philosophy. We have something to say about it. The statement that in Christ all things cohere is a statement which is relevant to physics as well as relevant to psychology. But it is not the same thing as having personally done a full degree in physics and being working on the S, uh, accelerator. We have to have a proper humility towards the good things that people have already discovered.
I want to read you, if I may, um, a wonderful passage. I, I think in some respects, quite a prophetic passage, although it's actually looking back to the past. It seems to me it reflects the present situation in, um, Tom, in, uh, G.K. Chesterton's wonderful little book on Thomas Aquinas, which I, I strongly recommend to you. It's, it's a really good read. You wouldn't think a book about Thomas Aquinas was necessarily a page-turner, um, you know, a romping good yarn, but actually, in the hands of G.K., didn't it? It is. Anyway, he's talking about the way in which Aquinas carefully thought through the relationship between faith and reason, the relationship between faith and the science of his day, and the way each complemented the other. And in the end, of course, reason itself had to operate from what was given by faith. But this is what Chesterton says about subsequent history that had forgotten St. Thomas's good teaching. He says, um, he's talking about the fact that some immediate and literal interpretations of some passages in scripture, taken as though they were a science textbook, and some ideas and suggestions and theories that some scientists might have about the nature of the world, would appear to contradict each other. Now, if in Christ all things hold together, if all things are for him, they do not ultimately contradict each other at all, because Christ is there behind all things. But we need a certain patience and humility which has not always been evident on the part either of the adherents of the faith or of the theorists among the scientists. Some of whom are sometimes the both people, both the same people.
But this is what Chesterton says. He says, "Unfortunately, 19th-century scientists were just as ready to jump to the conclusion that any guess about nature was an obvious fact as were 17th-century sectarians to jump to the conclusion that any guess about what scripture, uh, about scripture was the obvious explanation. Thus, private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time. And this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the clash of science and religion."
Now, I think that's a wonderful phrase. This, this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance. Could describe most of my classes in Cambridge, actually. But anyway, uh, uh, that happens if we rush into the Public Square thinking that we already know everything and have the answers. And it happens when the Public Square rushes into our church and says, "You're all just completely, you know, believers in an exploded fairy tale." There's no listening, there's no patience, there's no humility, there's no encounter. The faith that in Christ all things hold together is the faith and ground that gives us an infinite patience because we know that in the end, as we work through these things together, they are going to make sense. And they're going to make sense in and through the only one in whom and through whom anything will ultimately make sense. And that is the person of Jesus Christ.
So we advance into the Public Square because Christ has gone ahead of us. I love those words in the resurrection where he says, "I will go ahead of you into Galilee." We should always recognize that wherever we go, he has gone ahead of us. He has pioneered our path. And a nice reflection on that from Lancia, early on, about what it means to follow.
So what do we do as we are advancing to that square? What is our task? Certainly not to bring Christ. But it is definitely to awaken the attention of a mind distracted from distraction by distraction to these depths. It is to open ears that have perhaps already heard something. We go into the Public Square in the conviction that Christ, who loves every occupant of that Public Square, is already speaking to them. They may have their fingers in their ears. They may turn the TV up loud. They may, as the voice of Christ becomes more insistent, immediately do several posts on Facebook and a couple of tweets in order to look the other way. But he has not ceased speaking. He may have been speaking for years, though unrecognized. We might be the ones, if we're quiet enough and ask the right questions, to help somebody else awaken to and hear that voice.
In this, I'm very strongly reminded of that wonderful moment, uh, in *The Horse and His Boy*, in which Shasta, who has had no knowledge of Aslan and doesn't know the name. All he's heard, all he's heard is that there's some kind of strange Northern demon that eats people, you know, that's what he thinks. And you remember he's walking in the fog over a perilous mountain pass, and he becomes aware of a presence to which he cannot give a name. And then, when he can't bear it any longer, he says, "Who are you?" And the thing, the voice says, "One who has waited long to hear you speak." It's astonishing. "One who has waited long to hear you speak." And the beginning of hearing Alan and knowing him is actually Shasta telling his own story. And you remember from Shasta's point of view, that story is a story of, if you like, Aslan's absence. "Of the god I had this terrible time. I was brought up in this awful thing, you know, treated like a slave. I ran away. And then, you know, we were just on our way. And, and, uh, these horrible lions chased us, you know. And then there was another time when I was scared by the lions. And then horse. And then there was a time I was really scared by the tomb. But at least a nice cat came and looked after me." He tells the whole story. "Don't you think I'm the most unfortunate and lonely boy that's ever been?" And you remember the voice is neither unfortunate nor... "I was the cat that comforted you in the tombs. I was the lion that gave the horses the extra speed they needed to get you. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat to shore on a moonlit evening that saved your life. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. I was there always."
We don't rush into somebody's life and say, "You've been living a godless life, and Jesus has never been anywhere near you." We want to get somebody to know that all the way through there, there was the lion. And we want to do the same with a person who is studying particle physics and says, "How is it that things which are utterly separated relate to one another? By what extraordinary, I understand the parts, I don't understand how the whole thing works. Why does this spinning quark over here and this other half of it spinning over there, why do they spin in relation to one another? What's going on? Where is this hidden coherence? Has anybody given that any thought?" Well, funny enough, the Epistle to the Colossians has given them some thought. So we have something to offer, a kind of awakening. And it seems to me encouraging that encounter, making space for that conversation, is very much what this is about.
I remember with what extraordinary, it was a very moving moment when this Foundation, some quite some years ago now, gave a Lifetime Achievement Award to the great, um, physicist but and cosmologist but also Anglican priest, um, Dr. John, well, Sir John Polkinghorne. Now, and he wasn't well enough to receive it. And Stan put the award into my hands. And since John Polkinghorne was living in Cambridge, he gave it to me to take to him. And I took it to him. I knew him a little, and he'd preached at my college. And we sat around his table. He'd just lost his wife. He was in grief. And he began just spontaneously to talk to me about how he understood the resurrection of Christ to be, in some sense, like that singularity out of which the cosmos had sprung. That all his cosmology, looking back to this point, you couldn't see or touch, out of which everything we have unfolds, was perhaps an analogy for the beginning of the kingdom in the resurrection of Jesus. The full strength of his, his mind as a scientist becoming available to his imagination as an analogy for the mystery of what Christ gives us in resurrection. And I thought, now that is the kind of encounter we need in the Public Square.
Let me close this meditation with a sonnet, which I wrote to reflect on this passage in Colossians. "Everything Holds Together." This sonnet is called "Everything Holds Together."
Everything from stars that pierce the dark like living sparks,
To secret seeds unfolding every spring,
From spanning galaxies to spinning quarks,
Everything holds together and coheres, unfolding
From the center whence it came. And now that hidden
Heart of things appears. The firstborn of creation
Takes a name. And shall I see the One through whom I am?
Shall I behold the One for whom I'm made?
The light in light, the flame within the flame,
I see come to fail, image of my God.
He comes, a little child, to bless my sight,
That I might come to him for life and light.
Amen.