I want to start this morning by talking of something
you all know something about, fields. But, I trick you. Not the fields we plant
in and play in but rather Quantum Fields.
I’m going to inflict some Quantum Physics on you and please accept my
apology for what I’m about to put your minds through.
This pulpit is made of wood. The wood is made of cells that are made of
molecules that are made of atoms. Atoms
are a bit like a miniature Solar system.
They are a nucleus (Sun) made of protons and neutrons bound together by
something called the Strong Force otherwise known as the Z Boson. There are other types of Bosons as well. The photon, the light particle, is a Boson. Then, around this nucleus, there are
electrons orbiting analogous to planets.
Things get even smaller. Protons
and neutrons consist of even smaller particles called Quarks of which there are
several types. There are also several
other types of particles that are like electrons and they form a group called
Leptons. So, this pulpit consists of
various different combinations of Quarks, Leptons, and Bosons, otherwise known
as Elementary Particles, relating to each other.
Elementary Particles are basically little vibrating
blips of energy that are just everywhere to the extent that we can say there
really is no such thing as someplace where there is nothing. Even the vacuum of space is permeated with
elementary particles. Space is not
really empty space. Space is full of
Fields of Elementary Particles. Think of
the fields on your own farms. On your
farms you have different varieties of fields; wheat fields, rye fields, barley
fields, hayfields and cornfields. We
could also say dirt is itself a type of field and water too. If you spread a
field of wheat grains over a field of dirt and then spread a field of water
over it also, the interaction of those three fields – wheat, dirt, and water –
produces a harvest of wheat. That’s the
way subatomic particles and Particle Fields work. Each type of elementary particle exists in its
own field and the relationships between these fields are what physical reality
is made of.
There is a particular type of Boson newly discovered
called the Higgs Boson. The Higgs is what gives everything mass. It makes stuff to be stuff. When a quark interacts with the Higgs all of
a sudden it has mass. It’s like the
invisible man walking into a room permeated with flour. Without the Higgs Field stuff just wouldn’t be
stuff. Everything would be energy. The
Higgs Field consisting of an unlimited number of Higgs Bosons is the heart of
physical reality.
That’s physical reality. This pulpit is the by-product of fields of
elementary particles interacting with each other. But there’s more to this picture. It took human being to design and assemble
it. We human beings, in fact life in
general, are a higher level of this reality.
We have sapience. We are the part
of this creation that is able to understand it and give voice to it. We are also the part of creation that can
understand that there is a God who created all this and this God created us to
be in a relationship with Him, a relationship that a rock cannot have with God.
We are also capable of having
relationships with each other, with the animal kingdom, and with all of
creation in a way that is similar to the relationship that God has with this
creation. God created us in his own
image. We know. We speak.
We relate.
It is into this level of reality that sin entered
through Adam and there is now death as the result. This futility affects the whole creation. One man transgresses and the result is the
many, the all of it dies. Death
reigns…or at least it did. It was God’s
plan all along to infuse his own life into his creation. Ephesians 1 tells us this. God has infused his own life into his creation
in, through, and as Jesus Christ who is God the Son become human. Incarnation is the big theological word for
that.
And, let’s not sell the extent of the Incarnation
short. It isn’t just that God the Son
became human. He became physical matter too
infusing himself into the elementary particles and particle fields. Just as humanity is now different because of
Jesus, so is all of physical reality different.
Jesus is the seed of the New Creation sown into the dirt field of the
old creation and is being watered by the Holy Spirit. When Jesus returns and there is resurrection
all of creation will become new and as the prophet Isaiah says, “full of the
knowing of God as the waters cover the sea” (11:9).
It is often said that Jesus lived the faithful life
that we cannot live. This means that Jesus,
God the Son, lived his life rightly related to others and to God the Father in
and through the Holy Spirit. This is
something that humanity apart from new life in him in and through the Holy
Spirit is not able to do. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are like the Higgs Field of
New Creation. Jesus, God the Son, bound to himself the fullness of sinful
humanity and died with it putting it to death and then by the power of the Holy
Spirit God the Father raised him from the dead.
He went through death and came out the other side with a resurrected New
Creation human body made of New Creation physical matter. Like when you put a tea bag in hot water you
no longer have a cup of hot water but rather a cup of tea, so all of physical
reality is now different…especially humanity.
Paul wrote: “Therefore just as one man’s trespass led
to condemnation for all, so one man’s righteous act leads to justification and
life for all.” Due to Adam’s trespass
the Fields of Sin and Death permeate all, but now because of Jesus, the
Incarnation and his faithfulness, a Field of Life permeates all. Paul also says; “If, because of the one man’s
trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will
those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness
exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” For now, God has chosen to bring some of
humanity to new life by pouring the Holy
Spirit upon them making them to be the body of Christ, the church. That’s us. It is God’s intent that we will live life
faithful like Jesus lived his life, rightly related to God and to people as evidence of what’s coming. Death
is not the last word.
By the gift of the Holy
Spirit and the help of the Holy Spirit God has made us able to do this. Paul talks about our exercising dominion in life through Christ. I am pretty sure what he is talking about
there is a life that is deeply rooted in and flows forth from prayer, a type of
prayer in which we know ourselves to be always in the presence of God and
talking with God. I came across a homily
by an ancient church father we call Pseudo-Chrysostom that I thought described
prayer quite well. I’ll share it with
you:
“The highest good is prayer in conversation with God,
because it means that we are in God’s company and in union with him. When light enters our bodily eyes eyesight is
sharpened; when the soul is intent on God, God’s inextinguishable light shines
into it and makes it bright and clear. I
am talking, of course, of prayer that comes from the heart and not from
routine: not the prayer that is assigned to particular days or particular
moments in time, but the prayer that happens continuously by day and by night…Prayer
is a go between linking us to God. It
gives joy to the soul and calms its emotions.
I warn you, though: do not imagine that prayer is simply words. Prayer is the desire for God, an
indescribable devotion, not given by man but brought about by God’s grace. As St. Paul says: ‘For when we cannot chose
words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself intercedes on our behalf in
a way that could never be put into words.”
Jesus is present in all of our lives. The Presence of the Holy Spirit makes us
aware of him and to desire him. Children
have imaginary friends. We have Jesus
and he is far from imaginary. Part of
prayer is training our minds to be aware of his presence. If it helps, set up a chair in your room when
you pray and let it be as if Jesus was sitting there. This is opening space for him. Soon you will realize he’s always with
you. You will find yourself changing
because of his presence with you. By the
work of the Holy Spirit he makes us to be people like him. It is a judgement
and a grace to know oneself to be always in his presence. If he’s with us, we might as well talk to him
and listen. I’m really serious about
this. Open up space for him and he will
be there to fill it with himself. And,
by his presence in our lives he changes us by his gracious working through the
Spirit to be like him.
The Dominion of death has ended. Live the New Creation life now. Pray.
Amen.
