Science and Religion

As a young man about to go off to college, I felt the tug to do one of two things with my life- become a priest in God's Church or explore the world of science.  Amazingly, God opened doors in my life that allowed me to do both.  I spent 31years enjoying science, math as the language of science, and a career in electrical engineering (the application of science).  

Retiring from that career, I am now a priest who is further exploring God's creation and my relationship with our Creator.  Hopefully, as a priest and pastor, I am helping others do the same.

I never have considered faith and science as mutually exclusive or involving incompatible worldviews.   My Trinitarian Christian Faith has revealed to me the "why" of my existence, and science continues to open ever-widening vistas as to the "how" I have come to be part of this amazing world in which we live.  It has been an incredible ride!

Relationships, Not Rules

God-intended human life involves relationships.  Without relationships, life is an incomplete and faded image of what God intends it to be.  Jesus said that our first and greatest relationship is with the God who created us- He says in Mark 12:30-31, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The next greatest relationships are with one another- “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Therefore, Christianity is first and foremost about relationships.  Some think Christianity, particularly Christianity viewed from the outside, is all about following rules and loosing autonomy to a distant God.  But in God’s great economy of things, breaking God’s rules can be forgiven, which God is very quick to do.  We follow God's rules and acknowledge His boundaries simply because we love God.  God placed these rules and boundaries in our lives simply because He loves us.  Following God's commandments is surely an expression of our relationship with God.

From God's perspective, being in a relationship with Him based on love is our purpose for being and  why God created us.  God came to us in our fallen humanity in the person of Jesus to be the way back to an unfettered love-relationship with Him.  Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."  Through Jesus, heaven’s gates are opened wide for us to enjoy a full and forever relationship with our Heavenly Father.

God’s purposes become clear to us when we realize that God did not create any of us just to live "three score and ten years," as Psalm 90 puts it, and then pass into oblivion (or worse), but He created us to be in a love-relationship with Him and, by extension, with one another.  This full, unfettered, and forever relationship with God is called Heaven.  This full, unfettered, and forever relationship with one another is called the Communion of Saints in Heaven.  In Christ and through Christ, someday we will take our place in the full presence of God among the saints in Heaven. Alleluia!

Rob Hartley 01-07-22

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Christmas, year C, 2022- "What is Truth?"

The Christmas season, as you know, is 12 days long, beginning with the celebration of The Feast of the Incarnation on December 25 and ending with The Feast of Epiphany of January 6, but not all Christians celebrate the Feast of the Incarnation on December 25.  Churches such as the Eastern Orthodox, churches in Russia, Greece, and the Middle East, celebrate Christmas on January 6

This amazingly allowed Nancy and me to celebrate Christmas twice one year.  We attended Christmas Eve midnight mass here at home and then flew to Egypt on a study tour of Coptic Christianity with a group from my seminary.  We again attended a Christmas Eve midnight mass with our Coptic brothers and sisters in Cairo 12 days later. 

Sadly, the very next year this Coptic Christmas Eve service was attacked by Islamic radicals, and many people were killed and injured. This act of hatred and violence could not be further from the great Truth that was being celebrated that night in Cairo.  They were celebrating what St. John writes about in the prologue to his Gospel, “…the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth.” That night, Truth and the lies of this world came face-to-face.  Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).  Jesus came into the world embodying Truth, the truth about us, about God, and about this crazy world in which we live.

 Years ago, a noted Psychiatrist, Dr. Scott Peck, wrote a book titled People of the Lie.  Dr. Peck makes the all-too-real connection between untruth and human evil.  Living the lies of this world, simply stated, is the source of evil; after all, Satan, who roams this world, is the Prince of Lies.

 So, knowing Truth is important.  St. Paul in our Epistle reading today writes about Jesus coming to us bringing wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of God’s will, he writes.  Paul celebrates that Jesus not only brings salvation, He also brings truth, truth about what this life is really all about.

To us fallen and sinful humans, Truth is an elusive commodity.  Our culture even denies that there is such a thing as transcendent Truth.  We thus leave it to the individual to construct his or her own truth.  Of course, we followers of Christ find all this modernist talk about there being no transcendent truth quite absurd.  We know that ultimate Truth about life and about God is not a product of the human mind; rather, it has its source in the mind of God, which is why we Christians strive to continually grow in our knowledge of God. 

Barney Lamar whom many of you know from the men’s Saturday morning fellowship, sent me a link to an article on this topic written by Anthony Deblasi (Dec 19, 2021).   Deblasi points out that, if what we think or believe is not the truth, then it is not knowledge; in fact, it is the opposite knowledge, it is a lie.  This is important because it is true knowledge that guides us to a fulfilled life.  Jesus told us that He came that we might have life to the fullest.

Simeon and Anna in our Gospel today give us a picture of what it looks like to live into what is true. Truth had been revealed to Simeon and Anna through God’s Word, the Law and the Prophets, and they were now seeing its consummation in the presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple.  Simeon exclaims, “Lord, now you have set your servant free to go in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” We hear in these words the Christmas and Epiphany theme of light as a metaphor of truth and knowledge breaking into this world just as St. John writes about in His Prologue, “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.”

So, “What is Truth?”  I’m sure you recognize this as Pilot’s insightful question to Jesus at Jesus’ trial.  Jesus had told Pilot that He came to bear witness to the truth.  As Christ’s followers, therefore, are not we also to bear witness to the truth?  That is a rhetorical question… of course we are?

 In closing, let me mention a few truths to which we are to bear witness:

 ·       We are to bear witness that we are creatures made in His image of our loving Creator, that God created us out of love, to be the objects of His love, with the ability to love Him in return. 

 ·       We are to bear witness to God’s invitation to be in union with Him, something made possible through Christ who rescues us from our fallen human nature and invites us to new life in Him. 

 ·       We are to bear witness that, by the sanctifying power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives, new life begins now, today, right here among the lies and deceits of this present world, by letting light break into the dark world through us. 

 ·       We are to bear witness that the chief purpose of man is to live a life that glorifies and honors God.  This requires repentance, submission and obedience to God’s good and perfect will for our lives.  

 ·       Finally, since the big, in-your-face untruth of our time is about human sexuality, we are to bear witness that God did indeed has placed boundaries around human sexuality for the healthy ordering of our lives and our society.  Against this great truth, our culture is in open rebellion. 

 You and I know the answer to Pilot's question, “What is truth.” We know the answer because we know Jesus. 

The Rev. Rob Hartley, Christmas II, 2022

Some facts about the Christian virtue of generosity

·      God is the source of all we have, and we are stewards of all He has given us.

·      We are accountable to God for how we respond to His generosity toward us.  

·      Faithful stewardship is a key to the abundant life that Christ came to give us. 

·      We are most like God when we are giving. 

·      The biblical tithe is where things get real.  

Conclusion  If you want a Godly foundation for living in this materialistic world, seek God’s perspective on your money and possessions, and seek to grow in the Christian virtue of Generosity.

 Matthew 6:32-33  “…indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God  and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”   

Sermon for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, 2021- "From Self to Self-Giving"

 Readings:
            Amos 5:6-15
            Psalm 90:1-12
            Hebrews 3:1-6
            Mark 10:17-21

Into            Throughout Scripture, the Lord is persistent in challenging our worldly tendency to place ourselves and our material possessions ahead of Him and ahead of the needs of others.  What we do with what the Lord has materially given us is a big deal with God.

Readings   This morning in our reading from the Prophet Amos, God rebukes the people of God for building houses of hewn stone and planting pleasant vineyards, He says, while at the same time trampling on the poor.   

In today’s Gospel, Jesus challenges the rich young man to sell all that he has, give it to the poor, and follow him.  Jesus is not so much focusing on the fact that the young man is wealthy, because God is the source of all things; rather, Jesus is challenging this young man on two things more specifically: first, on what he is doing with all that God has given him; and secondly, that he has placed the love of mammon ahead of his love of God, although, interestingly, he is a man who seeks to be devoted to God.  Jesus says in Luke 16:13 “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” God says in Exodus 20:2 that we are to have no other gods before Him, which is the first of the 10 Commandments.  Anything we put ahead of God in our lives is, by definition, an idol.  Wealth and possessions can so easily become our idol.

The Rich Young Man          The young man apparently thinks that his abundant possessions can provide abundant life.  This is a malady common in our today’s materialistic society. To think that life in abundance can be found in material possessions is simply an impoverished view of life, at least life as God intends it.  Jesus says in John 10:10 that He came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  The abundant life Jesus is talking about is one of submission to God, perfected relationships, mutual love, sacrificial giving, radical generosity, having God’s transcendent purpose for living, and having a clear vision on where we are headed as children of God.  Jesus’ point to the rich young man today is that he will only find these things by following Him.

This rich young man is on the same journey that we are all on, and he sadly choses to take a different road.  Our Christian journey is to be from self-centered-ness to a Christ-centered-ness, from self-absorption to self-giving, from a life focused on the kingdom of this world to life that seeks the Kingdom of God. 

Our pilgrimage is, of course, a life-long journey and one we cannot make on our own.  The Holy Spirit empowers us for the journey and Jesus promises to walk the road with us.  The fact is that we are all a work in progress.  In Christ, we are ever moving heavenward, until at our last day Jesus takes me by the hand and presents us to the Father, unblemished, healed and perfected. We can all say amen to that.

Spokes of a wheel       A helpful visual for me has always been life as the spokes of a wheel.  Each spoke represents some facet of your lives… our family, career, relationships, hobbies, spirituality, our wealth, whatever.  But something needs to be at the center… the hub of our existence, so to speak.  Given our human nature, tainted by this world as it is, we place ourselves and our material needs at the center.  To the world that sounds right, and Jesus Himself said in Matthew 6 that God knows we need all these things, but the center of our lives needs to be God Himself.  God calls us to a much more transcendent and meaningful life than what the material world can provide, one in which all the various facets and spokes of our lives are submitted to Him.  That is the Christian call.

My on-going journey from self to self-giving       Let me tell you a bit about my journey as it relates to all this.  It was over a half-century ago that Nancy and I got married- (I love now being old enough to mark my journey in half-centuries.  It helps me realize how long and far Christ has taken us).  We married right out of college in 1970.  We soon discovered all the American middle-class struggles of mortgage, career, balancing finances, raising children and securing their future.  Family and career became the center of my existence.  God was there, but He was, in effect, somewhere on the fringe, just another one of those spokes in the wheel.  

One Sunday morning, while standing in the churchyard where we were attending, about to go into adult Sunday School, I was contemplating these things.  Nancy was off doing her ministries.  The kids were in Sunday School and nursery.  It was just God and me.  From what I knew about being a Christian, it was not rational to have God in some compartmentalized fringe of my life.  I thought of Jesus’ words in His Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew 6, “…²⁵ [be not anxious] about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? … ³³But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

That morning in the churchyard was a watershed moment in my life, a Nicodemus, John 3, born again moment. Perhaps you have had a similar encounter with God.  God invited me to receive him as the hub of my life.  I have been stiving to do that ever since.  

Because it is the topic of God’s message to us today, let me mention one thing Nancy and I did soon after, which was to move to the biblical tithe as a submission of our finances to the Lord.  Of all the facets and spokes of our lives, our pocketbook tends to be one of the last things we sanctify to the Lord.    

Closing      So, in closing, know that God has much to say about how we are to deal with wealth and material possessions with which He has graced us.  The rich young man was not ready to hear the words of our Lord; as for you and me, let us follow Jesus.

In Honor of Laura

 Sermon

Memorial Service for Laura Coppernoll, October 4, 2021

Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, North Augusta

The Reverend Rob Hartley, Preacher 

I am honored to offer some words today as we celebrate Laura and honor God who has gathered Laura to Himself. 

To Phillip and the family, on behalf of all of us here at Holy Trinity, and everyone present, know that our love, prayer, and condolences go out to you.  Prayers from us have been unceasing all during Laura’s struggle with this terrible disease, and those prayers will continue. 

Laura has been a faithful and giving servant of our Lord over all the years I have known her.  I will always admire her zeal for the Lord, her devotion to her family, her ministries both among us here at Holy Trinty and out in the community, particularly her work with Life Choices Pregnancy Center in Aiken, and of course for her passion for caring for God’s creatures.  It is surely appropriate that today is the Feast Day of Saint Francis, the patron saint of animals.  I think that is a God thing!

Times like this can become an unreal blur.  Grief can do that to us.  But today we stop and celebrate the great reality of what has taken place, and that is Laura is now united in a perfected and healed way with the God who created her.  Laura was faithful to her promises to God, but God has also been faithful to his promises to Laura.  Hear one of God’s promises to Laura in Romans 6:5, “… if we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”  

So, today is Laura’s resurrection party, her own Easter celebration, Easter being all about resurrection to new life with God.   The words and the tone of the service today reflect this… What we celebrate is that death does not have the final say in Laura’s life, God does.   Alleluia.

Our Romans 8 reading today says we who are in Christ are Children of God, and if children, then heirs; that is, heirs of the Kingdom of God.   To be heirs of the Kingdom of God means we have a place at God’s table forever.  Table fellowship is a powerful image used and ordained by Christ at the Last Supper and is an image of the fellowship we will all have with God for eternity.   

Laura has now taken her place at this great Banquet Table of our Lord.  In just a moment, we ourselves will participate in a foreshadowing of that great reality as we also commune at this Lord’s Table behind me.  All baptized members of God’s Holy Church, regardless of denomination, are invited to come forward with Phillip and the family and commune with God.  Even if you aren’t sure where you stand with the Lord and perhaps would rather not take Communion, please come forward with the family anyway- just cross your arms over your chest and you will receive words of blessing from Fr. Ross. 

As our liturgy today says, “All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”   

May this wonderful family move forward from here in the blessing and power of God’s Holy Spirit…  in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen                           

The Rev. Rob Hartley, Oct. 4, 2021

A 4th of July Sermon

A very happy 4^th of July to you all.  On this day, we celebrate our country’s birthday. The famous words of our Declaration of Independence still echo down through the 245 years of our country’s history, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  In this opening paragraph of the Declaration, God the Creator and giver of such inalienable as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is flagged as a chief actor in the birthing and future of this country

Most men and women of that era had a strong sense of God’s providential hand upon their lives and knew that the success of this great enterprise called the United States of America upon which they were embarking depended on this nation remaining under the umbrella of God’s providence and grace. 

Dante quote

Wayne Lowe recently told me and others here at Holy Trinity about a free on-line course on Dante’s Divine Comedy offered by Hilldale College.  It is a timeless classic written over three and a half centuries before our Declaration of Independence.  One phrase in this amazing poem stuck with me, “Peace is God’s will;” What Dante is meaning is that living according to God’s will is key to finding peace… real peace… in this life.  Similarly , for the 18^th Century founders of our country, living under the will of God was key to finding “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” 

 

 

Our Transgression

I totally agree with our Founder’s worldview, and I imagine you as Christians do also, but as a nation we now have a new worldview known as Secular Humanism.  We as a nation no longer know God; we no longer pursue God’s will, only our own.  That is simply a fact of modern America.

OT Israel’s (Judea’s) Transgression

In the millennium before Christ, the Israelites had also moved away from God…  Let me share a story about the time Nancy and I travelled to southern Israel to the ancient ruins of the city Be’er Sheva. This city dates to the time of the Israel’s Judges and even before.   It was quiet inspiring to see the city gate where the Judges of Israel would have presided.   One of the excavated rooms had two alcoves in the walls, which supposedly held symbols of their worship.  Archeologists believe that one was for the worship of Yahweh, the other for the worship of one of the Canaanite Gods, probably Baal.  Even at that early period of Israel’s history, syncretism and the lure of paganism was present.  How easy it is for us fallen human beings to be lured away from God!

 

Ezekiel

By the time the Prophet Ezekiel comes on the scene centuries later, Israel as a nation had largely abandoned God, even turned against Him.  Listen again to God’s words to Ezekiel in this morning Old Testament reading:

“… I send you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. ⁴Their descendants also are impudent and stubborn: …’  ⁵…whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.  ⁶… Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.” (Ezekiel 2:3-6, ESV)

In this passage, God calls Israel impudent; that is, they are no longer acknowledging or respecting His role as their creator and provider.  He calls them a stubborn people, subservient only to their own wills and not His.  God calls them rebellious because they no longer acknowledged God’s authority over their lives.  And finally, God encourages Ezekiel not to be afraid of their words or dismayed at their critical looks, revealing that Israel at this point had not just abandoned God, they were disapproving and even hostile toward God.  Are these not equally good words for us today?  Do we not find ourselves in a society bent on subduing, marginalizing and even eliminating Christianity, the People of God, in our time? 

 

Conclusion

So, on this 4^th of July, God is speaking to you and me through Ezekiel as surely as He was speaking to the Israel some 2500 years ago.  How do we respond?   Thomas Jefferson said, and I paraphrase, Christianity is our government’s best friend because it is a religion that deals with the heart.  So, let us continue to speak to the heart of America, sharing unconditional love, hope, and divine purpose with those around us.   Let us do what Christians have always done, which is offer a way back to Father from whom we have all strayed.  That is the mission of the Church; this is our calling as God’s People in our time.  God admonishes us through the words of Ezekiel this morning, to “not be afraid of their words, nor dismayed at their looks.”  In other words, let us be bold in doing what our Lord has called us to do, which, as St. Paul says in 2 Cor.4, to proclaim the Gospel to those who are perishing.

 

Prayer

In closing, I invite you to join me in a prayer for our beloved country, kneeling as you are able: 

Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will.  Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure conduct. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way.  Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues.  Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom, in thy Name, we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth.  In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  (Prayer 39, BCP-2019, p.657)

Rob Hartley, Sunday, July 4, 2021