God is in My Thumb

Matthew preached this sermon at Christ Episcopal Church in Dearborn Michigan on November 17, 2002. The Rev. Daniel Appleyard is the rector.

Good morning!

Last week your wonderful rector, Dan, asked me if I might prepare a sermon that not only covered the gospel but explained something about how we do liturgy and music at Canterbury House.  I said I'd think about it; and then two nights ago I woke up from a vivid dream at 5:30 a.m.; and in the dream I preached a sermon that pretty much fulfilled Dan's assignment so I got out of bed and wrote it down and this is it.

Good morning!  This morning I am going to do something unusual for me, though it is common for other preachers: I am going to preach a 3 Point Sermon.  Usually I only preach one point sermons -- that's usually about all I can handle, not to mention my congregation; but this morning I am inspired to deliver three points.  I will now tell you what those three points are:

Point One is this: God is everywhere
Point Two is: God is everywhere
And Point Three is:God is everywhere.


Point One -- and this is the longest of my three points --  God is everywhere.


Which means that there is no place where God is not.


When I was a child, maybe five or six years old, my mother told me this, which I accepted as gospel fact: God is everywhere.  I used to wonder about it a lot: God is everywhere.  God is inside my body. God is inside my thumb.

I used to stare at my thumb and think about this.  He's in there.
I decided to talk to my mom about it.
"Is God inside my thumb?"
"Yes, God is everywhere."
"And God can do anything he wants, right?"
"Uh huh."
"So if he wanted to he could shrink his whole self into my thumb.  Right?"
"Well, he could, but then he wouldn't be anywhere else, and everyone would miss him, and that wouldn't be fair would it?"
"Oh.  Okay."

Then I went to seminary and learned a little bit more about this whole "God is everywhere" idea.  I learned that, according to the Bible, when God created the world, all things were created through what the ancient Jews called the Dabhar, which means primeval Wisdom or God's Word; and when we became Christians we translated it as Logos and identified this as the Christ and with the person of Jesus.  And we said, "through him all things were made."  Not some things; all things; in fact John goes out of his way to emphasize this; he says "not one thing came into being except through him."

This Wisdom is not like any wisdom that we can understand; we're talking about God's Wisdom here; a wisdom that exists before the creation; this is that which gives all of creation its order and comprehensibility.

In other words the Bible says that God has planted this, like, hidden DNA inside all of creation.  Not one thing that is made is created except through the Christ.

I was at a conference with Desmond Tutu last Spring and he was talking about God's love and he's a tiny little man but he actually has a surprisingly large wingspan and at one point in his sermon he spread out his arms really wide and said, "God loves all of us.  Republicans.  Democrats.  Blacks. Whites.  George Bush ... and Saddam Hussein."

This is a fundamental belief that many Christians seem to have forgotten; that God is inside every tiny little thing, every child's thumb and little toe and hair folicle; every atom and particle and neutrino carries the light that shines in the darkness that we call The Christ.

Why do I say that many Christians seem to have forgotten this?  Because according to a lot of Christians apparently God is NOT everywhere.  In fact they seem to think that God has abandoned much of her Creation and left it to the devil.  The world is a scary place to them, where Satan lurks in every corner; they say that the world is "enemy territory," and this means that there are certain things that are very dangerous because God does not live there, like our minds, with all our impertinent questions and doubts; or our bodies, with all our longings and desires; or other religions, or politics of any kind, or science, or just plain other people who have the wrong skin color or the wrong gender or who simply fail to impress us with their cleanliness or hair styles.

But that is an unbiblical approach.  It amazes me when I meet people who claim to believe the Bible word for word and yet they have such an unbiblical theology.  Because it is impossible to read the gospels without coming to the conclusion that God is in the well-dressed and in the messy; God is in the respectable businessman and in the prostitute that he visits on his business trips.


And if this is true, if there is no place where God isn't, then how can God not also be in the Buddhist and in the Hindu and the Muslim and even those who claim to have no faith at all?  God is everywhere.  Wherever there is something, there is God.  The only place where God is not is where there isn't anything.  "God is isness," to quote Meister Eckhart.

This is why, at Canterbury House, we try to open ourselves to God's presence not just as he reveals himself in church, but as he reveals himself in the whole world.  We don't just have church music, we have music that is played in clubs and bars and taverns; we don't just eat a symbolic meal made of stale cardboard circles, we have a hearty supper with more healthy food than anyone can possibly eat; we don't worship in a building that looks like a church, but instead in a building that looks like a house.  Because if there is no place where God is not, then let's try to teach one another how to recognize the presence of God beyond the walls of the church.


My second point is, God is everywhere.


Which means if we are trying to get to God, there is nowhere we have to go.  The place we're trying to get to is where we already are.

This is what our Christian Buddhist friend Thich Nhat Hanh means when he says

Our true home is the present moment.  The miracle is not to walk on water.  The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment.


Now this doesn't mean that Thich Nhat Hanh doesn't believe in the miracles of Jesus -- that's not the point.  The point is this: whenever we allow ourselves to sink into the present moment, the blessedness of this moment, that's when we discover God.  As the psalm says, "Be still, and know that I am God."  

Steve and I visited Plum Village in France this summer, where Thich Nhat Hanh lives with his community of Vietnamese Buddhists.  It's one of the most beautiful places on the planet, with lots of green fields and vineyards and pretty French cows grazing in pastures.  And every once in a while, at random moments, a bell sounds, and everyone literally stops in their tracks, and takes a breath, and honors the creation by simply waking up to the present moment.  

A Buddha, says Thich Nhat Hanh, is someone who is awake.  And a Christian, according to Jesus, is someone who is at least trying not to fall asleep -- which is pretty close to the same thing.  Jesus was always bugging his disciples to stay awake with him, and talking ominously about what happens to bridesmaids who sleep through the wedding.  

God is everywhere, and that means God is right here in this room with us, and all we need to do is wake up to God's presence.  Why are we running away from God all the time?  Why do we have such a hard time sitting in silence and opening ourselves to God's presence?

This is why at Canterbury House we take the time, at the beginning of every service, to simply sit in silence in the presence of the Holy Spirit.  For some of us this is the only time in the entire week when we are sitting in silence.  We take Thich Nhat Hanh's advice literally; we sound a bell, we become  still; and we wake up.


Point number Three: God is everywhere.


Which means there is no place that we can hide from God.

God is so big that it is absolutely no use trying to hide from her.  I remember talking once to a man who had become a hopeless alcoholic, and he said the reason he became an alcoholic was he had been in a full-scale retreat from God.  He kept trying to get so drunk that he would finally escape from God.  He drank himself out of his family and his job and kept drinking until he was lying drunk and unconscious in the gutter.  And finally, with resignation and almost disappointment, he realized he was never going to be able to hide from God and so he had better deal with it.  

God inhabits even the darkest, dirtiest, ugliest parts of ourselves.  God is the one "from whom no secret is hid."  There is absolutely nothing we can do to keep God out of our lives; and there is absolutely nothing we can do to get God to stop loving us, because that is his nature.  None of us is any less beautiful than the next person; all of us shine with the light of Christ, which is emanating from the deepest parts of our selves.  All we need to do is rise up; lift our hearts to God; and give praise.

Because if you can't beat him, you might as well join him.  

This is why at Canterbury House we have a strict come-as-you-are policy.  Because the only spiritual community worth having is one that recognizes that there is no dress too ugly, no hair style too outrageous that it blinds us to God's love. In fact, that's the only real rule at Canterbury House: if you don't come as you are, we'll kick you out.  (kidding...)

And that is why at Canterbury House we have a discussion time in the middle of the service, where we get real about our lives; where we share not just the joys and the certainties of our faith but also the dark places; the doubts and worries and tears.  We think Church ought to be a place where we accept one another as Christ accepts us; as  children of God; reflecting the light of Christ.

So thanks for having me and the band here to be with you this morning, and thanks be to God for the mystery of this light, which wakes us up to the presence of God's love; and thanks be to God for this congregation, which shines so brightly with the power of that love.

AMEN.



The Rev. Matthew Lawrence
Chaplain, Canterbury House
Director, Institute for Public Theology