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CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER March
17, 2002 Dr.
Eric T. Fossel In
my life as a Christian, a scientist and a business man, I am constantly
challenged by the separation in this contemporary world of the Book of Nature,
the world of modern science, and the Book of Scripture, God’s self-revelation.
It was Calvin who first popularized these
terms, and for most of recorded history these books were unified.
It was not until recent centuries that a separation began to occur,
growing wider as the scientific advances of the 20th century became
more powerful and more profound. Our
Gospel reading this morning comes from a time when the book of Nature and the
book of God’s self-revelation were identical.
The raising of Lazarus by Jesus is central to John’s Gospel not only
because it occurs in the 11th chapter of this 21-chapter- Gospel,
with 10 chapters preceding and 10 chapters following it, but because the raising
of Lazarus is both the final of the seven “signs”, or guideposts to Jesus’
significance, known also as miracles that he accomplished in the first chapters
and it prefigures Jesus’ own death and resurrection in the last chapters.
The
story begins with Martha and Mary sending a message to a Jesus that their
brother, Lazarus, was ill, summoning Jesus to come and heal him.
Jesus delayed going and by the time He left to attend to Lazarus, He knew
that Lazarus had already died. When
Jesus finally arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb four days.
It was thought that the soul remains with or near the body for three days
after death, just in case. But on
the fourth day it would be gone. Lazarus
was really truly dead. To make sure
that point is not missed, when Jesus asks for the stone to be removed from the
tomb, Mary tells him “Lord already there is a stench (or in the King James
“he stinketh”) for he as been dead four days.”
Lazarus was really dead. Before
Jesus acts however, the author of the Gospel chooses to emphasize Jesus’
humanity. Jesus displays truly human emotions. We are told that He was disturbed in spirit and deeply moved,
and that He wept. Jesus then
commands Lazarus to come out of the tomb. Lazarus emerges from the tomb, is
unbound of his linen and goes on his way. Prior
to raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus had turned water to wine, had healed a
son of a prominent man, had healed an infirmed man at the pool at Bethesda, had
fed five thousand, had walked on the Sea of Galilee and healed a blind man.
In all of these accomplishments, and most notably in the raising of
Lazarus, the Book of Scripture, God’s self-revelation and the Book of Nature
are clearly united. Jesus is
God’s revelation of Himself, and yet he is fully human, within nature. In the account of raising Lazarus, Jesus’
humanity is underscored mightily through his display of emotions and his
divinity is underlined mightily through his ability to overcome the final
challenge of nature, death itself. The
story of the raising of Lazarus is at once a demonstration of the unity of the
human and the divine in Jesus, in his person, and by his act. As
I read accounts of Jesus’ life, I sometimes wonder what would happen if He
lived today and, for example, and lived out the first half of the Gospel of
John. Indulge me while I contemplate this. Turning water to wine, and good wine
at that would have no doubt at least been posted on some chat rooms on the
Internet. Healing the young man at
Cana, the infirmed man at Bethesda and blind man may have caught the attention
of the Alternative Medicine branch of the National Institute of Health, perhaps
even resulted in an invitation to speak at Harvard Medical School. Feeding the
five thousand would have garnered the attention of the aid agencies of the
world. And what if a camera crew
from Galilee TV had just happened to catch him walking across the sea?
That footage surely would have made it to CNN and perhaps even the
network nightly news. By the
time He was summoned by Martha and Mary to attend to the dying Lazarus, Jesus
probably would have been followed by radio and television crews and print
reporters. The raising of Lazarus would have been a media event.
In the aftermath, it could be that Geraldo would show up at Lazarus’
tomb and would undertake an investigation.
Larry King and Barbara would vie for the first interviews with Jesus and
Lazarus. Venture Capitalists
and big Pharmaceutical companies would trip over each other trying to license
Jesus’ technology, sign him up as a consultant and file the patents, all the
while issuing press releases and giving interviews to stock analysts with an eye
on their stock price. The Vatican and the Southern Baptists, among others, might
condemn the raising of Lazarus as a deviation from nature as God ordained it.
God, after all, meant for people who die to stay dead (at least until
last judgment).
Sadly, this scenario should be all too familiar as it is just this sort
of treatment that meets each new endeavor having to do with the basis of life,
the beginning of life or the improvement of life in our world today, all but
obscuring the essence of the matter at hand.
Just think of sequencing the human genome, dubbed by the press the
so-called “book of life”, or any so-called “breakthrough” cancer
treatment, or currently stem cell research aimed at treating disease, with the
issues of human cloning lurking in the foreground.
Each of these have been spun and counter-spun, shaped and molded for the
advantage or viewpoint of one interest group or another, with the full
cooperation and participation of the media. But,
can this be otherwise in today’s world? Well,
we need to begin with a holistic view of God’s self-revelation within nature.
Here, I begin with Thomas Aquinas’ interpretation of God’s definition
of Himself in Exodus 3, as “I am who I am.”
Thomas found this to mean that God was His creation, and was within
everything that He created, and was also everything else beyond creation.
That was a major turn in thinking.
Before, many had found the material world to be fundamentally evil,
indeed the source of original sin itself. Now,
Thomas valorized the material world as part of God’s own being and therefore
fundamentally good. The 20th
century theologian, Paul Tillich, restated this truth in his characterization of
God as the “Ground of Being”. Allow
me to elaborate: This ground of being is the
force, which holds subatomic particles together to form atoms. This ground of being is bonds
between atoms that result in the formation of molecules. This
ground of being is membrane that define the boundaries of cells and their inner
constituents that allow cells to function as living entities.
This
ground of being is the arrangements of and communication between cells that
results in living tissues and organs. This
ground of being is the arrangements of and communication between living tissues
and organs that results in living creatures.
This
ground of being is the complex electrical circuits and currents in the nerves
and brain of living creatures that results in thoughts and actions.
This
ultimate ground of being, that which is uniquely human, is that mystery called
consciousness that allows the human to communicate with and partake of the
divine, the very soul of the human. To
communicate with and partake of the divine, perhaps, is much of the essence of
that which is human. With this in mind let us turn to the contemporary issue of human cloning and stem cell research. A report issued in January by the National Academy of Sciences takes a highly utilitarian approach. Human cloning for the purpose of producing new people, or reproductive cloning, was deemed to be medically dangerous and so should not be attempted. Human cloning for the purpose of producing stem cells for the treatment of disease, or therapeutic cloning, should be allowed, as it is potentially useful. Here the stem cells are produced by disruption of the structure of the early embryo, or blastocyst, into individual cells. Many were displeased by this second aspect of the report because they feel that in that procedure a human life is “killed.” I find it to be a reasoned and reasonable report – so far as it went. It was a good reading of the Book of Nature, but the Book of God’s self-revelation is missing, it is silent in that report. Are
we to expect the National Academy to quote from the Bible when they issue
reports? No, I think not.
However, scientists and all people who appreciate and interpret God’s
self-revelation through creation come very close to being modern day versions of
the prophets of the Old Testament. I
don’t suggest that reports of the National Academy or scientific publications
should begin with the prophetic preface of, “Thus says the Lord.”
But we would all do well to, along with Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillich
to approach issues of life itself as interpreters of God’s creation within a
holistic framework. There
is confusion, some of it perhaps purposeful, on both sides of the debate on
human cloning and the production of stem cells, a result, in large part, from a
failure to take this holistic approach. The issue at hand is nothing less than
the question of what human life actually is.
The question of what it is to be human has been a topic of discussion and
debate for millennia. But new
technologies, such as stem cell therapy, that surround the creation and
preservation of human life bring this question into focus as never before. A
few minutes ago I suggested that a major part of the essence of being human is
the ability to communicate with and partake of the divine.
I further suggested that the ability to do this lies within and is
mediated by the human soul, God’s impartation of God’s self into each of us.
It might be argued, and many have from antiquity to the present, that the
presence of a soul requires a collection of functioning, interconnected organs
and tissues that we call our body. For
example, God molded the body of Adam out of the dust and when he had finished
God breathed His spirit, the essence of soul, into Adam and Adam became the
first man. Jesus, in raising
Lazarus from the dead brought back his departed soul, reuniting it to his body
and giving Lazarus new life. As
far as we are able, in matters having to do with the creation of life, the
sustaining of life, and healing of life and, yes, the end of life, the highest
purpose is served by attending to Jesus’ example.
This is acutely true with respect to the issue of human cloning for the
production of stem cells. Approaching
human cloning from the point of view of both the body and the soul is revealing.
Attending to the soul with respect to human embryos
raises some interesting questions. The
first question is, of course, does the early embryo, or the blastocyst to be
technical, posses a soul? From the
biblical examples of Jesus and Lazarus, God and Adam, as well as the analysis of
most historical and many contemporary scholars, the answer would be a clear no
because the soul is the partner of the human body not an organized array
of some dozens of connected cells. However,
those who oppose the production of stem cells from the early embryo or
blastocyst, state that a human life is “killed” in producing the stem cells.
From the biological point of view the cells continue to live. They are
disconnected from one another and when this is accomplished, they have the
potential to propagate endlessly. Indeed,
the cell biologist describes them as immortal.
If the early embryo, the blastocyst does not posses a soul, how can
separation of its cells result in the killing of a human life? In matters of human life,
attend to the soul, follow Jesus! Let us pray, God who made us all and everything that is, send us Your grace and grant us Your wisdom. Lead us beside still waters and restore our souls, so that our private thoughts and public discourse concerning that which is human life becomes an expression of Your will. You have bestowed enormous power on modern scientists and physicians over the reproduction, enhancement and preservation of life. Send your Holy Spirit upon all of us that, as in Jesus’ act of raising Lazarus from the dead, we may embrace Your revelation within nature and in doing so experience Your grace, know Your wisdom and fulfill Your purpose. Amen |
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