Sermon for June 20, 2010

           Scripture:        Galatians 3:23-29

                            “Axis Mundi"

                  Rev. Christopher Fazel

  We live in a world of polarity – light dark, hot cold, fast slow, near far, past future.  In fact, the very fabric of the physical universe is founded on the fundamental polarity of the atom – positive negative – the pushing-out force and the drawing-in force.  We all know this, but it’s easy to forget since we are enveloped in this sea of polarity twenty-four-seven.  You know the old saying, “Whoever discovered water, we can be sure it wasn’t a fish.”

However, it is fascinating to observe that we humans have recorded an awareness of this polarized world in our religious iconography and in our mythologies from the very dawn of civilization and throughout the cultures of the world.  Genesis one:  God separated the light from the darkness; God separated the waters from the waters; God separated the waters from the land.  God creates a world of polarities.  And our Bible is just our example of this universal awareness left for us in the religious, philosophical and scientific legacies of history.  We have always known of this world of polarities even before we took the time to think about it. 

But what is more interesting, is that – from the earliest records – this acknowledgement of our polarized world carries with it the affirmation that there is a realm that reconciles and transcends this world of polarity.  Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad - Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.  No polarity.  And where does God promise to meet the Israelites in the wilderness?  At the mercy seat, in the tabernacle – just above the two opposing cherubim fashioned from hammered gold that form the top of the ark of the covenant – right at the point where their two opposing sets of wings meet in the middle.   The place where we meet God is the place where polarities are reconciled.  That affirmation is encoded in the design of the ark of the covenant.  It is also encoded in sacred iconography throughout the world – from the quartered sacred hoop of the northern plains Lakota, to Buddha’s tree of enlightenment, to the cross of Calvary, the message is one.  We meet God at that point where polarities are reconciled.  This important news is announced today to the Galatians and through them to you and to me by the apostle Paul.  “There is no longer,” says Paul, “Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Now, Paul is saying this to the Galatians because they (just like us) keep falling into the habit of polarized thinking: “in-group, out-group; us, them; higher, lower.”  You get the picture.  It is evident from his letters, that Paul struggled throughout his ministry to get this all important point across, “We are only transformed into the likeness of Christ, when we are able to see in the face of our neighbor something of that which we worship as our God.”   It is then, that the polarities that keep us separated through fear, resentment, apathy or pride, collapse, and we are invited into the heavenly banquet, that is the image of the eternal communion of the living Christ. 

And that is why church is so important.  We come together for the express purpose of seeking in ourselves and in one another the very embodiment of the risen Christ.  Now, to be sure, it’s not easy.  The image is distorted in countless ways, don’t we know.  But if we stick with it; if we faithfully try to see the best in ourselves and in one another, we bring the healing, the reconciliation, the resurrection into our world.   Thanks be to God for the opportunity.   Let us pray. 

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