Sonia Falaschi-Ray’s Christmas Eve Sermon December 27, 2011

Why is there something rather than nothing? Scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator at CERN, near Geneva, are getting very excited, as they might just have found evidence for the Higgs Boson, though they are not yet sure. Just to remind you, the Higgs particle is thought to confer mass on all other particles. Mass is that ‘something’ rather than ‘nothing’. That is why it has been nicknamed the ‘God’ particle. I am not sure if that epithet is more annoying to atheistic scientists or to theologians? However, the journalist who coined it recognised that within all monotheistic faiths is a God who created something from nothing and imposed order on to chaos.

In the beginning God. Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God whose very nature is love, relationship, mutuality, grace. God, wholly complete within himself, decided to create a universe. A universe where one day creatures would develop who could share in his companionship. Who could join the heavenly party. Scientists estimate that our universe was formed some 13.7 billion years ago. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Its physical properties included the potential for mass and the force of gravity. Gravity enables the mass to coalesce into substantial solids. ‘Something’ rather than ‘nothing’. The size of our universe is currently estimated as being 93 billion light years across. Until recently these billion sizes were almost impossible for us to imagine, but now, when the Ministry of Defence overspends £3.1 billion in just one year (on left-handed-bullets or whatever), and we are committing trillions to save the Euro, we are beginning to get the hang of them. So God created this huge and expanding universe, maybe for many reasons, but I believe one of them was to give him creatures to love. To make a people for his own possession. Love can only be offered freely, it cannot be coerced or it ceases to be love. If we are to have the capacity freely to love, alas that comes with the shadow side of being able freely to hate. The capacity for turning away from God and abusing our planet, its livestock and our fellow man is an inescapable converse of our capacity freely to love. So, on this planet at least, God had to contend with a fallen world. One where selfishness, envy, greed, pride, lust for power and exploitation can hold sway.

Are there other planets which harbour life as we would recognise it? Given the vast expanse of the universe it would seem arrogant to think that we are alone. That God created the entire universe just to end up with us! Obviously I have no idea, but the thought that we might be God’s sole end-game is truly awesome. An interesting book by John Gribbin has just been published called Alone in the Universe: Why our planet is unique. A New Scientist Magazine review states, “Chapter by chapter he [Gribbin] describes how we are anything but an ordinary intelligence, living on an ordinary planet, around an ordinary star in an ordinary galaxy. Instead our existence relies on a series of remarkable cosmic coincidences. Our solar system for example formed at a very fortuitous time and place within the Milky Way. Had it formed earlier or farther away from the galactic centre, it would not have had the supply of elements needed to build our rocky planet, or the reserves of metals our technological civilisation needs. Had it formed closer to the galactic centre, where the density of stars is greatest, our planet would likely have been sterilised by a gamma ray burst, or a star exploding or even a blast from the supermassive black hole that lies at the heart of our galaxy.” Our home is just the right distance from the sun for liquid water and we are sheltered now from large asteroid impacts.

God spoke the universe into existence and has probably nurtured it ever since. He had material creation operate according to physical laws, so that an identical set of circumstances would produce the same result. Without this, the universe would not function as it does and there could be no science if things turned out differently each time. Morally, once he had gathered up the Israelites and rescued them from servitude he, through Moses, gave them the 10 commandments, the Law. However we, his people, have this fatal flaw which threatens to spoil his handiwork. Yes we are capable of loving God and our neighbour, but sinning is such fun! God spoke creation into being – The Word was with God and the Word was God. He gave Moses the words of the law. But as the seed that falls among thorns fails to flourish, so the word of God is choked by the lure of wealth and the worries of the world. As God’s physical laws must produce the same result each time or the penalty is chaos, so God’s moral laws come with a penalty for breaching them. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. So to rescue us the Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

As Hitler’s armies rolled across Europe, the French, Jewish theologian and intellectual, Simone Weil, fled France to join the Free French in London. Her only written legacy as a Jew who followed Jesus Christ was some scattered notes and detailed journals of her pilgrimage towards God. As recorded by Philip Yancey in his book What is so amazing about Grace? “Weil concluded that two great forces rule the universe: gravity and grace. Gravity causes one body to attract other bodies so that it continually enlarges by absorbing more and more of the universe into itself. Something like this same force operates in human beings. We too want to expand, to acquire, to swell in significance. The desire to ‘be as gods’ after all led Adam and Eve to rebel. Emotionally, Weil concluded, we humans operate by laws as fixed as Newton’s. All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. Most of us remain trapped in the gravitational field of self-love, and thus we fill up all the fissures through which [God’s] Grace might pass.”

Grace could be described as un-deserved, exuberant generosity. That sort of generosity which at the wedding feast at Cana creates gallons of wine so a bridegroom should not be embarrassed. Not just a few flasks, but probably far more than they had started with and of much better quality. Mind you, when his mother prompted him, Jesus wasn’t too sure of his timing, but have you ever tried arguing with a Jewish mama?

Grace, that generosity which turns five loaves and two fish into meals for 5000 families with 12 baskets left over. Generosity, which looks past professions of prostitution, enemy collaborator and Roman Centurion to heal the hungry human being underneath. Grace, which caused Jesus to hang around in bars being disapproved of by the religious authorities, because it was in bars and on the streets that he found those who recognised their need of grace. It’s only when we are real with God, when we come to him empty-handed and open hearted that his grace can find those fissures through which to infuse us. Infused with grace. What can that enable us to do? Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.

Grace, that generosity with which Jesus emptied himself of his divinity, in order to be born into a modest family, away from home, no crib for a bed. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. That is us. So this Christmas let us marvel once again at a God who brought the universe into being, created a people for his own possession and saved us from the consequences of our sin by joining us in Bethlehem, living a life of grace and truth and conquering death by dying for us, so that we may finally join the heavenly party.

Let us pray:
Heavenly Father. Thank you for having the Grace to come down to us, as one of us, and show through a life of grace and truth the true nature of God. Help us to open our hearts and minds to your wonderful gift of grace, so that it can flow through us to offer hope to a troubled world. Lord I ask you to come by your spirit now and pour grace into those here who ask for it.

Sonia Falaschi-Ray