The God Particle: F1 Race

From my message on Nov. 18, 2012, the Formula 1 Race weekend in Austin, from Ecclesiaste 9:11 and Hebrews 12:1-2

Early in the service, at the announcement time, Diane asks if anyone has seen Pastor Lynn.  Jonathan answers from the sound board that we have a live video feed of my getting ready for the F1 Race.  There is a scene of me getting in to a real race suit and putting on my helmet.   A little later before the offering, there is another video clip of me getting into my Prius, and taking laps around the track.  Right after the reading of the scripture, there is a third video clip of me pulling into the parking lot, finding a parking place, and running toward the door of the sanctuary.  Then I actually run inside the back door of our sanctuary dressed in the racing suit, carrying my helmet, and wearing my gloves.  I wave at the people, set my helmet and gloves on the altar table.

I feel the need....the need for speed.  You know me.  You know I am all about speed.  Faster is better.  Getting points, winning, isn't faster better?

We update our computers all the time, because we want the fastest microprocessor.  Connecting to the internet, we want the fastest connection.  Our smart phones, now 3G is no longer good enough.  We demand 4G.  When it comes to eating, we want fast food.  Speed limits in Texas, you gotta love Texas State Highway Toll 130.  Legal speed limit is now 85 miles per hour.

That's why I got this suit. I borrowed this from Hector Ruiz.  It is the real deal.  It is built for speed.  I first tried it on in my office to see if it would fit.  I had my wife Cathy there to get her opinion.  When I put it on, she went,  "oooooh," and started running her hands over the fabric.  I said, "Not so fast honey.  Not here,  Not now." 

Is faster always better?  I heard a piece on National Public Radio about an internet cafe that only had dial up connections.  The article said that our high speeds were overstimulating our brains, causing sleep deprivation and anxiety.  This internet cafe with its slow speeds and waiting actually gave time for the brain to process what was going on.  It was relaxing and healing.

Is fast food good for you?  In America, we have problems with obesity, many times associated with our rapid consumption of empty calories.  Heart disease, high blood pressure, and other ailments may be linked to our fast food culture.

And driving fast is not always the best.  On state toll road 130, you can drive 85 mph until you hit a feral hog.  Talk about thinning the herd, you can do that in two ways in one accident on Texas SH 130.

Is faster always better?  The book of wisdom we know as Ecclesiastes says the race is not always to the swift.  What is the point of going faster?  This leads me to slow down and tell you a story.  It is called  A Pointless Story.

A POINTLESS STORY


In the beginning God created not one or two but a whole bunch of us. Lots
of us. Because God knows that we love to play.
So we played - all day and into the night. We splashed in the rivers. We
rolled down the hillsides. We ran with the wind.

Until the day the snake came. At least they told us it was a snake. It might
not have been a snake. It might have been someone in a three-piece suit
with a cellular phone. Or it could have been a theologian with a very fat
book. But what they told us was that it was a snake.

And the snake came to us, to all of us who were playing on the hillside and
splashing in the water, rolling and playing and tumbling, and said, "This is
foolish! You are wasting time. None of this makes any sense unless you
learn to keep score."

We had no idea what the snake meant. But then the snake said something
really interesting. The snake said, "Whoever gets the most points will get
this apple!" But we had no idea what points were. So the snake said, "I will
teach you."

The snake taught us how to keep points with our running and our jumping
and our climbing, so that whoever climbed highest got points, and whoever
ran fastest got points, and whoever could roll down the hill fastest got
points. Some things however, like frolicking, were too hard to score. So we
gave them up all together.

Soon we were keeping score for everything we did. We chalked up the points
for everything. We kept track so that we would know who had the most
points because, surely, all of us wanted to get the apple.

Soon we were spending so much time keeping score that we didn't have
time to play.

Then God came into the garden. And God was wroth. God was very, very
wroth. And God told us that we would have to leave the garden. Not only
that - God told us that we were not going to live for ever, like we thought we
would.

Well, it doesn't matter to me. It's God who didn't understand things! My
cumulative lifetime score is now 12,263. By the time I die, it will probably be
even more! We were like God's slaves in the garden. We had to do
everything that God told us to do. It was the snake who taught us to keep
score, and now I'm teaching the children to keep score. I think they could
reach 15,000. Maybe 20,000. Now we are free to make as many points as
we can, to keep making points till the day we die, and to teach all our
children and our grandchildren how to make points.

I'm really grateful to the snake.

God kept trying to find us and to slow us down. God kept saying things like
"Remember; remember the strangers. Remember the widows and orphans.
Remember when you cut your fields to leave some at the edges, to leave
some for the sojourner in your land." That was no way to get ahead.
And so we perfected our score-keeping with a vengeance. God told us there
were only two things we really needed to remember. God said, "Love me
and love your neighbour." But we said, who on earth can play a game with
only two rules? So we wrote pages and pages and pages and pages of rules,
and pages more!

"Remember the Sabbath," God said. We didn't have time to rest. We had to
keep score. We had to keep racking up the points. I want our children to get
far better than my cumulative lifetime score of 12,263. God didn't
understand that kind of game at all.

God gave us such tiny little words. "A shoot will form from the stump of
Jesse." What sort of word is that - a "shoot"? "A little child shall lead them,"
God said. Is that any help?

And then an ordinary fellow appeared from Nazareth - we said to ourselves,
did any winner ever come from Nazareth? God breathed on him in some
particular way so that when he stood up in his hometown synagogue, he
read the word from Isaiah as though it was about him! "The Spirit of God
has anointed me," he said. And then do you know what he did?

He went up to people like fishermen and whispered in their ear, "You don't
need points!" And he sat down beside a Samaritan woman at the well and
told her everything about her loser sort of life and said, "You don't need
points either!" Then he sat down with Nicodemus, a teacher of the Law, and
said to him, "You don't need points, Nicodemus." To Mary and Martha, to
Joanna who was married to a very high official, to Susannah, Mary
Magdalene,[to Zaccheus,] to all of them he said, "You don't need points!"

And those who gathered around him, listening to what he said about the
kingdom of God being in the midst of them, soon looked at each other and
him and said, "This kingdom is pointless!"

Well, he didn't say a thing except to smile. They had pointless banquets
where the guest lists were thrown away. They had pointless picnics on the
hillside where everyone got plenty to eat, and there was still some left over.
They even had a pointless parade into the city with children leading the way
and people waving palms instead of swords. How pointless can you get!

But the snake, or the one in the three piece suit, or the theologian with the
heavy book - I can't remember who it was, but it was someone with friends
in high places - said, "This will never do. This will never do."

And so shortly after that parade, they put him on trial. And they stopped him
good as dead.

And they sealed the place where they laid him to rest with a huge stone so
that not even a whisper could escape that would ever say to anybody "You
don't need points." And that was that.

Except that morning-- This is strange. That Easter morning some women came
running to us, breathless, yet somehow full of breath. And they said to us,
"You don't need points!"

It was enough to make us think that that word had never died. But we said,
"You've got to be crazy!" And we sent them away. And as they left, they
were frolicking. I am not kidding - they were frolicking!

Did you see where they went?

(This story / sermon was adapted from one written by Barbara Lundblad, Assistant Professor of
Preaching at Union Theological Seminary, New York It appeared in the December 1999 issue of the
President's Report of The Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC). Barbara Lundblad had adapted
this tale from the 1998 TCPC Forum, from stories of "The Pointless People" told by Lutheran pastor
and theologian Dan Erlander, who in turn found his inspiration in Ann Herbert's retelling of the
creation story.)

Is faster always better?  I went to see my Spiritual Director recently.  She listened to my story.  She wove her hands round and round in front of her.  She said, "I dont' know what this means, but this is what I see going on in your life."  I laughed.  "That is too funny.  I am preaching about the F1 face this Sunday, where the cars go around and around, faster and faster, and never get anywhere, except to get points."  You need to know that I have taken the last 2 days off, to slow down, and get out of this going faster.

How does this connect to the God Particle?  The Higgs Boson was discovered because of particle accelerators that flung protons at each other on a circular track at near the speed of light.  The collision of these protons revealed the evidence that there might exist this God Particle, something that has mass and holds the universe together.

 I am afraid that much of our running around, faster and faster, results in collisions but without any positive results. I am praying that in our running around faster and faster, we might collide with Jesus, our God Particle, who holds us together.  I am praying that he might slow us down.  This time of worship might be the most important hour that you are spending this week.  That daily prayer time or reflection upon scripture might be the most important moments of the day.  Slow down.  Remember to take sabbath time.  Stop running in circles.  Stop trying to earn points.  Start running with Jesus.  Heb. 12:1-2, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

The good news I have to share is that faster is not always better.  Slow down.