Opening Convocation Address 06
After it was over, no one could have said how it happened. Indeed, no one was actually certain that it did happen, or for that matter, whether it was even possible that it could have happened, the world being what it is and all. But there were the memories, strong, clear and vivid memories of the mysterious stranger as well as the residue of a changed angle of vision. The world never seemed quite the same after it was all over.
It all began when as astro-physicist named Albert Newton decided to take a brief vacation from his hectic schedule to get back to nature. So he packed his camping gear and headed to Yosemite National Park to pitch his tent, hike the trails by day and sit around the campfire by night. He had carefully chosen his camp site so that it was far removed from the Yosemite Valley with its clogged roads, busy tourists and overcrowded shops. It had taken a while, but he had eventually found a special place that he reserved each year, on the edge of a meadow near a quietly gurgling stream. At night, he would just stare into the night sky, filled by the Milky Way, and ponder the immensity of the universe he studied every day of his life.
On the third evening of his vacation, after he had settled into his routines, Albert had finished cooking his supper and washing the dishes so he could settle down, with his evening cup of coffee, in his camp chair by the fire for his favorite part of the day, watching the early evening sky fade from azure blue to a deep black while slowly filling with stars. He watched the appearance of planets, nearby stars, distant stars and, with the practiced eye of an astronomer, found those points of light that betrayed the presence, not just of another star but of a great galaxy sending its light from the outer reaches of the universe itself.
He was so lost in his usual evening reverie that he did not see, at first, the strange figure appear by the fire. When he did notice him, he jumped with a start out of his chair. The figure he saw before him was the most peculiar he had ever seen. He was leaning on a staff, staring directly at Albert, evidently quite content to wait until he was addressed before saying a word. He was wearing sandals tied around his feet, like some alien version of rustic Birkensocks, and was clothed in some kind of animal skins. For the first time, Albert realized that he could hear the sounds of sheep bleating to each other in the meadow. How odd, he thought to himself, I don’t remember there being any animals in the pasture today when I hiked through it; certainly, there were no sheep.
The silence had lasted for some time. Finally, Albert spoke, “Who are you?”
The figure, who evidently heard the note of alarm beneath Albert’s brusque, almost rude tone, said simply, “No need to be afraid. I’m just a village shepherd, keeping watch over my flock by night. I didn’t mean to startle you. Truth is, I hadn’t had time to make a fire and eat, and I smelled whatever it is your drinking.”
“Oh, the coffee, how rude of me, would you like a cup?”
“What did you say it was? Coffee? Never heard of it before.”
“Come again,” Albert replied. “Never heard of coffee. Are you from these parts.”
“My home is nearby, in the village. Yes, I’m from these parts.”
The shepherd was staring at Albert, dressed in his jeans, tee-shirt and sandals. At least the footwear was familiar. He pointed to the jeans and tee shirt. “What kind of animal were those made from,” he asked.
“No animal,” Albert started to explain, then he stopped in his tracks. Something was wrong. It just didn’t feel right. He looked at his watch to see what time it was, but his watch had stopped. Battery dead again. Should have changed it before going on vacation, he thought to himself.
“Look,” he said. “I was a bit startled when you first appeared, and I may have been a bit rude. Please sit down and join me by the fire. I have some leftovers from dinner if you would like ...” Albert unfolded a camp chair and set it down before the shepherd.
“Leftovers?” the shepherd asked, “what kind of animal is that? I have some food with me.” The shepherd ignored the chair and sat cross-legged on the ground by the fire, opened a small pouch on his belt and pulled out what looked like a loaf of pita bread, opened another filled with a paste that looked and smelled like humus, dipped the bread in the humus and began to eat contentedly, taking an occasional drink from his boda bag.
Albert watched, fascinated by the scene unfolding before him. He stole a glance over the shepherd’s shoulder, and there were the sheep gathering around the edge of the meadow just beyond the circle of light cast by the fire. The shepherd noticed this, too, and said matter-of-factly, “they feel safer when they are near me.” And he continued eating.
Trying to think of a way to start a conversation, Albert said, “beautiful night. The stars are certainly beautiful tonight.”
“Yes,” the shepherd replied. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”
Albert look puzzled. “What’s a firmament?” he asked.
The shepherd glanced at him like he was an alien from another world. “The firmament,” he explained, “is the great dome that Yahweh has constructed to create our world out of the watery and unformed chaos that was before God began to create. The firmament is what keeps the waters above from deluging the world. The stars are hung on this great dome.”
Albert was wide-eyed with amazement, wondering what sort of fundamentalist in shepherd’s drag he must have happened to meet. “There’s no dome up there,” he said, gesturing generally toward the sky. “We are looking into space. Those points of light you see are stars, like our sun, but they’re just—he paused looking for a way to explain—light years away.”
The shepherd looked at Albert with genuine puzzlement. “What’s a light year? And you can’t tell me that the sun is a star. The sun, moon and stars were created by God as greater and lesser lights to show off the firmament. But what is this light year?”
“A light year is the distance light travels in a year. You see, Einstein showed us that—in his theory of relativity—the speed of light is a constant. It travels 186,00 miles per second.”
The shepherd stopped him. “What’s a mile and what’s a second.”
Albert replied quickly, “a mile is a length of distance, 5,280 feet.” As soon as he said it, Albert knew that he had made a mistake but couldn’t correct himself quickly enough to prevent the inevitable question, “what’s a feet?” Albert held his hands about 12” inches apart. “This is a foot,” he said.
The shepherd looked at the ground and pointed, “No,” he said, “that is a foot.”
“Close enough,” Albert said. “A foot is about the right length, much like a cubit used to be measured by the length of a forearm.”
“A cubit,” said the shepherd. “I know what a cubit is.”
“Good,” said Albert. “A cubit is about two feet long. Now this is a second,” Albert said quickly, trying to keep the initiative. He pointed to his watch, then realized it wasn’t working. “Oh, never mind about the second,” he said. “It’s a long way to go in a short time. Light travels at a great speed.”
The shepherd returned to the earlier conversation. “What has all this got to do with the firmament and the way Yahweh created the heavens and the earth.”
“Good question,” said Albert, who often taught an adult Sunday School class. That’s what he always said when he didn’t know how to answer a question. “Good question,” he repeated. “You see,” he said, tentatively starting again. “You see that point of light.” He pointed to a very bright star.
“Yes,” said the shepherd.
“Well, that’s not really a star but a planet in our solar system. And that point of light over there is really a galaxy, greater in size than even the Milky Way Galaxy which we see over there.” He let his hand describe an arc following the plane of the Milky Way whose stars now filled a great swath of the night sky. And that galaxy,” he said, pointing to an undistinguished point of light, “is 100 million light years away from earth.”
The shepherd listened to all this with polite attention. Then he pointed to the sky and said, “do you see that black sky. That,” he said with emphasis, “is the firmament. We cannot see them from here, but if we could travel far enough, we would see the great pillars which hold up the firmament and create this precious place we call our home. Beyond that dark firmament lie the waters of chaos, waiting to overwhelm the earth if given half a chance. We are standing on the floor of that very firmament. We call this floor earth. It prevents the depths of the watery chaos from bubbling up and flooding the earth, as it did in the days of Noah.”
Albert listened with a growing sense of wonder and awe. “You are a vintage model,” he said finally. “I feel like I’m talking to a museum piece. Well, my friend, we can still share the fire together and enjoy each other’s company. Shake on it?”
Albert offered his hand, and the shepherd tentatively held out his. But when Albert and the shepherd clasped their hands, they simply passed through each other as though nothing were there. Both jumped back in alarm.
Staring at the shepherd, Albert finally asked, “Who are you?”
The shepherd said firmly, “I am Yitzak, son of Yehoshua, from the town of Bethlehem in what was once the Kingdom of Judah. And just who are you?”
“I am Albert Newton, astro-physicist and cosmologist at a local university where we study the origins of the universe. How did you get here?”
“Here? Here is where I belong, beside the watercourse where I care for my sheep.”
“What is the name of the stream?” Albert asked.
“It has no name, except the one we shepherd have given it. We call it the Shepherds’ Stream.”
“That,” Albert said, pointing to the quiet stream, “is a tributary of the Yosemite River. And these hills are the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”
“I see no mountains,” said the shepherd. “I see the hill country of Judah, gently sloping to the Great Sea and the Jordan rift.”
“When did you live?” Albert asked suspiciously.
“When? What do you mean, when?” asked the shepherd, clearly puzzled.
“Who is your political leader?”
“Oh,” said the shepherd. “You mean, our king. Who is our king? His name is Herod, he calls himself Herod the Great. He has been in power for many years.”
“I see,” said Albert who was trying to comprehend what was happening to him. “I see,” he repeated, trying to mask the fact that he did not.
“You look troubled,” said the shepherd. “Is it because we disagree on the firmament.”
“Oh no, not at all,” Albert replied. “As a matter of fact, I suspect we agree on some very important things.”
“What would they be?” inquired the shepherd.
“Wouldn’t you say that God created the heavens and the earth?”
“Why, of course.”
“So would I.”
“You would?”
“Yes, we don’t really disagree, but—how shall I put this—we have a different way of talking about how God created and the size of what God created.”
“That’s surely true. But I would want to say more,” Yitzak added. He looked around as though someone might be listening. “I would want to say that God is a God who brings creation out of chaos over and over again. Yes, even in the chaotic and terrifying times of Herod the Great, when it looks like the great beast Tiamet has risen from the depths of the face of the deep to rule, even in these times, I return to the creation story to reassure me that God will bring order, even a new order, out of chaos. Even now, Herod is gravely ill. His reign of terror and chaos will end, by the Creator’s hand, and God will create anew, just as He did when he brought us back from exile.”
Albert could barely contain himself. “Yes. Yes, you are quite right, and though I’ve never seen it before, I see your point, young Yitzak. The creation story is about more than the universe. Its our story, too.”
“And there’s one other place we might agree,” Yitzak continued, his voice filled with a strangely alluring laughter. “You see, our account says, `in the beginning, when God began to create ...’ Don’t you see, creation isn’t over and done with. It has only begun. Any time, God brings creation out of chaos, the creation story continues. Perhaps, it is continuing even in your world. So you see, creation never ends.”
“Oh yes, yes it is continuing in my world, too,” Albert answered.
Abruptly, Yitzak stood up. “I’ve got to get back to my flock,” he said. There are wolves in the hills around Bethlehem, and I’ve heard reports of a lion or two. But I have my sling shot, and, like the great and revered King David, I am a very good shot.”
Before Albert could say farewell, he heard a voice say “Shalom,” and right before his eyes, as Yitzak walked away into the meadow, his sheep got to their feet and followed him into the mist rising from the valley floor. He didn’t have to follow him to know that there would be no sheep in the meadow in the morning. No shepherd named Yitzak. Had he dreamed the whole thing? He came out of his reverie, still seated in the camp chair he had been in when the strange figure appeared.
He looked around. There was nothing tangible to prove that he had met a shepherd from the time of Jesus, perhaps one of the very shepherds who would see the glory of the Lord shine round about them. But the very thought seemed preposterous.
He instinctively turned his eyes back to the heavens, and there it was, the confirmation he had been looking for. Now he knew that the shepherd had been real, because he no longer saw the heavens simply as the product of a big bang but as the process of a God who would bring order out of chaos in his life, in human life, in his church’s life, in all of life. Creation was an ongoing business, not just a one time sale. The heavens do declare the glory of God, he thought, and the firmament does indeed proclaim his handiwork.
Amen.
