Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
December 29, 2002
The First Sunday after Christmas

Finding Order in the Universe
The Rev. George S. Yandell

Gospel: John 1:1-18
(This sermon is also available in audio.)

"In the beginning was the Word…" Simple, sublime poetry of God. What IS the "Word?"

In light of the $304 million lottery win in West Virginia, I thought it timely to consider a phenomenon that lies under the lottery. How many of you have played the lottery, or will play it when it's installed here in Tennessee? (Maybe we're a little uneasy about confessing it--for those of you who didn't raise your hands, this is not a question about morals--it's a question about finding order in the universe. So let's try that again.) I have observed that we lottery players fall into two camps--those of us who have special numbers we use again and again, and those of us who do quick-picks. Rarely does one migrate between the two camps. (Now the special numbers people might argue that the 'quick-pick' players are just lazy; but let's discount their slurs against us for science' sake.) So when we play the lottery we make a monumental statement about the universe God is creating--some of us believe there is a detectable pattern within chaos, that we have clues about that pattern, and we wager money on our belief, some of us regularly.

Then others of us, the "quick-pickers," we believe ultimately that randomness rules, that chaos is the nature of things, and that any numbers will do. So, of you who will play the lottery, or those of you who have an opinion about picking the numbers, how many of you are 'special number' people? How many of you are 'quick-pickers'? There is one rule all of us players follow--it's what my father taught me years ago--you can't catch fish if your line is not in the water. You can't win the lottery unless you buy your tickets.

For those of us who are 'special numbers' players, there is some evidence that your general approach might be right. And it has a lot to do with the 'Word become flesh, dwelling among us.'

Many of you have read about the chaos theory. I'm not a physicist, so I don't pretend to understand it well. But the gist of the chaos theory is that even within the most complex, random systems, certain predictable patterns are present. In effect, there is some order within chaos. In 1983, I read a (then) new book by Jeremy Campbell that changed my approach to God and science. Campbell wrote Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language and Life. He asks and answers one of the most profound questions about humans--How does a child learn language?

Most of us say that's pretty simple--the infant is spoken to and begins to associate certain words with certain things: "Mommy, Daddy, food, bath," and so on. But Campbell says an unprecedented event happens when the child learns to link words together. "Mommy wet!" when the child has splashed all the water out of the bath.

Campbell says is this is the monumental achievement. No one has said to the child, "Now, you have to use certain rules of syntax and sentence construction in order to be understood…." Rather, Campbell says, there are within the randomness and chaos of the universe, detectable patterns of communication, of grammar. Humans are innately sensitive to that imbedded grammar. Babies, when they begin to link words together, are the finest example of this marvel.

Some chaos theory buffs also call themselves 'contextualists.' They say the background noise of our spheres of life holds clues to that order, and that we just have to know what to screen out in order to have patterns of order emerge. So, whether it's called contextualism, chaos theory, or simply human intuition, I have come to believe in a message within chaos, even tho' I'm still a quick-picker in the lotto.

The 'logos', the Word of which John speaks, is this ordering principle. John tells in magnificent poetic language of the unsurpassing love that God foreordained at the beginning. The Word, uncreated, was with God at the beginning. The Word created everything that is. The Word became flesh, human, literally 'enfleshed' or 'incarnated.'

The Word is 'Logos' in Greek. L-o-g-o-s. It is the divine creative urge, the wisdom of God, the force of relationship within God. Some have called 'logos' the divine principle of love within God. However we try to define 'logos', Word, we miss the mark. But that's the whole of the Christmas miracle--the eternal became finite. The unknowable Christ became the human Jesus. The human spark within the chaos of the cosmos took form and spoke.

I mourned the day when Calvin and Hobbes stopped running in the funnies in the paper. How many of you remember young Calvin and Hobbes, his stuffed tiger? I know myself within warped Calvin. I know what it's like to have imaginary worlds, fully alive stuffed toys, and to play for hours without any rules. 'Calvinball,' where Calvin and Hobbes play a football game without boundaries, with constantly changing rules, makes me laugh out loud.

Within the craziness of Calvin's mind there is a constant--Calvin loves his stuffed tiger Hobbes more than anything. Calvin creates Hobbes from his own mind. Hobbes, of course, argues that Calvin is a creature of Hobbes' mind!! But this is close to the mystery of the logos, and the grammar of the universe. The thread of perceivable order within the chaos of creation is the urge to relationship. Calvin loves Hobbes. The infant is propelled to express herself so that love can grow between her and her father. The Word became flesh to express directly what lies within the stuff of creation. God created humans out of God's own Self, and loves us so much that the impossible happens. Christ is born. The urge to relationship overpowers every impossibility. We have all won the lottery.

I want to read you a poem by Charles Wesley, the great Anglican priest who with his brother John, created the Method of Bible study and small-group renewal which became Methodism. This poem gathers the whole mystery of Christmas' unknowable essence and offers it whole.

The Incarnation

Glory be to God on high, and Peace to earth descend:
God comes down: He bows the sky:
He shows himself our friend!
God th' invisible appears, God the blest, the Great I Am
sojourns in this Vale of Tears and JESUS is his name.

Him the angels all ador'd their maker and their King:
Tidings of their Humbled LORD
they now to mortals bring:
Emptied of his Majesty, of his dazzling Glories shorn,
Being's Source begins to BE and God himself is BORN!

See th' eternal Son of God a Mortal Son of Man,
Dwelling in an Earthly Clod
whom heaven cannot contain!
Stand amaz'd ye Heavens at This!
See the LORD of earth and skies
Humbled to the Dust He is, And in a manger lies!

We the Sons of Men Rejoice,
The Prince of Peace proclaim,
With Heaven's Host lift up our Voice,
And shout Immanuel's Name;
Knees and Hearts to Him we bow;
Of our flesh and of our bone
JESUS is our Brother now, and GOD is all our own!

Copyright 2002 Calvary Episcopal Church

Gospel: John 1:1-18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”’) 16From his fullness we have all
received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

(Return to Top)