Kentucky Fried Wisdom

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
06.03.07; Rev. David Williams

Scripture Readings: Psalm 8; Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; John 16:12-15

Life sure does change. As the heat hangs heavy in the air and summer descends around us like a great mound of sweaty socks, I vaguely recall that the coming of summer was a time of great joy. When I was a kid, this was pretty much the time when all of the teachers had finally given up. The year’s basically over. The testing is done. Summer would press in to the fabric of our regimented days, and suddenly we’d be having assemblies, watching more “educational” films, having more assemblies, doing field day. Even if you technically had three more weeks of school, it was summertime, and the livin’ was easy. But we don’t always live as children. We have to grow up.

During the college years, sure, you work. But you also travel, and do plenty of nothin’. But now...now that I am suddenly and inexplicably a grownup...and a parent, summer takes on a whole different dynamic. The kids are around, and need to be shuttled from camp to swim team to playdates. All those blessed hours in the day when they were off learning have suddenly vanished, and you’ve got to figure out how to keep them distracted enough that they don’t decide to start disassembling your car mid-way through the first week. As the summer wears on, it grows more and more tempting to let them just run wild, to let them live outdoors hunting squirrels and descending into that feral animal state that...quite frankly...most little boys seem to prefer.

And nowadays it seems like you have to keep them active…keep them moving…so that they don’t disappear into their DS or their Wii for the entire summer. All you’d have to do is set out a big bucket of fried chicken at the beginning of each week, and they’d be happy as clams…and come out the other end missing sixty IQ points and weighing as much as a small beluga whale.

Fortunately, there are countless things to do. You can drop your bundles of joy off at soccer camps and swim camps and computer camps. You can trundle them off to playdates, or turn them over to relatives. Better yet, you can fill their mornings with educational opportunities. They can take trips to the zoo, or to one of the countless museums that fill our area. Once you’ve run your way through those options, you can schedule in a road trip or two. Somewhere educational, like going up to Mount Vernon or Gettysburg or Hershey Park. Yeah, Hershey Park is educational. Rollercoasters are a great way to teach kids about physics.

For those parents who are struggling to come up with new ideas for summer outings, there’s a new option in town. It’s a bit of a drive, but it guarantees that your kids will be learning things that they won’t learn...well...anywhere else. It’s the new museum of Creation in Petersburg, Kentucky. Here, you and your children can wander through exhibits that reveal all kinds of new and exciting facts about the world in which we live. That becomes apparent the moment you walk into the museum and are presented with four animatronic statues. Two of them are kids, dressed in primitive clothing. The other two are their velociraptor friends. According to the Creation Museum, human beings and dinosaurs coexisted perfectly with each other...6,000 years ago.

Now you might be thinking...well...what about the fossil record? Or geological strata that indicates that human beings and dinosaurs never co-existed? Or the carbon dating that tells us that the fossils of dinosaurs are billions of years old? Irrelevant. The folks at the Creation Museum have used the Bible to determine the universe is only 6,000 years old, and are telling that story through multimedia presentations and animated statuary.

They’re also making other assertions that they say are based on the Bible. Did you know, for instance, that Tyrannosaurus Rex was originally a vegetarian? Ken Ham, the founder of this Museum, is happy to explain why. We know that no creatures ate meat in Eden. We know that T-Rex lived in Eden...but didn’t survive after the flood. Therefore, T-Rex was originally designed as a vegetarian. Well, one might say, what about the huge razor-sharp teeth, which are a clear indicator of a carnivore? Well...bears have big teeth too, says Mr. Ham, and they eat vegetables. But...they’re omnivores, you say, and they have molars for chewing. T-Rex didn’t have molars. Well, says Ken...it’s in the Bible. But, say you, what about the huge slashing foreclaws of a Deinonychus? Did they use them for ice climbing? Digging in the garden?

Yes...it’s a museum about creation that completely ignores the witness of creation. This is, of course, meant to be a defense of the Bible against the pernicious influence of science. The only problem with that is that it...um...doesn’t really seem to jibe with the witness of Bible, either, not if you read what it actually says. Let’s take a look at some relevant passages. This morning, we’ve read three different passages from Scripture.

The first was the eighth Psalm, which we all read together at the very beginning of the service. This is one of the many Psalms ascribed to King David, and is a hymn that praises God for the immensity of God’s creation. The theological focus of this hymn is amazement, sheer wonder that the God who could create a universe so vast and immense should care for we human beings in our smallness. It rejoices in the majesty of God and the awesomeness of his works. Looking into the endless fastness of space, at the stars and the glory of the heavens, the Psalmist expresses awe that God should have placed so much trust in us to be stewards over creation.

There’s no fear that somehow the size of the universe...or it’s age...or any of the humbling reality of the vastness of spacetime...should be any threat to our faith. That the scope of creation is beyond our easy grasp is seen...right here in scripture...as yet another affirmation of the power of God.

The second passage comes to us from the great ancient collection of Hebrew Wisdom literature, the Book of Proverbs. In Proverbs, Wisdom is seen as more than just the ability to make a correct decision, like buying 25,000 shares of Apple stock the week before the first iPod was sold. Wisdom in seen as something more than that...as either an angelic being created by God or as a manifestation of God’s own creative power. Wisdom both witnesses to and is part of God’s act of creating the universe. Much of this is expressing the nature of God the only way you can: through poetry and images.

Today’s passage from Proverbs affirms what we’ve heard from the Psalmist...that God’s creative power ordered and made the the universe. Wisdom, which is the knowledge of how the world works and how we are to live in the world, is a central part of that. God’s creation and the knowledge of it are woven up together, as part of God’s plan for us and for our world.

The third passage, from John’s Gospel, comes from the final talk that Jesus has with his disciples before his arrest. In it, Jesus explains that the Spirit of God still has much to say and speak in this world. There is much yet to teach, and much yet to learn about the truths of this world and of our purpose in it. This is picking up a vital theme from John’s Gospel, which reminds us again and again that when Jesus leaves, the story doesn’t end. There’s much left to know, and much left to learn.

Taken together, these three passages tell us that we don’t need to fear the size and age of the universe, which only bear witness to the creative power of God. They tell us that knowledge of that universe and how to live in it is blessed by God. They tell us that Christ taught that there is still more to learn and know about him and the creation he came to redeem.

But none of that wisdom and none of that teaching would be found in the Creation museum. Instead, the universe is constrained to something easily grasped, something that does not challenge. The knowledge of creation is rejected as somehow corrupting, and replaced by an approach to the Bible that betrays both the purpose of Scripture and the magnificence of God’s work. The idea that there may be new teachings for which we are going to gradually become aware of is rejected.

I don’t doubt that the Creation Museum is a fun place to take the kids. But the vision it gives of the world is not real, and rejects the witness of creation itself. The Creation Museum takes the living witness of Wisdom to the glories of creation, kills it, batters it, then deep-fat fries it until it’s all nice and crispy and dripping with tasty transfats. The end product sure does taste good…just like chicken…but it isn’t alive. Instead of guiding our hearts towards the mystery and majesty of God, it clogs them with easy falsehoods.

Yes, it is simple, simple enough to be grasped and consumed by a child. But we don’t always live as children. There comes a time when we must set aside childish ways.