Positive Reframing
John Shuck
Southminster
Presbyterian Church
Beaverton, Oregon
February 8, 2015
Evolution Sunday
Romans 7:14-25
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into
slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I
want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree
that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that
dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my
flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I
do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that
dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that
when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the
law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with
the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my
members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh
I am a slave to the law of sin.
I didn’t know until a few years ago that Abraham Lincoln and
Charles Darwin share a birthday. The
exact same day, that is same day, same year, February 12, 1809. We made a holiday combining Lincoln and
Washington’s Birthdays. Next weekend, you
can get a great deal on a new car or a bedroom set thanks to our former
commanders in chief.
Charles Darwin’s birthday receives no holiday. But in recent years a bigger fuss has been
made over him and rightly so. Darwin’s
theory qualifies him as a major dude. Evolution,
modification through time via natural selection, is transforming the way we
think about virtually everything.
This transformation in thinking is being met with resistance
in many quarters. The church hasn’t been
comfortable with Darwin sitting in the pew.
The basic view I find among my colleagues is acceptance and
dismissal. They obviously accept
evolution but regard it as irrelevant to anything they have to do.
Let’s accept it but
not talk about it.
Last summer I submitted a commissioner’s resolution to the
General Assembly. This resolution was
well done. I can say that because it
wasn’t written by me. It was written by
three members of my previous congregation, each a scientist. You can read the resolution and the whole
story about it on my blog. The
resolution asked the General Assembly to endorse the Clergy Letter Project,
which I will talk about in a minute, and establish the second Sunday in
February on the church calendar as Evolution Sunday in honor of Charles
Darwin. It was rejected in committee
46-2. I am not discouraged. You can only go up from here.
As I reflected on this experience what I took away was that
for most church folks, evolution is more trouble than its worth. We don’t want to make a big deal of it
because we don’t want to upset our friends.
As one member of the committee said:
“I have family members who believe in evolution and some who don’t. Why add fuel to the fire?” I think that sentiment won the day.
I personally find that sentiment irresponsible in and of
itself. Think of all the fires that have
needed fuel throughout history. I am
grateful for those who have added fuel even though doing so might have upset
family members. The fire of abolition,
the fire of suffrage, the fire of civil rights.
The struggles over what we teach in public schools are hot topics today
in regards to evolution. Positive
change has always required the willingness to engage potential conflict.
But if evolution is seen as esoteric and removed from daily
experience, I can understand why the ambivalence. By introducing this resolution we were
trying to make the case that this is not esoteric or irrelevant, but important
and serious for the church.
Evolution is not something you can believe in or not believe
in as if it were like choosing a sports team.
It is foundational for understanding the natural world including human
life. Because there is so much
misinformation even disinformation about it and because much of this
misinformation comes from religious sources, it falls upon those of us who are
religious to do our part in regards to education within our church and outside
of it as well.
Enter Michael Zimmerman and the Clergy Letter Project. I am deeply grateful for Michael. He is tireless. This whole thing consists of his website,
his email address, and his Huffington Post page. He is now at Evergreen College in
Olympia. He started The Clergy Letter
Project and Evolution Weekend when he was at Butler University about ten years
ago.
His concern was that religion was being used as a reason to
hinder public schools in regards to science education, in particular the
teaching of evolution. He thought if he
could get clergy to communicate clearly that evolution and faith were not incompatible
it would help. A letter was drafted
and has been signed by over 13,000 of us clergy types.
In addition to the letter, Evolution Sunday, now Evolution
Weekend was established on the weekend closest to Darwin’s Birthday to speak
about Evolution in particular and science in general in church. That is why Evolution Sunday.
I just found out yesterday that Evolution Sunday is next
week. I messed this up. I was so used to the second Sunday being
Evolution Sunday that I didn’t realize that next Sunday the 15th is
the Sunday closest to Darwin’s birthday.
We might have to do it all again.
But you know when your heart is right, every Sunday is Evolution Sunday.
I have been having fun with Evolution Sunday over the past
ten years with my congregation and I hope we can have fun with it as well. When I say, fun, I don’t mean
frivolous. But unless it is fun, it
won’t find much of a hearing.
I thought it might be fun to think about a theological
concept from an evolutionary perspective.
What is sin? Not that we are
going to rewrite books of doctrine but just poke at it from a different angle. Here again the Apostle Paul from Romans
7:14-25:
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into
slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I
want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree
that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that
dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my
flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I
do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that
dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies
close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in
my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the
law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue
me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh
I am a slave to the law of sin.
Two things here. The
first is that I resonate with what Paul is saying. I get that.
I resemble that. I feel that with
him. The second is that I want to give
him a hug. I want to say,
“Paul, I hear you, but
let’s reframe this positively.”
Paul provides no specifics, but if I had a dollar I would
bet it has something to do with food or sex.
If I had another fifty cents I might put it on issues related to
competition and status and spin the roulette wheel.
The meaning of life for the past 3.5 billion years since the
first bacterium said, “Here I am. Hear
me roar,” has been, this. This is the
meaning of life:
Eat. Survive.
Reproduce.
Those drives to eat, survive, reproduce are like Paul said,
a law “in my members…at war with the law of my mind.” Paul articulates the struggle with our
drives. Except he calls it sin. We might do well to reframe that.
We, that is Homo
sapiens share with nematodes, little worm-like creatures, the same gene for
controlling appetite. Our common
ancestor with the nematode was around 1.5 billion years ago. In
other words these drives such as a gene that controls appetite, “the law…in our
members,” has been around a long, long time.
When we think about it that way, in an evolutionary way, it
isn’t so much a matter of sin and Jesus as it is about genes and
environment. For example, there was a
time, in fact most of the time, the vast majority of human existence, let alone
mammalian existence, that salts, fats and sugars were hard to come by.
The human beings who survived were able to get them into
their bodies. Those who didn’t did not
reproduce. We might be grateful that
our ancestors had what we might call today an addiction to potato chips, ice
cream and quarter pounders. Had our
ancestors not been driven, and had they not developed a taste for salt, fat,
and sugar, they wouldn’t have survived their environments.
For Americans, at least, our environments have changed. We are deluged with salt, fat, and
sugar. So much so that it is killing
us. While our environment has changed,
our attitudes are less than effective.
We think that these things can be solved by willpower. That it is up to the individual to overcome
these drives by praying to Jesus. Then
we judge. We judge ourselves or others.
Obesity can be traced at least in part to
birth weight. If we were born with a
lower than average birth weight, the gene for storing food was engaged.
Rather than judge and punish individuals, we might spend
time evaluating our environments, environments created to make a profit by
exploiting biological drives. The point I want to make is that reframing
our issues through an evolutionary perspective can help us evaluate and solve
problems.
When environments change, species undergo a period of
dancing with ghosts. This is a metaphor
David Wilson uses in his book. Think of
a ballroom and a couple dancing. One of
the partner ssuddenly disappears but the other dancer continues as if nothing
has changed. A big pit appears on the
dance floor. The dancer doesn’t notice
and falls in.
Sea turtles for hundreds of millions of years have done the
same thing. They give birth on the land
and when the baby turtles hatch a gene is triggered that tells them, “Go to the
light.” The light is the reflection of
the moon on the ocean. The turtles make
their way to the ocean to a lifetime of happiness and meaning where they will
eat, survive, and reproduce.
Enter beach houses.
The light from the houses is brighter than the light reflected on the
ocean by the moon. The sea turtles get
the same message that has enabled them to survive for hundreds of millions of
years. Go to the light. So they do.
But they go away from the ocean and to their deaths. The environment has changed. They are dancing with ghosts.
Antelopes in Montana are fast. Who are they running from? They are running from the ghosts of predators
long extinct.
Sea turtles, antelopes, and human beings have the same thing
in common. We are all dancing with
ghosts. Our environments change yet our
biological drives, our genes, are in the words of Paul, “the sin that dwells
within me.”
But it really isn’t a sin, Paul. Whatever it is you think dwells within you,
maybe anger, or sexual desire or whatever it is, can be thought of
differently. The behaviors that we
exhibit and struggle with today likely enabled our ancestors to survive in the
past. They served a purpose. They
still do, when used in helpful ways.
To conclude, on this Evolution Sunday…
I make a case for accepting that human beings are not above
evolution. Our behaviors, thoughts, and
attitudes, are a product of evolution.
Our behaviors and attributes have a long, long history that in most
cases predate humanity.
I make a second case for thinking in an evolutionary way
about everything including human behavior.
We along with bananas and bonobos adapt to our
environments. It is the way it
works. So we might think about our
behaviors, not just individuals, but societies and communities in an
evolutionary way.
I make a third case for being a bit more compassionate with
ourselves and with others about these supposed “sins of the flesh.” What might
be a sin in one context was a virtue in another. We might think of our genetic heritage as a
tool box. Rather than judge or control
how might we understand and work with human behaviors, drawing from our tool
kit those behaviors that can enable us to adapt and flourish.
The bottom line for me is that I never until fairly recently
thought about human life (behavior, attributes, even religion) in terms of
evolution. I have usually thought about
it in terms of sin vs. virtue as Paul had done, the war between mind and
flesh. Evolution has provided us with a
whole new way of understanding ourselves and our place on this beautiful blue
ball.
I would like to hear your thoughts about this as well. Join us after worship for conversation.
Amen.
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