Prayer: We can sing of your love, O God. Forever we will sing. You are God of earth and sky. You are holy. You are Lord of heaven and earth. God of wonders beyond our galaxy. You are holy, holy. The universe declares your majesty. You are holy. Holy. Lord of heaven and earth. Lord of heaven and earth. Send us, we pray, O God, your Holy Spirit, to live, move, and have being in us. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

I don’t have too many magazine subscriptions, but of the ones I do have, all of them, with one exception are religiously oriented. Ironically, though, the one exception often times seems to have religious and spiritual overtones. The magazine is “Astronomy.” Fascinating periodical. Because of our faith and awareness of God, the Creator “who made the world and everything in it, God who is Lord of heaven and earth,” the very subject of the universe and the cosmos connects the magazine to religions and spirituality. In its pages are the latest discoveries and developments of astrophysicists and cosmologists. In fact, one of the latest discoveries is that our universe may have a distinctive shape, one of these three possibilities seems to fit the theories and equations. The one in the lower right hand corner has the most attention right now.

The most fascinating thing is that the more we strive to get answers, the more a pervasive truth is revealed: there is something more than just the physical dimension of life. Even Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature, and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable” (Isaacson, Walter, Einstein: His Life and Universe, 384.

We know this to be true, don’t we? No matter how much science can reveal, there’s always the subtle, the intangible, the inexplicable. There’s something beyond our physical reality that we can discern. It’s the moment when we are uniquely stirred within our inner spirit, the moment when some metaphysical connection is made. We may call it spiritual. We certainly call it a special moment.

It’s like when musician George Michael bought the Steinway piano which was owned by legendary Beetle John Lennon. It was the piano that Lennon used as he wrote his famous song, “Imagine.” George Michael ships this piano off to places that are in need of that specialness, that spiritual support. He sent it to New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, for example. He also sent it to Virginia Tech following the horrible shootings. The piano is on public display, open for anyone to sit down and play a few notes on the piano John Lennon used, seeking a bit of solace in its noteworthy presence (Sermon Resources for April 27th, www.esermons.com, retrieved April 25, 2008).

There are some objects and things that have deep connections to the spiritual, especially our symbols. Symbols always point to a greater truth or deeper meaning. For example, when some of you and I serve Holy Communion to our homebound members and friends on a monthly basis, we usually use the bread right from our worship service. I most always make a point of telling them that the bread they are eating is the same bread that the rest of our church membership ate from previously in worship. The deeper connection is that our homebound, regardless that they are homebound, are included with us in the body of Christ. The power of God’s all-inclusive grace is experienced, which is exactly what makes Holy Communion special for our homebound members and for me.

The danger is, of course, that sometimes it’s easy to give the qualities of the spiritual specialness to the symbol itself. We might say that the piano, by itself, on its own , is special. The bread, by itself, is holy. No, they’re not. It’s just a piano made of wood metal, and strings. It’s just a piece of bread made of flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and water. Neither one has spiritual qualities of the Inexplicable by itself. It’s our awareness of God’s holiness, God’s grace that helps us realize the holiness quality of the bread. It’s our awareness of what heritage that piano has that makes it something special to sit at and play a few notes. You see, if we give qualities of specialness to the symbol, the symbol can become a pretender of spiritual truth, but not be where truth lies at all.

Although it seems obvious, I highlight this point because I think it’s helpful for us to always keep growing clearer in our minds and hearts as to where the Intangible and Inexplicable are not located and where they are. It is not located in the symbol itself, but is located in what the symbol points to. How many of you have a lucky charm that you carry with you all the time? A rabbit’s foot? How many of you have a St. Christopher’s medal? Or a spirit stone? I wear a cross around my neck. Am I blessed because of it? I don’t believe it. We are all blessed because God loves us! Our minds help us to discern that we are blessed by God.

On a different level, how many of you faithfully read the horoscope each day? It’s a pretender. How many of us are superstitious? Do you worry about Friday the 13th? Superstitions are pretenders. Or, how may of us buy into jinx’s or hexes? I was astounded when I heard the story this past week about Gino Castignoli, a Boston Red Sox fan who was working as a construction worker at the new Yankee Stadium. To jinx the Yankees, Gino managed to slip the jersey of Red Sox star player, David Ortiz into the wet concrete as it was being poured in the dugout of the visiting team! Another construction worker saw it happen, was silent for a time, but started feeling worried and told the story. The stadium’s construction screeched to a halt while the Yankees spent an additional five hours and $50,000 to dig up the jersey. Apparently, more than Gino Castignoli believed in the hex! So did the other construction worker…and so did the whole Yankee’s organization! Hexes and jinxes are pretenders! There’s no truth to the hex. It’s real only in the mind.

There is a nice ending to the story… after the shirt was extracted, pretty mangled by the jack hammers, it was auctioned on E-bay and fetched a cool $175,100 dollars all of which went to a children’s cancer charity called “The Jimmy Fund” (http://WOTZ.com/sports/redsox/david.ortiz.jersey.2.707296.html, retrieved April, 25, 2008 and Sermon Resources for April 27).

Back in Paul’s day, he was very aware that the Greeks who lived in Athens were very religious. They were cultured with sophisticated education levels, but they were caught up with pretenders. Their statues, their idols, their art works were all focal points of their worship, but all were pretenders—pretending to carry the truth about God and about meaning in life.

I dare say, we aren’t all that much different. We may not literally bow down and worship certain things in our lives, but sometimes in our lifestyles, it’s apparent we idolize quite a few things. We often idolize celebrities who are beautiful, competitive, and wealthy, don’t we? We sometimes can’t wait for the latest technological advances and upgrades. We place on the pedestal of adoration our country, our churches, our commercialism, our comsumerism. We grope around for secrets to success, financial security, romance, power, indisputable knowledge, physical fitness, all of which we think drives us, guides us, and will sustain us. All are pretenders. None of those things are the source of guidance, direction, and sustenance for life, love, and meaning in our lives. There’s something more than all those things.

The Athenians, did manage to at least have a sense that there was Something More than all their objects of worship. The altar with the inscription ‘to an unknown god’ was just what Paul needed to reveal the pretenders and proclaim where God truly is and what God truly wants.

Where God truly is… is right where we are. God’s presence is in this place. That’s what makes our worship special. What God truly wants is to live in us and love us and walk with us. That’s why we can discern the Intangible here. What God truly wants is for us to receive love, faith, and trust from us. That’s why we can experience the presence of “Something More” because God responds to our offerings of love. God wants us to get so close to Jesus that we can’t help but keep the commandments that he taught; we can’t help but to love, to care for the lost, advocate for the poor, reach out to the needy, all based on love, regardless of what the world says. What Jesus taught was to love God, love neighbor, love yourself.

This doesn’t mean that we need to disown celebrities, the rich, the wealthy. It doesn’t mean that we disregard our symbols, whatever they may be. It doesn’t mean we disassociate ourselves from anyone or anything that is embedded in the ways of the world.

It does mean that we try like crazy not to get those things mixed up for the real source of what drives us and guides us, what sustains us and influences us. It means we recognize that God is the Source for all our needs. Amen.