A World Without God

A World Without God

A World Without God

A World Without God

Subject: Imagine A World Without God

Imagine that the universe began 15 billion years ago with a big bang,
and has evolved into what we see today with no divine intervention or
direction, and all will continue to evolve with no divine
intervention. The world will simply complete its course to eventual
disintegration some billions of years in the future. A world without
God. What would it be like?

Can a life without God, a world without God, a world that does not
transcend the limitations of time and space, of energy and mass,
really bring happiness?

Can a life without God, a world without God, a world that does not
transcend the limitations of time and space, of energy and mass,
really bring happiness?

A World Without God

A World Without God

A World Without God

Can a life without God, a world without God, a world that does not
transcend the limitations of time and space, of energy and mass,
really bring happiness?

Imagine A World Without God

A World Without God

A World Without God


a condensed version of the sermon delivered by Rev. Neal Sadler on
Sunday, August 1, 2004 at St. Matthew United Church of Christ,
Wheaton, Illinois

Today's Scripture Readings are:
Ecclesiastes 1:1-14; 2:18-25


Today's Scripture is from a book of the Bible that is not commonly
preached from. It is from Ecclesiastes, a book accredited to Solomon,
part of the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Ecclesiastes is a
troubling, disturbing book for Christian to read. It seems so
pessimistic, a secular book that offers such little hope. It is
perhaps best known for the beautiful words of the third chapter, "For
everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under
heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant and time
to pluck up what is planted. . ." Most of the book, though, seems
dreary, talking about vanity, what we might call futility or
worthlessness.

Let us hear selections from the first couple chapters.

(read)

Will you imagine with me a world without God . . . a world without
God. Everything would be the same, except that there would be no God.
We would have the beautiful mountains and rivers and streams, the
fields of harvest, the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, all the
wonderful diverse animals that roam our planet. Everything that we can
see and touch and feel and smell will be here, but that is all. That
which we cannot know through our five sense or through reason or
scientific investigation would not exist.

Imagine that the universe began 15 billion years ago with a big bang,
and has evolved into what we see today with no divine intervention or
direction, and all will continue to evolve with no divine
intervention. The world will simply complete its course to eventual
disintegration some billions of years in the future. A world without
God. What would it be like?

I think this is what the author of Ecclesiastes is doing here, looking
at life from a completely secular view, from the view that God does
not exist or if God does exist, God has absented himself from the
world forever. Strip away the false fantasies and dreams that we human
beings have about the existence of a God, a God who is active in this
world and cares about you and me. Instead, look at the stark reality
of life as it would be without the make-believe and the idle wishes
about heaven and eternity and immortality. What is the meaning of life
in such a world? The Preacher, the author of Ecclesiastes, says very
simply, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity! A chasing after the wind."

Again, this is not the kind of Scripture passage we like to hear. The
words are not of comfort or hope or love, but words of disillusionment
and despair, words that deal with the futility of living day in and
day out. Later, he writes, "And I thought the dead, who have already
died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive, but better
than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil
deeds that are done under the sun." Wow! This guy will take the wind
out of anyone sails.

Life is a pain, the author says. It's a pain because there is a lot of
suffering and work. Even more so, life is a pain because from the
moment a person is born, he or she is under a sentence of death. No
matter how good or bad, how rich or poor, how smart or dumb, all end
up the same place -- the grave, if there is no God. Again, the words
of Ecclesiastes, "All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all
turn to dust again." That's a world without God

It's not that the author, again who is traditionally identified as
Solomon, did not seek happiness. He did. He sought happiness with a
gusto unmatched by few. He sought it by pursuing pleasure, the good
things in life -- gold, silver, big houses, slaves, singers and
dancers, but he confesses, it was all vanity, a chasing after the
wind. He tried to find happiness in wisdom. It was better. But in the
end he confesses, "what happens to the fool will happen also to me;
why then have I been so wise?" All efforts to find meaning and joy are
doomed. A death sentence awaits us all. There is no avoiding it.

There is an old Peanuts comic strip where Lucy asks Charlie Brown if
he has ever known anybody who was truly happy. Before she can finish
her sentence, in comes who else but Snoopy dancing on tiptoes, his
nose pointed to the sky as if he were floating on air. Lucy then
repeats her question with a little addendum, "have you ever known
anyone who was truly happy and still in their right mind?"

Now, I know there are those who live and give no thought about God and
seem happy. And many of them are good people. They care deeply about
the welfare of all humanity. They strive for justice. They preserve
the environment. They thirst for knowledge . . . but they do not
believe in God. To them life ends in the grave --no heaven, no soul
that lives on through eternity. The meaning they receive comes from
creating a better world for future generations. The author of
Ecclesiastes would respond, "That's very noble, but why waste the
effort. Your hope is a futile hope. Every future generation will end
up like your generation, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Spare yourself
the pain. You, too, like those who believe in God, are living a
disillusion. Your life, too, is full of vanity."

Can a life without God, a world without God, a world that does not
transcend the limitations of time and space, of energy and mass,
really bring happiness?

We spent a couple weeks in Switzerland on this trip. Switzerland is a
wonderful place. The scenery is beautiful. The streets are clean.
Everything runs efficiently. Health care is excellent. The people care
deeply about physical fitness and time for rest and relaxation. They
hike in the beautiful hills, ride their bikes, sail their boats. It is
basically a secular society, but they legislate a Sabbath, a day of
rest. Stores are closed. Factories shut down. No one works on Sundays.
It's even illegal to mow your lawn. We couldn't use the washing
machine. Switzerland is a beautiful, beautiful place with a standard
of living that probably exceeds the United States. They don't have the
poverty we have here. It seems to be a wonderful, almost idyllic place
to live.

I preached one Sunday evening at the International Protestant Church
of Zurich. The pastor of the church showed me around the Reformation
sites of Zurich prior to the service -- the church and statue and home
and study of Ulrich Zwingli, the leader of the Reformed branch of the
Reformation, in which the church that I grew up in has its roots. I
asked him what was different about serving in Zurich, voted for the
third year in a row the #1 best city in the whole world in which to
live. He startled me when he said that he has a lot more funerals for
suicide victims in Zurich than he ever had before, usually young Swiss
men and women. "More suicides in Zurich," I asked, "this beautiful,
prosperous city?" "Yes," he said, "people are really struggling for
meaning."

A couple days later, we were shown around the beautiful city and
canton of Berne, where my ancestors came from. Again, a seemingly
wonderful place to live. The old part of the city is high on a hill
above the Arne River. Next to the big church in the center of town is
a large patio area. There's a huge steep cliff from this patio area
toward the river. When I looked down I noticed that about twenty feet
below the railing was a netting along the entire cliff. I asked the
gracious Swiss man who was our friend and guide for the day what it
was for. The purpose: to catch people when they jumped, so they
wouldn't be able to commit suicide there.

These suicides were very different from the ones that occurred at the
Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich, where prisoners with no
hope, doomed to a life of hard labor, torture, starvation and misery
threw themselves against the high voltage barbed wire fence along the
perimeter putting a sudden ending to their pain and suffering. These
were young people living amidst one of the most affluent societies the
world has ever known.

It's not that Christians don't sometimes commit suicide, they do at
times. But I think these suicides in Switzerland maybe reflect the
emptiness of people in a world of material prosperity but no God, a
world where meaning is found in financial success, physical fitness
and the like, but not in a relationship with God, the kind of world
that the Book of Ecclesiastes talks about in our Scripture lesson.

Ecclesiastes imagined a world without God, a world in which most of us
would not want to live. Now, let's try to imagine a world in which
God, God as described in all of his fullness in the Scriptures, a God
of justice and righteousness, a God of compassion and mercy and
forgiveness and love, a God revealed in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, a God who is alive and well and caring
for the world that He created. Imagine a world in which God reigns,
God revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I don't mean the world
created by the feeble and often mistaken attempts by well-meaning
Christians. But a world that truly reflects the fullness of the gospel
message where love and justice, mercy and righteousness can flourish.
Imagine that kind of world. Would you want to live in that kind of
world? I would, and I guess that you would too.

I can't prove to you that this world of goodness and peace is the
world that truly exists, that this is reality and not the world that
is described in Ecclesiastes. Faith is so very necessary. I can't
prove to you without a shadow of doubt that there is a personal,
loving and just God who cares very much for you and for this world
that he created. Faith is necessary. I confess, though, that this is
the world that I proclaim to you on Sunday mornings. And I do so not
out of wishful thinking, I don't think, nor because this is the way I
would to see the world, but because this is what I truly believe the
world is like.

And I believe these things, I think (others may disagree with me) as a
sane, rational human beings. For I believe that if we, as sane,
rational human beings, look about us at this world and see its order
and beauty, and look at ourselves and listen to the voices within us,
and look at history and see the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and
look at the live of others and how their lives have been touched, I
believe that we as sane, rational people will discover that this world
that we imagine, this world with a personal, caring God as revealed in
God's Son Jesus Christ is indeed the truth, the real world.

I think that we -- with full confidence and assurance -- can be a
people of hope, a people confident of the truth of God, the truth
about ourselves. And, being confident in that truth, I think we can
forget all those false places we sometimes go looking for meaning. We
can lay aside the many things that entice us away from God and find in
the Lord the meaning that we truly seek.


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