Are There Aliens?
Service of Worship
Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church
September 26, 2021
Rev. Natalie Bowerman, Pastor
Prelude
Greeting and
Announcements
Mission Statement:
We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth
disciples of Jesus Christ.
Call to Worship
We gather today to
worship the One who created us,
The One who calls us,
The One who equips us,
The One who loves us without end.
With joyful hearts, let us worship God.
Hymn 75:
All People That On Earth Do Dwell
1 All people that
on earth do dwell,
sing to the LORD with cheerful voice.
Serve him with joy, his praises tell,
come now before him and rejoice!
2 Know that the
LORD is God indeed;
he formed us all without our aid.
We are the flock he surely feeds,
the sheep who by his hand were made.
3 O enter then his
gates with joy,
within his courts his praise proclaim!
Let thankful songs your tongues employ.
O bless and magnify his name!
4 Because the LORD
our God is good,
his mercy is forever sure.
His faithfulness at all times stood
and shall from age to age endure.
Prayer of Confession:
O Holy One, we call
to you and name you as eternal, ever-present, and boundless in love. Yet there
are times, O God, when we fail to recognize you in the dailyness of our lives. Sometimes
shame clenches tightly around our hearts, and we hide our true feelings.
Sometimes fear makes us small, and we miss the chance to speak from our
strength. Sometimes doubt invades our hopefulness, and we degrade our own
wisdom.
Holy God, in the daily
round from sunrise to sunset, remind us again of your holy presence hovering
near us and in us. Free us from shame and self-doubt. Help us to see you in the
moment-by-moment possibilities to live honestly, to act courageously, and to
speak from our wisdom. Amen.
Assurance
Friends, hear the
good news: God sees you, God forgives you, God affirms you, and God loves you
no matter what. Amen.
Anthem: Lift Every Voice and Sing by RR Johnson, arr.
Horace J Scruggs
Nehemiah 9: 5-6
5And the Levites—Jeshua,
Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah—said:
“Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to
everlasting.”
“Blessed be your
glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. 6You alone
are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all
their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in
them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.
Matthew 16: 13-20
Peter Declares That
Jesus Is the Messiah
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his
disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and
still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living
God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was
not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And
I tell you that you are Peter,[a] and on this rock I will build my
church, and the gates of Hades[b] will not overcome it. 19 I
will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on
earth will be[c] bound in heaven, and whatever you
loose on earth will be[d] loosed in heaven.” 20 Then
he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
A Message
“Are There Aliens?”
Good morning,
friends! It’s so wonderful to finally see you all in person again! The
quarantine I had to undergo because of my son’s exposure to covid at school is
over, I’m a free woman, and I missed those smiling faces. Yes, I know, masks,
but the thing about a genuine smile is that even when the bottom half of your
face is covered up you can still see it in a person’s eyes.
Moving forward in our
“Stump the Preacher” sermon series, this week’s topic is one I’m revisiting,
one that I explored three years ago with a different congregation during
another summer of “Stump the Preacher”. It was one of my favorites that summer.
I didn’t think this topic would come up this time around, but our friend David
brought it up one day, and then a clergy friend of mine was teasing me about
this sermon series and said “you should preach about aliens or something”, and
I told him that I could totally put together a sermon called “Are There Aliens?”
and now, here we are.
And quite
literally, where in the world do you go with a sermon like this one? Are we all
alone in the universe? Is there life on other planets? Does our faith offer us
any advice at all on a question that humans have grappled with for so long?
Momentarily putting
aside the issue of what the Bible or the Church might say in response to this
question, there is little doubt that humanity has been fascinated with the idea
that something else like us might be out there, somewhere, and we’ve largely
focused our curiosity on our nearest neighbor in this solar system: Mars. The
invention of the telescope in 1608 gave astronomers a view of the universe they
had never had before, and by the end of the 17th Century polar ice
caps had been discovered on the Red Planet. By the mid-19th Century
astronomers had discovered that Mars had a similar length of day to Earth, had
seasons, had a similar axial tilt to our planet, and a British scientist named
William Whewell believed he even saw canals on Mars[1].
Though that idea was later disproven, over the course of the last Century NASA
has discovered evidence of craters, gases, and plate tectonics that all suggest
that Mars was formed similarly to Earth and may have been more like our planet
a very, very long time ago. NASA has spent a number of years mapping out the
topography of Mars, and the Curiosity rover zeroed in on a very large
crater, named the Gale crater, that would have been able to hold a lake about 3
billion years ago. The same expedition discovered bacterial remnants that could
have once been the building blocks of life. Just this past February, NASA performed
more exploratory work with the Perseverance rover, searching around another
crater called the Jezero crater that would have been an even more ideal
location for water that could have sustained life. Though Perseverance didn’t
find life, it discovered methane gas, which strongly suggests there was some
form of life on Mars once[2].
Will we ever find what we’ve been looking for on Mars? Will we ever find solid,
incontrovertible proof of life? Will Marvin the Martian ever come out of his
hiding spot and come say hello? God only knows.
The directions one
could go in a sermon like this one are as infinite as the universe itself. It
was tough to pick a lane—not because it was hard to focus, but because I feared
what I might leave out. Should I tell you about the town of Roswell, New
Mexico, where some residents believe they saw a flying saucer in 1947[3]?
Should we talk about the impact our curiosity about space has had on our
popular culture? Should we talk about HG Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds,
and the 1938 radio broadcast of it that caused mass panic[4]?
Should we talk about Marvin the Martian, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar
Galactica, and too many other shows and movies to name? Should we go into popular
conspiracy theories about aliens and space—the Area 51 rumors, the theory that
the moon landing was a hoax, the flat earth conspiracy?
In fact,
controversy and conspiracy are two very salient themes when we look at this relationship
between aliens, space exploration, and the Church. I researched this particular
topic even more extensively than our other “Stump the Preacher” topics because there
is just so much out there, and the more I read about our faith and outer space,
the more one name kept popping up: Galileo.
Galileo Galilei was
an Italian scientist who lived in the late 16th and early 17th
Centuries. He made tremendous contributions to the fields of astronomy,
physics, and mathematics. Even though we’re greatly indebted to him for his
research and discoveries, his accomplishments are not the primary reason I
learned this gentleman’s name in history class.
Galileo was a
devout Roman Catholic. He even considered going into the priesthood, but his
calling to the sciences was too strong to deny. Ultimately, it was that
calling, and the discoveries he made because of it, that landed him in hot
water with the Church he loved. The prevailing belief of his time, even among scientists,
was that the earth was in a fixed point in space, and the sun revolved around
it. This is called geocentrism. Galileo became increasingly sure this belief
was incorrect and sought to confirm a minority belief called heliocentrism—the sun
stays put, and the earth revolves around it. Galileo refused to back down from this
belief, and faced the Roman Inquisition for it. They found him guilty of
heresy, sentenced him to house arrest for the rest of his life, and excommunicated
him from the Church.
The Church in
Galileo’s day was distrusting of astronomy, and perceived Galileo’s research as
a threat. It sounds bizarre to us now, but the belief that the earth was the
center of the universe was an important one to the Church. The earth’s position
in the center of the universe supported a theology that held our world as the
shining jewel of God’s creation. If our planet was the center of the universe
and everything else revolved around us, that signified our special and unique
relationship to God. It all revolves around us. Nothing that is or ever shall
be is more important to God than us. If Galileo was going to undermine that
idea, then all of the Church’s teachings about the Divine and Scripture could
crumble around it.
Mind you, the Roman
Catholic Church no longer vilifies poor Galileo. A mere 350 years after he
faced the Roman Inquisition, in 1992, Pope John Paul II officially reversed the
Church’s condemnation of Galileo and his teachings about heliocentrism. As you
may have experienced, we Christians tend to be a bit slow to embrace change,
and admit wrongdoing, but we get there after a few Centuries[5].
Even though Galileo
didn’t publish any findings about the possibility of life on other planets, his
name and story are vital for us to remember here. Because if we explore these
ideas about space, about the expansiveness of the universe, about what might be
out there, including other forms of life, then there are a few critical aspects
of our faith that come into question, and we start to venture into territory
that Christians aren’t always comfortable exploring. Galileo had the misfortune
of exposing that weakness of ours four hundred years ago.
If there’s life out
in the universe besides us here on this planet, then what does that say about
us? To quote the Psalmist, “who are we that God is mindful of us?”[6]
If there is life on other planets, does that make us less special to God? Does
that change what we believe about God creating us, guiding us, protecting us,
and sending Jesus to live among us, teach us, die for us, and save us?
I haven’t spent a
lot of time in the last fifteen years or so with people who were particularly
curious about any of that, but we used to cover this territory on average once
a year in the group I worshipped with in college. And when we went into this
territory, we continually came back to the same tangential question—if there is
life on other planets, then do those lifeforms know Jesus? Do they have
scriptures of their own? Do they have religion, and churches? Was Jesus
incarnated, crucified, and resurrected on that planet, too? There are no
answers at all to those questions, we’re left to just wonder.
Some Christians get
very uncomfortable with these questions. Questions like these challenge our
beliefs about God, and don’t jive well at all with Creationism theology, if you’ve
ever spent time in that particular school of thought. The Church historically falls
on the side of distrusting science. But more than all of that, a lot of us
people of faith just don’t like open-ended conversations like this one. We find
comfort in facts and concrete answers. We want to point to a page in our Bible
and say God said it, I believe it, that settles it. But if we ask these
questions about space, about the universe, about whether we’re really the only
life God created, then we come face to face with just the tip of all that we
don’t know, all that we can’t know, all that only God knows. I don’t think we
should shy away from that, even though it terrifies us. That which scares us
the most, so often, is exactly what makes us grow. And I happen to believe
there is no reason at all why science and religion need to be at odds with one
another. Science is one of many human endeavors that points us toward the
magnitude of the Divine. Albert Einstein appeared to be in agreement when he
said,
The most beautiful thing we can
experience is the mysterious—the knowledge of the existence of something unfathomable
to us, the manifestation of the most profound reason coupled with the most
brilliant beauty.[7]
There’s ultimately
little in the Bible that can really prove or disprove the existence of life on
other planets. We might hypothesize that the biblical authors weren’t aware
there even were other planets, or were far too consumed with the struggles of
life on this planet to care about whether there are aliens, and you can hardly
blame them for that. Alternatively, we might suggest that the biblical authors
were aware enough to know that they couldn’t know everything. And that awareness
gave way to humility, and abundant reverence. The author of this morning’s
reading from Nehemiah took a wondrous moment to praise God for all that he had
seen, all that he knew of, all there could be, and all there would ever be, proclaiming
that God made it all—the earth, the sky, the heavens, the stars, all of it. We
may never know if there is life on other planets, but who are we to limit God?
In fact, this
morning’s Gospel reading from Matthew drives home that it’s beyond us to
understand everything God has done in Creation, and that the greatest knowledge
we can have as people of faith is that God is God. This passage from Matthew
shows us that even knowing who Jesus is has been no easy feat; even in the days
that he walked the earth and could come up to you and say, “Hi, I’m Jesus, I’m
here to teach and heal you,” people remained mystified as to who he really was,
what he lived to do, and who would ultimately save them. Testing his disciples,
Jesus asked them who people were saying the Messiah would be? They answered
maybe John the Baptist, perhaps Elijah, maybe one of the prophets. And only
Peter was both knowledgeable and brave enough to name Jesus as his Messiah. And
it’s this testimony, says Jesus, that grants him the keys to heaven. Even those
rockets that Jeff Bezos is spending his billions on to launch him into space
can’t give him the keys to heaven. The vastness of God stretches so far into
the cosmos that we cannot reach that place by anything we mortals may try.
Nothing but our love for the Divine, and our dedication to follow our Creator,
comes close to bridging that divide.
Ultimately, no
matter what might be out there, no matter what we discover someday, and even
when there is so much we’ll never know about our universe, the only truth we
need is that God is huge—so huge no planet can contain the Sacred, so huge God’s
creation is unfathomable, and so huge that God reigns sovereign over it all,
with a love so potent that God sees each one of us even in the midst of
millions of stars.
Amen.
Hymn 143: On
Eagles’ Wings
You who dwell in
the shelter of the Lord,
Who abide in His
shadow for life,
Say to the Lord, "My Refuge,
My Rock in Whom I trust."
And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.
The snare of the fowler will never capture you,
And famine will bring you no fear;
Under His Wings your refuge,
His faithfulness your shield.
And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.
You need not fear the terror of the night,
Nor the arrow that flies by day,
Though thousands fall about you,
Near you it shall not come.
And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.
For to His angels He's given a command,
To guard you in all of your ways,
Upon their hands they will bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.
And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,
ar you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.
Offering, doxology,
and prayer of dedication
Pastoral Prayer and
Lord’s Prayer
Blessed are you, O
Lord our God, who has rescued us from those who would destroy us. Your power
and might are great, and your mercy is poured out on us whom you love. Our help
is in your blessed Name, O you who have made heaven and earth.
We have been
entrusted with the way of life, for your Word has dwelt among us. But we become
so puffed up with our own importance that we ignore the simplest acts of mercy.
You have called us to be like salt, adding flavor to life. Yet we lose our
sense of mission and cease to be all you have called us to be. Deliver us from
judgement and forgive our sin that we may live forever in your presence and
sing your praises for eternity.
By the gift of your
Spirit, help us to see that we share your task of evangelism with many people
from many different places. May our work be done for the common purpose of
spreading the gospel of Christ.
We life up before
you this day our brothers and sisters who are in distress. By the ministry of
the laying-on-of-hands and anointing and prayer, we have confidence that, as
your will directs, you will deliver them from evil, preserve them in all
goodness, and bring them to everlasting life.
O God, turn our
sorrow into gladness and our mourning into a holiday. Hear and answer us, for
we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Father, Mother,
Creator God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy
will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against
us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the
Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.
Hymn 103: Immortal,
Invisible, God Only Wise
1 Immortal,
invisible, God only wise,
in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes,
most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.
2 Unresting,
unhasting, and silent as light,
nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might,
thy justice like mountains high soaring above
thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.
3 To all, life thou
givest, to both great and small.
In all life thou livest, the true life of all.
We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
and wither and perish, but naught changeth thee.
4 Great God of all
glory, great God of all light,
thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight.
All praise we would render; O help us to see
‘tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.
Benediction
Our God, our
Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, will guard our going out and coming in from
this time on and forevermore. And as all God’s people we say together, Amen.
Postlude
[1] “Life
On Mars”. Wikipedia. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars> 24
September 2021.
[2]
John Grant. “Is There Life on Mars?” Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
<https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/percy-life-on-mars> 24
September 2021.
[3] “Roswell
Incident”. Wikipedia. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_incident> 24
September 2021
[4] “The
War of the Worlds”. Wikipedia. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds>
24 September 2021
[5] “Galileo
Galilei”. Wikipedia. < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei>
24 September 2021
[6]
Psalm 8: 4
[7] “Albert
Einstein”. Good Reads. <https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/282814-the-most-beautiful-thing-we-can-experience-is-the-mysterious>
25 September 2021
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