"God Fell" | The Rev. Andy Fiddler, Rector Emeritus | February 5, 2023

“God Fell” 

Sermon by A. E. Fiddler 

2/5/23 Trinity Church New Haven 

I’d like to thank Luk for inviting me to preach today. I haven’t been in this pulpit on a Sunday since the day I retired as Rector in 2009.  It’s an honor to be here among old friends and new friends. 

I want to talk to to you this morning about falling.  Falling.  If you’re old enough to qualify for Medicare you may be asked some form of this question when you show up for your annual medical checkup: 

“Have you fallen in the past TWELVE months?” 

I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago and the question was changed to “Have you fallen in the past SIX months?” 

I imagine that the next time I visit a doctor the question will be further revised to something like this “On the way from the parking lot to the doctor’s office this morning, did you happen to find yourself in the prone position?” 

Falling wasn’t much of a problem when I was young.  Back then, if I caught my toe on some uneven pavement and started to lose my balance, I could catch myself.  I could get my other foot forward in time to stop myself from falling. 

But now I can do no such thing.  If I start to stumble a little voice inside me tells me that I’m going to hit the ground, and there’s nothing I can do about it. 

The force of gravity always wins.  And if you injure yourself and wind up in the emergency room, they will affix a band to your wrist that says “Fall Risk”. 

“Fall Risk” pretty much describes the human condition from Adam and Eve to the present day. 

“Fall Risk” reminds me of the words we hear on Ash Wednesday as ashes are affixed to our foreheads: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” 

Sooner or later every human being is going to bite the dust.  “Ashes, ashes. All. Fall. Down.” 

But on a much happier note, I’d like to talk about another kind of falling: falling in love. 

They call it “falling” in love because like falling on a slippery sidewalk, there’s not much you can do about it once you lose your balance. 

In the words sung by the immortal Marlene Dietrich:  “Falling in love again. Never wanted to. What am I to do?  Can’t help it.” 

You can’t help it once it happens.  You’ve already lost your balance.  Down you tumble. Head over heels in love. 

When I was a freshman in college I took a course in comparative religion.  At the first lecture the professor said this: 

“You can know all about another religion’s beliefs, its traditions and history.  But you will always be standing on the outside looking in .  Because religion is like falling in love.  You can only truly know it when it happens to you.” 

That’s what the professor said.  “Religion is like falling in love.” 

His words hit me like a bolt of lightning.  Because I already knew what was like to fall in love.  In sixth grade there was Joyce.  In seventh grade it was Vivian.  In eighth grade it was Peggy Ann. 

It was all unrequited, but it was nevertheless FALLING in love.  I had lost my balance every time.  I couldn’t stop myself from falling.  “Falling in love again.  Never wanted to.  What am I to do? Can’t help it.” 

And also, at a very early age, I had fallen in love with God.  So for me, at least, religion was like falling in love.  And it happens to a lot of people. 

It happened to John Wesley in the year 1738.  Wesley eventually became the founder of a movement called Methodism.  But in 1738 he was simply an ordinary Church of England clergyman who came upon a small crowd who were listening to a street preacher on Aldersgate Street in London. 

Hearing that sermon on the street, something profound happened to Wesley that had never happened to him before.  As Wesley later described it in his journal, “My heart was strangely warmed.”  “My heart was strangely warmed.” 

“My heart was strangely warmed” also described my own youthful experience of faith.  It was very much like losing my balance and falling. It was very much like falling in love. 

But as I grew in years and experience and maybe in wisdom, I began to realize that a mature and genuine faith doesn’t require that we all fall in love with God.  Not everyone’s heart will be strangely warmed, and that’s O.K. 

Our Christian faith can indeed be compared to falling in love.  But it is God who has fallen in love.  It is God who has fallen in love with us. 

In the Bible, again and again, God’s love for us is described as one of the strongest kinds of love, the love of a parent for a child. 

Listen to this passage from the Old Testament, in which God speaks through the prophet Hosea:  “When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son…It was I who taught them to walk, I took them up in my arms…I led them with cords of compassion, with the bands of love…I bent down to them and fed them.”  (Hosea 11) 

In the New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus compares the love of God to the love of a father for his wayward child.  The son decides to return home, ashamed and broken and hungry. 

Jesus says this about the father’s love:  “And while the son was yet a long way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and FELL on his neck, and kissed him.” 

The father fell on his son’s neck and kissed him.  The father fell.  Now some modern translations of the Bible don’t say “fell.”  They say the father “embraced” the son.  But the Greek original is clear.  The father fell.  The father fell. 

And if you object that Jesus probably didn’t tell that parable in the Greek language, you should know that “fell on his neck” is also a literal expression in the Hebrew of the Old Testament. 

Listen to this  Old Testament description of the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau, two brothers who had become estranged:  “Esau ran to meet Jacob… and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and wept.” 

Esau fell.  The father of the Prodigal Son fell.  And Jesus fell. 

Jesus fell.  When I was a child I would look up into the sky and hope that if I could just see far enough, I could see God beyond the clouds.  But as I grew older I began to realize that the place we meet God is here on the ground. 

The place we meet the Ground of All Being is here on the ground.  In the dirt.  In the dust of the earth.  Where Jesus fell. 

The fourteen Stations of the Cross are not all in the Bible.  They are part of Christian oral tradition that came to flower in the late Middle Ages.  The fourteen stops on Christ’s path to the cross and the tomb are painted on church walls all over the world, they are enshrined in mosaic and stained glass and sculpture. 

And they all tell this story:  on the way to the cross Jesus fell three times.  Jesus fell.  Three times. 

And who was it who fell?  Was it the carpenter from Nazareth?  Of course.  Was it the teacher, the rabbi, the prophet, the purveyor of wisdom?  Of course. 

But here is what our Creed says about Jesus:  “God of God, light of light, very God of very God.”  And here is what John’s Gospel says about Jesus, the Logos, the Word:  

 “The Word was God.  And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” God was and is among us. 

And so it was that God fell to earth.  God fell to earth.  If I had to distill all four Gospels down to two words, those two words would be these:  “GOD FELL”. 

God fell.  From his sacred head.  His hands. His feet.  His wounded side…the Blood of God fell to earth. 

It was the Blood of God. And it fell to earth.  Where we fell.  In the dirt.  On the ground.  In dust and ashes.  Where we live now. 

God fell.  For God so loved the world.  Amen.