I've always been fascinated by paradoxes. What is a paradox? Well, let's start with the dictionary definition. The dictionary says that a paradox is a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory but in reality expresses a truth.

Let's look at some examples. Some of them are just plain funny.

The first category is statement that seems contradictory but is true. Oscar Wilde famously once said: "I can resist anything except temptation."

What happens if you are in a car going the speed of light and you turn the headlights on? Do they work?

Have you ever been looking through a legal document, an insurance policy for example, and come across a page that in its center had the phrase "this page left intentionally blank"?

These kind of paradoxes, if you stop to think about them, just keep you going around and around in circles.

Another kind of paradox is a statement which is contrary to commonly accepted opinion. An example, of a more serious nature: a father and his son are driving in a car. For some unknown reason the car veers off the road and hits a tree. The father dies instantly. The ambulance takes the son to the hospital and, as he is wheeled into the emergency room, the attending surgeon looks at him and says "I can't operate on this boy; he is my son." How can this be?

This kind of paradox depends on hasty generalization. Based on what you assume about surgeons in general, you assume that this one is a man. But we already know that the boy's father is dead. All is revealed when you realize that some surgeons are women and that this surgeon is the boy's mother.

Many paradoxes are attempts on the part of philosophers to force us to think – or to back us into a corner that we can't get out of. And these tend to have very serious subjects. An example: If destiny designed a master plan which defines everything that is to happen, isn't it useless, for example, to go to a doctor? If I am ill and it is my destiny to regain health, then I will regain health whether I visit a doctor or not. If it is my destiny to not regain my health, then seeing a doctor will make no difference. Some of our brothers and sisters in the church who claim a belief in predestination, take this position.

Those who believe in predestination, such as John Calvin and churches who derive from his thinking, believe that before the creation God determined the fate of the universe throughout all of time and space. As an aside, I always had trouble with that because I could never figure out why one should bother to live any sort of moral life if it made no difference what you did.

But I digress. Back to paradoxes. That is an example of a philosophical paradox – if my health outcome is already determined, why bother with doctors? But if doctors exist … there you see, we're going around in circles again.

Here's one that will really make you think: if God is infinitely powerful – that is to say that God can do anything, can God make a stone that is so heavy God cannot lift it? That one simply has no answer.

O.K. – time to get to the sermon. Christian theology is filled with paradoxes.

Today's scripture lessons are filled with paradoxes. That wonderful reading from James that we heard read – gigantic ships that are steered by a small rudder; forest fires the size of half the state of California set going by a single match. A tongue and mouth that cannot be tamed and is capable of both blessing and cursing.

And the words from Jesus in the Gospel; how curious some of them are. Jesus is in the midst of his preaching ministry. At one point he is talking to his disciples and he says "Who do they say that I am?" And they told him that some people were saying that he was John the Baptist, or one of the prophets. Then Jesus says "Who do you say that I am?" and Peter answered: "You are the Messiah." And then Jesus said the weirdest thing: "Don't tell anybody."

Why in the world would he say something like that? It occurs to me that one possibility is that, for the briefest of moments, His human side took control. Because the very next thing He said was that He was going to undergo great suffering and be killed. His human side was afraid.

Then He seemingly got over his own inner turmoil and began to tell the disciples that they would have to undergo suffering too. He said things like "If you want to follow me, you must first deny yourself and take up your cross." And the biggest paradox of all: "If you want to save your life you must lose it. And then you will get it back."

Like the stone that God makes so big that God can't lift it – that one has no answer either. So, in search of an explanation or rationalization, I think we must look in the direction of metaphor – Jesus is speaking metaphorically rather than literally.

You all will agree that, in another place, where Jesus says that you must be born again, he was not speaking literally. His hearers say "How can someone go back into his mother's womb?" He was using a metaphor. And, for me, the metaphor here is one of change. You can't go back into your mother's womb, but you can become a changed person. In order to save your life you must lose it can be understood to mean that you must put behind you your old ways. Become a new person. And we've all heard people, known people, who have said that that they had done that or were going to do that.

Christianity, and Christians, often have a difficult time explaining themselves to others around the world. Muslims say "There is only one God, Allah" and they hear us use phrases such as Father Son and Holy Spirit and they think – you Christians have three Gods. That's a paradox. But as I said at the beginning, a paradox is a statement that seems self-contradictory but in reality expresses a truth. Christianity is full of paradoxes – that's just the way it is. But if we can see beyond the apparent logical inconsistency, the hasty generalization I mentioned earlier when talking about the emergency room surgeon – if we can see beyond all that we can discover or believe that there is an eternal truth in the many facets of our faith. You can't go back into your mother's womb, but you can become a changed person.

A couple years ago I decided to re-read Don Quixote, the famous book by Cervantes. A new English translation had just been published and it seemed a good chance. It's a long book – 938 pages of very small print. As you go along you cannot escape realizing that Don Quixote sees the world in a very different way. He became a different person, as you remember, and set off on a quest. Along the way he met Sancho Panza, and Aldonza, to name just two.

Eventually his family, who has been worried sick about him, tracks him down and takes him home, where he dies. In the way much of the world measures success, one would be tempted to say that he died a failure. But – and here's the important piece – along the way, with the people he encountered, he made the world a better place.

Back in the 70's the book was made into a Broadway play called Man of La Mancha. Its central song has always been a favorite of mine – The Impossible Dream. It's full of paradoxes. It goes like this:

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause
And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

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