I once read a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that showed the two of them sitting on a hill together. Hobbes asks, "Do you think there is a God?" Calvin thinks for a moment and then replies, "I do believe there is Someone who is out to get me."
This morning we are here to ask the question, “What do each of us believe about God?” This is the last of a six-part series on God-Talk. And it is an opportunity for you to clarify what you believe and why you believe it.
In this sermon series, we have concluded that:
- the atheist is a religious person with no invisible means of support;
- agnostics dare to doubt even when they are branded as heretics;
- mystics are awake to the miracles of the moment and open to the Great Mystery of Life;
- theists shun the half-gods, seeking instead the one universal God;
- and naturalists receive their revelation from the power of nature.
I’ve had three surprises during this God-Talk series. One was the emotional response by a number of people who told me how appreciative they were that I was being supportive of their belief system. These folks told me that they had never felt affirmed in their God belief, and they were deeply moved to have that acceptance.
A second surprise for me was the enthusiastic response of many people who came up after one of my sermons and said, “I never knew I was an atheist before, but you’ve convinced me that I am.” And then the next God sermon the same person would come up and say, “I never knew I was an agnostic before, but you’ve convinced me that I am.” The next month the same person had turned into a theist, and so on. I’ve always known that we Unitarian Universalists are flexible in our beliefs, but I never knew quite how flexible we could be.
I was gratified however since what seemed to be happening was that people were resonating with the values I was expressing that tie together all of these beliefs, the values of oneness, spiritual depth, and ethical commitment.
My final surprise was my discovery that not only many of you believed in quite a few of the God beliefs, but I believe in each of them. That’s why I could be so enthusiastic about each belief. Each of those beliefs resonated with a part of me.
When I preached on atheism I realized that I am an avid atheist if you’re talking about God as a personal bell hop who ratifies your every desire, or God the General who leads us into battle, or the Marquis de God who despises sinners so much he exterminates them.
When I preached on agnosticism, I found myself agreeing with Clarence Darrow when he said, "I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant people are sure. That is all that agnosticism means." If we are willing to grow and change on our spiritual journey, we must dare to doubt.
I also find myself comfortable with theism as defined by the Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich, when he says that God is the “infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being.”
Naturalism, I discovered, is close to my heart because I believe, in the words of Robert Weston, “There is a living web that runs through us to all the universe, linking us each with each and through all life on to the distant stars.”
And finally, mysticism pulls me into its orbit because it gives me the freedom to define divinity as “an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.”
When I started this series, I had three purposes in mind. First of all, I wanted to praise all of our beliefs. I wanted everyone to have the opportunity to better understand our own and each other’s beliefs and then to raise high our personal theologies.
By doing so I hope we create a culture where we learn from instead of fear each other’s convictions. I confess that sometimes I feel a little like the preacher in the “Kudzu” cartoon:
“Rev. Will B. Dunn is sitting at his old typewriter, ready to write his ‘Tell It to the Preacher” newspaper column. Cartoon frame by cartoon frame, he reads a letter, and looks pretty serious: ‘Dear Preacher, Do you address the Supreme Being as the ‘Eternal Thou’ like Buber...or do you prefer Tillich’s ‘Ground of Being’ or his ‘Ultimate Concern’...or Whitehead’s ‘Principle of Concretion’...or do you use Hegel’s ‘Absolute Spirit’ or even Otto’s ‘Mysterium Tremendum’? (signed) Seeker.
“Rev. Dunn turns to his typewriter and begins his answer: ‘Dear Seeker, I address the Supreme Being as ‘God’...’ In the final frame, he breaks into a smile as he writes, ‘...but you say it Yahweh and I’ll say it mine.’”
Our church is a place where each one of us can explore our spiritual beliefs in a community of seekers. I am proud that our UU congregations are the only religious community I know of where you can talk openly and honestly about your God belief and be accepted no matter what you believe. Here we are encouraged to share our opinions, experiences and stories with each other, each learning from the other and growing from our common journey.
My second purpose was to help each other understand that we need to dance with divinity. We need to be flexible in our beliefs about God, changing and growing as we go through life. I believe that whatever God we embrace or reject, it’s vital that we do not grasp hold in a dogmatic or obsessive or especially in an intolerant way.
I like to imagine myself dancing with the divine, at times embracing and other times moving apart, but always remaining in rhythm and relationship. Huston Smith, probably the most eminent scholar of the world religions, has written that:
"We have all been summoned to become cosmic dancers, who do not rest heavily in a single position, but lightly turn and leap from one position to another. The cosmic dancer, the world citizen, will not identify [our] whole being with any one land however dear. [Our] roots in family, community, civilization, will be deep. But in that very depth [we] will strike the water table of [our] common humanity. Thus nourished, [we] will reach out in more active curiosity." [The Religions of Man]
As Huston Smith says, each of us is called to be a cosmic dancer, not grasping any belief too tightly but letting our minds and spirits learn and grow from a symphony of concepts.
My third purpose was to help us understand that it really doesn’t matter what we believe about God. Or to put it a little more delicately, what is far more important than what we believe about God is how we live out our beliefs.
Each one of us sees the world through the lens of our personal experience. The world is the same, but it appears different to every human being.
Our world so grand, so mysterious, so incomprehensible, that our puny brains cannot begin to wrap around it. And so we create words, symbols and myths to try and describe our experience. As Lao-Tsu wrote in the Tao Te Ching, “Existence is beyond the power of words to define.” And yet we cannot help but try.
And then we fight like cats and dogs over each and every word and symbol. The reality has not changed. But our description of reality constantly changes, and we become convinced that our description is the reality itself.
Some of us describe what we see through our lens as God while others use different language and symbols including the proclamation that God does not exist. The real purpose of our God belief is not the worship of a deity, but to find a clearer lens to see the sacredness and divinity of all life on our planet.
If an atheist can see that sacredness more clearly by not believing in God, then more power to her. If theism helps someone else to affirm and promote the inherent dignity and worth of every person, then praise the Lord. If the interdependent web of all existence becomes a reality for the naturalist, helping him to live a more ethical lifestyle, then spin away.
I really don’t care what your God belief is. Yes, I don’t care what you believe about God as long as you live out the deepest values and most demanding ethics you possibly can.
The belief or disbelief in God is not an end but a means. It is the means by which we define our values, ethics and spirituality that we then are challenged to live out in our lives.
One of the most helpful metaphors for me to more clearly see divinity is the Great Cathedral of the World used by Forrester Church. The Great Cathedral has a multitude of rooms with windows. In each room are the followers of a different religion or sect or denomination. Each group is seeing the same light come through their window, but each one proclaims that their light is superior to all others.
The Great Cathedral is a Tower of Babel with everyone claiming sole possession of the truth while condemning others as outcasts. But as our own Unitarian Universalist tradition reminds us, there is only one light that shines through every window.*
We can call that light by any name -- God or Allah or Nature or Humanity or Evolution -- the name doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you see the illumination of insight, you feel the warmth of compassion, and you are inspired by the revelation of truth.
Forrester Church tells us, “What shines through the windows of the cathedral is refracted into millions of glimpses of this Truth, some contradictory, each partial, but all, strangely and wonderfully, divine.”
Our task as Unitarian Universalists and as human beings is to be receptacles and prisms for the light, to throw open every door and window of the soul to its rays, and to help others to bask in its glory.
I believe the light of Truth is refracted through each and every being on earth. Each one of us is a window for the divine light to shine through.
We see that light flash when someone speaks words of love or acts in a compassionate, healing, or justice-making fashion. We see that light glow in the great possibilities of a new-born babe or in the pride of a mother nursing her child. We see that light blaze when we gaze upon a stunning work of art or a flower in bloom. Divinity is wherever we perceive the light of truth, beauty, meaning, goodness.
Well, I have stalled long enough in telling you my own personal God belief. Please understand that I don’t proclaim my view as The Answer. Mine is another view that I hope will be helpful to you in your spiritual journey.
Usually I’m so busy dancing with the divine that I don’t bother to define it. In fact, while I was doing this series and even up until the time I was writing this sermon I was not certain which God belief I would embrace. But, since I’ve asked all of you to prioritize your’s, I guess I’m stuck with prioritizing mine.
I have long considered myself a process theologian. I believe in the words of Tierhard de Chardin, the 19th century Catholic theologian, that: "God is that evolutionary force that keeps pushing life into more and more ordered forms, into higher and higher consciousness, that motion and movement toward life and love."
But process theology is my head belief. When it comes to my heart – and I do believe God is more about the heart than the head – then I put my final check next to Theistic Mysticism.
I do believe in God, but not as a supernatural, other worldly being. I experience a God that is the infinite, unconditional, unlimited source of all life "in whom", as St. Paul said, "we live and move and have our being."
If I must use words to describe the divine, I prefer to call it the Great Mystery, which is a term used by the Lakota Sioux -- though I don’t mind using a wide variety of names and metaphors to give glimpses into the divine. No one name or metaphor can contain the Great Mystery. Not even all of them put together can begin to capture its essence.
That’s why I embrace mysticism: I believe God is the greatest of all mysteries. We can never fully encompass the divine in our thinking or feeling. God is too vast, too deep, too mysterious.
But I've discovered that though we can never fully understand divinity, we can still respond to The Great Mystery. Our purpose in life is to relate to The Mystery as creatively, as lovingly, as powerfully as possible and then to let it flow through our words and acts and deeds.
All the gods, including the Jewish, Christian, Moslem, Hindu, have grown out of humanity's experience of something divine in existence, the awareness of sacred reality. We may outgrow the imagery of the past, but we still hunger for transcendence. We still thirst for a relationship with the world around us, a sense of unity with ourselves, with nature, and with the family of humanity.
Sometimes I see the divine as having no face, image, or form, but as a force, a void of mysterious energy that flows through all of creation. And at other times I see God as having billions of faces, not only the faces of all the gods of all the religions but also I see God in the faces of every rock, animal, and human being on this planet. In the words Pablo Casals, "In music, in the sea, in a flower, in a leaf, in an act of kindness. ...I see what people call God in all these things."
And yet I know that the word and the concept God is not necessary to help us grow a soul. It was one of Christianity’s greatest mystics, Meister Eckhart, who said that God is beyond names and forms and the ultimate and highest leave-taking is leaving God for God. This is one of our biggest challenges: to leave the notion of God for the experience of God.
What is the experience of God? Each of us must answer that question for ourselves. Carl Jung wrote that "Religion is a defense against the experience of God." I believe spirituality is opening ourselves to that transcendent experience.
Experiencing God for me is experiencing The Mystery itself, allowing myself to be fully aware of life in all it’s various forms: the beauty and horror, the love and hate, the joy and suffering. Alan Watts wrote that human beings are the nerve endings of the universe; we are also the nerve endings and consciousness of the Great Mystery itself. The sacred scriptures of Hinduism echo that thought: "When before the beauty of a sunset or of a mountain you pause and exclaim, 'Ah,' you are participating in divinity."
To experience God we must also accept our responsibility as co-creators with God. Mysticism does not mean that we spend our lives blissing out. Mysticism is a feeling of kinship and unity with all world, a recognition that life itself is precious and sacred, and we must do all that is possible to protect and nurture this divine creation.
To sum up my belief about God I borrow the words of John Cyrus:
“To believe in God is to believe in life, in all of it ... The farthest star that I can see is part of the human environment. It is part of the whole in which I live and move and have my being. As a religious person I behold it with imperfect comprehension and say "God" ... This is my belief in God, the affirmation of one's whole existence.”
May all of us dance lightly and joyfully with the divinity we choose to believe in -- or to reject. Let all the beliefs and believers be welcomed here. May this be a place to share our deepest convictions and to grow them deeper and grander. And may we never stop dancing with the divine. Amen.
Reading: “The Cathedral of the World” by Forrester Church from Our Chosen Faith by Forrester Church and John Buehrens
“...In the cathedral of the world, the windows are where the light shines through. They illuminate our story, the story of life and death.
“In any given lifetime we meditate on the refracted light of meaning through only a few windows. According to the accidents of birth, time, and geography, our scope and attention are limited, focused in one part of a single transept...
“Some teachers, perceiving the light clearly through their own window, claim that it shines only there... So instructed, religious fanatics may induce their followers to throw rocks through other people's windows. History is rife with terrorists for ... God.
“Conversely, we may reject the truth we inherit and search for the light elsewhere. Sometimes we abandon the search for God. Observing the bewildering variety of windows and worshipers, we conclude that there is no light. But the windows are not the light, only where the light shines through.
“This metaphor reflects my own theology. I am a Unitarian. I believe in one light, one truth, one God. I am also a Universalist. I believe that “God is not God's name. God is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each, that which illumines and enlightens, comforts and saves. Call it what you will - Allah, Yahweh, ground of being, being itself, creator, oversoul, the holy - God is our name for life's greatest mystery, the power of life with a capital L, or truth with a capital T. What shines through the windows of the cathedral is refracted into millions of glimpses of this Truth, some contradictory, each partial, but all, strangely and wonderfully, divine.”
Reading:
An atheist was walking through the woods, admiring all of the "accidents" that evolution had created. "What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals" he said to himself. As he was walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. Turning to look, he saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw the grizzly was closing. Somehow, he ran even faster, so scared that tears came to his eyes. He looked again and the bear was even closer. His heart was pounding and he tried to run faster. He tripped and fell to the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but the bear was right over him, reaching for him with its left paw and raising its right paw to strike him. "OH MY GOD!...."
Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent. Even the river stopped moving. As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky," YOU DENY MY EXISTENCE FOR ALL THESE YEARS, TEACH OTHERS THAT I DON'T EXIST AND EVEN CREDIT CREATION TO A COSMIC ACCIDENT. DO YOU EXPECT ME TO HELP YOU OUT OF THIS PREDICAMENT? AM I TO COUNT YOU AS A BELIEVER?" The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical to ask to be a Christian after all these years, but perhaps you could make the bear a Christian?" "VERY WELL" said the voice. The light went out. The river ran. The sounds of the forest resumed....and the bear dropped down on his knees then brought both paws together and bowed his head and spoke: "Lord, for this food which I am about to receive, I am truly thankful."
Benediction:
For all who see God, may God go with you.
For all who embrace life, may life return your affection.
For all who seek a right path, may a way be found, and the courage to take it, step by step.
–Robert Marry Doss
