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This I Believe
A Sermon Given
by the Reverend Douglas Taylor
on April 7, 2002
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
Reading:
"My Credo" by Robert Fulghum (from Everything I Ever Needed to
Know I Learned In Kindergarten)
Meditation:
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote,
A person will worship something -- have no doubt about that. ... That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives and character." What do you worship? What do you believe? What do you believe about God? If you believe in God, what are the characteristics you see, what are the metaphors you refer to? If you do not believe in God, is there a higher power or principle that you look to, what are the metaphors you refer to? What do you believe about humanity? Do you see people as basically good or basically sinful? Do you believe in an afterlife? What do you believe happens after death? What is the point of life? What is the point of your life?
Sermon:
- I believe in God as an event.
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I believe people have free will to choose either a good or an evil response to life.
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I believe Life is the highest principle; Love, Truth, and Right are in the service of Life.
- I believe mystery surrounds life.
This week I discovered a conspiracy theory chat room on the internet. It was rather interesting. I'm not really fluent in either chat rooms or conspiracy theories. I have occasionally tried to follow what happens in chat room conversations (if you can call it that), and get lost quickly. And the conspiracy theories that I have cooked up myself are usually born out of sarcasm and silliness rather than cynicism and paranoia. So when I stumbled into this a few days ago as I was searching through the internet for beliefs, I was momentarily sidetracked. I was not surprised to find postings about the Arab plot to destroy the earth, the faked moon landing, extraterrestrials, and the assassinations of various rock stars and politicians. And usually there was the seemingly obligatory statement about how our government is covering it all up. For the record, seeing as this is a sermon about "what I believe," I'll tell you I don't believe in any of these conspiracies, but am willing to hear the evidence. I do believe there is a lot of duplicity in our world, I just don't think it is that well organized. What surprised me about what I found in these chat room posts was the level of skepticism. Many of the posts were simply saying, "Oh, come on! You don't really think that do you?" It seemed as though many people were using the advice from the Bible, "Prove all things, hold fast that which is true."
And speaking of the Bible, there was, for some reason, a large number of posts about God and Christianity (both for and against). I am not sure why belief in God and the Christian faith were so prevalent in this conspiracy theory discussion, but there it is. It seems that either a bunch of folks decided to misuse the forum as a place to witness to their faith, or many people wanted to discuss Christianity and belief in God in terms of a conspiracy. Over and over I found Christians saying, "This is the truth, it says so in the Bible." Or, "You just have to accept that God created the world and everything in it. Period." These statements were then countered by non-Christians saying, "How can you say that?" And, "I don't believe things simply because some external authority tells me I must."
This really got me thinking. While I was preparing this statement of belief, this personal faith testimonial, I wondered anew about the common critique we get about "being the church were anything goes." I mean, even the title of this sermon is a nod to that. It is not "This We Believe," it is "This I Believe." We are the religion that has codified freedom of religious inquiry at our core. This very easily looks like "anything goes" to folks from more rigid traditions. The major difference is that conservative religions look to external authorities for their answers and they come up with objective statements which cannot be questioned. Liberal religions, on the other hand, appeal to internal authority. The still small voice of a person's conscience in enough. The result is subjective answers which can be equally unquestionable. What difference is it for one to say, "I believe this because it says it is true in a sacred book." and another one to say, "I believe this but I can't explain it to you, I just feel it." The saving element for either is to weigh beliefs against experience.
Stating religious convictions is tricky business. Anything we can say about God must necessarily be filtered through our human language. As a means of discussing all that is Holy, human words and concepts are woefully inadequate. Rev. Fred Muir from the Annapolis Unitarian Universalist Church has pondered upon this very point. In his new book, Heretics' Faith, he writes this:
God is a word that we've come up with to describe what no other single word can. Just in that alone, the word is insufficient. The ancient Hebrews recognized this right off, and so they made their word for God unutterable: it was sacrilegious to say that word. So then they came up with a word that meant the word no one could say!
It's because of this kind of thinking that I've called
myself everything from atheist to agnostic to pagan - all done,
in part, as a reaction to the misuse, overuse, and perversion of
the word God. The most profound abuse has been
accomplished by orthodox Western religions that have
accorded their God with humanlike qualities as well as raising
God above nature. My God is neither anthropomorphic nor
supernatural: to me is it absurd, meaningless, destructive, and
oppressive to conceptualize a higher power as having
attributes like humanity has in addition to being above and
outside what we know, see, and feel.
(From Heretic's Faith by Fredric Muir. pp 96-97.)
Labels are tricky. Muir says he calls himself an atheist some times and a pagan other times. Labels are useful in the beginnings of defining yourself, but they paint with such a broad brush that it is hard to be comfortable with simply a label. The quick and dirty answer is that I am a Theist. However, I grew up in a Humanist church, so Humanism is my first religious language. But I was in a Universalist home, an alcoholic dysfunctional home, but the principles of Universalism could still be felt. And I spent as much time as I could out in the woods near our house, out in nature. All this is significant and adds up to some confusion when it comes time for religious labels.
There are times when I really do believe the Buddha was right, we are caught by our desires and the way out is to reject ego and desire through strict meditation. And then at other times, I know in my bones that I am a part of the earth and I need to embrace sensations not reject them; that I am at my best and closest to the Holy when I am in touch with the rhythms of the earth, and that this is all there is. But then that conflicts with those days when I think that this can't be all there is, it is a complete mystery and maybe the Christians really do have the best explanation. And then on other days I wake up and say, "Who am I trying to kid? There is no God. That is just a word I use because I can cleverly defend it." And then there are those moments, those rare breath-taking moments after which I wonder if it really happened, but it did and I trust it will again, when I feel completely and blessedly wrapped in the love of God. So I guess that makes me a Buddho-Pagan Christo-Humanist with occasional bouts or mysticism.
At the beginning of this sermon I listed four prime beliefs that I hold. As a faithful Unitarian Universalist I trust this is only a current interpretation of my understanding. Seven years from now I will perhaps find what I have said today inadequate, or too wordy. When I looked back at the Credo I had written back in 1995, much of what I had written then still holds; not all, but most. The parts that I kept and the parts that I changed were determined by the experiences I have been through in these past years. I understand some things differently now. This is my Credo as I understand it today. This is what I believe.
- I believe in God as an event.
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I believe people have free will to choose either a good or an evil response to life.
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I believe Life is the highest principle; Love, Truth, and Right are in the service of Life.
- I believe mystery surrounds life.
My favorite theologians, Paul Tillich, Martin Buber, Henry Nelson Weiman, talk about God not as a noun, but as a verb. Weiman said that God is Creative Interchange. Buber spoke of the primacy of the I-Thou relationship. And Tillich was considered a atheist by some when he said, "God does not exist, God is." The God I believe in is more like the Holy Spirit than any other part of the Christian triune God. There is movement and presence; God is something that happens, or better yet, "God is." And to say that God is a loving God, while that is something I believe, it doesn't quite fit because the word love is for a human emotion. "Loving" isn't the right word, but it is as close as I can get.
After September 11 I felt my faith shaken. There have been many other events in the lives of other people around me and through out history that have challenged the notion of a loving God, but this is when I viscerally felt my belief challenged. If there is a God who is loving, how could this tragedy happen? The answer that came after weeks of sitting with that question was another question. Why do we try to mix God up with morality? What has God to do with right and wrong, with good and evil? So many people link morality and God together, I think this is a mistake! God is not the sum total of all goodness. It's not that God is bad, or that God doesn't care. It's just that this is not what God is about. Through out the ages, Mystics come out of their commune with God and speak of a feeling of being loved. They don't come out and write up a list of rules that God has whispered to them. The God I believe in is, God is. The Holy is available to everyone, like the rain falling on both parched and saturated land.
And then there is evil. The world is full of what is called
"inhumanity." The first thoughtful reading I pulled out on the evening
of September 11 was by Aleksandr Solzhenistsn in which he says that,
"the line between good and evil runs down the center of every
person's heart." We each have within us the capacity for great good
and for great evil. In religious terms it is Free Will. The
consequences of such a belief include owning responsibility for your
actions.
Now, some have pointed out that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. By what do we measure good and evil? If good and evil are not dictated by an external God of truth and goodness, then are these merely human constructs? Personally, I am not a moral relativist. I believe it is clear that the Palestinian suicide bombings and the civilian deaths at the hands of Israelis are both wrong, are both evil. I am not a moral relativist in the sense that I do look to a higher principle to measure right and wrong. I believe Life is the highest principle; Love, Truth, and Right are in the service of Life. By life, I don't mean a simplistic version of counting the living versus the dead, the born versus the unborn, and so on. Death is a part of life; it is natural and is in no way a failure of life, but rather its completion. My experiences as a hospital chaplain and serving this congregation have lead me to this conclusion.
It may seem odd , but it also may be why I, a theist, fit in so well here at a predominantly Humanist congregation. I believe in a loving God, but when it comes to morality I ascribe to a high principle for guidance; which is a very Humanist thing to do. I was given a wonderful story earlier this week by Jim Onder which illustrates this point well.
There is an old story about a Rabbi whose student comes to him one day and says, "Rabbi, I just met a man who said a terrible thing. He doesn't believe in God. He is a atheist." "My son," the Rabbi replied, "there is one time when it is good to be an atheist." "Good to be an atheist!??!" cried the student. "When could that be?" "When a hungry person asks you for food, do not expect God to appear to give it to him. It is up to you. When a widow asks for help, do not wait for God to give her what she needs. It is up to you. When a homeless person asks for shelter do not say to her, "God will provide." It is up to you. God is not there for them unless you are there for them."
And I close with this story that floated around the UU minister's chat line after the September 11 attacks. It is a story about wolves of all things, a Native American story about a Grandfather who is sitting in his house when his grandson comes in with anger at a friend who has done him an injustice. "Let me tell you a story," the Grandfather said to his grandson. "I too, at times, have felt great hate for those who have taken much, with no sorrow for what they do. But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times.
"It is as if there are two wolves inside me; one is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him and does not take offence when no offence was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way. But the other wolf, ... ah! The littlest thing will send him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all of the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. Yet it is a helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing. Sometimes it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit."
The boy looked intently into his Grandfather's eyes and asked, "Which one wins, Grandfather?" The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, "The one I feed."
- I believe in God as an event.
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I believe people have free will to choose either a good or an evil response to life.
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I believe Life is the highest principle; Love, Truth, and Right are in the service of Life.
- I believe mystery surrounds life.
In a world with out end,
May it be so.
Office@CedarLane.org
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