THE FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH OF HONOLULU
A Unitarian Universalist Congregation
"Be Ye Perfect !"
Sermon by Rev. Mike Young
(Preached at the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu on October 12, 1997.)
Soren Kierkegaard began his Attack Upon Christendom with the lines, "The first word that must be said in defense of Christianity is a word against it." The same is true of "God."*
The word "God" has been so badly used over the years that it has become bent, broken and dirtied. Many despair of being able to use it in any meaningful way, and more have abandoned it altogether. The misusers include those who use "God" to validate and legitimize that which they do not want looked at too closely. They include those who have used "God" as a club, justifying their own home grown aggression. They also include those believers who make truly absurd claims on "God's" behalf, and those who attempt to shove the necessity of belief down the throats of those only trying to be honest. But they also include those who hate and defame the word because they have been so hurt by those who wielded that word as a weapon.
The title of this sermon is "Be Ye Perfect." It is from a saying of Jesus, "Be ye perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect." That sounds pretty heavy until you read the rest of the quotation, which the preachers usually fail to do. The full quote is:
"Be ye perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect; for he makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike."
That sounds to me as if a corollary might be, "So stop with the endless moralisms on each other already."
Jesus also routinely addressed "God" as abba, an Aramaic word whose idiomatic equivalent in english would be, "Da-da." It is pretty hard to hang onto the pompous oriental potentate image of "God" when you say "da-da."
A third piece, again from Jesus. Jesus only tells one story about the last judgement, the parable of the separation of the sheep and the goats. As the judge--"God"-- separates them, the sheep are told that they are to be with "God," but the goats are to be cast into outer darkness.
"Why us ?" ask the sheep.
"Because I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and in prison and you visited me." says "God."
"When did we do this ?" ask the sheep.
And you all remember the answer. "For as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me."
Note three things about that exchange. First, "God's" judgement had nothing to do with beliefs. "God" is unimpressed with our belief or disbelief; including belief in "God."
Second, the sheep didn't know what they had done to be deserving. They did what they did spontaneously, not in an attempt hustle their way into heaven. You cannot con "God." "God" knows whether you are putting "God" on.
And third, the place that "God' is met is in and as each other. "God" is a humanist !
If these three pieces of the teaching of Jesus were taken seriously, most of the abuse of the word "God" would disappear.
As I try to talk about "God" here, it is important that you understand that I am not talking about that caricature of a god who controls the whole cosmos capriciously, puppeteer fashion, with strings of power trailing from each divine digit. Nor am I talking about that cosmic bellhop that will deliver whatever you want to your room as long as you get the phone number correct for room service.
Instead, I want to focus on the human experience. Human beings, from as far back as we know about the species, have had experiences to which they have pointed and said, "God." Each new realization is attempted to be spoken of in the old metaphors. BUT ALSO, each new age coopts the power language of its time. Throughout that history they have used metaphors and images drawn from whatever was then seen as most powerful. The nurturing sun god, the death and rebirth cycles of nature, the warrior god, the oriental potentate god; later, the watchmaker god of emerging science. Most recently, images like vibration and energy, and metaphors from self-organizing systems and quantum physics.
In this context Einstein's statement that "God" does not play dice with the universe, about the role of statistical probability in quantum mechanics, is interesting. More recent chaos theory suggests he was right, but in a way that wouldn't have been comforting to Einstein.
That the metaphors are inadequate doesn't mean the human experiences they catch and encode are wrong. But often DOES mean that we have drawn mistaken inferences from those metaphors. Even after the old metaphors have been dropped by the theologians and religious geniuses of a tradition, they continue on in the devotional and liturgical material of the tradition. Look how long it took for the Pope to admit that Galileo was right, even though Roman Catholic theologians had long since abandoned the religious images that the rejection of Galileo was meant to protect.
The idea of "God" has clearly evolved over time, from the simplest magical superstition to very sophisticated philosophical and theological propositions. That an idea began with an incorrect understanding does NOT mean that it was or is false. Physics began with an incorrect understanding, and our understanding of it is still incorrect in many particulars. We know it is, because it still doesn't fully match the data.
So, Too, with "God." The data in this case is human experience. No one should believe in "God" who has had no experience that they feel it is meaningful to point to and say, "God." The question, "Do you believe in 'God' ?" too often means, " Do you accept all of the old metaphors literally." If that is the question, the answer is, "NO."
If the question is: Do you believe that people have had REAL experiences that they used all these old and newer metaphors to describe and refer to ? The answer is, "YES !" And the appropriate response to that experience is a completely different issue from how to correctly characterize and understand that experience. There are no valid arguments for "God" except that very slippery data of human experience. It is the experience that is significant, not the arguments.
None of the traditional arguments for "God" persuade. The First Cause. The Unmoved Mover. Even the Argument From Design, which comes the closest because of the incredible interconnected complexity of the cosmos. None of them argue for a god that any serious believer believes in. They simply do not describe the "God" of human experience.
In strict logical terms "God" is a null hypothesis. It adds nothing and is un-dis-provable. There is no conceivable datum that would invalidate the hypothesis. The rational argument goes nowhere useful, persuading only the already persuaded. And the same is true of all arguments against "God."
The idea of "God" is properly a poet's concept, not a lawyers, logician's or scientist's. Its proper realm is that of the human imagination. By that I don't mean that it is imaginary, in the sense of faked, fictional or made up; but that the human imagination makes possible human experiences that let them glimpse the not yet, the as if for the first time, the you can be/there can be MORE.
Each of you may well have had one or more of these experiences:
Of having committed an act against another with such dire consequences that the mere forgiveness of that other seems inadequate. That sense of a larger forgiveness, after having found the courage to face the full reality of our act, comes--when it comes--AS IF from outside ourselves.
Of having done something RIGHT, or heroic, or wise, and feeling that the power and knowledge to do it came from beyond one's own resources; AS IF from outside ourselves.
Of having tried to do or to know and come up against our human limitations; up against the immeasurably MORE that lies beyond those limitations.
Of realizing the incredible unlikely convergence of events that made some significant act possible.
Of the endless small nagging pieces which, when we respond to them, push us/pull us to be MORE than we ever imagined we could be.
Of just how unearned and undeserved the blessings that come to us really are, and how often even bad things result in good we could not have anticipated.
Others may call it luck, chance, coincidence; ignorance of our own power and ability--all of which to one degree or other may be true. Still, to the one who experiences it, it FEELS AS IF it came from out there.
Shortly after I arrived to be the new minister in Tampa, Florida, a man came up to me after the service. He said he had a problem with alcohol and had gone to Alcoholics Anonymous. They had told him he had to surrender his life to a Higher Power. "But," he said, "I'm a Unitarian Universalist and I don't believe in a Higher Power. What should I do ?"
Standing near me at the time was Fred, 26 years sober thanks to AA. Fred said, "Huh ! When I was where you are any power was higher than me."
Some of you may have had that experience, too: of trying and trying, and finally of giving up; of surrendering. And, in surrender, finding that it happens AS IF of itself.
There is a technology of sorts here. It is caught in the devotional lines, "Work as if everything depended upon you, . . ." As if there were no "God," certainly no sentimental rescuer ready to deprive us of the necessity of freedom, discipline and imagination.
The lines continue, "And pray as if everything depended upon "God."" Pray, not as the laundry list of 'I wants' to a Santa Claus god, but--as my Systematic Theology teacher had it--as standing naked in the presence of the universe itself.
No, all the theological propositions, the creeds and sacred texts; they are not to be taken literally. The only piece of Catholic Doctrine that matters to be taken literally is "the preferential option for the poor." All else is symbol, metaphor and image.
When you hear "God" language, listen with the poet's ear, not the logician's. Listen for the meaning of the human experience, not for assertions about the ontological structures of the universe. And, if and when you encounter that glimpse of MORE in your own life, do not worry over much about what to call it. Respond to it. Trust it. Even if "God" does not exist, this is still the sanest way to live in the world. The question posed by the human experience called "God" does not call for a theological answer, but a human response.
There is a MORE that I find myself glimpsing and responding to. Call it what you will, in its own very unsentimental way it can be trusted.
*"God" -- I printed the word in my manuscript always in this way, with quotes around it, as a reminder to myself that "God" is always a human response, always a word addressed to that human experience. Otherwise, the word would have to be spelled: ". . . ; . . . !"
Maybe God Is
by Salt
Maybe God is the springing forth from the material.
Maybe God is the effect, the effort to effect, the affect.
Maybe God is the waking dream which propels me into the day,
The idea I have to jot down before I lose it.
Maybe GodMy God side embarrasses people who love me,
Who don't catch the line of my connections.
My God side bounces off the wall,
My rooms are rhomboids.
Spider web curtains pull up from central twine.
Only ankles see out the windows.Yes, God is imagination,
green pegnoirs and gold lace trim,
God who imagined up Jellyfish Lake in Palau,
The colored lines left when the neon lights go out.Maybe god is the fun in the air at the Pike
and the desolation.
Maybe God is "There is more to it than that."
Maybe God is
The First Unitarian Church of Honolulu