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THE STAGES OF FAITH:
“THEISM: By Whose
Definition?” 1
INTRODUCTION:
One of my all-time favorite stories that I try to tell every year or so
is of the ensign on the
destroyer who takes a message from the admiral of the fleet to the
captain, on an officer-filled bridge. The ensign reports, “Captain, a
wire from the Admiral.” The captain responds, “Read the message,
Ensign.”
“Sir, I think it should first be sent to
translation.” “That won’t be necessary, Ensign. Read the message.”
The ensign reads the wire from the Admiral,
“Captain, in all my years of naval command, I have never seen a dumber
maneuver than the one you just performed.”
The captain responds, “Ensign, you were
right. Take that to translation immediately.”
Perhaps no issue needs translation more than
our many different ways of talking about “God.” In fact, whether it’s
theism, atheism, agnosticism, or some variation of humanism, the
definitions are all very different.
That’s all brought in to focus by a recent
spate of bus ads which started in London with, “There’s
probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
That was followed on the buses in
Washington with, "Why
believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake.”
And in Chicago they wanted to run a series
that said, “You can be
good without God,” but to
get transit authority approval, they had to settle with, “In
the Beginning, Man Created God.”
What is it about God that we find so hard to
define?
SCRIPTURE.
Recently, I read a statement by physician
David Simon, who is co-director of the Deepak Chopra
Center. He writes:
“The same creative force that generated
the universe created your body. It is vibrating with intelligence and
spirit. It is ultimately sacred and worthy of your love, respect and
intention. Take good care of it and it will take good care of you.”
Now if we look more closely at that
quotation, rather than “God” there is mention of a “creative force” at
work in the Universe. Afterwards there are four uses of the pronoun “it”
rather than “Him.” We are told that we should love “it,” respect “it,”
and be intentional in our relationship to “it.”
Now we don’t have a message from the Admiral,
nor are we on a battleship, but were we to try and translate Dr. Simon’s
statement, what would we get?
I.
POST-LIBERAL THEISM (OR NEOTHEISM,
PERHAPS) IS A WAY OF LIVING LIFE: NOT BELIEF IN AN “IT” –
SUPER, OR OTHERWISE.
In the classic work, Man’s
Search for Meaning, by
Dr. Viktor Frankl,
he recalls the night when he’s lying on one of the boards that
substituted for beds in the concentration camp where he was
incarcerated. Crowded next to him, a man had already gone to sleep for
the night. He was twitching, his face contorting, and he began to make
very painful sounds. Quite obviously, he was having a full blown
nightmare.
Dr. Frankl started
to awaken the man, when he stopped and thought for a moment of their
situation: they were captives in a concentration camp, living on the
most meager of rations, living in infested quarters, with brutal work
loads and inadequate clothing, all in a bitter German winter, and with
the threat of imminent death hanging over all their heads. They were
separated from their families and had no idea whether they were alive or
if their families knew that they were alive. He asked himself the
question, “What nightmare could possibly be worse than the nightmare in
which we are living?” He lay back down and let the man’s nightmare
continue.
And yet, in writing of his years in the
camps, Dr. Frankl had
this to say about those days of “man’s inhumanity to man,” which for
many of us, I’m sure, is equivalent to any sacred scripture:
“Life is potentially meaningful under any
conditions, even those which are most miserable.”
He continued:
“Even the helpless victim in a hopeless
situation, facing a fate she cannot change, may rise above himself, may
grow beyond herself, and by so doing change himself.”
I know many of us here have serious issues
going on in our lives at time…maybe now. There are friends and loved
ones who have problems that are almost overpowering. Our love for them
is almost palpable. And when they hurt, we hurt.
Many years ago, my father had a colleague in
ministry, Rev. R.L. Rex, who later befriended me many times as a young
minister. But, he had a son, Lonnie, who in the late 1930s contracted
polio, when there was little that medical science could do to help. Rev.
Rex said he spent hours beside his son’s bed, and watched helplessly as
Lonnie’s limbs were swelling and twisting with pain, screaming and
crying.
Rev. Rex, who was quite tall and a very big
man, said one particularly bad night when there seemed like nothing he
could do for his only son, he crawled in to his bed and took his little
six-year-old son in his arms and held him all night and every time
Lonnie cried, his dad cried with him.
Sometimes, life is not fair. Bad things
happen to good people.
Our current economic crisis, the Great
Recession, has decimated so many, through no fault of their own. Here in
this congregation, people have lost their homes, their jobs, their
savings, and their health insurance. Money is gone, and food is in short
supply.
And when that happens, what does faith have
to offer? Is their anything, anywhere, up there, down here, out there,
over there, in here, that can help, that can give us a hand, something
to hold on to, when hope is gone and help seems not to be had?
Faith’s answer to that question is first:
awareness of the faith that is inherent to our species…an innate
self-confidence built into our DNA…which enables us in the direst of
circumstances to wish upon a star, to grasp for moonbeams and collect
stardust. That faith holds on to the possibilities of the future, and in
the promise of tomorrow. That faith does not stand before defeat and
sorrow without recourse. That faith knows that within the human equation
there is always a “more than” we can identify, a surplus on the balance
sheet, a rainbow emerging from the clouds.
It’s not because there is a being somewhere
up there who somehow is able to shift this from that, or that from this.
But rather there is within each of us a “religious” inclination that has
no ground to stand on and no standing on any grounds. Rather, it’s
rooted in the first amendment of human existence…that given the most
awful of realities, human beings will find a reason to keep on keeping
on when everyone else has given up, checked out and driven away.
Faith is not about belief in an “it.” Rather,
it’s testimony to the human spirit that there is always a tomorrow
beyond tomorrow, a hope beyond hope, and a promise beyond promise. And
that we are sons and daughters with inheritance rights that have already
been distributed to us.
We do not have to have crutches, or
artificial support, or fantasy. We are part of the defiant power of the
human spirit, placed in us at the nexus of evolutionary creation, which
goes beyond reason to the richest vaults of human experience, and
proclaims far and wide, over the peaks of the highest mountain top and
to the bottom of the lowest valley, one core truth: It is that
inestimable valuing of life and love and faith and hope. And in that, WE
BELIEVE!
II.
Theism understands that when we use the
vocable “God,”
that’s a verb, not a noun.
Remember I read to you Dr. Simon’s quotation:
“The same creative force that generated
the universe created your body.
This past week, we’ve read
and seen what has been happening with the Hubble Telescope. A repair
team from Earth was sent up to catch it, connect to it, then replace
parts, add new ones, and send it back in to orbit 350 miles above Earth
so that it can once again send back those unbelievable pictures of our
Universe, taken of solar scenes from millions of light years away.
They are so far away that by the time the
pictures get to us, the Universe has already undergone phenomenal
change. But those pictures are a validation that there is an enormous
creative force driving this Universe at macro speeds. And whatever is
driving the Universe created conditions that led to the formation of
this planet we love and live on. Our planet is connected to all of that
which is going on in distant solar systems, galaxies and super galaxies.
That same force…the one which is creating, out there, millions of light
years away…the one that five billion years ago led to the formation of
Planet Earth…and the evolving processes that produced the millions of
species that we are part of…it’s at work right now…as we spin and orbit
and hurtle into the vast and deep recesses of the unknown.
Dr. Simon said, this force “is
vibrating with intelligence and spirit.”
This force is not a being…not a noun…but a
verb…a vibration of intelligence and spirit. As Christian scripture put
it, “God is Spirit…” (John 04:24), not “a” spirit, but spirit. And
incarnate within us is that spirit which never stops, never gives up,
and never quits.
So for a moment, think of yourself as you
originally were: a vibration…a spirit…a thought…a possibility, which
through the most mind-boggling miracle possible, came into being because
of some wonderfully designed interaction of the Universe: your mother
and father having sexual intercourse. Now my parents didn’t
do that kind of stuff, maybe not yours either.
But if you ever doubted the creative capacity
of the Universe, you are doubting your own existence. Because, you are a
product of the most incredible creativity known to the planet:
reproduction. And it’s a fundamental principle of not only human
existence, but of every species.
We can reproduce. Some should stop with one.
Some should have none. But as a species, along with every other species,
reproduction is fundamental to our existence. The very essence of what
it means to be a species on this planet.
And guess what? Not only are we part of the
reproductive process, we’re a verb! Whole sections of your body inside
are in motion, blood is flowing, and things are happening. Aging is the
verb with which we describe the change and motion going on in our
bodies.
Even death is not an ending. It’s a
transition…a change…a passing. Remember the quote from Werner von Braun:
“The Universe does not know extinction…only transformation.”
What power…what change…what creative force!
III.
ALL THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD SAY, THAT
WE CAN ACCESS THAT FORCE…WE CAN GET INTO THE FLOW OF UNIVERSAL
CREATIVITY.
Wouldn’t that be amazing? Wouldn’t
it be something to be able to touch the Force…to access that which makes
mountains and streams, hills and valley? Wouldn’t
it be mind-boggling to be able to move into channels of creativity that
would lift us from where we are in to spaces and heights we’ve never
known? What if we could tap into power we didn’t
even know we had? What if we found a way to find a way? To touch the
infinite…to make meaning…to be more than we’ve ever
been.
Guess what? That’s the message of all the
great religions: We can be more than we ever thought of being. There’s
no magic involved…no incantations for the limited few…no reservations
only for those who have a special capacity for that kind of thing. No,
it’s for everyone.
APPLICATION.
For it to happen, let me suggest a little
word game: A-C-T. ACT.
1.
ACCEPTANCE: Accept
that you and the creative force of the Universe are One. The greatest
portion of that force is millions of light years away doing incredible
things at this very moment. But part of that force is still here on this
planet. It’s in you and me…with heart beating and lungs breathing and
stomach and organs of all kinds and shapes just working away, changing
this, rejecting that, and doing all kinds of things. We are a part of
the creative force of the Universe. Remember it! Don’t forget it!
2.
CHANGE: Because
the Universe is always – always! – in creative mode, that means that
nothing stays the same. Whatever worked yesterday, won’t necessarily
work tomorrow. In the same way that our planet is spinning or its axis,
while orbiting around the sun, it’s also on a 200 year journey to
encircle the center of the Galaxy – all of which is hurtling in to the
deepest dimensions of distant, deep, dark space.
So yes: yesterday…ahh…how
sweet it was…but today is a new day…with new cells filling our body…new
thoughts and information flowing through us…waiting for direction and
focus.
Change is happening. Accept it. Live it.
Harness it. Get on board. And ride it.
3. TRANSFORMATION:
One of the
first science projects I remember is watching a little caterpillar spin
a cocoon about itself until it was completely shrouded within a
chrysalis. Then nothing happened…totally quiet and still…then days
later, a beautiful butterfly emerged.
The issue for us is
not having faith for transformation to happen to us. It’s to recognize
that we already have transformational faith. We are a transformation
ready to happen. A butterfly ready to emerge. Claim it as yours…now…this
moment!
CONCLUSION.
In Mary Oliver’s poem, “The
Summer Day,” she asks,
“What is it you plan to do with your one
wild and precious life?
Not what you wish you had done with your past
life, or what if, or if only. No. What is it you plan to do now with the
one wild and precious life that you are now living?
Shalom. Salaam Aleikum.
Amen. And blessed
be.
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