Sermon

INTRODUCTION: A favorite quote from my early religious past is this: “God has no grandchildren…only sons and daughters.”

Another way of putting that could be that whatever the belief systems we were or were not reared on, no matter how adequate or inadequate they may have been, the reality is that at some time or other in our lives, the responsibility falls upon us to make our decisions about what we believe and don’t believe.

Many times, we can couch our religious past in terms of blame: It was someone else’s fault that we had to struggle with what to believe or not to believe. But regardless, no matter how healthy or unhealthy that process was, somewhere or other, we have eventually to make our own faith decisions.

Which by way of introduction suggests why we might be here this morning: We’ve chosen to work out our own salvation, and to do it in this inclusive and nonjudgmental arena.

I’m suggesting that such an arena may well be “post-theistic.” “Post,” of course, means after. “Theistic” refers to belief in the existence of God.

So we’re addressing what it means to be identified as one who considers her or himself to have moved beyond traditional belief in God. But what does that mean?

America’s largest Christian university – Liberty University, with some 27,000 students, located in Lynchburg, Virginia, and founded by the late Jerry Falwell – requires courses that teach the exact opposite of what I just stated. Required courses include, Creation Studies, where they not only teach the first creation account in Genesis as scientific fact, but they ridicule Darwin’s conclusions that the complexity and diversity of species on our planet, and that our existence as a species, are the result of millions upon millions of years of evolution.

The head of one of their “science” programs said: “If a frog turns into a prince with a kiss, then it’s a fairy tale. If a frog turns into a prince over millions of years, it’s science.” Questions on tests ask, could dinosaurs have been on Noah’s ark?

My point is totally different: Right or wrong is not the point. Religion is not about science.

Let’s be clear: When the prophet Muhammad began his practice of seeking spiritual insight, alone and in a cave, outside the ancient city of Medina, in Saudi Arabia, he was not searching for answers to science: not biology, geology, nor astronomy. Rather, he was seeking to understand how women and men should live…how they should treat each other…and what gives meaning and purpose to life. He was asking, how do I live this day and the day following and the days and years, after that.

Seven hundred years earlier, when the multitudes began to listen to what Jesus, the young prophet from the northern town of Nazareth, was proclaiming, they weren’t seeking a lecture on chemistry, a description of geography, or a report on the latest laboratory research in genetics. No, quite the contrary. They were poor and hungry, sick and oppressed. They were listening for a hint of hope, a handhold of promise, that would enable them to get up in the morning, to put one foot in front of the other…to make it until Sunday or Monday, the next day or week or month.

Five hundred years before Jesus, when the one we would call, the Buddha, spent years in search of solutions to life by fasting, meditating, and learning, he was down to skin and bones. Finally, he sat for seven days under the Banyan tree where he had this incredible insight to existence: He discovered that it was possible to break the endless cycle of karma that had bound humankind as far back as anyone knew. There were certain truths and paths, which if followed, could lead to a righteous life, which was not subject to the whims and caprices of ordinary living.

But when he made that fateful and fortuitous discovery, he wasn’t searching for a scientific breakthrough in medicine, or health, or education. No, it was how the rich and the poor could rise above the limitations of ordinary existence.

And so too for Moses and the prophets of Israel…so too for all the faiths on the face of the Earth. They were and are about life and living. They can confuse their faith with science, but when we dismiss them because of that, we are throwing out the baby with the bath water. We are missing the whole point.

It’s as though we went to airports for the cuisine, or bus stations for restrooms, or rode trains for the view. That’s not why there are trains and planes and buses. While there may be restaurants at airports, and restrooms in bus stations and great views while riding a train, we know that’s not their real purpose.

That is our job…to take what we know and to bring it to the proclamation that they made. It is our task to understand what they were wanting to say about life and living, even though they may have expressed themselves in the limitations of their time and culture.

So when we go to a Roman Catholic Mass, or a Sabbath service of Judaism, or Friday afternoon prayers in a mosque, we should not be concerned about their adjusting their message so that we can accept it. No, it is our job to hear, to interpret and to try to understand. What are they saying about how to get along with our sisters and brothers, how do we become more accepting and understanding of those with whom we disagree?

So to repeat: One, religion is not, and never should be thought of as being about science or the natural world; and secondly, we do not criticize the ancient faiths of the world simply because their insights were not articulated in the context of modern science.

3. Nonetheless, science can by its discoveries of our world evoke the awe that is a centerpiece of deeply religious faith.

President Theodore Roosevelt had a naturalist friend, William Beebe. Sometimes he would stay for a few days at the Roosevelt's family home. At night, they would go out on the lawn to look at the stars. That included searching the skies until they found the faint spot of light behind the lower left-hand corner of the Great Square of Pegasus. Then they would remember together:

That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way Galaxy and is one of a billion other galaxies. But this one galaxy has a hundred billion suns, each of which is larger than our sun.

Then President Roosevelt would grin at Mr. Beebe and say, "Now I think we are small enough. Let's call it a night."

So if we wanted to go see all of that up close, imagine traveling across the sky at the speed of light. That would be more than 186,000 miles per second – per second – that’s like snapping our fingers twice and in that time we’ve traveled 185,000 miles. Or put another way, it would be 670 million+ miles per hour!

Yet, even at those incredible speeds, the speed of light, we would have to fly for 4.5 billion years to reach the edges of the Universe as we know it today. Let me repeat that: At the speed of light, we would have to fly for 4.5 billion years to reach the edges of the Universe as we know it today. That’s awesome!

In all of that immensity, it is not inappropriate to believe that the rest of the Universe is like our part of the Universe. It would also be hard to imagine that we are the only species…that there are not other planets and species, some behind, and some ahead, and some which may have made far superior choices than we on our planet.

It’s in that context that faith now is to be heard. Knowing these things about our world and the religions of the world, what do we believe? Post-theistic faith says:

Many of us come from traditions that emphasize that only God can make last differences. John Calvin was one of those. You may have missed this, but his 500^th birthday is coming up: July 10, 1509. Though his theology was much more sophisticated than I’m giving him credit for, one way to interpret his “foreknowledge of God” is that all that happens in our lives is predestined by God to happen. According to Calvin, God knows everything even before it occurs. We are fore-ordained to make the choices we make.

In the 500 years since, many have appropriated that understanding into their faith. I was reading an article recently of an encounter a fellow soldier had with the Civil War General Stonewall Jackson. The soldier was amazed at how calm the general remained in the heat of battle, to which Jackson explained: “My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death.”

An early American dimension of the same belief was the religion of the Puritans and their notion of the Elect. That meant that there were some who had been elected to go to heaven, and some who were doomed to hell.

The proof was in the pudding, namely, if you were successful in life and prosperous, that was a sign that you were in God’s favor…one of the Elect. If on the other hand, you were wallowing in poverty, tsk, tsk: You were probably about to slip on a banana peel and slide right into hell.

My point is that to the contrary, post-theistic faith believes that we are responsible for our choices. We can make a difference. We make the choices that enrich our lives with meaning and purpose.

2. Our diversity of religious languages may sound different and reference differently, but it is really about one and the same thing.

I read an article this past week of the many different historical attempts to create a Universal language that would be easy, simple, and everyone could learn it. Eventually everyone would be able to communicate one with the other. It’s never happened, and probably never will.

But there is a sense in which that’s true of religions as well. Why not one world-wide religion, instead of the 100,000 or so which have been the hallmark of humankind’s religious inclinations? Why not just one way? “One way to glory,” as Rev. Ike used to put it.

But maybe there is, and we simply haven’t noticed it. At least, I like to think of it in that way. It’s this: All of the religious language of the world is a poetic attempt to access the Mystery of existence – one Mystery, but many different languages, many different pieces of poetry.

“There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.” Or as practicing Jews say:

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is One. And thou shalt love the Lord they god with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all they mind.” Or as Jesus added to that:

Though each says it differently, it’s ultimately poetry about how to relate to that which goes beyond our understanding and is more than our minds can comprehend. Which ultimately comes down to how we live.

The great Greek philosopher Plato wrote: “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy is when adults are afraid of the light.”

Mother Teresa once said, “Spread love everywhere you go: First of all in your own house….let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.”

Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager wrote that the perception of a reprimand is so powerful. It takes four positive words to offset one negative word.

So don’t give into negativity. Believe in the possible…even at times, the impossible. And exemplify that confidence in the way we encounter life and each other.

[1] A sermon given May 31 as the final sermon in a series of four on the stages of faith, at the All Faiths Unitarian Congregation of Ft. Myers, FL, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1901 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, Minister.