sermon

INTRODUCTION: When I was 13 years old, our family of seven moved from Wichita, Kansas, to a two-bedroom home in Oklahoma City. By putting my older sister and our two younger sisters together in one bedroom, mother and dad in the other, that then left the entire living room for my brother and me.

Two doors down in a similar little two bed frame home and one bath, was a family with 11 kids. They were Catholics. And one of the nine children, Richard, became my best friend for the year I lived there. Then we moved away for a year so Dad could pastor a troubled church in Wichita, Kansas. Then we came back to the same house in Oklahoma City. I was now in the 10^th grade and I persuaded my parents to let me fix up the garage to live in.

Naturally, in a year we moved again, but Richard and I remained friends, though we seldom saw each other, especially after my parents moved to another town, and I stayed and lived with my newly married sister, and went to a Bible based high school for my senior year.

Some years later, I learned Richard had been arrested in a marijuana raid and sent to the Federal Reformatory at El Reno, Oklahoma. Having only recently been “called” to the ministry, I felt duty-bound to go visit my one-time-closest-friend who was now in federal reformatory.

It was a new experience for me, especially since I felt it was incumbent upon me to witness to Richard of the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ, to redeem him from his sinful ways, and to save him from the fiery pits of hell. Really!

Once there, I tried the mantra I had been taught about how to do that, and it worked up to the part that asked if he realized he was a sinner and needed to be saved. He answered, “Wayne, I’ve tried to pray…I say the rosary…I’ve been to the services the chaplain here conducts. But let me tell you something…when I’m alone, I’ve tried praying something like, ‘God, if you’re real, make it rain.’ No rain has ever fallen. I’ve promised, ‘God, I’ll never do drugs again, if you will get me out of here.’ I’m still here.”

Then he looked at me and said, “Wayne, if God loves me so much and wants to save me, why won’t he do anything to show it?”

Needless to say, I didn’t lead Richard to the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, as I was driving back to Oklahoma City, it was I who was struggling to believe – not Richard. As I thought about it, why couldn’t there have been just a teeny tiny little shower to give Richard a little help with his faith? Why not a little push on the probation board, so that Richard could get out of prison on probation?

The more I thought about it, the worse it got. Why did I have a free pass to heaven because of my religious experience one night in church? But my friend Richard, who was only being honest about his doubts, was doomed to the fiery pits of hell. And it wouldn’t be a cigarette-lighter-kind-of-burn. No, hell was a full body burn, roasted and toasted to extra well, but never done – for eternity.

The real truth is, hardly anyone truly believes in hell. Not the pope, his bishops, or his priests. Not the pastor at McGregor Baptist or the little New Testament Baptist in North Ft. Myers which only will allow the King James Bible in its doors. Hell is a leftover, mythological farce, foisted on the poor and ignorant to keep the rich and powerful in ecclesiastical office, and the poor and ignorant under control. As Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley wrote more than 250 years ago, “It’s absurdity, supported by power.”

1. Faith is not about the truth or falsity of things that did or did not happen in the past.

Let’s be clear not only about hell. Despite what the Bible says, snakes don’t talk, eating a bite of apple was never the cause of a cosmic catastrophe, and human kind didn’t fall from a perfect-lived life 6,000 years ago. As Hegel has said about the concept of Original Sin and the so-called Fall, “If we fell, we fell forward.”

So all that stuff about Jonah and the whale, the Israelites crossing the Red Sea from Egypt into the Promised Land, living hundreds of years in one lifetime, being raised from the dead, Noah and the Ark, demons and angels –none of it happened. Don’t even put it up for argument. None of that is about faith.

-- Let’s say that Jesus did die upon a cross at Golgotha, and it’s fairly plausible that he did.

-- Let’s say that Moses was most probably an actual human being, though there’s little if any corroborating evidence.

-- Let’s say that Muhammad was a powerful spiritual leader. In fact, he and his followers did transform the Middle East.

-- And let’s agree that the Buddha did actually live and die, though most of what we know about his life and his death are hearsay as seen from the eyes of faithful followers some 2,500 years ago.

The point is: those facts have little if anything to do with faith. For faith is not about what happened in the ancient past.

Rather, faith is about human beings in the present and having their lives transformed. Once they were down on themselves, and constantly saying negative things about their abilities and worth, to being persons whose lives radiate self-confidence and self-worth.

Faith can be transforming. Faith can take out of you, what should never have been put in you, and put in you, what should never been taken out of you. When it finds you lying down on the inside, it takes your hand on the outside, and stands you up on the inside, so that you can reclaim on the outside, what has been yours on the inside from birth.

I’m amazed sometimes to learn the abuse people suffered at the hands of their parents and loved ones. So much so that years later, even when their parents have died and passed on, they still have the emotional scars from being mistreated and their gifts taken from them.

But I’m here to tell you today that this life is a gift…the present is a present…which means that our task at this moment and every moment of the day is to treasure the moment, because it is the only moment we can claim.

One of my most sacred pieces of secular scripture comes from the Spanish philosopher, Jorge Santayana, who pinpointed the two self-identifying traits of every species:

First is the drive to reproduce…every species has it; however, think of this: Evolution gave our species, Homo sapiens, a special gift. We are the only species for whom sex has two purposes: procreation and recreation. Your dog, your cat, the cows, the horses, all the mammals, have a time when the female is willing to get pregnant, have offspring, and continue their species. But that’s not true for the females of homo sapiens. They can be accepting at all times…with or without an intent or hope of becoming pregnant. Gays and lesbians are also included in this unique provision for our species…sex to recreate as well as procreate.

That’s a mutation that occurred in the evolutionary trek, most probably because unlike other species, our infants are incredibly vulnerable, and need more than one person to protect and support them. Santayana said the drive to reproduce is present in all species – with a special gift to our species.

Secondly, there’s one more thing about every species: We have an innate trust in the Cosmos that popped us into this world. Let me say that more appropriately. Every species has an unarticulated trust in the processes that enable every species to live its life. Drop something, it causes noise. Cause produces effect. It’s the way things work. We don’t question it. Like the duck resting on the water, it’s the way things are. We trust the process. Santayana says we all have that sense of innate trust in the Cosmos…the life-force…the energy.

But here’s the point: When we recognize the presence of that trust, and we call forth its power – that we are endowed by the Highest…that we are Ambassadors of uniqueness and potential greatness – our “I can’ts” become “I cans,” and “We’ve never done it that way before,” becomes “Let’s do something that’s never been done before.” Our negatives become positives and our positives becomes ways to see how much more good can be done on the face of this Earth.

Einstein said, “Every great achievement is something somebody said could never be done.” So when anybody says to you, “Oh, you can’t do that,” know that you have the authority to say, “Hide and watch.”

I love the little children’s story I haven’t told in a while: Little Johnny is industriously drawing, and so intent. His mother, surprised, asks, “Johnny, what are you drawing.” “A picture of God,” he says, and keeps on working. His mother somewhat perplexed says, “Well, Johnny, no one knows what God looks life.” Again, without lifting his head or stopping his drawing, he answered, “Well, they will when I get finished!”

Problems? No problem. Difficulties? Bring ‘em on. Challenges? It’s what keeps us going.

We are a part of the creative thrust that called this Universe into being…that lit the firecracker that ignited the Big Bang…that fashioned the planets and stoked the stars, that shaped the mountains and the oceans and all that in them is. The same power that drives the waves on the cliffs of Dover drives the heart inside you. The same force that powered the mountains up and up and ever upward, is the same one that is powering your blood through your body. The air we breathe is the same that Genghis Khan, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Jesus and Muhammad breathed. Inhale. Exhale.

What creativity resides within us! We simply have to tap in to the creative forces of the Universe…in which we were born, that resulted in this planet and all of its inhabitants.

Joseph Priestley was a Londoner. His parents were part of what was known as Dissenters…that meant anyone who resisted being part of the state Church of England. He was also part of the Lunar Society that met on Sunday afternoons for discussions that included such persons as: William Small, who taught Thomas Jefferson at William & Mary College; also belonging was Dr. Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, James Watt who created the steam engine, Josiah Wedgwood, the famous potter, Benjamin Franklin, who was responsible for Priestley being admitted to the group. Someone described the tenor of their meetings as being comparable to Emily Dickinson explaining her poetry to Attila the Hun.

Priestley not only was the first to write about Ben Franklin’s famous kite and electricity experiment. He is also credited with the discovery of oxygen, as well as the soda water so essential to soft drinks. For this he received the Royal Academy’s highest recognition, The Copley Award. He worked with electricity, was a major authority in how to teach, and wrote highly valued works on English grammar and modern historiography. His languages included French, Latin, Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, Arabic, Italian, and High Dutch. Yet he stuttered…sometimes badly.

He was called to minister in Birmingham, England, at the most liberal church in England. By agreement with the congregation at the start of his 11 year ministry, he worked at his laboratory during the week, and preached on Sundays. He spoke out in favor of the goals of the French Revolution and supported the American colonies against the Crown.

In a misplaced fury, a mob of 2,000 burned his Unitarian church to the ground and then found Priestley’s home, wrecked it, his laboratory, destroyed his papers, and burned his home. He fled Birmingham and never returned, instead sailing to America.

His friends, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, came to his aid. He built a home in Northumberland, PA, a house that still stands on the banks of the Susquehanna. It is maintained as a historical site of the State of Pennsylvania.

One notable occasion sparked the Unitarian movement in Pennsylvania. In the winter of his second year in America, he spent three months in Philadelphia. He gave 12 lectures in the Universalist Church, where he knew the minister from back in England. The series was on the “Evidences of Christianity.” This led to the founding of a Unitarian congregation in Philadelphia in 1796 – the first specifically identified Unitarian congregation in America.

Priestley died in 1804. In America, the highest award each year of the American Chemical Society is “The Joseph Priestley Award.” His son wrote an obituary of him that said his father “always argued on the side of liberty.”

[1] The third in a series of sermons entitled: “Unitarians who made a difference,” presented Nov. 15, 2009 at 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.