Sermon

          When people ask me what Unitarian Universalists believe about God, I explain some of the diverse beliefs in the congregation: that some people believe in God, some people don’t, and many if not most have surprising descriptions of God, including the divine in the natural world, the divine in all of life and perhaps beyond, and God in the creative process of the universe, and many other descriptions. Usually, their eyes open wide and they say something like, “Oh, how difficult it must be to preach to such a diverse group!” I smile! But I think, “On the contrary, such diversity offers rich opportunities.”

However, when I delve into the beginnings of our Unitarian history in America in the early 1800’s, the freedom to express such diversity was only just beginning, thanks to our “founding father,” the Reverend William Ellery Channing. He was the first to encourage us publicly in 1828 to think of ourselves not as depraved creatures, doomed by the original sin of Adam, but as having a spark of divinity; as having the capacity to be like God. It was an outrageous idea to orthodox clergy of Channing’s day to say that human beings were like God and just as outrageous to say that human beings have the capacity for goodness. What is more, Channing was saying this on the occasion of the ordination of a young minister.

Many of the traditions that we still have today evolved out of the early Pilgrim and Puritan churches. One was that each congregation calls its own minister. And each congregation has a service of ordination (if the minister is not already ordained) and installation of that minister. Part of the service is the ordination (or installation) sermon, usually delivered by a clergy person who was highly influential in the formation of the minister. The sermon was often a “break-through” sermon of new ideas that then was printed in a newspaper or as a pamphlet. Sermons were often 2-1/2 hours long. So I thought I’d read it to you today! Just kidding!

Channing’s sermon topic, “Likeness to God,” was no doubt chosen to arrest the intellect and imagination and to alert orthodox clergy that a theological challenge was afoot. He would also be rebutting arguments they had set forth and he was furthering Unitarian thought of the day and building on his view of human development. (p. 33, Robinson) Clergy were the amateur psychologists of the eighteenth century.

In this breakthrough sermon, “Likeness to God,” Channing counseled that the young minister being installed, and all liberal ministers, should preach the message of human goodness and human likeness to God. Channing wanted humankind to recognize their own potential so that in so doing they could manifest their natural goodness and moral behavior in the world. There was support in scripture for his thinking. In my own mind, I think of the words of the prophet Ezekiel who said: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; …and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.” [Ez 36:26-27] Could it be that this was the ancient prophet’s expression of the divine within? In the New Testament Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” [Luke 17:21] The biblical text that Channing used for the sermon reference was from the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesian people [Ephesians 5:1] “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” In response, Channing said, “…true religion consists in proposing, as our great end, a growing likeness to the Supreme Being. Its noblest influence consists in making us more and more partakers of the Divinity…Religious instruction should aim chiefly to turn men’s aspirations and efforts to that perfection of the soul.” (p.1 of “Likeness to God)

He would later go on to challenge and urge his parishioners to address the immoral support of slavery. This got him into hot waters with the wealthier members of his church for many of them had interests in the cotton plantations. And this is another thing that continues today—i.e., the minister offers a social justice position that some don’t agree with, so we agree to disagree; but the minister had freedom of the pulpit, which is another tradition maintained in our churches today. However, when you sign up to give a sermon, you have that freedom as well! Don’t all rush at once to deliver a sermon! (Seriously, though, please DO let me know if you have a sermon brewing in your mind!)

Let us take a joke break:

Jewish and Chinese Calendars...

A Hebrew teacher stood in front of his classroom and said, "The Jewish people have observed their 5,759th year as a people. Consider that the Chinese, for example, have only observed their 4,692nd year as a people. What does that mean to you?"

After a moment of silence, one student raised his hand.

"Yes, David," the teacher said. "What does that mean?"

"It means that for 1,063 years the Jews had to do without Chinese take-out!"

This joke is particularly meaningful for Leo and me because we recently attended a Jewish gathering where the feast was Kosher Chinese take-out. It was, by the way, truly excellent!

About the topic of Likeness to God: Please consider the word “God” in your own way; perhaps you can think of it as the highest ideal or principle that you hold about the universe and your relation to it. Just “reframe” the average concept of God into your own way of thinking. What do you think about your own likeness to God? Is there some merit to the concept of “likeness to God” in your mind? Is there something valid in your mind about Channing’s idea that human beings develop by recognizing their own divinity? The Transcendentalists like Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller liked Channing’s claim that there is divinity in all things and his references to art, science, literature, and poetry, truth and beauty as part of divinity.

This idea that people are like God is entirely a Western and liberal religionist one. Jews and Muslims wouldn’t even entertain such an idea; they may even think it ridiculous, even insulting and perhaps arrogant because for them God is a mystery. To the Eastern religions also, the idea would be strange. They wouldn’t presume to know what God is like but they might inquire anyway.

New age Hindu mystic and guru, Dr. Deepak Chopra, describes seven stages of perceiving God. The first is the vengeful, judgmental, sometimes merciful God. The seventh and last stage is the God of “Pure Being,” the “I AM.” Chopra’s ideas might fit more neatly into next Sunday’s sermon, which is “A Question of Grace.” Grace? What’s that! You’ll have to come back next week to find out.

For myself, I find it compelling that most of the people I know are most at home in the world when kindness is part of our exchange with one another and the love of social justice for all is a motivating force within us. Is this orientation to kindness and motivating force “God”? If so, then Channing’s “Likeness to God” makes sense. And it certainly could do some great good in the world if more people latched onto the goodness and moral sense within them and then acted upon it. Whether or not we believe that we have a “likeness to God,” may we still cultivate, love, kindness, and moral goodness and manifest in our lives. So may it be.

References

The following have informed and inspired this sermon:

Chopra, Deepak, M.D. How to Know God: The Soul’s Journey into the Mystery of Mysteries, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000

Robinson, David, Editor. William Ellery Channing: Selected Writings, Mahwah, New York: Paulist Press, 1985.

Robinson, David. The Unitarians and the Universalists, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1985.

Reading: Excerpts from “Likeness to God”*
(a 1828 sermon)

by The Rev. William Ellery Channing (pp 146-152)

(Discourse at the Ordination of the Rev. F. A. Farley, Providence, RI.)

          “I…maintain that true religion consists in proposing, as our great end, a growing likeness to the Supreme Being. Its noblest influence consists in making us more and more partakers of the Divinity….Religious instruction should aim chiefly to turn men’s aspirations and efforts to that perfection of the soul, which constitutes a bright image of God….The likeness to God…belongs to man’s higher or spiritual nature. It has its foundation in the original and essential capacities of the mind. (p. 146)

          ….To understand a great and good being, we must have the seeds of the same excellence. (p. 147) We discern more and more of God in every thing, from the frail flower to the everlasting stars…. (p.148)

          We call God a Mind. He has revealed himself as a Spirit. But what do we know of mind, but through the unfolding of this principle in our own breast? That unbounded spiritual energy which we call God, is conceived by us only through consciousness …. The Infinite Light would be forever hidden from us, did not kindred rays dawn and brighten within us. God is another name for human intelligence raised above all error and imperfection, and extended to all possible truth. The same is true of God’s goodness. How do we understand this, but by the principle of love implanted in the human breast?....The same is true of all the moral perfections of the Deity. These are comprehended by us, only through our own moral nature. It is conscience within us, which, by its approving and condemning voice, interprets to us God’s love of virtue….(p. 150) ….

          I affirm, and trust that I do not speak too strongly, that there are traces of infinity in the human mind; and that, in this very respect, it bears a likeness to God.” (p. 152)