Rev. Ann C. Fox
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Unitarian
Universalist
Society of Fairhaven
A God of Many Persectives
a sermon by Rev. Ann C. Fox
January 11, 2009
Note: A reading is attached, which you might like to read first
When we sing “Spirit of life, come unto me, sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion,” what does “spirit” mean to you? Would you write “Spirit” with a capital “S” or a small “s”? Why? Is “spirit” within you or without? Is “spirit” just the human spirit or is it the divine spirit? Or both? These may not be easy questions for you to answer. But, your answer, or at least your pondering of it could help you to describe your God concept (or that is ‘greater than yourself’ concept).
The hymn Spirit of Life continues, “blow in the wind, rise in the sea, spirit of life, come to me.” This spirit in the wind and the sea is typical of UUs seeing God in Nature. And some UUs would spell “Nature” with a capital N. How about the next line, “move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice”? Here we have spirit inspiring social justice work. How would you interpret, the next line: “Roots hold me close, wings set me free”? “Roots” might be the acknowledgment of the Judeo-Christian tradition; “wings” might mean, ‘allow me my own, unique path.’
The last line, “Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me” calls spirit, whether from deep within or from without, or both. No wonder we love to sing it; it’s rich isn’t it? Perhaps it is best that we don’t dissect the experience and let the richness be what it is!
Have you noticed that when I say a prayer, I begin it with “Spirit of Love and Life”? Then I sometimes add, “Eternal God.” I hope that you interpret or reframe for yourself what these mean. I add “Eternal God” because I know that means something to some of you, if not many of you, as does Spirit of Love. In the Unitarian Universalist tradition, we invite you interpret or reframe these things for yourself.
For many years, UU ministers didn’t use the word God at all out of concern that many people would be offended. One of my UU colleagues who grew up in a Methodist church said to me, “The word ‘God’ or ‘Lord’ never troubled me at all. I never thought God or Lord was a person. It was just a way the tradition referred to the mystery or the ‘matter of ultimate concern’ or the ‘Ground of All Being’ if you like.” He continued, “I think UUs should just get over it and reframe what it means for themselves.” Really, truly, you are invited to determine your God concept for yourself.
It isn’t that modern day UUs are intolerant of the word and concept of God. It’s just that being authentic in what we say is very important to us. Using the word “Lord” might well cause UU feminists amongst us to be tied up in knots of outrage; they perceive—rightly I think—that women were diminished because in a subtle way in history men were seen to be like God and women were NOT like God—second class citizens, in other words. You might have noticed that most of our hymns have changed “Lord” and “Him” to just God, but “Lord: remains in other places because it just seems respectful or for some other good reason. The revisers of the hymnal must have struggled greatly in the early 1990’s with each word. I know of no other religion that encourages its adherents to inquire for themselves as to who and what God is. Even in the 19th century, Rev. William Ellery Channing wrote the words that we read in the responsive reading: “I call that mind free which resists the bondage of habit, which does not mechanically copy the past, nor live on its old virtues: But which listens for new and higher monitions of conscience, and rejoices to pour itself forth in fresh and higher exertions.” These words may sound lofty to you in their formality of expression, yet they clearly call you to “follow you conscience” in matters of religion.
We are free to tread the religious path we ourselves create, which is far different from a religion that teaches The Truth. In this morning’s reading, Huston Smith says, “[the strength and dangers of] conservatives pertain to the vertical…God-person relationship.” Smith means that the conservative usually defines God as Transcendent, the big guy in the sky who is knowable and personal and who has a relationship with “his people” and is definitely outside of us. This God sends blessings and curses and acts in history. This God hears prayers of petition—that is asking for something; prayers of praise; prayers of thanksgiving; and prayers of making a deal. When people find themselves in difficult circumstances, they may call out for help and offer something in return for the deal.
Perhaps you’ve heard the story of two men who were adrift in an open boat for days. Finally, one of them, frightened, began to pray. "O Lord," he prayed, “I've broken most of thy commandments. I've been a hard drinker, but if my life is spared now I'll promise never again to...” His friend interrupted, "Hold on a minute, Jack, don't go too far. I think I see a sail!” I don’t mean to diminish this type of prayer for it is a very common response to dire human circumstances no matter what we believe intellectually. Whether God actually is transcendent and responds to his creatures’ needs matters less than that the one who prays has a perspective that makes sense to him or her. I remember from my childhood that whenever we three girls were squabbling, my mother used to call out, “God help me!” I’m sure it helped her to not strike out at us. In a restaurant last week, Leo and I heard a young woman say, “Mary, Mother of God!!!” You know you’re in Catholic country when you hear that! These are women whose religious language is second nature to them. And as Huston Smith says, “Liberals do not recognize the ‘spiritual wholeness’ that can come from the sense of certainty.” However, many if not most UUs seem quite satisfied to live with uncertainty. I am. Are You?
I recently spent some days with a couple who are Evangelical Christians. The woman has a glorious voice. In her church, she sings praise songs. For about 15 minutes before the service, the singers each take a turn singing a hymn of praise and the congregation sits and listens as a form of centering themselves and getting “in the spirit.” Our version of this is the Prelude that Dwight plays and we ask that you use this as “centering music” in hopes that people won’t chat but be willing to be in a different psychological space than when we entered the building. The woman’s husband told me that this singing also continues through parts of the service and it was the best part for him. His God concept has a lot to do with a connection through music. Perhaps yours does, too. While his wife and I were gazing at our grandchild, she said, “It’s the presence of God. It’s the imminence? This is the God that is within (imminent) and also without (transcendent). A fundamentalist Jew, Christian, or Muslim, wouldn’t have said that because he or she would have been taught that God is only transcendent, not within.
My own epiphany about a God concept came to me from the words of a UU minister who quoted from the Tao Te Jing (or The Book of the Way and Its Power), the 30-page philosophical text of the ancient Taoist religion. The UU minister said, “I look to the Tao for my inspiration. And this is what he read about the Tao:
1.
The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao…
2.
The Tao is like an
inexhaustible well: used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void: filled with infinite possibilities.
It is hidden but always present.
4.
The Tao is called the Great
Mother:
Empty yet inexhaustible.
It gives birth to infinite worlds.
It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.
51.
Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence, unconscious, perfect, free,
It takes on a physical body, and lets circumstances complete it.
That is why every being spontaneously honors the Tao.
(Translations are from Novak, pp 146-164):
This is the God of the mystics of all religions—Judaism, Islam, Christian, Hindu, and so on. The idea of “spirit” falls into this category as well.
But, let us keep this simple. The hymn that we sang earlier gives us quite a few God concepts that we find amongst Unitarian Universalists. Let us look at Hymn #2 again.
Verse 1: “Down the ages we have trod many paths in search of God, seeking ever to define the Eternal and Divine.” The words of this hymn were written by a British Unitarian minister and the music by an UU American professor of music composition.
Verse 2: “Some have seen eternal good pictured best in Parenthood, and a being thronged above ruling over us in love.” This is the transcendent, outside of us, God. Notice that it is also a loving God.
Verse 3: “There are others who proclaim God and Nature are the same and the present Godhead own where Creation’s laws are known.” This is the God of Nature—pure and simple. This concept appeals to UU pagans or earth-centered UUs, especially those of us who look forward to our once a year winter solstice spiral. Don’t be surprised if you identify with more than one God concept. This is what we call a “hyphenated” UU.
Verse 4: “There are eyes which best can see God within humanity, and God’s countenance there trace written in the human face.” This is the ‘God’ of the UU Humanist. For a humanist, the meaning of all existence is vested in human beings and what human beings do together to create, care, and love. A UU humanist may not believe in a God concept at all or he or she simply holds out a possibility for something beyond humanity but knowing isn’t important.
Verse 5: “Where compassion is most found is for some the hallowed ground, and these paths they upward plod teaching us that love is God.” This God of Love comes to us from the history of both Unitarianism and Universalism. God might have a personal aspect but it may be a force, rather like the God of Taoism that we heard about earlier.
Verse 6: “Though the truth we can’t perceive this at least we must believe, what we take most earnestly is our living Deity.” If we find ourselves in earnest about social justice or some other interest, this is our highest religious expression.
Verse 7: “Our true God we there shall find in what claims our heart and mind, and our hidden thoughts enshrine that which for us is Divine.” This is the mystical or philosophical approach to God.
These do not cover all the God concepts but they give us a spectrum and idea that what God might be for UUs. This might be the highest expression of existence which has infinite ways of manifesting and perhaps some are not in words at all but perhaps in wordless intuiting, in music, art, science, or you name it.
I believe that pondering these things makes us more tolerant, more accepting of other religions’ idea of God because we become clearer about our own divine concept. This pondering offers each of us the opportunity to consider what we believe at this point in our lives. I also believe that this pondering enriches our spiritual life in a deep, deep down way. Remember that Jesus said that “All that is heaven is within you.” And similarly, the Buddha said, “Be ye lamps unto yourselves.” However, they both assumed that we would be in religious community shining that light and mining what we already hold in our hearts. In his book, Why Religion Matters, Huston Smith describes a night when he awakened to a full moon and felt “called” to go outside where there was not a cloud to conceal a starry sky. It was one of those magical nights and moments in the desert. (p. 276) His mind was entirely empty of thought and there his powers of description shut down. Later a poem by Giacomo Leopardi came into his mind:
And when I gaze upon you,
Who mutely stand above the desert plains
Which heaven with its far circle but confines….
Or watch the stars that shine there in the sky,
Musing, I say within me:
“Wherefore those many lights,
That boundless atmosphere,
And infinite calm sky? And what the meaning
Of this vast solitude? And what am I?
A Reading from Why Religion
Matters
by Huston Smith
(San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001)
Generally speaking, religious conservatives regard the Truth [with a capital “T”] by which they live as absolute…whereas liberals are more sensitive to…the ways different points of view splinter the single, all-encompassing Truth and leave us with myriad lower-case truths.
The downside of Truth [with a capital T] is the danger of fanaticism … Liberals face the opposite problem…relativism…the view that nothing is better than anything else…
The virtue of liberalism is tolerance [without overt judgment]…and
the virtue of conservatism…is the energy it can infuse into
life through the feeling of certainty that the universe is on
one’s side…[However,] Liberals do not
recognize the spiritual wholeness that can come from the sense of certainty…Both
the strengths and the dangers of liberalism pertain to life’s horizontal
dimension, which encompasses human relationships…whereas
those of conservatives pertain to the vertical…God-person
relationship. (pages 209-211)
© The Rev. Ann C. Fox