Sermon for Lent 1: 26 February 2012

A sermon dedicated to the memory of the Rev. Donald Feist, who died Ash Wednesday February 22, 2012– a man of great theological integrity, with whom I delighted in ‘God talk’[1]

This morning, we have been invited not to speak or sing the word “God”.  We’re doing this in an attempt to empty out all those unhelpful meanings associated with this difficult, complex and challenging three-lettered word; thus opening space for new understandings.  (Because it is likely to become difficult to understand if I don’t use the actual word, I will use the word ‘God’ during this sermon – after which, we will return to that open space of non-naming for the rest of the service).  

At this time of Lent – with its traditions of giving up, fasting, focussing on Jesus journey to Jerusalem - this emptying out seems an important thing to do.  Perhaps this Lent, instead of giving up on coffee, chocolate or alcohol, we might try doing a much more difficult thing – letting go some of our old ideas and assumptions associated with Christianity. These six weeks of Lent, in preaching and Monday night discussions, we’ll participate in this journey of letting go – as we explore a particular belief.  As a first step on that journey, an empty space has been created – a space into which our doubts, our questions and dreamings can be placed – a space where we might encounter the Holy Mystery, which shapes our lives in ways beyond our wildest imagining.  And so, into this empty space we have created, I now invite you to bring your rational minds and your imaginative hearts to a consideration of the Divine and what it might mean to talk of ‘God’ with meaning and hope in this 21^st century. 

Last Wednesday, at the Ash Wednesday service, as we commenced this journey towards Easter, we received the sign of the cross in ashes on our foreheads;  we were urged to leave the past behind and begin again with God.  But what does that mean – begin again with God?

What do you mean, when you use the word ‘God’? Is God, for you, the life-giving energy of Love, holding the whole world together, adding intensity and purpose to our lives, if only we’d let it; i.e. the Love described, in metaphor, in this morning’s Gospel – a Love, observed as coming on Jesus ‘like a dove’: breaking open old ways of seeing and opening to new possibilities.

When you speak of God, are you talking about “the way we human beings have of recognizing how the world is, as opposed to the way we know the world ought to be.” [2]  I think that’s the way the creators of the Noah story might have been thinking – knowing the potential for humanity to make a mess of the world, they tell of God-hopefulness: a God-awareness in humanity of what is – and what might be.  

There are many ways of speaking of God. Some are less than helpful.  Unhelpful ideas like: ‘God in the sky who hears our prayers and fixes things for us when we are good children… a supernatural power, always prepared to intervene in human history… the parent or judge [who] rewards and punishes …according to .. proper behavior.’[3]  In today’s world where there are plenty of believers and non-believers alike who hold these views,  I’ve been tempted to advertise this church as a place where “we don’t believe in that kind of God anyway” – but is that true? Have we really let go of those old, unhelpful images?  Do we still cling to them, subconsciously and uncritically – keeping them in place for a rainy day, when they might come in handy? 

And, you might be asking - does it matter if we do? I want to say yes – it does matter – it matters enormously.  For, the image we have of God shapes the way we live – expanding or contracting the potential for evolving, flourishing life.  Put simply, the image of God we hold makes us into the people we are. Franciscan spiritual director, Richard Rohr puts it this way:  “Your image of God, your de facto, operative image of God, lives in a symbiotic relationship with your soul and creates what you become. Loving people, forgiving people have always encountered a loving and forgiving God. people cynical about the very possibility of a coherent loving center to the universe …become cynical themselves”     

I remember, as an 18 year old – sitting down there near the front of this church, wondering what on earth was going on as we sang “his chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form”.  Even then, I couldn’t really believe in a God ‘all glorious above’ sitting on his throne, intervening occasionally from the clouds above.  It might have worked for another era ... but now?

Fred Plumer, President of the Centre for Progressive Christianity in North America challenges what he calls arrogant, superstitious and even an idolatrous assumptions. “With what we now know about the immense universe, black holes, evolution, and our teeny, teeny little planet, isn’t [it] time to change the entire paradigm? [he asks] Do we really think that there is some entity, some power that needs to be pleased? … Why would we assume that this “I Am” needs anything from us? Any such idea suggests a theistic and dualistic model that we must eventually let go of. We have not come very far when we think it is a big deal to call this entity “Mother/Father God…”

…I think we have had it wrong for a long time. I do not think Jesus was telling his followers how they are supposed to act or behave in order to please God. I believe he, like other inspired wisdom teachers, was offering his teachings about how to experience this thing we so casually call God. What did Jesus mean? We have no way of knowing, but I suspect he meant something very different from what we normally perceive. I believe it is far more likely … he told his followers that by living a certain way, by extending themselves on behalf of others, by loving generously, for example, they too could experience [the Great I AM][4]… Sacred Unity, All-ness or Oneness [of the Universe].

I do not believe .. Jesus’ teachings were channeled from God so that he could tell us what God wanted from us. Rather, they were the result of his profound life changing experience of a complete Unity of all life… of a peace and sense of completeness that evades words. Wisdom teachers tell us that this phenomenon cannot be known, but can only be experienced and anyone has the opportunity to have that experience. There are many paths and they are teachable. These can lead ultimately to an experience of that sacred, the Divine that I am certain many people are searching for. We could even call this “heaven on earth.”

So why is it so hard to give up the theistic concept of God? For some, it is because that God has been a comfort for them and in some cases, this model of God has been the only source of true love in their lives. But for the vast majority of people who hold on to that traditional God, the alternative is just too scary. We are talking here about a giant mystery, an unknown. And in the western culture, most of us are extremely uncomfortable with unknowns. That discomfort has led to some pretty amazing scientific discoveries, but it is no help in a truly spiritual journey….[5] That”, says Plumer, “is why I love Richard Dawkins and the rest of the New Atheist movement. Their sometimes brilliant, and, often penetrating work, is forcing more and more people to rethink what they mean by the Germanic word, God. And as they make us aware of the simplistic ways we are still thinking about this god in the sky, we can become more aware of the awesome mystery that lies before us. And there we may begin to learn the real meaning of faith – for with the help of a teacher, who has experienced that Grand Mystery, we can move toward something that can never be known but only experienced. And what an amazing journey that can be.”[6]   And so, I invite you over these next six weeks, into this amazing journey.  If you are interested in exploring further, come to the discussion tomorrow night …let’s not be afraid to let go our concepts and thus discover the “Great, living G**, never fully known, joyful darkness far beyond our seeing, closer yet than breathing, everlasting home.”[7]

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[1] Just a week before he died, Don wrote, in response to a hymn Susan Jones had written:

“I understand myself now to be in a zone that does not involve dogma or doctrine at all.  There is still faith in the sense of big assumptions about how things are in the universe and in all reality, an acceptance that certain values (faith, hope and love, for example) are givens.  But I see all that as separate from, and different from, doctrinal propositions.  For me, there’s a huge and tragic irony in the way in which the Church, by denying the reality of death (We’ll meet again…) and talking so much about heaven and hell, has inhibited people from responding fully to the life we have.  Letting go of the ‘comfort of knowing’, which we hear in the creeds has freed me to perceive God present in life with all its richness and poignancy, in human relationships, in my enjoyment and interaction with everything around me.  And, I now say a loud “yes” to your closing line: ‘And find, in a different way, God is still near.’

[2] “God Talk” James Rowe Adams http://www.progressivechristianity.org/library/article.cfm?library_id=62

[3] “I Love Richard Dawkins!” Fred Plumer http://www.progressivechristianity.org/library/article.cfm?library_id=1082

[4] Alaha “God” according to Neal Douglas-Klotz an Aramaic scholar. Douglas-Klotz suggests that his Alaha term would best be translated as Sacred Unity, All-ness or Oneness.

[5] Plumer continues: That is why I find most people are uncomfortable with theologian, Dr. Gordon D. Kaufman, who concludes in his book, In Face Of Mystery: “…In religious myth and symbols, and in theological doctrines and reflection, we are dealing with matters of profound, ultimately unfathomable mystery; the ultimate meaning of human life, the final truth about the world and our place within it, is simply not available to us humans.”

[6] “I Love Richard Dawkins!” Fred Plumer http://www.progressivechristianity.org/library/article.cfm?library_id=1082

[7] Brian Wren “Bring Many Names”