by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given September 21, 2008
First Unitarian Church
Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning!
Our opening words this morning come from religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs:

We gather in reverence before all intangible things—
That eyes see not, nor ears can detect,
That hands can never touch,
That space cannot hold,
And time cannot measure.
Come now, and let us worship together!

In the last few years, the excesses of religion—indeed, the very belief in God—has been called into question by several writers whose books have proved to be amazingly popular—books such as Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great.  I’ve had to ask myself what is so compelling about these books.  In a nation in which reportedly 90% of the people never doubt the existence of God, what is drawing so many readers to this kind of subject matter?

Well, these writers are pointing out some distressing truths about religion.  I am not unfamiliar with these arguments.  Nor are you, most likely—they form a well-rehearsed narrative.  Hey, the Inquisition was a bad thing.  The Hebrew Scripture seems to be in favor of slavery.  And whoa, the earth wasn’t really created in six days.  The late George Carlin did a great Saturday Night Live rant on God, saying, “Yeah, God created the earth in six days and then rested on the seventh.  God’s day off is Sunday! So all these people go to God’s house on that day and run all these prayers and petitions by Him, and He just says, ‘Hey, it’s my day off.’”

I was raised a Catholic and having been baptized and confirmed in the Catholic church, then went to live with my grandparents who were Southern Baptist; out of the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.  I remember when I left the Catholic church at age 12, and Father Goubeaux, the local priest, came to visit me in my home.  He sat on one end of the sofa, and I sat on the other.  He said to me, in the kindest of voices, “Marilyn Jane, unless you come back to the Church, you are going to hell.”  I left anyway and then of course the Southern Baptists threatened me with hell unless I “accepted Jesus as my personal savior” and was rebaptized—fully immersed, as it were—in a real Christian church.  They did not believe that Catholics were Christians.  (Their knowledge of Church history was ... cursory.) 

I’m certainly not the only person who has had the b-Jesus scared out of them by a priest or preacher.  My friend Kathleen Herron wrote an essay on her Catholic school experience and it started like this:

Sister Gertrude’s shoe peeked out from under her long black habit and tapped the waxed tiles on the floor in the first grade room.  <She> moved to the blackboard and wrote in large black letters:
     E T E R N I T Y

 All sixty of us stared at the word, hands folded on top of our desks.  She chalked an impatient period and whirled around, pointing at Alan Baker.
 “Alan, what does this word mean?”
 Alan was on his feet immediately.  He sounded it out.  “E-TER-NI-TY.  Umh.  I’m sorry, Sister, I don’t know.”
 “Well, can anyone else help us out here?  Anyone?  Anyone?”
 Kathy Cole raised her hand.  She was my best friend and I was in love with her.  She had long honey-brown curls and was dressed in a white blouse with puffed sleeves, a lilac pleated skirt, and matching lilac anklets.  . . . .
 “Yes, Kathy?”
 Kathy stood, took a deep breath and in a clear voice said, “It means forever, Sister, forever, without end.”
 Sister parceled out a smile, then picked up her long rubber-tipped pointer: “Eternity . . . forever, with no end.  . . . .  But what does that really mean?  Children, is Eternity longer than ten years?
 “Yes, Sister,” we answered in unison.
 “Longer than 25 years?”
 “Yes, Sister.”
 “Longer than 50 years?”
 “Yes, Sister.”
 I didn’t like the sound of this.  Wasn’t this going too far?
 “Longer than 100 years?”
 “Yes, Sister.”  By this time, only half of us answered.  . . . .
 Sister pressed on.  “In a hundred years every single person in this room will be DEAD and in heaven or in hell. Yes, every single one of you will be gone—some to hell.  And what’s hell?”  No one even tried to answer.  I was spinning outward . . . .
 “It’s eternal fire, eternal pain.  Forever.  Without end.  Once you’re there, even your parents can’t get you out.”
 I lurched into a free fall, fighting a sudden desperate urge to pull <out> my Casper the Friendly Ghost comic and read it.  <But> that was too risky.  So I sat, my mind tangled in Kathy’s long hair, pretending each curl was a winding slide on the playground that I climbed up and went down over and over again.

So yes, there are excesses in religious life, in religious institutions.  Mistakes were made, as we say.  Where Mohammad and Jesus teach love and tolerance, some of their followers teach hate and violence.  Then there’s hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy makes us question who can we trust, with the Catholic hierarchy passing sexually abusive priests from parish to parish, knowing very well what is going on, with televangelists piously preaching against sexual misbehavior and greed while secretly indulging in both.  And there is still so much ignorance and superstition in so much religious life, so much denial of scientific truth.  It is terrifying to me that 44% of the American people believe in the Rapture—that Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead within the next 50 years.  So why worry about global warming?

These writers that I mentioned earlier all make the assertion that religion and morality do not necessarily go together, and point out that Europe, with its lagging church attendance, does far more for its poor and disabled folk than does the United States, with all our riches and all our vaunted belief in God, coupled with the highest church attendance in the world.  Indeed, what is wrong with this picture?  Why can’t Christian churches be more like—well, more like Jesus?

Churches are not more like Jesus because Jesus was an itinerate prophet who cared more about the truth than he cared about his own life; churches, on the other hand, are institutions that care more about their life than they care about the truth.  Over and over again, we have seen that when the moral chips are down, churches are mostly not there.  During the abolitionist movement—not there.  During the Viet Nam War—not there.  During our recent pre-emptive and illegal war in Iraq—not there.  During the most corrupt and greedy era of capitalism that we’ve ever seen—not there.  And why is that?  Because churches are afraid of losing customers, so to speak—afraid of splitting congregations, afraid of losing financial support.  And these fears are very understandable.  But I want to remind us of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.:  “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

So yes, there are good reasons to be concerned about religion.  But to jump from one’s concern about the excesses or failures of some religious practice to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist or that all religion should be dismissed is unfounded and illogical.  That would be like saying, well, some political leaders have been corrupt and murderous tyrants and therefore, I’m not going to have anything to do with politics or the political process.  Some political leaders are better than others.  None is perfect.  Some religious leaders are better than others.  None is perfect.  But to say, as these writers basically do, that we should do away with religion, that it is all bunk, all superstitious nonsense—well, I would question that premise.

In terms of violence perpetrated in this past century, I would just point out that the most destructive ideologies have been anti-religious: Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Marxism as practiced in China’s Cultural Revolution.  And when we think about those who have brought positive change and hope in this century, who are our heroes?  The names I think of are individuals grounded in religious traditions that have guided and sustained them: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Bishop Romero, the Dalai Lama.

I would maintain that we need religion, and we need religious institutions—but we need life-giving religions and life-giving institutions.  Do I think morality comes from religion?  No.  I think morality is embedded in our DNA—it’s inherent, it’s already there.  I think the best of religion gives shape and form to the noblest of human instincts, and institutionalizes those values, and insists that those values be practiced in the culture at large, and passes those values down to the young.  And something else—a life-giving religion allows those values to evolve.  A life-giving religion says, “We don’t have all the answers.  We go forward with the light we have, being ever open to allowing more light to shine on those dark and ignorant places in our lives.”

So religion is not the culprit.  God is not the culprit.  Jesus is certainly not the culprit.  What is dangerous and destructive is an absolutist ideology of any kind, whether it’s religious or political or tribal or whatever.  It’s whatever says to another, “I’m right, and you are wrong.  Full stop.  End of discussion.”  And by implication, it says, “You are inferior to me.  God doesn’t approve of you.  You are going to hell.”  You believe in Mohammad, so you are going to hell.  You are gay, so you are going to hell.  You had an abortion, so you baby-killer, you are going to hell. 

And I don’t for a moment believe in the old saw “I hate the sin, but I love the sinner.”  You can’t separate the sin from the sinner, can you, if the supposed “sin” is a part of that person’s being?  If the sin is their sexual orientation, or their color, or their gender?  My Fundamentalist Christian brother tells me, “Sis, you know, we believe that women shouldn’t take any leadership position in church.”  And I say, “Well, Jim, what do you think about me?” and he looks at me and pauses and then with tears in his eyes, he says, “I’m proud of you, Sis.”  Because you see, when absolute concepts get carried down to individuals—down to your sister, down to that gay neighbor of yours, down to your 15-year-old who gets pregnant, well, all of a sudden, the absolutes don’t make sense anymore, and those gray areas start to appear.

So I don’t have a problem with God or Jesus (or Mohammad or Buddha, for that matter), and I don’t have a problem with those who don’t believe in God or don’t follow Jesus—but I have a problem with those who think that God is supporting them and only them in any sort of contest or conflict.  Have you ever wondered why winning football teams always think that God was on their side?  Comic Jeff Stilson puts it so well in his act.  He says, “I like football games, but I hate the interviews after the games, because the winning players always give credit to God, while the losers blame themselves.  Just once I’d like to hear a player say, ‘Yeah, we were in the game . . . until Jesus made me fumble.  He hates our team.  Jesus hates us.’” 

I don’t have a problem with God—but I have a problem with those who bludgeon others with their belief systems, who let ideology of any kind trump flesh.
 
I read just the other day that October 12 will be the 10th anniversary of the killing of Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man who was strung up on a fence and left to die in Laramie, Wyoming.  A new epilogue is being written for the play The Laramie Project, based on that incident.  We have to remember that all hate crimes emerge out of a context.  Hate has to be taught.  When people perpetrate the idea that a whole class of people are inferior, are sinners, are not quite human, that is a set up for violent individuals to act on their feelings. 

 I don’t have a problem with God, but I have a problem with any religion that insists that my God must be just like their God.  I don’t have a problem with Mystery, but I do have a problem with any religion that subverts science and dwells in superstition.  I don’t have a problem with a religion that seeks answers to the universal questions of human existence, but I do have a problem with a religion that tells me their answers are unequivocal and it’s their way or the highway, and the highway leads to an eternal lake of fire.  My God doesn’t burn people for eternity.  Somehow that doesn’t feel respectful.  I don’t have a problem with a religion that teaches and practices peace, but I do have a problem with a political leader who tells his people that he has a hot line to God for making decisions about foreign policy.

So is there a God?  Tell us, Marilyn—is there?  What do you think?  I don’t know.  Do you think I have the answer to a question like that?  I myself have chosen to take Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith”—I have chosen to believe.  My god is not a personal god, certainly not an old white man in the sky.  Let me tell you about my God.  You see, increasingly, I know how little I know.  I live in Mystery, with a capital M.  I often get thrown off track, and what pulls me back is something Holy that dwells within.  I have my fears—about my country, about my ability to give my gifts, vague fears about loss—but I know that I am held, for want of a better phrase, by the Everlasting Arms.  I am given over to that which I cannot prove, cannot hope to understand, with my finite mind.  Tillich’s phrase is “the ground of my being.”  That’s as good as any.

Some people are inclined toward faith; others, toward the rational.  You will be influenced by your personality, your family background, your culture.  I came from the Catholics and the Southern. Baptists—so of course, I’m very high on Jesus.  But if you were born in Cairo, you would probably be a Muslim.  If you were born in Calcutta, you would probably be a Hindu.  If you were born in Jerusalem, you would most likely be a Jew, and you would believe that Yahweh is God and that the Torah is God’s word.  There are a hundred—no, probably thousands—of words for God.  What does that tell you?  It tells you that all is metaphor.  That we’re all struggling to name something that is unnamable.  But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  In fact, perhaps the most important elements of our living dwell in a realm that is not subject to the scientific method; that balks at logic or proof, things like love, integrity, reverence, and hope.

 You can be religious without being anti-science.  You don’t have to believe, for example, in the Virgin Birth.  You don’t have to believe that Jonah was literally swallowed by a whale and then vomited up on the shore.  You don’t have to believe that Noah and his family actually took two of every living creature on one small boat, in order to start life again after the Great Flood.  Try looking at these stories as—well, stories.  As metaphor.  Try thinking that Jesus was a very special baby, and that all babies come from God, from the Divine.  With the Jonah story, try thinking that procrastination is a spiritual problem.  Try understanding that if you are in a covenantal relationship with God, God is likely going to snatch you back from your folly.  And as for Noah’s Ark, well, it’s not too much of a stretch, now is it, to think of a great flood?  To think of wicked and sinful people actually destroying the earth.

I really don’t care about your theology, so long as it is grounded in love and not in hate, so long as it is grounded in union and not division, so long as it is grounded in peace and not in violence.  These are the concerns I have, not whether or not you believe in God.  But if you choose to believe in God, what kind of God do you believe in--vengeful or loving, punishing or embracing, narrow or as big as the sky?

Even in those moments when I most doubt my God—and I have those times—those times when I just can’t believe in God, I find that God still believes in me.  I walk out on my front porch on Sunday morning just at dawn, before I preach, and I see another sunrise coming up behind those big leaf maples that frame my house.  Every day, it happens, without fail.  And I feel a great peace filling me.  Winter comes and with it, all the deadness of living things, and then spring always surprises me, when those dry limbs begin budding out with green. Every spring.  Sometimes I feel that I am drying up, and then I come into a period a new life, of greening.  Or I am with one who is dying, and the dying is peaceful and without fear.  Once again I say to myself, “You are held by something larger than yourself.  Rest.  Breathe.  All is well.”  

So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

God of Many Names, we pray not so much for belief, but we pray that we might be more loving.  May we be a religious people who are not afraid of doubts, who listen with true presence, who touch others with kindness.  May we be open to new truth as it is given, and may ego and arrogance never separate us from our brothers and sisters.  May it be so.   Amen.

BENEDICTION

As you go from this place today, go in love and go in peace, and know that if you go with
love and peace, you will be going with God.  Amen and amen.

Copyright 2008, Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.