"God's Whispered Urgings"
Beth Lefever, Student Minister
Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie
October 4, 2009

Readings

First reading from Your Life is Your Message: Finding Harmony with Yourself, Others, and the Earth by Eknath Easwaran.

In place of a second reading this morning, I'm using a song which some of you may be familiar with. It's called "Pizza Deliverance" by the Chenille Sisters.

Upon first hearing it, this song might be perceived as disrespectful of some religions, or of religion in general. I certainly can perceive it in that way, if I'm of a mind to. But if we look beyond any perceived offense, there is a message here that I want to discuss in this morning's sermon. So listen to the words, if you will, and then I'll tell you what they mean to me.

Second reading, the song "Pizza Deliverance" by The Chenille Sisters

Connie Huber, a member of the Chenille Sisters, wrote this song, and although it is couched in gentle humor and fun-making, I somehow doubt that it was her intention -- and it certainly is not mine -- to mock those whose very real faith matters to them, guides them, and helps them to make their way in the world. I can't, of course, know Huber's thoughts in writing the song, but I can guess at them by my knowledge of her repertoire, and the sensitivity toward people that is manifested, along with her humor, in much of the music that she and the Chenille Sisters create. Nor can I articulate just why the song particularly appeals to me, except to say that when I am not moved to tears by the human condition, I like to laugh at that which is so very different among us, and yet which is not really very different at all.

In this song, I especially like the last line: "There is a little for everyone, and remember god is in us all." That notion is, in part, what I will be discussing with you today.

This song, in some respects, is the story of religion in America, a potpourri of different beliefs stemming from the same core of infinite possibility, and the freedom to express those diverse beliefs, as well as our reaction to them. It is the story of the relatively harmless human predilection to make fun of those religious beliefs of others that seem too far removed from our own – harmless compared to the other human predilection to be afraid of, and thus sometimes violent toward, religions we do not understand.

But more, the song, in its last line, speaks to the story of our church, which uplifts the notion that "There is a little for everyone" in relation to the very personal nature of the religious odyssey… the whole is very large, and we each may take from it what we need for the formation of our own spiritual truth and belief-set.

And finally, it also very much captures my own panentheist - slash - humanist theological belief that whatever god may or may not be, god certainly must be Infinite: in all things, in all people, everywhere; indefinable because of his and her – and its infinite omnipresence.

I am going to be talking about god today, conveying my own theology which, I should tell you, is always in formation. I am going to be telling you what I think, at this point in my spiritual journey, to be true of a possible god. I also am going to be speaking, mostly from a critical standpoint, about the Bible, a religious text that has aggressively shaped our culture, and thus, touched the lives of each and every one of us in one way or another, whether we embrace it or not.

 

Sermon

So. About God…

It is my ever-evolving belief that if god exists, his or her existence is far too infinite, too vast, too inexhaustible to truly fathom or successfully define. There is a reason we refer to the thought of god as the Great Mystery.

I also believe that if god exists, he/she exists so completely that cognitively contemplating her is probably fruitless and possibly pointless as well. It is like contemplating our own existence – not our purpose or the reason for our being, but simply the fact of our being. The idea of god, just like the idea of our own existence -- each dynamic stripped of all other thought is both too boundless and too ethereal to grasp.

That is, in part, my theology, which does not incorporate a belief in a personal god, as so many religions would have us do.

I believe that god, or what I might choose to think of as "The Great Good," manifests in the best of human nature -- those exquisite moments of tenderness that wash over us, on occasion, leaving us feeling fragile and breathless and unaccountably blessed; our amazing capacity for compassion, empathy, and understanding; the depth and richness of our emotional faculty… god manifests in the best of human nature – great acts of heroism and self-sacrifice, and gentle acts of kindness, with or without our belief, understanding or acknowledgement of god.

Is this power or force toward good real?

I think it is. I think that, in spite of so much evidence toward the contrary, in spite of my own sometimes dismal failings and shortcomings, in spite of the horrendous depths of evil into which we, as a species, can fall, the tug toward love quietly and eternally persists. And that being attuned to that insistent tug, making ourselves vulnerable to love, and resistant to fear and anger and judgment, is tantamount to answering "god's call."

And let me clarify the phrase "god's call."

I was at a summer picnic, recently, in the company of a number of people from UU Elkhart, and engaged in conversation with Ken, a friend of mine, and a member of only a few years at the Elkhart church. Ken, who is about my age, was un-churched throughout many of his adult years, having rejected, and been rejected by, the conservative church of his childhood. He discovered Unitarian Universalism after attending a wedding conducted by a UU minister, and, with his wife, has been happily at home in his newfound church ever since.

So I was talking with Ken when, at one point, I mentioned my call to ministry – I cannot now imagine in what context I might have uttered those words. My calling. It is not as though I had come upon a burning bush such as the one from which god spoke to Moses. It was not a dramatic call, like the booming of a robust thunderstorm, or even a call as unassuming as a gentle summer rain. Rather it was more in keeping with a dawning realization that, hey it's getting a bit cloudy out, isn't it?

Nevertheless, I experienced my journey into ministry as a calling of sorts, and said as much to Ken. I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth when Ken asked, with some vigor, "Who called you?"

I was taken aback by the question, having never been asked, and never having really considered the matter myself. I knew I had been called; that was not the issue. But who, in fact, had called me?

I stared at Ken briefly, admiring the alacrity with which he had pounced on me with the question, even as I stumbled around in my own mind seeking an answer. Finally I said the only thing that had come to me as I considered the question. I said, "I guess it was my most authentic self that called me."

He seemed quite satisfied with that response, and as I reconsidered it later, so was I. It is as Rilke wrote in Letters to a Young Poet: "This, above all, ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write?"

That is how it became for me with ministry. As I progressed with my life it became increasingly clear that my path was leading me more and more toward ministry, and I felt more and more compelled to follow the journey unfolding before me. I did not experience that as god's call, but rather as a profound beckoning of my own internal stirrings, which is, in fact, where god works in us. It was not a call from a personal god, though the stirrings were intimately personal. Still, it was not a call from a personal god to whom I pray and from whom I hope to receive answers.

Perhaps it could be considered a call from "the universal god," that guiding light that resides somewhere within all of us. Or maybe we could call it godness; I received my call from the godness within, a word which my spell-check rather insistently, and perhaps rightly, tried to change to goodness:

God -- The Benevolent Being, the Great Good.

Godness – the Great Good residing in the authentic self of each of us.

It is not a traditional god in which I believe, to the extent that I do believe, for the more traditional god of the major western faith traditions seems quite contrived, to me, and highly inpatient with the human condition, which just seems totally out of character for god. The god of the Judaic tradition, in particular, but also of the Christian tradition, at least as those traditions are portrayed in the Bible, is, from my perspective, harsh and unforgiving, jealous and demanding, and scheming and manipulative, as can be seen in his rejection of Adam and Eve from the garden, his cruel manipulation of Abraham, his brutal toying with Job, and his angry destruction of all but a handful of the world's people in the great flood, among many other examples.

It was hard when I was a vulnerable child, and remains hard for me today, to see the god of the Bible as anything other than cruel, grim, and exclusive. And yet he is a god who demands our love, awe, and loyalty, as is clear when one considers the most definitive list of god's requirements, the Ten Commandments.

It is a disagreeable fact of my psyche, as well as a clear sign that I still have work to do in healing from a wounded religious past, that I find the Ten Commandments, and the uncompromising way in which they are inserted by conservative Christians into our culture, so objectionable.

Let me give you one example of the cultural dynamic of this issue.

About ten years ago, my hometown, Elkhart, was challenged to remove a fifty-year-old monument displaying the Ten Commandments from in front of the city's Municipal Building. A lawsuit was brought to bear, the plaintiffs of which were painted as all sorts of evil, and soon what seemed like half the cars in Elkhart had bumper stickers saying "Keep the Ten Commandments." (I was sorely temped to have countering bumper stickers made saying, "Off City Property," but I never did follow through.)

A number of us kept our voice in the fray, primarily writing letters to the newspaper attempting to counter with reason the passion of those who refused to see the church/state conflict or to acknowledge and respect those of other, or no, religious persuasions. There was just no room for "the other" in this debate.

Our side won, legally, and the plaque was moved from city property to what was actually a much more visible area downtown, on private property. In that regard, it seems to me it was a win for both sides, but it wasn't perceived that way by many Elkhartans, some of whom are still sporting Ten Commandment bumper stickers on their cars, and lawn signs in their yards.

This is the kind of uncompromising religious intrusiveness that troubles my soul, and seems everywhere present in our society, a society in which admitting one is not a Christian, or may not be a Christian, can be an act of courage.

Now for my theological or philosophical objections.

If I were to choose a religious or ethical document to so shape my culture as the Ten Commandments has done, I would prefer it be one more inclusive, and more applicable to the exquisite nuances of the human condition. We know the obvious if we have a heart at all: don't kill, don't steal, don't lie. And if we don't know these things, I'm not sure any religious document will speak to us anyway.

I object to the fact that nearly half of the Ten Commandments -- these very absolute dictates as to precisely how we are to be in the world -- consists of rules regarding just how we are to honor god, rules that, to me, suggest that god is small, jealous, and demanding, perhaps even insecure:

1. I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself any graven images.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

It is hard to imagine an all-powerful, all-loving god so self-interested and unable

to gain our respect without demanding it. And for those who seek a truly strong and loving god figure, this document upon which we are to hang our spiritual cloaks, may very well leave us achingly wanting.

The remaining six commandments are directives for moral living, but as succinct as

they are, they ignore some pretty important stuff.

Number 5 says, Honor your father and mother.

6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness.
10. You shall not covet.

These commandments, explicit though they are, leave out some relatively obvious

"thou shalt nots," including thou shalt not maim, batter, or rape, thou shalt not bully, thou shalt not have sex with thy children.

But they also leave out what I like to think of as contingencies. As much as we'd like to think in terms of ethical absolutes, I don't believe ethical absolutes are truly ethical, nor do I believe that adhering to the Ten Commandments in all cases is the moral thing to do.

You know the issues:

Should those who hid Jews from the Nazis in WW II have kept the commandment not to lie when asked if they knew the whereabouts of the Jews they were hiding?

Should a starving mother (in whatever scenario one can imagine) not steal food to save her child?

Should a child being molested by her father risk dishonoring him by reporting him to authorities?

And in the impossibly complex moral argument, should one not kill to protect an innocent?

The Ten Commandments, so insistently touted by some as the sacred document by which we should govern ourselves, are simplistic, inflexible and incomplete. They create a sense of exclusivity and separation between god and her people, an exclusivity and separation that does not fit with any conceivable notion of a god around which I can wrap my heart and mind.

Additionally, they are commandments that cannot be fully kept; perhaps they would better serve if characterized as goals rather than commandments.

They cannot be fully kept, and even the easier ones are not, in fact, kept by many of those who most loudly proclaim them. For example, most Christian denominations are not Sabbath-keepers, choosing to worship on Sunday rather than on Saturday. Furthermore, whereas the commandment not to kill is stated unambiguously, many conservative Christians support the death penalty and engage in war with seemingly untoward enthusiasm. And finally, most of the people I know who fervently embrace the Ten Commandments, have graven images in their homes, and many churches have them, as well -- the dove, the fish, paintings of Jesus, and the Apostles, and if they are Catholic, paintings of the saints and Mary…

Some theologians argue that these visual representations are instructive in the faith, and helpful to worshipers. But still, God's laws are acknowledged as "commandments" not "suggestions," are they not – with no evident room for adjustment or appeal?

But here's my other problem with the Ten Commandments. They seem the negative prohibitions of a stern, joyless, and forbidding father-figure who provides no guidance in this, the core piece of Judaic and Christian religious legislation, as to what we should do in the living of our lives. They ignore what many of us have come to see as the most sacred of ethical considerations – love, compassion, mutual respect, and care for the interdependent web of all existence.

For these reasons, at least, they did not work for me as a guide to moral living. And yet the idea of having a written code of spiritual ethics did appeal to me. It appealed to me very much.

We are a creedless church, believing that the religious journey is a very personal journey, and that no one path serves all. We are guided in our spiritual pursuits by the principles and purposes which member churches of the Unitarian Universalist Association covenant to affirm and promote, and we are prompted by our literature and our leadership to formulate our own personal theologies. This task is nurtured and nourished in our Sunday services, particularly, in which we incorporate materials from all of the major religious traditions, as well as nature, art, music, literature and our own personal experiences of the transcendent.

It is a tremendously freeing journey of experiencing the spiritual in the ways that speak most intimately to each of us, and as I grew in this tradition, and began to note that which most powerfully spoke to me, I became ready to tie it down a bit in my own list of, hmm… what to call them?

I believe that god likely more whispers than shouts, and urges than commands so I decided to call my list, "God's Whispered Urgings."

What is the basis for my version of god's urgings? It is this:

A number of years ago I came across a quote in our Unitarian Universalist magazine, "The World." It was a quote from rabbi and author Abraham Heschel who said "Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy." I was very taken with that quote in which, among other things, I could place the notion that, as the Chenille Sisters sang, "god is in us all."

That life-affirming proclamation, "Just to be is a blessing, just to live is holy," never left me, and serves as the core from which my own list grew. It is a list that, for me, affirms the wonder of life, the sanctity of human be-ing, the wisdom of the inner voice.

If you'll allow me to share, my list is as follows:

1. Listen to your intuitive self, for therein lies the voice of god.
2. Stay in the moment, for to do otherwise is to waste the precious gift of life.
3. Feel your feelings; they are your richness and your depth.
4. Respect the interdependent web of all existence, of which you are a part. (Taken directly from the UU Principles.)
5. Judge not, but discern wisely.
6. Speak your own Truth. Never let your silence be mistaken for assent.
7. Be attuned to, and honor, the diverse spiritual journeys of others.
8. Release the need to control others, for such efforts deny the spiritual in them, and keep you from yourself.
9. Eschew material possessions, for they divert you from your Source and your Path.
10. Contribute toward Good.

These commandments work for me. And more to the point, I work for them! They provide a moral code born of my deepest sense of what is good and right, and by which, when I am able to keep them, most allow me to bring to life Heschel's observation: "Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy."

My list brings joy and meaning to my particular journey because it affirms for me the awesome wonder and mighty potential of the life journey, and incorporates a high regard for the human condition.

Your list, should you make one, and I would encourage you to do so, would undoubtedly differ from mine because the exquisite nuances of human thought and perception and experience so differ.

But I believe all of our lists would be similar in that they would somehow uplift the sanctity of the life experience, and the inherent worth of every person, the core and substance of our truly remarkable religious tradition in which there is, indeed, a little for everyone.