Sermon by Rev. Diane Rollert, 25 January 2009
God: Chapter Two in the book we are writing together, “Wounded Words: A Unitarian Universalist Congregation Reflects Together on the Words They Love and Love to Hate.”
As I read through the e-mails responding to this month’s wounded word, I remembered that day, more than a year ago, when Sarah Marx McGill sat up here with our children and asked the adults who believed in God, by whatever name, to raise their hands.
Two-thirds of the hands went up in this sanctuary. When she asked those who didn’t believe in God to raise their hands, the other one-third of the hands went up. We were all charmed and a bit disarmed to be asked to “out” ourselves that day. I think the numbers surprised us all. Which is to say, this is an ongoing conversation we need to nurture.
You’ve heard already a few of the submissions I received. Here are a few more excerpts:
Last week, when our guest Dr. Kuspinar “outlined the basic belief system of the Islamic faith, I could fully subscribe to it by substituting the word god with the word the universe. We humans are all part of the total universe and subject to its laws, whether we like it or believe in it or not. We cannot escape the universal forces. To give this mystery the name god, is to personalise it. And this is what bothers me.”
– Mickey van Riel
“On the whole, I prefer to keep the dialogue open with those who have been talking about ‘God’ for millennia. Although, I admit that the first of the ‘sources’ …does a wonderful job of summing up what the word ‘God’ means to me without actually using it: ‘the transcending mystery and wonder affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and sustain life.’ (As often in Unitarian sources, I find this a little one-sided – a ‘spirit of life’ also has to be a ‘spirit of death.’)”
– Harvey Shephard
“I do use the word ‘God’ to describe my perception of the personal aspect of the divine, sacred mystery, Powers-that-be… I think I use it mostly because it is the word I’m used to, that it’s broad enough to cover my understandings …In my relationship with God, I am both deeply reverent and deeply irreverent. There is love, trust and respect in the relationship, but not submission or blind obedience. Awe and worship are central, but I also question, and give a fair amount of back chat. Given how I was raised, and what I had been told about God, I did worry about getting zapped with that cliché lightening bolt…but my belief in God as the God of Love was strong enough for me to take that risk. And still is.”
– Kirstin McKeown
“God is the ability to envision, conceive and create everything imaginable and beyond. God is the ultimate, infinite Self.”
– Vivianne La Riviere
“Maybe God is like language: unquestionably a human creation, another emergent property of humanity, but still outside us and larger than us.”
– Shoshanna Green
“I am very uncomfortable if I feel that an acknowledgement of a supreme being is part and parcel of being a Unitarian.”
– Janine Cobb
***
A while ago I received a late afternoon phone call from a distressed young man struggling to reconcile his Catholic upbringing with the fact that he is a gay. He lived too far away to come to church, but a local hotline had suggested to him that I might be able to answer the questions they could not. With great apology for taking my time, the young man asked me if God would forgive him for all the things he had done wrong in his life. These were seemingly minor things, a small lie here or there to protect his family or himself. But for this young man, the shame was unbearable.
I remember thinking that carefully measured Unitarian language was not going to be useful in this situation. No metaphors, no leaving room for the nonexistence of God, no carefully trying to explain my own nuanced understanding of what the divine might be. I assured him that the God I knew surely loved him and would forgive him. That was my way of making room for a loving Universalist God. But the God this man knew was an angry and punishing God. When he called me back a few weeks later, still agonizing, I realized that my response had not been enough.
Later that day, I shared the story with a friend who is an openly gay United Church minister. “I know it’s really hard,” my friend said. “But the one thing this man needs right now is for you to say without a trace of hesitation in your voice, ‘God forgives you.’ Not, ‘I believe God will forgive you.’ Not, ‘I think God will forgive you.’ But simply, clearly, ‘God forgives you.’ Then, maybe, his healing can begin.”
This is hard to do, knowing that even if we speak the same words, we are not saying the same thing. This young man’s image of God is the same image of God that our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors rejected and railed against hundreds of years ago. How often we forget that both sides of our tradition began with an affirmation of a loving God who loved humanity in all its beauty and complexity.
These days we leave room for many interpretations. We embrace the atheist and the agnostic along with the theist. We bring many names to the conversation, perhaps speaking of the transcending mystery and wonder, but at the heart of who we are, at the heart of what sets us free to reason for ourselves, is this love that our forefathers and foremothers called God. For them, this was the source of our inherent worth and dignity.
I must have been about six years old when I found and then lost God. It was on the same day that I discovered the adult sanctuary of our synagogue for the first time. Most likely my mother was busy talking with someone as I drifted through the Temple halls alone and stumbled upon this miraculous, sacred place.
The walls of the sanctuary were carved of the warmest, most beautiful wood. Long shafts of light streamed through the windows illuminating the gilded Hebrew letters that stretched across the main balcony. In the centre of the space stood a large canopy made of vines and flowers. It was a chuppa that had been set up to serve as a canopy for a wedding ceremony. But I wouldn’t have known that at the time.
Beyond the canopy was hanging oil lamp with a glowing flame. This was the Eternal Light that we children had been told could never be extinguished. This was the light of God they told us. I stood in the doorway and that light hanging in that beautiful and quiet space held me spellbound. For an instant I was filled with awe for something powerful and eternal. There were no words in that silence.
“Hey you, kid! Get away from there!” a booming male voice shouted from behind me. Shocked out of my reverie, I ran away with my heart pounding, ashamed, and broken-hearted. God found. God taken away.
Perhaps it was that small child who so quickly lost what she had found who set me on this long path toward ministry. I wandered for many years without faith, without belief, but always with a thirst to return to that moment of awe. I found it again in the birth of my children. I found it again when as a hospital chaplain I sat with patients who had come to the end of their lives. Through their eyes I encountered the spirit of life and of death. Through their generosity, I found my way back into a sanctuary from which I had been barred for so many years.
Why then, oh why, did I become a Unitarian Universalist minister when I live with these inexplicable theistic roots? I have been forever grateful for this faith that gave me the space to discover my own theology free of dogma. Yet it was not until I stepped into roles of congregational leadership that I discovered the bleak reality that the tradition that had been so liberating to me could just as easily clip your wings as set you free. “Hey you, kid! Get away from there!”
The word God is forever a gnawing discomfort in my heart. I don’t believe in a supreme being or an angry punishing God who sits in judgement above. How powerful are those images of Renaissance Art, the blond and blue-eyed Jesus, the muscle-bound, flowing white bearded deity reaching from the clouds. But where I come from, we had no images of God, only images of imperfect human beings. Our God was something else, a paradox, a relationship with something distant and unreachable, yet close and loving. We used words that were imperfect as metaphors because we could find no other way to name something that could only be named with the sound of breath. Yah….
How strange it is to have a relationship with something that I can only describe as breath or as a flame burning brightly in a sanctuary. I am always brought back to this place of humility, of knowing that I will never have all the answers—yet I need that light, I feel that breath.
There is a poem I love by Reiner Marie Rilke that captures what I can never quite name.
You God, who live next door –
If at times, through the long night, I trouble you
with my urgent knocking—
this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom.
I know you’re all alone in that room.
If you should be thirsty, there’s no one
to get you a glass of water.
I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign!
I’m right here.
As it happens, the wall between us
is very thin. Why couldn’t a cry
from one of us
break it down? It would crumble
easily,
it would barely make a sound.
Why am I constantly drawn back to this poem? I don’t believe in a god who acts directly in our lives. Yet, there is something in the simplicity of Rilke’s yearning that speaks to me. He calls upon a god so palpable through the thinness of walls, a god who may be just as needy as any one of us. I don’t know if that god exists, yet I know the wall does. I know the longing for connection does.
I know you’re all alone in that room.
If you should be thirsty, there’s no one
to get you a glass of water.
How beautiful a gesture. If we are all part of this inexplicable oneness, then let me offer you a glass of water when you are all alone. May that be what guides my life.
I hear a young man in distress calling me from a long distance. We sit in separate rooms, yet he is my neighbour, knocking urgently, hoping to regain his breath. I could send him away. “Your God is not my God,” I could tell him. “You need to let go of that damning, terrible image,” I could say.
Yes, I am angry that his self-love could be so damaged by someone else’s cruel interpretation of the divine. I’m as angry as our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors were when they watched lives be destroyed by unjust threats of damnation. Someday, I hope, my conversation with this young man may turn to that.
For now, he reaches out in the darkness and asks for a few words of release. He is as much god as I am, sitting on the other side of that thin wall. Why can’t I use the word as I mean it, knowing that he understands it in way that I abhor? How else can I begin to open the door for him? “God forgives you,” I could say, knowing that I am simply giving him a blessing to forgive himself. “God loves you and made you who you are, which is perfect,” I could say, knowing that I am inviting him to love himself for who he is. Perhaps the wall would crumble, hardly making a sound.
God. The word is loaded, imperfect, relevant and irrelevant, beautiful and horrible. For now, it’s what I have to work with.
Amen. Blessed be. Namaste.
Readings that were presented during the service
God is the theist's joy,
The atheist's foil,
The agnostic’s doubt
God is a simple
deep
dark
light
bright
up-tight
three letter word
—Richard S. Gilbert
To see the world in a grain of sand
and heaven in a wildflower,
hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
and eternity in an hour.
–William Blake
Overheard in Phoenix Hall many years ago…Coffee hour… near the Library space…
Someone (don’t know whom) remarked that it was inappropriatefor a UU church to have books on astrology and palmistry in its collection…or words to that effect…(with an emotional tone of lots of harrumphs ! Tsks tsks!...superstitious nonsense… etc. harrumph…harrumph!)
As it happens the book in question was a favorite of mine…Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand,
essays by Robert Fulgham, a UU minister…nothing to do with astrology or palmistry…
This has always been a reminder to me to refrain, whenever possible, from
Leaping to conclusions
Making snap assumptions
Judging books and other people/books/stuff by their covers
Although I have always assumed that the speaker was not familiar with Blake’s poem…The reference for the title.
So the word GOD has so many layers, overtones and accretions, it is something like a huge comet…whizzing past us…trailing dust and clouds of glory from the outer reaches of the Universal Space/Time.
.
–Roseann Millin
Wounded word of the month “God”
This small word is likely to get Unitarians agitated. Good Unitarians will of course not quarrel about the meaning. They will respectfully listen to the opinions of others. Then some of them will refuse to sing or say the word; some will chew nails and others will go with the flow, “because what I sing is not necessarily what I believe, but others believe it and I sing it for them”.
Some of us who have come from other churches or religions and do not believe in a personal god have a problem with the word because for many of us it means a father figure creator sitting above the clouds in his heaven. This person who watches over and loves each one of us allows good and bad things to happen and we have to accept that. As an individual, I regard this as a good explanation for people who still believe in the supernatural. If asked “Do you believe in God?” my answer is “no, certainly not in a personal god.” Therefore I do not refer to the unexplained mysteries as “God” although I accept that some people do.
To have varieties of belief and unbelief to me is the essence of Unitarianism. To assume that others are injured by words from rejected faiths is an insult, not only to the individual but also to the movement. Unitarians should be moving forward. Always questioning, neither engaging in disrespectful haggling (as does happen unfortunately) nor suggesting that those whose beliefs do not coincide with the speaker should go elsewhere on Sundays!
–Christine Rourke
GOD!
Friends, I just made a loud noise with my vocal chords, which impacted on your ears.
You also heard something else – the word GOD and immediately associated what you heard with long past experiences and emotions which the word – God, generated in you.
The Catholic Church, to which I once belonged, calls this – GOD, the greatest mystery. Unknowable.
So what am I - insignificant allen - doing writing about IT – this GOD :
perhaps its brashness, perhaps to satisfy our Minister, Diane ? !!!
Gist for the mill – organic matter to be powdered, and misused !
First of all, the word God, is not GOD – its’ just a pointer towards this: IT – the real thing.
And, this IT, has developed quite a reputation over the millenniums – so much so, that many UU members now want nothing to do with, IT !
And so espouse Atheism, or Agnostism or Humanism - etc, etc.
Little allen though, being brave and foolish, still calls himself a believer of GOD:
albeit, using modern words to denote IT. Thus, he also uses the words : the Void, the Great Holy Spirit, the Source, the Originator, the Creator – blah, blah, blah !
With the greatest respect, though: for IT !
–allen lobo
God.
Ah, that word. I've been trying to make some sense of it for years.
In English, French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, Yiddish, Greek, Polish, Japanese ... And the more words I learn for it, the more I come to feel that the whole concept is ineffable, that no words can approach or contain or express it.
That, in addition to the fact that I am still unsure as to whether I actually believe in the concept to begin with. I am not an atheist, nor am I a proper theist. Sometimes I think I'm a monotheist, and then, in the next heartbeat, I think I'm a pantheist/animist/pagan. I guess I don't really want to be pinned down!
I rather appreciated that part of the questionnaire we Montreal UUs were asked to complete a few years ago by our ministerial search committee, in which we were asked about our beliefs. We were given multiple choices, and I think I
checked off most of them!
I have found myself in synagogue services and Unitarian Church Services where we were required to read or sing together some text that mentioned God, and I felt that I just couldn't bring myself to pronounce the word! Was it because I don't believe? Or was it because I do believe, and find it almost sacrilegious to
say the word aloud?
I really do experience awe and mystery when I look at a flower, a tree, a sunrise, a butterfly, all those wonderful things. I'm just not sure I feel that it's necessary to put my feelings in words; it's almost as if to do so would cheapen the experience.
Some years ago, I read that, in Japanese poetry, much is left unsaid, so that the reader may feel the space and the freedom to insert their own experience and interpretation. I kind of liked that: an appreciation of the inutility of words, even in the midst of an effort to express experiences with words. I like that paradox.
–L. H.
In most religions of the world, god was invented to perform the following three functions:
1. creator of universe;
2. benevolent protector of human welfare; and,
3. answer to residual unknowns.
"Big Bang" theory and quantum physics removed the first role from god. Expansion of communication technology made us all aware of man's inhumanity to fellow mankind and removed the second role. Now only the third role survives, be it ever so constantly receding. Advances of science explain a wide variety of former mysteries. Fortunately, this remaining role will survive for a good period of time yet.
–Hari Thakur
