Sermons

Douglas’ Revised Catechism for Skeptics and Seekers
3-22-09
Rev. Douglas Taylor

Prologue:
Ok, usually the sermon title I publish in the Beacon is a good title that leads us right into the heart of my topic. Usually. Today’s title is so far off I will break rule #1 of public speaking by beginning the sermon with an apology. I thought a revised catechism would be interesting. As one who grew up Unitarian Universalist without the experience of catechisms, I though the Question and Answer style of theological exploration would be insightful. However, I have now looked at a few catechisms and detect a major flaw in the plan. A catechism’s purpose is to indoctrinate – to supply the exactly correct answers to pointed questions. That just is not our style. A Unitarian Universalist catechism of questions would have all the same answer: It depends. What is the nature of God? It depends. What is the purpose of humanity? It depends. A UU catechism would be filled with a lot of ‘yes and no,’ and ‘some see it this way, others see it that way.’ So I may someday take up the challenge of using a catechistic sermon style, today is not that day. Although what I will speak on is close enough.

The second and more important reason I am backing away from my title is that this is John Smigelski’s sermon. He was the top bidder at last year’s Dining for Dollars “Sermon Topic and Lunch” item. (The Dining for Dollars auction will be happening again this spring – see the bulletin board for more information or to sign up to offer an item.) So John and I had lunch. He told me about having learned about Jesus and the Bible through the Baltimore Catechism. John told me about how interested he was whenever I preached from the Bible because it tended to be rather different from what he’d been taught by the nuns as a youth. He wanted to learn more about the Bible, specifically about the stuff the nuns had not told him. Without further ado, I now step into what some consider to be a long, proud history of either biblical scholarship or biblical heresy, depending on who you ask.

Part 1: What the nuns probably did not tell you during catechism lessons.
Having grown up without hearing Biblical stories on a regular basis and, more importantly not hearing these stories interpreted for me on a regular basis, I have been curious about them since adulthood. Being more of a skeptic than a believer as a young adult I initially sought out the discrepancies and problematic passages. For example, Adam and Eve have two children initially: Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel and their parents have a third child, Seth. At this point, the total human population is still four. Then Cain and Seth each marry and have children. Where did their wives come from?

There are two accounts of creation. In one God creates humans after having created all the other creatures while in another God creates one man, followed by all the animals, birds and fish, and finally the second half of humanity: a woman. So which order is accurate? There are two versions of Noah loading the animals on the ark. In one there are two of every animal while in the other there are two of every unclean animal and seven of every clean animal (so Noah would have enough to sacrifice when the voyage was completed.) Why are there two different versions of what happened?

The Gospels are even worse in terms of internal consistency. In one Gospel shepherds visit the birth of Jesus while at another there appear wise men. In one version Jesus walks across the water, joining the disciples in the boat. In another version he walks past them and meets them on the shore. In yet a third version Jesus is joined by Peter and both of them walk on water before climbing into the boat. And the fourth gospel makes no mention of this at all. The Bible is full of small discrepancies like this.

Eventually I learned that the Bible was the product of many voices: many authors as well as many editors. The bible is not a single text, it is a compilation of several books written by many people over a quite a span of time. The different perspectives, the discrepancies, the occasional moments of contradiction are the product of bringing the multiplicity into a single unit. What we call the Bible was put together largely in response to the social and political pressures of the times. The Hebrew Scriptures as we know them today, what the Christians call the Old Testament and Jews call the Tanakh, was pulled together as a canon less than two hundred years Before the Common Era (B.C.E.). The New Testament was not finally solidified until sometime in the 300’s C.E.

Jesus and Paul referred to the scriptures, the sacred writings. For them this was the Torah and the Prophets. The version they used would likely have been something called the Septuagint, a famous Greek translation begun during the third century B.C.E. The legend is that a certain king asked 72 Jewish scholars, six from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, to translate the Hebrew text into Greek for the common people. This was soon after the conquests of Alexander the Great, so Greek was the common language of the people. An additional element to the legend has it that the 72 Jewish scholars took exactly 72 days to complete the translation of the Torah and that all 72 Greek translations were identical! It is more likely that the translation work went on for well over a hundred years before it was declared complete. The word “septuaginta” is Latin for 70. Why a Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures translated by 72 individuals would be known by the Latin word for 70 escapes me – but there it is. When the Gospel writer of Matthew quotes Isaiah, (Mt 1:23) he uses the phrasing from the Septuagint. When Paul invokes the Bible he is referring to the Septuagint.

The name of the first book of Hebrew Scriptures is the Greek word for ‘creation’: genesis. Likewise, exodus is Greek for ‘going out.’ So when Paul mentions ‘sacred writings’ to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15-16), he isreferring to the Law and the Prophets, not the Gospels because they had not been written yet. Following the death of Jesus, the first things considered to be ‘sacred writings’ by the early Christians would have been the letters of Paul. Within a few decades there were written accounts of Jesus’ life, teachings, and death; dozens of them in fact. And it is only over time that it was narrowed down to four.

And all of the New Testament Gospels, letters and such were written in Greek. And while Jesus and the apostles would have read their Greek translation of the Hebrew scripture, they spoke a Semitic language known as Aramaic. And we now read all of this in English. It has been said that to translate a poem into another language is to write a new poem. The work of translation has been a critical point of concern in Bible studies. Things can go afoul in translation and the scholars have worked hard to catch what they can. As with the King James Version of the English Bible, the Greek word Agape was translated several ways. Do any of you remember ‘faith, hope and charity?’ We now read it as ‘faith, hope and love.’ There is significant scholarship about the translation of a prophecy in Isaiah about a certain ‘virgin’ – or was it a ‘young woman’? One should always wonder about translations.

In a Paris hotel elevator the English sign reads: Please leave your values at the front desk. Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop a sign said: Ladies may have a fit upstairs. On the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it. And the sign in an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

It can be difficult to translate at times when you have a pair of words like “Now here” and “No where.” If I tell you in Aramaic “the Kingdom of God is now here!” and someone 30 years later writes this message down in Greek, and others copy the text over and over until a few hundred years later they are attempting to translate it into Latin and begin to wonder: did he say ‘nowhere’ or ‘now here’? A simple textual error can lead to significant theological differences.

Knowing about the culture in which the original words were spoken or the earliest text were first used will help clarify a lot. We don’t need a catechism telling us exactly what a scripture passage means. Learning about the original context, the way people understood the world, will help us learn to hear what is offered more clearly.

Part 2: Exploring a particular example.
One scripture passage I have explored several times in the past but have not yet used in a sermon is from Chapter 5 of Mark’s Gospel. (Mark 5:21-43) This is a passage you are not likely to hear from a UU pulpit because it is not about a parable. It is about a healing.

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’

“But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher any more?”

Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” ). Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat. (Mark 5:21-43)

This passage has always fascinated me. Not only for some of the little details that show up, like when the author has Jesus say the magic words “Talitha Koum,” which is simply a transliteration of the Aramaic for “Little Girl, arise.” But the whole event would have transpired in Aramaic and so all the quotes should be like that. Except the author is writing in Greek to Greek-speaking Christians which means the singling out of this phrase in Aramaic is the author’s attempt to add flair. But that is only one of the details that capture my interest, what really fascinates me is the juxtaposition of these two healing stories.

We are meant to connect them; two women seek healings, one who is twelve-years-old another who has a twelve-year hemorrhage. Yet the two are so different. One is an innocent child whose father, a temple leader, presents himself to Jesus in just the proper way asking for a healing for his child. The other is a woman who is ritually unclean, who sneaks up behind Jesus and steals a healing for her own. According to Jewish law a woman having her monthly menstrual flow was considered unclean. It was the height of medical knowledge at that time to know that blood could be contaminated, but there was no distinction beyond that. For example, the man left beaten and bleeding on the Jericho road was avoided by priests and temple leaders because he was bleeding. They didn’t want to catch anything! They were following their sacred laws concerning hygiene. But the Samaritan was good enough to stop and help. Jesus was good enough not to whirl around and say, “Eeww! That unclean woman just defiled me. I must go to the temple and cleanse myself. Meanwhile why don’t you all here stone her to death.” He could have done that. Instead he heals her and blesses her. Or, by some interpretations, she heals herself and he then blesses her. And the first thing he says to her is “daughter.”

Of course the delay costs the innocent daughter her life. But that is part of Jesus’ message, “I come for the sinner, not the saints” (Mark 2:17), the oppressed and dispossessed not the rich and powerful like Jairus and his daughter. But here is what I most love: Jesus does help Jairus’ daughter too. It’s like he is turning even his own rules upside down sometimes. The early Universalists would have found this to be an elegant message of God saving everyone, of Jesus’ love and care extending to both the powerful and the powerless. But without more of the context, the woman with the hemorrhage looks like a powerless peasant rather than a courageous woman who took control of the awful situation her culture dumped on her. When you re-read passages with women in them, keep your eyes open to the insidious interpretative overlay of submissive inferiority that is not really there in the text itself! Knowing the context of the text can free you.

There is a style of Bible study, I learned it as ‘the Wink method’ named after Bible scholar Walter Wink, whereby you look at a text and imagine yourself as one of the characters. Many people can imagine what it is like to be the long-suffering woman who has founded the courage within to tap into a healing power, many can identify with the distraught parent, or even the confused and slightly sarcastic apostles (what do you mean, somebody touched you? Everybody is touching you!) But this little girl who ‘sleeping’ and told to arise; all of us can identify with that. The Buddha wondered if we could wake from sleeping, when awake could we become awaker-still? Can we arise from what Thoreau called our “lives of quiet desperation”?

In leaping toward interpretations such as this, attempting to apply some lesson or perspective to your own life, it is helpful to have explored the original context, to hear old words in a new light. Knowing something about the Greek and the Aramaic context of these words will help. Knowing something about the sociological context of these stories will help. A richer connection to your personal deepening is possible. This is why I use a broad definition of scripture as not simple the official sacred writings of a religious tradition but as anything that offers you life-giving truth. This, I believe, is the power that can be found in any scripture – new understanding of how to live your life well.

In a world without end
May it be so.

As a Tool of the Sacred
3-15-09
Rev. Douglas Taylor

Have you ever tried to give money away? There are so many ways to do so, but I’m thinking particularly about the people who will secretly ‘play Santa’ around Christmas time by randomly handing a stranger a hundred bucks. I’m thinking about people who pay for the next three people in line behind them at the coffee stand or who slip a twenty under a random door at an apartment building. Random givers fascinate me. I understand the urge to give money to a homeless person on the street or to a charity that has mailed you a letter. Certainly giving gifts to loved ones makes sense. It is the urge to give money to the random stranger that interests me. Have you ever done it?

A few years back in The Sun Magazine there was a story about a young man, Poe Ballantine, who had developed a unique practice of giving money away. (September 2006, “God’s Day” by Poe Ballantine) He created for himself a holiday that included prayer, fasting, repentance, and the like. But it had no consumerism or Hallmark cards. He called it “God’s Day.” One aspect of “God’s Day” involved giving money away. “I always throw money away on God’s Day,” the author wrote, “walk with a twenty-dollar bill into the darkness and leave it somewhere.” Some year’s he will drop it over the fence of a house in disrepair or tuck it into the slates of a bench frequented by winos. Other times he will leave it in a particular book at the library like Charlie and Chocolate Factory. He experienced trouble the year he left it in the path of a particular homeless man, the year he shifted away from the fully random and tried to give to a particular person. The author watched as the homeless man walked past the twenty-dollar bill several times ignoring it. The young man had trouble sleeping that night, knowing the twenty was out there unclaimed.

In the morning he went by and saw it “still there,” he wrote, “bold and flagrant as a whore waving a handkerchief at a train.” He talked himself out of claiming it for himself (Oh, look, $20!). He almost blurted out the story to a neighbor who was complaining about a shortage of cash, but to do so felt wrong according to the rules he’d set up for “God’s Day.” It had to be found, not given. So it sat there half under a stone for four days untouched. He finally gave up a rescued the bill when it started snowing. It was day or two later that he eventually disposed of it in a church’s poor box, bringing the young man’s weeks-long “God’s Day” to an uneasy conclusion.

Why do people give money away like this? Most of us give money away as a form of supporting a relationship. There is often a connection between the giver and the receiver. Even when giving is anonymous, there is some connection: The young man in the story really wanted the twenty dollars to go to that particular homeless man and felt unsatisfied when he ended up giving the money to a church’s poor box where the money might go to help people such as the homeless man. The young man who authored this story has deep ambivalence about money and about faith.

Certainly the vast majority of Americans are ambivalent about money, and mixing money and faith is tricky. Colleague Dan Hotchkiss writes: “Money is a medium through which we act and are acted upon. A spiritual life that does not concern itself with money can have little effect on our daily lives.” (from Ministry and Money, p46) Both money and faith are seen as private. It is considered rude to probe too deeply into the faith or the finances of a friend. And even when there are natural points of connection between money and faith such as a congregation’s annual pledge drive, the conversations that arise are tricky.

For kicks, I went back to another sermon I delivered last year on a private and tricky subject: sex (Sex and Spirit, 5-4-08). I wanted to see if I could find a sentence about sex and spirit in which I could swap in the word “money.” Here is what I found: “[Money], when released of its shackles and allowed to be sacred, is natural, joyful, and beautiful – and indeed can be a path to grace, empowerment, and wholeness.” We keep bumping into the guilty section of our minds that tell us this or that is bad or dirty. Money is no more the root of evil then sex. Each, when viewed through the lens of faith, opens us up to the fullness of life. And yet we are constantly pushed to view both sex and money as things that are tainted, negative, something we must distance ourselves from if we are to live truly spiritual and blessed lives. But really it’s all in the way that we use it. The quote from the biblical letter from Timothy says that the love of money is the root of all evil. As one money-guru wrote, “Money itself isn’t our problem. Money itself isn’t bad of good. It is our interpretation of money, our interaction with it, where the real mischief is and where we find the real opportunity for self-discovery and personal transformation.” (from The Soul of Money, by Lynne Twist)

The problem is in the way that we use it. When I get anxious I hold tight to money, squeezing it with miserly fervor. But it isn’t long before I slip into the more normal state for me: denial. When I’m like this I’ll throw it around like I don’t care about it, like I don’t respect it, like I’m trying to get rid of it. Surely a healthy relationship with money is found between these two extremes. At my best I use my money to communicate to the world my values. At my best I use my money to bear witness to my values. At my best I let my faith make demands of my money.

From the first, this was the intent of money. Back when people used shells and stone disks, cattle, salt and feathers to do the work of money, what they were doing was using the tangible things to mark the divine meaning that actually happened in any transaction. Money began as a metaphor of divine valuation. The shells and stone disks did not matter; they merely represented the deeper reality. According to sociologists, early cultures needed these representatives of divine value “to bestow prestige, settle psychic or material debts, or placate enemies and so on.” (from Webster Kitchell Howell’s “Money” in The Abundance of Our Faith, p119) Over time, the tangible metaphors needed to hold common recognizable value across various cultures. And today we have metal coins and cloth bills which are steadily giving way to plastic cards.

What if we still used money with this original intent? As you handed coins and bills over to the cashier to buy a meal or as you swiped your debit card to purchase an outfit, can you imagine it as ‘divine communication’? As an expression of your deep values? Probably not. Most of the time when I use money it is for utterly mundane purposes. I actually tried to think like this over the past few weeks. Whenever I wrote a check to pay a bill or buy groceries, I thought: “divine communication – what am I saying about my values?” I would say to myself, “This is a sacred transaction.” Most of the time, it felt very silly. Our lives are so saturated with money that the use of it has grown meaningless.

Other times I would catch a hint of what I thought I should be finding. The check I write to pay for college classes or ice skating lessons for my children: I know that I am using my money to say something important. I am saying something to the teachers and to my children, and to myself. I am investing my money in my children as a demonstration of my values. When I paid for my membership to NPR or wrote a check toward my pledge to this congregation – it is easy to see that I am using my money to demonstrate my values. But when I actually had that thought in mind as I wrote the check it felt different. So I’m standing in the grocery store check-out about to swipe my card and I think, “This is a sacred transaction.” I have found that it really does sharpen the impact of your choices when you think of money this way.

Poet and Playwright Henrik Ibsen said, “Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.” Money is just a tool. What you do with it is the question worth asking. With the current economic troubles in the world, many people are prioritizing their spending. They are thinking about where there money goes more than they were in previous years. People are paying attention. I can only see that as a good thing for people. I believe we will discover this attention to priorities to have a positive impact on the congregation and on each of us individually. We may not end up with more money, but I think we will come through with a clear sense of financial priorities.

If you are new to this congregation or visiting, this may be the point when you zone out. I’ve given you plenty to think about for your own spiritual growth; now I’m going to talk about funding for the congregation. But, then again, perhaps if you are new or visiting it will interest you to hear that the annual stewardship campaign is an integral part of this congregation. Not because we need funding to meet a budget goal. No. This conversation is integral because of the way we are a faith community together. Every aspect of this congregation is in the hands of the members.

Last year I spoke about how different cultures and different faiths manage the work of funding their institutions. I didn’t script that sermon so I only have my memory. I suppose I could have watched the video recording, but I hate watching those. Anyway, my memory is that I spoke about the mandatory 10% religion tax that the German government collects to fund religious institutions. I spoke about the ‘orange aisle’ in the Thailand grocery stores so you would know what you can give to the begging monks in orange that come by your back door each day. I used a version of the quote, “democracy is the worst form of government except for all others,” saying that our pledge drive process is the worst way of funding a religious institution except for all the others. The institutional element of our congregation is the mere framework needed to hold the vibrancy at the heart of our congregation. The best part of this congregation has nothing to do with our financial records and is nowhere to be found on our budget sheets. The best part of our congregation in the care we give each other, the warmth we share. Our Small Group Ministry, our Social Justice work, our fellowship events, our Sunday school teachers, our potlucks, our forums and workshops – these cost us practically nothing in themselves. Yet they are created and supported by the institution that exists only because each year we fund it. And then, all the worship, the music, the Sunday School Curriculum, the staff – these are essential pieces that are exactly what we fund when we create our annual budget.

Budgets are moral documents. Each year this congregation makes choices about what it will fund and what it will not fund. Our budget is a reflection of our values and for the few years that I have been here I must tell you I have been proud of this congregation and of the choices we have made. I know that every year we begin our campaign with moderate to high hopes and a plan for fund our mission a few steps further than we currently are. And every year, so far, we have had to fall back from that plan, reformulate and create a budget that can still meet the needs and expand our mission in some ways. We give ourselves a hard time about that. Yet while it is always a little painful to do that, I tell you I am proud of us. Every year we demonstrate to our staff that we value them. We pay the staff of this congregation a decent wage recognizing the regular cost of living increases. Every year we fund our fair share support to our district and the association, which doesn’t sound exciting – but it is a big deal. And every year we fund the programming goals a little bit more. You should be proud of the budget you help shape each year. In June when it is time to vote on the budget I want you to look at it and say, “We created that. It is a sacred transaction, a divine communication of our values as a people.” Barack Obama, speaking recently about budgets and spending, said a budget is the “intersection of reflection and action” where “your good intention meets your respectful action” and “demonstrates how you are with others.”

I want to share with you a story I heard over the summer. (Rev. Alison Cornish told this story at UULTI 2008) There was a Unitarian Universalist congregation that launched a capital campaign – a major fundraising effort – that asked members to make a pledge that would be paid over several years. There was one member, an older woman, who was in a quandary. She wanted to support her congregation’s efforts, but she had few assets. She was retired, and lived on a small pension. Though her income was small, so were her needs and expenses. Problem was, there just wasn’t much left over for the church. She studied all her expenses, trying to decide what she might be able to do … and then she saw it. Every Friday, for most of her adult life, she had had her hair done at the beauty parlor. Just a trim and set – nothing fancy. It was her small luxury – her gift to herself. But after much thought – and no little anguish – she decided that, for now, she would care for her hair herself, and pledge the money she would have spent each Friday to the church. And so she did, letting her hair grow for the years of the capital campaign. No one had ever seen her with long hair, and they admired her new look when it grew in full and white and silky. The old woman actually enjoyed trying it in different styles, twisting it this way, curling it like that.

At the end of the campaign, she headed straight to her beauty parlor to have her hair cut in its old style again. When her hairdresser saw the woman’s long, beautiful hair, she tried to convince her to keep it – she told the old woman how lovely she looked. “No,” she said, “it was a nice change, but I’m ready to be my old self again. Cut it off.” But the hairdresser had still another idea – did the woman know that she could donate her hair to make a wig for someone going through chemotherapy, someone who had lost her own hair? Would she be willing to donate her long, white hair? The woman caught her breath – she had never thought of her hair as something someone else would want – or as something she could give away. And so she said yes. And after having her hair cut in its usual style, she walked out of the salon, and didn’t return again until her hair was once again long enough to donate for a wig for someone recovering from cancer.

May each of us here discover again and again the ways in which we can offer the sacred gifts that are ours to give. May we see that our money can be a tool of the sacred, communicating our values and our care to the world.

In a world without end
May it be so

Last Lecture (or Sermon)
Rev. Douglas Taylor
3-1-09

Part One: Exposition of the Theme

About a year and a half ago, Computer Science Professor and Unitarian Universalist Randy Pausch delivered his “Last Lecture” as part of the Carnegie Mellon “Last Lecture Series.” Respected academics are asked to reflect on their lives, to consider what matters most to them, and then to deliver a ‘final discourse,’ a Last Lecture. The concept was: If you had one last lecture to give before you died, what wisdom would you offer your students and colleagues? They re-titled the series “Journeys” but Randy brought the old name back and poignantly brought back that original concept. Randy had been diagnosed with cancer earlier that year and had months left to live. It really was his ‘last’ lecture.

Unitarian Universalist minister Forrest Church had developed esophageal cancer in 2006 and was given months to live. Church delivered his ‘Last Sermon’ and was blessed to offer reprise and encore sermons as his cancer went into remission. He retired from the position of Senior Minister at All Souls in New York City, and became their Minister of Public Theology. Now every time he enters the pulpit, which has been only a handful of times over the past year, every time is his ‘Last Sermon.’ For decades Forrest Church has been saying. “Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die.” That has been the Forrest Church quote, and now, now he not only says it – he lives it.

From time to time ministers and professors take up this hypothetical topic, occasionally it really is the last time. Country songs, bluegrass and old-timey music will venture into this realm as well. There has been a song on the radio “Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying.” The song tells of skydiving and bull riding, offering forgiveness and watching an eagle soar. There is a movie called “The Bucket List” that was quite good. The concept was based on the college assignment: make a list of things you want to do before you die, before you kick the bucket. What would you do? What advice would you impart to others? And if you were offered a chance to tell others about living and dying, what would you say?

I will answer the question myself, but I will also open our time up for any of you to offer your answer.

Part Two: My Last Sermon

If I were really facing one last chance to say something wise and important for you (and anyone who might find this talk later), I suppose it would center on this: Life is too serious to be taken so seriously. I once quipped at a minister’s meeting, “If we’re not having fun, why are we doing it?” In response, one of my colleagues suggested that this was surely my motto for ministry and for life. I’ve considered that. I’d meant it only as a joke, a flip response to whatever was under discussion at that moment; but in a way, Yes, that is my motto. If we’re not having fun, why are we doing it? Well, there could be many very good and important reasons to do something that is not fun. I’m not suggesting we stop doing things that are not fun, there are important things to do which we do because they must get done – not because they are fun. But then, couldn’t we add a little fun into it? I’m not recommending a personal hedonism to trump all else – simply the question: can we add some joy to the task? Can we have some light?

The light we can bring to the difficulties that surround is so valuable a contribution. My call for enjoyment amidst the travails of life is not simply caviler banter. Joy is a powerful agent for spiritual growth; and our capacity for joy is a sign of faith and maturity – both to find joy for ourselves and to offer joy to others. The rotten things in life do threaten to overwhelm; the news is filled with violence and fear, our lives are beset with loss and struggle. And yet there is beauty, and yet there is love. There is laughter and friendship and hope. We are more powerful and resilient then we usually give ourselves credit. And, interestingly, I suspect the root of this sort of strength and power lies not in having something or holding on to something. Instead this strength comes from learning to let go, from learning to open up and be vulnerable. This power and joy is borne of a certain form of forgiveness.

Recently during a conversation, someone commented that I was a forgiving person. I brushed the compliment off saying it came with the territory of being a minister. But in fairness, several people over the years have pointed out to me that I have a non-judgmental and forgiving character. I prefer to see it as being realistic. I feel it is important to have reasonable expectations of myself and others, and to balance those expectations with an appreciation that we are all bound to fail and make mistakes. Another friend once said, to make the point that I was the most non-judgmental person he knew, that if he ever ended up in prison he knew he could call me and I would not think less of him. And to flesh out the story, this friend is about the last person I would ever expect to end up in prison. I suppose I think of it theologically. As a Universalist I believe we are all loved and the power of that love is stronger than any mistakes we can make. This is a really good thing because we all make mistakes: big ones, little ones. We do it all the time.

This past week as we were beginning the Spirit of Life class I was trying to light the chalice. I was having trouble getting the candle to stay lit. After fumbling a few times, a good flame finally took. The next activity was to go around the circle and each say our name and identify a source of joy. Well, the first thought that came to my mind as I began this (my mind still on the fumbled candle lighting) was to say ‘I find joy in my mistakes.’ But that is not what I said out loud. For the group I named my children as a source of joy. This is certainly true (no mistake!); yet my first answer, though flip, holds a creative truth as well.

The mistakes you make count far less than the way you handle them. Do you wallow in them, do you let yourself be defeated by them, do you use them as an excuse to give up? Or you do get back up and begin again? Can you learn from your mistakes? If not, why bother having any! I think mistakes are valuable experiences. They remind us that we are not perfect.

The point of life is not to be perfect, it is not to be whole; the point is to shine your light through your brokenness. I offered a whole sermon on this point at the beginning of the year, but it bears repeating. Ease up, be more forgiving. And start with yourself. That part of the Great Commandment when it says to love your neighbor as yourself implies that must start with yourself. Your own mistakes, your own faults, sins, and failings, these are the cracks through which your compassion can shine. Be forgiving of yourself and begin to see a joy in your mistakes. They happen, you might as well enjoy them, learn from them, grow because of them. Be forgiving of yourself and begin to see how you can be forgiving of others. Begin to see the joy in other’s mistakes because you can take joy in your own. Some people take a perverse joy in the mistakes of others because it helps them to deny and disguise their own mistakes. I counsel the opposite: learn to laugh at your own broken self that you may help others learn to see and enjoy the same in themselves.

Now, the flip side of this is to not spend a lot of your time and energy on the negative things in life. What you pay attention to shapes your outlook of life. Pay attention to the good stuff, not dwelling on your mistakes. I’m not suggesting you spend a lot of time thinking about your mistakes. Instead, when you are faced with your faults and failures, find a way to learn from them, to forgive yourself of them, or to grow beyond them. Don’t dwell on them. Pay more attention to the good things in your life, seek out the good in yourself and in others. Pay more attention to the joy and the light.

So, there you go, that is my message: joy and forgiveness. Oh, also: tell your loved ones that you love them, use your life to bless others, and everyone should wear more purple.

In a world without end, may it be so

Creation Unfolding
Rev. Douglas Taylor
2-8-09

The part that really caught my attention was the idea that evolution is not a meaningless, blind process driven by chance and random happenstance. Because I was sitting in the room listening for the connections that where promised and that was one of them. The topic was ‘The Marriage of Science and Religion.” The speaker was Michael Dowd. He spoke here last summer. And one of the points of connection he offered around the marriage of science and religion was that evolution is not a meaningless, blind process driven by chance and random happenstance; which flies in the face of our conventional understanding of evolution.

Religion is the arena of meaning and the purposefulness of existence. Religion offers us why while science sticks to the realm of how. Right? Science asking questions of what and how, religion asking questions of why and what for; together they lead us into deeper understanding of nature and human nature.  Most of the work of bringing them together lies in not confusing them. Don’t look to religion to find out how old the earth is or how to cure disease. Don’t ask science to explain suffering or hope or the mystery of existence.  Science and religion are two tools for discovering truth. But they are used for different kinds of truth. If you want to cut a piece of wood, the tool you choose should not be a fishing net. If you want to write a love letter, don’t use a hammer. Different tools accomplish different tasks. Science and religion are two tools for discovering truth, best not mix them up. Right?

So, when someone comes along suggesting we not exactly mix them up so much as to mix them together, well it peaks the interest.

The part that really caught my attention, as I said, was this notion of directionality – that evolution holds an implication of purpose. All along, Darwin and other scientists have claimed evolution rests on random chance of mutation to make the next step. Science offered no concept that the change that has occurred through the random mutation could be considered progressive, that there is a direction. It has always been religion that says life is the way it is on purpose and is moving forward according to plan. God had this plan and created the tongue of the anteater to fit down the ant hill, the beak of the hummingbird to fit into the depths of the flower, the slight S curve of the human spine to facilitate an upright position, the hollow bones of a bird to aid in flight. It’s all part of the plan, part of the design. And then along comes Darwin debunking ‘design.’

His theory of Natural Selection describes the mechanism for adaptation among species. Darwin’s grand contribution to science and the theory of evolution is the articulation of the process of natural selection. And what are selected are mutations that happen randomly; by definition, mutations are accidents. Life evolves by accident, evolutionary science tells us. Yet religion offers a plan for life. Choose between the two, you can’t have both. Either it is by plan as Religion tells us, or by happenstance as science offers. Choose.

Into this milieu comes the foray of Michael Dowd and others who choose a third path. In his recent book Thank God for Evolution, Dowd writes this about randomness vs. directionality:

“Stephen Jay Gould popularized an understanding of evolution that focused on the roll of randomness and chance. “Rewind the tape” of evolution, he would say, and imagine the whole process unfolding from the start once again: everything would be different. At one level, this interpretation is indisputably true: the species would surely be different: there would be no white oak, no gray whale, no emu. But at another level, the level that matters most to me and surely many others, the central issue is whether there would be eyes to see, whether there would be trees reaching into the sky, whether there would be creatures scampering on land, flying through the air, and perhaps swimming in the sea but needing to surface for air. We wonder, too, whether there would be a form like us, who would come to know and celebrate the 14-billion-year story of the Universe. I am convinced that the best answer is an unqualified Yes!”
(Michael Dowd, Thank God for Evolution p 31)

I’ll be specific with an example Dowd offers against the idea that evolution is a meaningless, blind process driven by chance and random happenstance. If you have ever followed the debates against the randomness of evolution by the creationists and the proponents of Intelligent Design you will be aware of the argument of Irreducible Complexity. Look at the eye, they say, or the wing. For the eye or wing to evolve by a random series of mutations is neigh on inconceivable. It’s mindboggling. For there to be a workable eye or wing, there must be some hundred or so mutations occurring all at once, half an eye doesn’t work. Half a wing is less than helpful, it is a dramatic hindrance. It must be the whole wing. And, then for the Natural Selection portion of it to work, there also has to be another member of the species of the opposite sex who has the same hundred or so mutations occurring simultaneously; and then these two need to find one another and mate for the mutation to be naturally selected. It is something like the monkey’s typing scenario. Yes, eventually – given enough time – a thousand monkeys will randomly type out a Shakespeare play, but one computation has the probability at one in a billion billion years. And if the Big Bang theory of the Universe is even remotely correct, the time span we’re talking about for quote “all of time” is a mere 14 billion years, and less than 4 billion for quote “life as we know it.”

And yet we have eyes. We have eyes like a squid’s, but our eyes are very different from an insect’s eyes which are more like those of a lobster’s. And the pinhole eye of a nautilus and the eye of the snail are each wildly distinct from our eyes. And yet, the universe has again and again produced simple photoreceptors capable of distinguishing between light and dark, and more complex organs able to sense shape, color, and texture. Again and again: eyes. Not once, but at least a dozen different times the evolutionary leap of eyes has happened. As Dowd says, “Surely the Universe was determined to see itself!” (p31)

So, what exactly is being suggested here? That the Intelligent Design people re scientifically right? Is Dowd suggesting that he and other noted scientists, theorists, biologists, and philosophers like John Stewart, Richard Dawkins, E. O. Wilson, Simon Conway Morris, David Sloan Wilson, and Ken Wilber, are conceding the debate to the Intelligent Design folks. No. Instead they are acknowledging compelling evidence that evolution has something of a trajectory. Something other than chance is at play. But saying that ‘chance’ does not explain everything is a far cry from saying that the description of events in Genesis will fill in all the blanks. No, what is being suggested is not a concession to the Creationists. But there is a clear claim that evolution is not as random as was once believed. There is a pattern or series of patterns that suggest a direction, a general trajectory. No one is claiming that the pattern is pure progress. It has been said that evolution meanders more than it progresses. Progress carries the tone that every step is a step forward, an improvement. But over the long haul there are clear indications of increased differentiation and depth, greater complexity and integration.

Ken Wilber writes, in A Brief History of Everything, “Evolution has a direction, yes, a principle of order out of chaos, as it is commonly phrased. In other words, a drive toward greater depth.” (p36) Progressive evolution, as Wilber is advocating here, is an idea that takes Darwin’s theories to the next, more complicated and creative level. Not all evolutionary scientists support this idea. This notion of ‘progressive evolution’ is in open debate among scientists today. It has been said that Darwin’s great contribution was not the idea of evolution so much to identify the process by which evolution happens: natural selection. This week marks the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth. It is a fitting occasion to recognize his monumental impact on our understanding of life. Darwin demonstrated that from this process, natural selection, the natural and inevitable result was evolution. Centuries before Darwin, people saw patterns, relationships that suggested something like evolution. An analogy that helps clarify this is from John Stewarts’s book Evolution’s Arrow in which he writes (p9) “Like patterns of stars in the night sky that resemble shapes significant to humans, the consistencies could be dismissed as the product of creative imagination, not the result of real, causal relationships.” But it was Darwin who supplied the mechanism. Before Darwin, people noticed the patterns and wondered. Now we see the same patterns and recognize the causal relationship of common ancestry and natural selection. Thus the analogous question arises today: what would be the mechanism for the pattern that appears to be an evolutionary trajectory?

If evolution has a drive for greater complexity and creativity, depth and differentiation, then what is that drive? Well, it is something as simple as Natural Selection. It is Cooperation. Evolution organized molecules into cells and cells into organisms and organisms into societies. The model is exemplified by a single cell bacteria merging with another single cell bacteria to form the first Eukaryotic cells. This evolutionary innovation of cooperation opened the door for all multi-cellular organisms. Science says “cooperate!” But isn’t that religion’s line? “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” or to paraphrase: ‘help one another.’

The next question would have to be ‘why?’ Why would any single organism cooperate with another? Well, for religion, the reason is because the book says so, or better, because my heart knows it is the right thing to do. Neither of those answers will serve for science though. So, scientifically, why would any single, Self-interested organism cooperate with another? Stewart tackles that question early in his book.
“How can evolution progress by exploiting these benefits of cooperation when, as Richard Dawkins and others have shown so clearly (in books like The Selfish Gene), evolution favors organisms that put their own selfish interests above all else? We will see that there is a solution to this apparent paradox: cooperation can flourish without organisms giving up their self-interest. Organisms can be organized so that beneficial cooperation is also consistent with their self-interests. When organisms are organized in this way, it is in their self-interest to be cooperative.” (Stewart, John Evolutions Arrow p10)

Cooperation is the root of the argument for the trajectory of evolution. Organisms who cooperate will out-compete those who do not! Cooperation is in an organism’s best interest. Evolution moves toward greater cooperation and thus greater depth and complexity, integration and differentiation. Now, from what I can understand, this is not necessarily a happy consensual agreement as we think of ‘cooperation’ today. The general theory of the development of that first Eukaryotic cell includes the notion that the oxygen-related mitochondria was originally a parasite; and similarly, the precursor to the photosynthesis structures in plant cells was originally ingested as food but was thankfully resistant to the digestive juices. (from Dowd, p36) Yet, that cooperation led to the dramatic innovations allowing life to evolve to such depths of creativity and complexity.

And thinking about this beyond the disciple of biology, (in case you are completely lost by all this biology,) the concept of society is rooted in the notion that we can evolve greater complexity when we cooperate. Our modern society is nothing if not a study in increased complexity in terms of technology, economy, politics, relationships, and entertainment. But much of that complexity is a product of societal cooperation: a commitment to the concept of the commons. Indeed one of the strongest religious critiques against society now is the insufficient respect for the potential benefit of cooperation. If our laws would actually punish greed rather than reward it we might find some of our best and brightest working to make the world a better place rather than just getting as big a piece of it as possible for themselves. But our society is far more reliant on cooperation than our news headlines would suggest. I’m guessing every one here has access to a pen. How much did you do independently to get that pen? Aside from the invention and innovation and improvement of design and style over the years, your particular pen was crafted by a machine, quite likely. But who built that machine? Who cleans the pen-making machine? Who packaged your pen and who delivered it to the store where you bought it? Who stood behind the counter and rang up the price of the pen? Who determined what the pen would cost? It’s endless.

And all that cooperation was not in the form of some altruistic effort to get you your pen. At each step the goal was more self-interest than a passionate effort to further the cooperative aspect of human evolution. Consider any aspect of your life. You would not exist if not for cooperation. And we lift up individuals as inventors, heroes, presidents, ministers, scientists, athletes, CEOs as if we’re going to get anywhere by having a single person do something wonderful on behalf of everyone else – when on the grand scale it is quite the opposite: countless numbers do countless little things leading up to a benefit for you as an individual. What would we be if self-interest was the only consideration? But when the self-interest is lined up along side cooperation for the community then all manor of creative and complex possibilities arise.

This easily leads into theological reflection around the nature of the universe and our place in it. Our existence is interconnected with all that is. Scientifically and theologically, we are radically connected to one another. And when we realize this truth and act in accordance with its implications we open ourselves up to the furtherance of not only our own spiritual and personal growth and deepening, we also line ourselves up as one more aspect of creation unfolding into the new day. And that is both a heady and humbling notion: we may be at a point in this evolutionary venture of life where with care and cooperation we can catch a glimpse of where we are headed in the broad view of life unfolding.

In a world without end,
May it be so.