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Message 135, Great Spiritual Moments in American History: July 4, 1776

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

To download and listen to the message, click here:

Alexis de Toqueville, the early nineteenth century French historian who remarkably chronicled American culture and politics in his classic work Democracy in America, wrote that unlike in Europe, Christianity was destined to play a pivotal role in our nation’s development.  In the U.S., Christianity was not tied to ancient ideas like the divine right of kings or Priests and Popes exercising political power.  However, as de Toqueville noted, even as our constitution forbade state support of any particular religion, Christianity strongly influenced American life.  Indeed, some sociologists have proposed that the so-called American creed has, in fact, become a de facto national religion where our country is seen as the Biblical shining city on a hill – ordained by God to be one to which all other nations look.

Americans routinely invoke God’s blessing upon the nation, our currency places our trust in God, the President is seen as a national Pastor, our flag is worshipped as a symbol much like the Cross and we pledge our fidelity to this one nation under God.

Not surprisingly, far too many Christians have conflated their religion with the civil and political affairs of America.  George Washington is our Moses, Abraham Lincoln our Jesus and the constitution our Bible.  Our laws derive from the Ten Commandments and they must continue to be based upon them.

Arguing against this theological view of America are many secularists who assert that the founders never intended our nation to be identified with one particular religion.  Indeed, they actively worked against such a notion.  These critics of an American creed or religion, however, often assume there is no spiritual heritage in our history and overlook the very real spiritual events and thought streams in our nation’s history – ideas that are profound in their concern for the welfare of not just Americans, but of all humanity.

My series this month of July will look at particular events in our history that are deeply spiritual – ones that invoke not a specific theistic God or savior but ones that clearly call on the principles of a universal higher power that knows no nationality, race, religion or ethnicity.  I hope to explore with you ideas that suggest that America, despite its many imperfections and hypocrisies, has continually tried to discover and advance rights and privileges that are creator given to all people.  Our history, therefore, can be seen in such a light – not as a jingoistic story of American greatness but as an evolving effort to advance humanity as a whole.

Sitting at a small wooden writing desk in a cramped, fly infested Philadelphia apartment,  Thomas Jefferson wrote the seminal document in American history and one of the most important in all history.  The Declaration of Independence was intended, however, to be an eighteenth century version of a press release.  It announced the specific reasons for the colonists’ rebellion and separation from England.  Beyond its more mundane list of grievances – like anger at British denial of colonial free trade or the stationing of armed troops in the colonies – Jefferson grounded arguments for rebellion on high minded ideals.  His preamble contains some of the most quoted words in our history and the best known sentence in the English language.

Jefferson boldly asserts Enlightenment ideals that speak to the universal and eternal rights of humanity – ones that most philosophers of the time believed came from nature itself.  Not only that, his appeal begins with a firmly rooted notion that all of us are born of the same creative force.  Implicitly, Jefferson’s use of the words “Laws of Nature” and “Nature’s God” bestows on humanity both a common heritage and a common right to the privileges of mere existence.  These are not subtle Christian words.  They were and are words that transcend religion and politics.  They are words and rights that harken to the earliest days of existence – mysteries that resemble scientific laws but which are profoundly deeper and beyond physical proof.  Such natural rights simply are.

Like all Deists, however, Jefferson invoked human reason as the way to determine our natural rights.  Far from being a Christian statement of belief in a supernatural deity, Jefferson plainly states the universally spiritual view that humanity is an intrinsic part of the natural world.  We are not only a part of that world, we are subject to its laws.  And such laws, the Laws of Nature as Jefferson called them, are eternal and immutable ones that philosophers from Aristotle to Cicero to John Locke have attempted to define.  Jefferson relied upon the thinking of all three men.  The Laws of Nature for them were not only scientific laws, but also ones that are immanent and transcendent.  These laws are discovered and observed and are NOT of human creation.

As Jefferson eloquently wrote, Natural Law and Nature’s God grants humans intrinsic, immutable and unalienable rights.  God did not give such rights.  A King did not give such rights.  No Parliament or other group of humans granted such rights.  The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God – however we define them – granted those rights to the first humans, to the colonists of 1776, to each of us, and to future humans exploring far flung galaxies.  They are implicitly timeless.

And chief among such rights is the idea that nature creates without favoritism.  Reason alone suggests this truth.  We are born equal in our humanity, our fallibility, our mortality and our common privilege to life.  The random birth of one destined to be King grants him or her no greater status in the realm of existence than a farmer or laborer.  Each will live and die and each must be accorded the dignity that comes from simply being human.

If nature has given us life, than by reason and logic we have the sole unalienable right to it.  Such is a monumental but fundamental spiritual right for all people – one which we too often take for granted but which is foundational for all other rights.  If we have the right to our own existence, than nobody may own our bodies, our labor or our thoughts.  Nobody may legitimately kill us and nobody may limit our life in any way that is not subject to our consent.

And if we own our very lives, then by extension we own the freedom to live it as we choose.  Reason and logic tell us that natural law grants us absolute liberty to pursue our dreams, thoughts, hopes and abilities.  No King, no slaveholder, no religion and, indeed, no government may infringe upon the right of liberty without just cause to which we have consented.

And if we have – following the progression of logic from the rights of life to the rights of liberty, then we implicitly have the right, as Jefferson asserts, to the right to pursue happiness.  Such rights to happiness are not blank checks, however, for hedonism.

Jefferson was expressing centuries old philosophies revived during the Enlightenment that natural law designed humans to be social creatures.  We are not loners who act and live unto ourselves.

Since that is so, natural law compels us to use our reasoning abilities to best determine how to live peaceably with others since we cannot survive alone.  The pursuit of happiness for Jefferson meant that humans must increase the common good of all people so that the individual may then be happy.  This mutual cooperation, one I have before referred to as the moral imagination that guides our existence, is the only way by which humans experience lasting happiness.  In other words, for Jefferson and others, the right to pursue happiness is a spiritual and cooperative right – one that demands my concern for your well being in order to realize my own.

And it is for that reason that Jefferson asserted this unique right.  Others, like Locke, had asserted the rights to life, liberty and property.  But Jefferson clearly understood that we must be allowed to mutually secure the common well-being if we are to pursue happiness – including the ownership of property.  If we fail to secure the common well-being, or if one person or group of persons prevents the common well-being, than the pursuit of happiness for everyone is also prevented. The Laws of Nature are defied.

It is in many ways ironic that Thomas Jefferson wrote such a spiritual and moral document.  Like many of us, he was all too human.  While he stated a belief in the duty to work for the common good, he often acted in ways that were selfish.  He spent his life in debt due to lavish personal indulgences.  And, as one who penned the famous words that all men are created equal, he owned many African slaves, treated them as his personal property and abused them to the extent that he used at least one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, as his concubine.  Her six children, all believed to have been fathered by Jefferson, were also held by him as slaves.  Most other founders were no better and few objected to the flagrant assertion of the equality of all people while living in a land that sanctioned racial slavery.

Despite that overt hypocrisy, inconsistencies which were noted by members of the British Parliament, the document is not diminished in its moral or spiritual power.  Indeed, Abraham Lincoln said that Jefferson’s words are timeless – words that will echo through the ages as the voice of our human conscience demanding a more perfect world.  As Lincoln said of the Declaration, it is a “standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.”

Lincoln clearly understood the Declaration’s eternal significance as an implicitly moral statement for all social movements – past, present and future.

In that regard, the Declaration has the moral and spiritual force of the words of Jesus, Gandhi, Mandela and other prophets. Rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness demand the logical complimentary rights to affordable health care, food, shelter and basic well-being.  It is a simple but too often overlooked fact that people cannot enjoy the natural rights of life and liberty unless they have the basic means to experience them.  Is one born truly free if one is born into poverty?  Is one born equal if one has little or no opportunity to improve, learn and grow?  Can one pursue happiness if he or she is denied the equal right to love and marry whomever one wishes?  Can one find happiness if the reality of racism and sexism still exist?  Natural Law does not insure an equality of outcomes, however.  Nature has determined that life is not and never will be fair.  But Natural Law implicitly demands an  equality of opportunity to all and that can only be realized by access to decent food, shelter, education, justice and healthcare.

Whatever force that created the universe and the human species – whether it be the Big Bang, evolution, God, Yahweh, Allah or all of the above – that force granted rights and privileges by the mere fact of initiating human life.  I exist.  Because I exist, I exist with dignity.  As a person with intrinsic dignity, I have the right to freely determine how I live and to live in a way that builds peace and happiness for society and myself.

These are the plaintive demands of medieval indentured servants, of African slaves, of persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, of women, of children, of the disabled, the poor, the sick, of gays and lesbians, of marginalized people everywhere.

Such truths of natural law and Nature’s God are self-evident not because they are derived from a theistic God – as many American Christians might assert – but because they emanate from nature, as Jefferson wrote.  However we might define nature, it is not something subject to definition by the Bible or any other Scripture.  Nature and its laws are vast, expansive, and mysterious but subject to laws that reason permits us to discover – laws such as gravity, thermodynamics, the evolution of species and interactive behaviors between humans.  These natural laws can be observed, predicted and explained.  Nevertheless, they are deeply spiritual in their mysterious origin, their timeless truth and their universality.

As a Deist who believed in a creator god of some unknown type but one who does not interfere in the affairs of the universe, Jefferson worshipped a natural and reason based system that was far removed from the pages of the Bible.  As he once said, “Question with boldness the existence of God, because if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”  He believed only in the ethics of Jesus as he is famous for rewriting the Gospels to exclude all supernatural claims and acts of Jesus.  Nature’s God, as stated in the Declaration, is not the God of Abraham, Moses, or Christ.  Nature’s God, like natural law, is far more complex and, in many ways, appropriately not fully known.

The Declaration of Independence is one of the greatest documents of all time precisely because it is not a narrowly focused political or religious document.  It follows in a long history of spiritual statements about the worth of all persons.  It echoes the fundamental reason why churches like the Gathering exist and why we exist as individuals: we work and advocate for a more perfect world of equality, freedom and universal happiness.

Our calling, therefore, is to reject appeals to an American civic Christianity or religion that seeks to rewrite the history of 1776.  But, we are equally advised to embrace the clear spiritual words and ideas in the Declaration of Independence.  In its own way, it is a profoundly holy document.  We must treat it and honor it in that spiritual light.

 

The below audio file contains the entire one hour celebration service.  It is a large file and may take a while to download.

Featuring: Ron Jandacek, Jack Brennan, Jenn Hackman, Rev. Steve Van Kuiken, Nada Huron, Sue Cline, James Helm, Dick Buchholz, Pastor Doug Slagle and the Gathering Choir…

 

Message 133, “The Gathering at a Crossroads: What Does It Mean to Serve?”, 6-16-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

To download and listen to the message, click here:

 

 

 

 

There are many famous speeches given by Martin Luther King, Jr.  One that stands out is a sermon given near the end of his life entitled “The Drum Major”.  In it, King used as the illustration for his message an episode described in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus is talking with his disciples.  Two of them, John and James, get into a debate over which of them would sit at Jesus’ right hand once he became King.

The book of Mark is often considered the most accurate of the four Gospels.  It was the first and earliest to be written, there is no narrative of the miraculous virgin birth and a vital portion of the last chapter, number 16, detailing Jesus’ bodily resurrection, is widely considered by almost all scholars to have been appended to the text many years after the original.  Such a fact calls into question the veracity of the resurrection but it also highlights the probable truth of the rest of Mark.

The account of James and John arguing over who would be the right hand man to Jesus is therefore likely to be a true story.  They were not debating over who would sit next to Jesus in heaven but rather who would would be his most trusted adviser when he became King of the Jews – a David like figure that many followers of Jesus hoped he would become.  Indeed, few contemporaries of Jesus saw him as a supernatural Messiah.  He was instead the hoped for great leader who would rally Jews to defeat the Romans and re-establish the powerful nation of Israel.

As King told this story in his 1968 sermon, the disciples of Jesus did not get it.  They were as blind as many people were to the essential message and purpose of Jesus.  As Jesus himself said, he acted as a teacher and rabbi not to be waited on, and fawned over, and treated like an indulgent celebrity, but instead to serve others and to be an example of the true heart of God.  Indeed, in the Bible story recounted by Martin Luther King, Jesus tells his disciples that his mission was not to be an earthly King with great power.  Rather, he envisioned a more transcendent Kingdom – a Kingdom of the heart where ethics of compassionate service, humility and forgiveness ruled the day instead of religious hypocrisy and false piety.  No matter who would sit at his right hand and thus enjoy that dubious status, Jesus pointedly reminded his followers, and Martin Luther King was implicitly saying the same to his followers, that the greatest of people are not Princes, Army Generals or muti-millionaires, they are lowly servants.  Those who are great, serve others.  Those who are great, are humble.  Those who are great, put others first.  Those who are great empower not themselves, but other people.

King implored his listeners at the Ebeneezer Baptist Church to work against the all too human impulse to be a drum major.  All people, he said, crave attention, praise, power and status.  We seek such things, he said, in the cars we drive, the houses we live in, and the ways we treat other people.  Racism is the result of the drum major syndrome, he said.   One group of people seeks to assert itself and act superior to others based on skin color.  War is also the result of the drum major syndrome as nations brutally seek domination over weaker ones.  King pointed to the example of America’s war in Viet Nam as our own national drum major attitude of arrogance.  Great people seek not to be the first among races or the first among nations.  They seek to be first in love.  First in generosity.  First in serving others.

I find it fascinating that one great prophet of history, Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about the example of another great prophet – Jesus.  Both led non-violent movements against the oppressors of their day while calling people to radical compassion, humility, gentleness and the moral standard of decency and justice for all people.  Both died for the sake of their cause.

King looked not only to Jesus as an example but also to Mohandas Gandhi – another prophet for the ages.   Gandhi was born with a servant’s heart.  His passion in life was to serve the poor by teaching them the means to self-sufficiency.  When granted great power because of his large following, he gave it up to others – preferring to cede the limelight and instead lead a life of profound simplicity.  All three men – Jesus, Gandhi, and King – rose to historic greatness not because of their strength, their cunning or their physical power, but because they nurtured and empowered other people.  They were classic servant leaders.  Jesus washed the feet of his followers, Gandhi offered his life as an example of how to live simply and justly, King surrounded himself with other intelligent people to whom he gave power and responsibility so that the Civil Rights movement would endure without him.  As much as they taught about the ethic of serving others, they lived it out.

Indeed, looking at all of the prophets depicted in the painting behind me, they each have one thing in common.  They were first and foremost servants.  As Martin Luther King said in his “Drum Major” sermon, “Everybody can be great.  Because anybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.  You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.”

As we reflect on our ten year birthday as a congregation this month, we have rightly acknowledged our primary purpose and reason for existence is to seek inner growth in ourselves so we can go out and serve others.  Our ultimate reason for existence is not to sit here and enjoy our cozy club of friends, it is to serve.  Many of you, during our discussion time after last week’s message on what it means to grow, suggested new ways we can serve others.  I applaud those thoughts as I am heartened by this congregation’s hunger to serve.

In order to serve others, my message last week on the importance of growth and my message this week on the importance of service to others, are intrinsically tied together.  We cannot continue to serve others unless we grow.  We cannot grow unless we each serve.  While it is comfortable to remain who, what and where we are today, that is not and never has been our purpose.   As much as it would be easy for me to find comfort in our status quo and simply coast along, I am not satisfied with where we are today.  I hope none of you are either.  We are a progressive church.  We have so much more to do and so many more places to go.

Jesus did not tell his twelve disciples to join him in a small club and retreat from the world.  He expanded his following to include and serve women, the disabled, non-Jews and many others.  Thousands eventually followed him.  Gandhi was not content to practice non-violence and simplicity on his small ashram farm in South Africa.  He moved back to India precisely to expand the number of people he could reach by empowering them to self-sufficiency while demanding their rights.  Martin Luther King did not limit his protest march to Birmingham or his bus boycott to Selma.  He empowered our entire nation to enter an era of greater justice.  This congregation was not content, at its beginning, to closet itself in a small huddle around its rejected leader.  It incorporated itself as a church, opened itself to the wider community and moved to a new space that brought many new members – myself included.  Such acts were undertaken as a mission to serve as many people as possible.  We must never forget that mission.

All servant prophets have a moral vision.   They refuse to retreat to the comfort of their small clan.  They are not visionaries of growth as a means to power, prestige and wealth.  They are visionaries of growth in order to serve – to expand their compassion and their moral ethics of justice to as many people as possible……..precisely because they are SERVANTS.  As Martin Luther King said in another speech of his, “Life’s most urgent and persistent question is: what are you doing for others?”

As the Gathering embarks on its next decade, we must emerge from a decade of formation into a teenage time of growth in wisdom, maturity and greater service.  Our mission to be a progressive servant leader in this community calls us to actually get out there and serve – to be the hands and feet of compassion to homeless and impoverished youth.

To be a servant leader in our community, our call is to remain humble in who and what we are.  Our vision is not to seek beautiful and elaborate buildings or large, applauding crowds of people.  We know our limits while also acknowledging we have wisdom and insight.  We have a progressive, non-religious message of spirituality that is important in a world where fundamentalism hurts so many.  Our call is to humbly offer our message to as many people as possible.

We will be servant leaders by living true to our ideals.  By understanding that ethics like forgiveness and non-violence are essential qualities in any human, our work is to practice them toward one another and toward the wider world.  This involves listening to other opinions, refusing to engage in angry or hate filled speech and remaining respectful of all opinions – political, faith based or otherwise.  As individuals and as a congregation, we will act and speak with peace.  We will model to others, as a means to serve them, the way of tolerance, respect and peace – even for those with whom we disagree.

We will be servant leaders through collaboration between ourselves and with other people and organizations in the community.  Far from believing we have all the answers or all knowledge, our goal is to work with others in ways that leverage the abilities of many.  We will hlep empower others to find meaning and purpose in life by serving and coordinating outreach to the poor, hungry and homeless.  We will empower people in ways to facilitate, lead, innovate and create.  We will help empower homeless children and youth in our community to break the cycle of poverty – to learn, work, grow and achieve self-sufficiency.

We will be servant leaders by our celebration of all people.  We will embrace diversity as a way to serve a community of many cultures, races and sexualities.  We will serve our world by welcoming the unique contributions and differences of any and all people.

Finally, we will be servant leaders by our emphasis on the spiritual nature of servitude.  We are all interconnected in the grand design of life.  What affects others, affects us too.  We serve not just to benefit one child or even a few.  We serve to touch the future of all life – us, our children, the strangers outside these doors.

The topic of this message asks what does it mean to serve?  For any of us, serving defines our very reason for existence.  Church is not a social club that offers a brief but nice Sunday interlude.  From the simple to the extraordinary, we touch other lives.  From making a pot of coffee, to holding the hand of one who is sick, to greeting another with a smile, to cleaning a bathroom, to feeding the homeless, to offering soothing music, we sublimate our needs, our wants, our comfort for the sake of another.  We sacrifice.  We give.  That’s our calling.  That’s our duty.  That is the only way we will survive and the only way we will grow.

Only thirty-four days before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “Drum Major” sermon.  At its close, he spoke poignantly of what he wanted said at his funeral.  He did not want to be known as a Nobel Peace Prize winner.  He did not want to be known as a leader of a movement.  He did not want to be known as a speaker or a drum major of anything.  He wanted it simply said that he fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the imprisoned, and cared for all humanity.  He wanted it known that he was first and foremost a servant.

My friends, let that be said of any one of us.  That we were a servant.  That we served above and beyond ourselves.  That we served with our love, our humility, our generosity, and our passion to learn and grow so we can serve even more.  For each of us, and especially for this place called the Gathering, we live to serve……………….and we serve to live.

I wish you all much peace and joy.

 

 

 

 

Message 132, “The Gathering at a Crossroads: What Does It Mean to Grow?”

© Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

To download and listen to the message, please click here:

 

Recently, when a reporter noted that the currently popular singer Britney Spears had experienced some significant improvements in her bustline, the thirty year old celebrity quickly protested.  “I have not had breast implants.  I have merely undergone a growth spurt!”

As ironic as it might sound, Britney speaks to a larger question we each face.  How much do we change due to external influences that artificially cause us to enlarge, and how much do we instead initiate a process of deliberate and planned inner growth of the mind and soul?  In other words, do we simply change, or do we actually grow?

As we all know, change is inevitable.  Importantly, however, change is not necessarily growth.  When we grow, we qualitatively improve for the better.  We’ve learned something valuable.  We’ve gained wisdom, hard won experience and expansion that is good and helpful.  Growth is almost always intentional.  Indeed, growth is a process that should never end.  The status quo is not an option.  In a world that is rapidly changing, we can either grow or fall steadily behind.  By failing to plan our own growth, we have paradoxically planned for our failure.  We will change, but it will not be for our good.

As the Gathering nears its ten year birthday, we have a justifiable reason to celebrate.  Very few churches of our size last more than a few years.  More importantly, very few churches that begin from nothing reach a point where we find ourselves today – a congregation that attracts new members, is consistently able to meet an annual budget of $50,000, and is actively serving and changing lives for the better.  Henry Ward Beecher once said that, “We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but rather by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.”  By that measure, the Gathering has grown substantially.

Birthdays that matter, however, look not so much to the past but rather to the future.  Holidays and anniversaries clearly celebrate what has already happened, but they importantly look forward to the “yet to be.”  What comes next?  How do we build upon the past?  What can we do to insure continued birthday celebrations far into the future?  Ultimately, how do we continue to grow and what strategies must we commit ourselves so that change is not forced upon us?   How do we, instead, embrace growth that is planned and derives from our inner values and beliefs?

I would be seriously remiss as a Pastor if I did not encourage growth in every one of us.  I would also be guilty of malpractice if I did not promote our growth as an organization and community.  Whenever I depart my position here, I pray that any legacy I leave behind will be one of positive and planned growth.  And I don’t hope for modest growth at our  margins.  I hope for real, durable and significant change for the better in you, in me and in the Gathering.  What I most pray for is that the amorphous thing we call the Gathering will be firmly on a path to long term survival and impact.  I pray for a progressive faith community that endures far into the future and one that nourishes and serves the needs of our grandchildren’s generation – a faith alternative to dogmatic and harmful religion.  As I often like to repeat, we give and serve today for the sake of others – both present and future.

But, as much as we serve others, we indirectly give to ourselves.  By planning to grow, we also serve our values and our purpose for living.  The Gathering has helped me to substantially grow into a more open-minded, confident, and capable man.  Spiritually, intellectually and emotionally I am a different man than I was almost four years ago when I began as Pastor.  And, I hope many of you can say the same due to your time at the Gathering.  If that is so, then we must both selfishly and selflessly plan for continued growth.  We must go deeper, broader and more boldly into the future in ways that expand who we are and what we do.  That must be a mission not only for us as a community, but for each one of us personally.  What can we do for ourselves and for others that stretches us and grows us in new and challenging ways?

For most faith communities, four engines of growth have been identified.  These so-called engines enable both individual and collective growth in ways that deepen the faith experience and help invite new members.  The goal for us is not just to expand numerically, but to expand in deeper but profound ways.  How many more volunteers are we sending out into the community?  What new areas of service do we build and promote?  How do we encourage fellow members to be increasingly at peace with themselves and the world?  What new insights into life do we discover and share?  Ultimately, how do we make a difference – individually and collectively – in other lives?

The four engines of growth in most churches are: 1) Engaging children’s and youth programs;  2)  Adult community-building experiences that foster supportive relationships and friendships; 3)  Meaningful and diverse ways to serve others, and 4)  Interesting and inspirational adult Sunday services.  Faith communities that focus on those four engines of growth will, it is said, grow in depth and in numbers.

Indeed, according to statistics on why new visitors return to a church, 36% say they do so because of the so-called sermon, 32% return due to the friendliness and welcoming nature of the congregation and 30% return because they enjoyed the overall worship experience.  For us, we would be wise to focus our qualitative and numerical growth efforts on these areas.

We obviously lag in offering children’s and youth programs at the Gathering.  While this is a chicken or egg issue for us – we don’t have many youth as a part of the congregation – that may well be due to our lack of programs for them.  I challenge us to work to rebuild a children’s program.  We can begin small and offer an engaging children’s experience perhaps once a month – thus requiring a rotating group of perhaps four adult teacher volunteers who would only serve a few times a year.

We do offer multiple opportunities to build adult friendships at the Gathering.  Indeed, this is one area many of us feel is best about our church and what keeps us coming back.  I challenge us, however, to seek growth in our racial diversity and in how we become even more inclusive for women in leadership roles.  We must be intentional in those efforts – perhaps purposefully inviting African-American friends or electing women as our leaders.  I also challenge each of you to help us grow by taking the initiative in planning community building events.  I cannot organize them alone.  I need other organizers and idea makers to plan and execute movie nights, pub nights, field trips, pot-lucks and other creative and fun events.

In serving our community, we have grown tremendously over ten years.  As a still small church, we have grown over the last few years from serving one charity to now serving five.  While I caution us not to over-extend ourselves, there is still room for growth in this area.   Out of approximately fifty regularly attending members, 19 serve in outreach efforts.  While almost everybody serves our congregation in some way, I challenge us to raise the number of volunteers who serve in outreach.  Even if it involves baking a few cookies for homeless kids, there are countless simple ways to serve in outreach.  As we expand our volunteer numbers, we can then explore more ways to serve the community.

Specifically, I call us to explore new outreach projects like obtaining new financial grants to further serve homeless youth – perhaps by joining or starting a tutoring program.  Also, we might partner with an organization like Habitat for Humanity and actually help, along with other groups, build a home for a homeless family.  Once again, we need ideas and organizers to plan and implement such new projects.

I firmly believe that a faith community that is primarily oriented toward serving others will never fail.  Volunteering in our city builds community between those of us who do serve, it underscores our purpose for existence as individuals and as a church, and it offers the kind of inner satisfaction that only giving and serving can bring.  As long as I am Pastor, we will be an outreach oriented faith community constantly seeking new and better ways to serve.

Finally, there is room for growth in how we conduct our Sunday services.  I want to continue to grow as a speaker and I seek your honest but gentle thoughts on how I can improve.  I encourage growth in the types and varieties of musical expression we offer – specifically looking to occasionally include more African-American music, inspirational songs by contemporary pop and rock and roll artists as well as other types of music.  I challenge us to be more inclusive and diverse in our so-called worship liturgy – occasionally including inspirational poems, dramas, videos and member participation in our services.  Overall, I challenge us not to become stuck in always doing things the same way but to expand our worship to sometimes include practices that speak to the wide diversity of age, gender, race, culture and sexuality.

As always, we need visionaries and thought leaders to facilitate those initiatives.  While I am responsible for Sunday services, I am not an island.  I welcome not only fresh ideas but also people who will lead the effort to execute them.  We are an intelligent and creative group who can collectively respect our Sunday traditions while engaging those of the future.

Last on my list on how we can grow, I encourage us to honestly consider moving to a new space.  As I have already discussed, such a move is not an answer to our growth.  Brick and mortar will never be more important to us than hearts and minds.  But our church space is a reflection of who we are and it sends out subtle but strong messages to those who might attend.  While our current space has served us well, I believe we must plan for a space that will add to our qualitative and numerical growth.  We want a space that can help us grow in each of the growth areas I’ve listed – in a youth program, in building stronger community, in serving outside charities and in our worship experiences – those on Sunday mornings and also those for our weddings, child dedications and funeral services.

If we think of the great prophets throughout history, they did not seek mass numbers of followers.  Rather, the huge numbers of people who did follow them came as a result of their deliberate plans and ideas.  Who we are as individuals does not happen by random accident.  We exercise, we read, we learn, we work, we eat, we seek medical care – all to help us grow.  If we choose to stagnate, we initiate our slow demise.  The Gathering is no different.  We need your help not to maintain who and what we are now, we need your help in how we become deeper, stronger, and better.   If this place matters to us and to our personal growth, we need everyone’s help.  We need ideas and leadership so that on June 23, 2053, there will be a Gathering birthday celebrating a thriving progressive community built upon the planned growth that we initiate.  By our past hard work and dedication, we have this unique gift called the Gathering – one that comforts, serves and enlightens.  Let us boldly and creatively build its future so that this gift will keep on giving.

To download and listen to Bart’s message, please click here:

Message 131, “We Find the Defendant…Redeemed!”, 5-19-13

(c)  Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

 

To download and listen to part one of the message, click here:

Watch the video here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SheaMMd8H5g

To download and listen to part two of the message, click here:

 

Some of you may remember the 1994 film entitled “Shawshank Redemption.”  It is a grim and often gritty movie that, on the surface, seems to indict our prison system and how it dehumanizes convicts.  On a deeper level, and consistent with its title, the film’s theme deals with the subjects of religion and sin.  The movie is a subtle but very strong indictment of religion.   It’s a modern parable on the struggle all of us have in finding spiritual redemption from religious imprisonment.

Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, is an innocent man wrongly convicted of killing his wife and her lover.  He’s sentenced to two life sentences.  We watch as he enters and is then confined at the Shawshank prison – the actual film location being Ohio’s Mansfield Prison.  He enters a dark and forbidding place with thick, black walls, grey prison cells and a community of prisoners who have been turned into malicious brutes by oppressive and petty rules.  The prison is overseen by sadistic guards and a corrupt warden who nevertheless considers himself a devout Christian.  Each prisoner is given drab clothing and a Bible – which the warden says is the only path to a prisoner’s freedom.  The warden tells Andy that he believes in two things – discipline and the Bible.  While Andy’s soul is under the control of God, Andy’s body is his.  As the warden tells Andy, he controls when Andy will eat, sleep and perform his bodily functions – said, as you might imagine, in much more colorful language!

Andy befriends a fellow convict named Red, played by Morgan Freeman.  As a former accountant, Andy is assigned to work in the prison library but he soon volunteers free financial and tax advice to guards and fellow prisoners.  He finds purpose in helping others – even the guards who persist in abusing him.

Andy’s accounting expertise is also employed by the warden who orders Andy to help him “cook” the prison books so that he can embezzle funds collected by renting out prison labor.  At one point, Andy learns that the real killer of his wife confessed to the crime and he seeks the help of the warden to win his freedom.  The warden refuses, preferring to keep Andy locked up in a sinister, hypocritical and dark filled life.

Over twenty years pass and we learn that during this time Andy has secretly used a rock hammer to methodically dig a hole through the thick wall of his cell.  He hides the hole he is digging behind pin-up posters – first of Rita Hayworth, then Marilyn Monroe and finally Raquel Welch.  Watch with me now a short video clip of Andy’s dramatic escape from the Shawshank prison…

 

(YouTube video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SheaMMd8H5g )

 

Without being too simplistic in finding meaning from the movie, which is currently listed by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best films of all time, it is not difficult to find anti-religious symbols and themes.  Andy is an Everyman – a guy like any of us – who is born innocent but sentenced to a life of guilt and shame within the confines of sin filled religion.  As he says, “The funny thing is – on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.”  Implicitly, Andy tells us that without religion, he was good.  With it, he became bad – a person who not only compromises what he naturally knew to be good, but one who advances the nefarious interests of prison – or, symbolically – religion.  The prison system is, indeed, a metaphor for religion and the actual Shawshank prison building is a symbol of it – a foreboding place that prevents escape.  Like religion, it entraps and brutalizes all who enter.

Prison rules and regulations dictate how a person will live – much like religion.  Indeed, the character played by Morgan Freeman, upon his release, finds it almost impossible to function without prison rules – or metaphorically – the rules and beliefs of religion.  As Red says, “These walls are funny.  First you hate them, and then you get used to them.  Enough time passes, you get so that you depend on them.”  Like prison, religious rules often become a source of ironic comfort to people.  It is easy to like the confines of absolute answers and absolute rules of behavior.

The warden of Shawshank clearly represents a religious leader like a Priest, minister or even Pope – a corrupt and evil man who talks about faith and doing good but who lusts for money and whose compassion is twisted.  Even the warden’s claim that he believes in two things – discipline and the Bible – is a clear reference to many religious leaders and their emphasis on sin and punishment.

Andy uses a rock hammer to chip away at the thick walls of religion.  He hides the hammer by placing it in a cutout within his Bible.  The humor of realizing that, indeed, the Bible is his ironic and symbolic means to redemption and freedom is not lost on many viewers.  For many people, it is only after genuine and deep examination of ALL interpretations of the Bible that one finds consistent and sensible answers to the meaning and purpose of life.  For me, seminary taught me the words and verses of the Bible and one, literal interpretation of it.  Only by examining and studying many other interpretations of it did I realize the Bible has wisdom to offer but it cannot, and was never intended to be, something to be interpreted as literal fact.

Andy conceals his escape tunnel behind sexualized posters of women – paper barriers to real freedom.  Religion, like many prisons, tries to control human sexuality but it is only by finding sex to be healthy and normal that one gains escape from a prison of guilt and shame.  For many people, especially gays and lesbians, religion’s views on human sexuality are inconsistent with reality.  Religion tries to define good and bad sexuality without any understanding of its innate function as a natural and, indeed, biological expression.  Sexuality is something wired into human DNA.  It is the creative force behind all existence.  Indeed, as the author Steven Greenblatt writes in his book The Swerve, existence, death and re-creation are all sexual.  The entire universe is sexual.  Religious efforts to define sex as something dirty and evil are not consistent with the reality of it.  It is a natural and creative impulse that is deeply implanted in every person.  We do not choose our sexuality.  It is wired into us.  That fact is something humans intuitively know.  We are taught by religion and religiously influenced cultures, however, to feel guilt and shame over it.  Symbolically, Andy’s path of escape from religious prison and its rules about sex lies behind breaking through his own sexual desires – in his case, the sensual poster of a nearly naked Raquel Welch.

Finally, Andy must ultimately escape by crawling through a length of sewer pipe.  In a scene reminiscent of that of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables fleeing through a Paris sewer, Andy finds redemption only after crawling through filth – symbolic of the lies, prejudices, hypocrisies and sins that religions teach and practice.  After he emerges from the prison sewer pipe, Andy is bathed in a type of reverse baptism.  He exults in the rain that literally and figuratively cleanses him of prison and religious excrement.  The image of him outstretching his arms, like a Jesus free of a religious cross, is powerful.  He embarks on a life of spiritual freedom – moving to the place of his dreams: a beach on the Pacific Ocean where the open water and vast skyline symbolize the freedom available to all.

Like Andy, my reason for exploring the sins of religion – those of imposing guilt, racism, sexism and homophobia – is to explore ways to redeem it.  My purpose this month has not been to create an echo chamber where we all affirm our distaste for man-made religion.  Rather, I want to discuss ways we can redeem religion through an enlightened and free thinking spirituality.  We help to redeem religion by, like Andy, working to free ourselves and others from its confines of rules and beliefs that demean and stifle the human spirit.  Our goal at the Gathering is to be a place where people can be redeemed from religion and enter, like Andy, a wide expanse of spiritual freedom.   That spirituality celebrates human life in the here and now, it celebrates all people and it practices the very simple moral code of the Golden Rule – to love and serve others as we wish to be loved and served.

Redemption, for most of us, is defined as a sincere willingness to confess a misdeed, apologize for it, make amends for it and, finally, to seek ways to change so the same misdeed is avoided.  If a person or institution undertakes each of those steps, he or she will find redemption – a state of being washed clean and renewed.  For many, redemption includes a restoration of relationship with those who have been wronged.  Doorways of forgiveness are opened as love and compassion are allowed to re-enter, while shame, bitterness and anger are pushed out.

In order for us to therefore promote spiritual redemption, we will have to continue telling how we and others have been hurt by religion.  Such stories are not intended to impose guilt on those who are religious.  Instead, they are a means to tell the truth and to bring into the light the suffering felt by so many.   Much like the truth and reconciliation efforts undertaken by Nelson Mandela in post-apartheid South Africa, the world must know how religion has harmed women, how it has practiced racism, how it has burdened countless people with fear and guilt, how it has murdered, how it has loved money over people, how it has turned away millions of gays and lesbians who want nothing to do with anything that tells them are deviant, evil, and hated by God.  Stories of hurt and pain, told not to shame but to enlighten, are good.  Stories of how religions hurt instead of heal can be told with gentleness and empathy.  We can hate the beliefs while loving the believer.

It is an ironic assertion, but many non-religious people are, if we think about it, more moral, more pious and more holy than those who adhere to religious beliefs.   Jesus sharply denounced religious hypocrites consumed with status, money and showy piety.  He promoted, instead, the kind of spirituality that sought the heart of God – a heartfelt compassion, humility and gentleness that respected everyone – women, the disfigured, the sick, the mentally ill, the poor, prostitutes, thieves, prisoners and all other outcasts.  He did not seek the outwardly wealthy, powerful and pious people but rather those who are inwardly genuine and true – those who might be broken by life or burdened by the rules of religion.  He wanted to set people free from trying to be good enough according to arbitrary religious rules.  He simply befriended and supported those who are pure of heart – no matter their religious belief, or lack of belief.

And that defines many people who are non-religious but nevertheless spiritual.  Such people, like many of us at the Gathering, are not perfect or blameless.  But, those who have rejected religion often promote the goodness and rights of all people and all creation – much like Jesus did.  Is it better to divide and scorn people based on an arbitrary interpretation of ancient religious rules and writings?  Or, are those who, like a creator god or goddess, respect and celebrate people no matter their sexuality, race, religion, wealth, status or ability – the truly good and pure of heart?  Yes.

Religion can be redeemed and transformed into a Jesus form of spirituality by seeking what many great thinkers and prophets have taught and practiced throughout history.   The Greek philosopher Epicurus encouraged the radical notion that all people have the right to pursue happiness.   Such a view believes that the great purpose of life is to be happy and thus our goal is to find it both for ourselves and for others.  No human should have to suffer hunger, poverty, discrimination or hatred.  A spiritual and practical goal for us is to build a world of happiness for all people – a world free of racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty and injustice.  If we worship the unique beauty and goodness of all created things, we will transcend the hurts of a materialistic and man-made world and find, instead, the simple pleasures of nature, community, food, sex, contemplation and love.  Much like Henry David Thoreau believed with the philosophy of Transcendentalism, the path of spirituality lies through a celebration of nature and all created things.  This spirituality seeks the so-called Buddhist middle way that shuns the mindless desires of wealth and also the needless wants of poverty.  Pleasure is found not in desiring things or, in the lack of them, but instead in life and people and creation.

Redeemed spirituality will thus pour like a cleansing rain on us.  It will free us of confining and absolute beliefs.  No rules.  No division of people.  No judgment.   No hell.  Instead, freedom!  Instead, unity and respect!  Instead, only one rule – the Golden Rule.

Our calling as spiritual people, as people of progressive faith, must be to show others the way to religious redemption.  That way tears down the prison walls that limit and confine human behavior – behaviors that do no harm to others.  This spiritual pathway opens up the prison cell that fears death.  It invites a joyful celebration of the life we have now and the heaven we must build here on earth for all people.  Our calling is to literally be the change we want to see – people who are spiritually free, giving, open, honest, compassionate, tolerant, joyful, hard working, always questioning, always seeking, non-violent, humble, grateful, and forgiving.  Those are not religious ideals – they are eternal, universal and good spiritual ideals.

Let us redeem religion.  Let us cleanse it.  Let us transform it.  Let us find within it a pure and honest spirituality that truly sets us free.

 

I wish you, as always, much peace and joy.

 

Messsage 130, “We Find the Defendant…Innocent???”, 5-12-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

To download and listen to the message, click here: 

Thank you for visiting our website and our Sunday messages. The principal outreach activity of The Gathering is the support of homeless youth in our area. If you would like to assist but are unable to attend our services, you can make a tax deductible donation to: The Gathering, 1431 Main St, Cincinnati, OH  45202. 

 

John Milton, in his sixteenth century poem Paradise Lost, describes in detail the mythic fall of humanity.  Adam and Eve are granted total freedom within the perfect realm of Eden except for one rule not to eat from the Tree of All Knowledge.  Of course, they break this rule and are forever condemned by that defiance.  Every one of their future offspring, including all of us, are said, according to Milton’s poem, to inherit that condemnation.  As humans, we are born sinful, evil and separate from the company of God.

In a direct rebuttal to Milton’s poem, however, William Blake wrote his series of poems, Songs of Innocence, over two centuries later in 1789.  In his poems, Blake celebrates the inherent purity of infants, children and youth.  We are not born as terrible sinners, he wrote, but instead as innocents, much like little lambs.  In contrast to Milton’s dark view, Blake’s perception of humanity is hopeful, encouraging and positive.  Songs of Innocence is a beautiful expression of ideal human spirituality.

But beautiful is not a word to describe the most enduring of human institutions – that of religion.  Not only is religion the source of most fear and guilt, as we discussed last week, its historic record as an institution can only be described as ugly and sinful.    On almost any issue of human progress, religion has stood in the way.  Religion’s stain upon history is far from being a source of enlightenment.  Killing, despair, intolerance and hatred are the legacies of man-made religious organizations.  From ancient religions that demanded human sacrifice, to Greek and Roman religious worship of torture, sexual orgies and war, to the Inquisition when alleged heretics were burned at the stake, to modern day religions that justify hatred or the mass murder of non-believers, ALL religions are branded by their acts of death, intolerance and enslavement.  None are pure.  None are without sin.  None are historically good.  Indeed, man-made religion has been the sly serpent in the grass, tempting us and leading us away from the light of a natural spirituality into the dark and sinister realm of lies and injustice.  It is by religion, not by any mythic devil, that our human innocence has been lost.  It will only be through enlightened spirituality that we find it again.

It is for such reasons that I have put religion on trial in my message series this month.  Last Sunday, we found the defendant, religion, guilty for its imposition of fear, shame and guilt on humans.  Today, I sharply question the claimed innocence of that same defendant which veils itself in supposed purity.

Indeed, the sins of religion are many.  Of importance to us as Americans, however, has been historic religious intolerance in our nation of blacks, women and homosexuals.  Indeed, Judaism, Islam and Christianity have for centuries used their religious beliefs and their scriptures to justify and sanction racism, slavery, sexism and homophobia.

Many Jews, Muslims and Christians throughout history have found reference in the Old Testament story of Noah to define their view of blacks and Africans.  According to the story found in the Biblical book of Genesis, after the ark landed safely following the flood, Noah retreated to his tent where he celebrated his survival by getting drunk and taking off all his clothes. Sprawled naked in some form of sexual degradation, Noah is discovered by his son Ham who thrills at this sight of his father.  He gossiped about it and even celebrated it.  In deep shame and anger, Noah used his influence with God to cast eternal condemnation on Ham’s son and all of his later progeny.  He declared a curse on Caanan, Ham’s son, saying he shall be a servant to all his fellow humans.  Interpreting the twists and turns of convoluted Biblical myth and genealogy, many Jews, Muslims and Christians interpret ‘Ham’ as a Hebrew word for ‘dark’ or ‘black’.  They also believe Cush, the grandson of Ham, to be the first human to populate Africa.

From this very ancient myth, one that lacks any relevance to actual history or to any rational and scientific fact, three of the major world religions have often relegated the African and black race to a degraded status.  That status was used to justify their enslavement.  Africans and blacks are cursed by God to forever be sexually sinful and to forever be a servant to the rest of humanity.  It almost defies our ability to comprehend how anyone, ancient or modern, could use the Noah myth as a basis for racial hatred and bigotry.  Whether this is an accurate interpretation of the Noah story or not, it is simply evil.

Jefferson Davis, the President of the southern Confederacy, referred to this interpretation when he said, “Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation.  Slavery has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.”

From George Whitefield, the famed evangelist credited with the religious Great Awakening in America, to Robert Dabney, an influential late 19th century Presbyterian minister, the humiliation, bondage and degradation of blacks has been based on religious and Biblical grounds.

While it must be said that religion was also the source of the anti-slavery, abolitionist and Civil Rights movements, it cannot be denied that religion and the Bible have historically been used to justify racism and slavery.  In his letter to Titus, found in the Bible, the apostle Paul wrote, “Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.”

The Catholic Church and many Popes held slaves.  St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and John Calvin all upheld the religious doctrine of racial slavery claiming that while it was not a part of God’s original plan, it is a legitimate and useful part of a fallen world.  Certain races, these supposedly great men of Christian history implicitly claimed, are destined to be slaves because of their original sinful heritage detailed in the Bible.

Such religious racial views still persist in modern religions.  Tami Winfrey Harris, an African-American author writing in Psychology Today, cites a landmark study of over 22,000 white Protestants.  The study was conducted over a forty year period.  This study, recently published in an academic psychology journal, indicates high levels of racism in those who are highly religious.

About ten years ago, I myself sat in a Bible study lecture presented by a Christian fundamentalist who endorsed the racist interpretations of blacks as cursed and condemned to forever be servants.  Even in my then religiosity, I was shocked and disgusted.  To my lasting shame, however, I did not walk out of that lecture.  And, while it is not explicit in what they publically proclaim, such views are also those of many leaders of the Creation museum, sitting only a few miles from here.  While it is wrong to say all religious people are racist, it is absolutely correct to say that racists have throughout history found justification for their views in religion and the Bible.

Much like racism, sexism also finds extensive expression in religion.  For centuries sexist and paternalistic views of women have been justified by world religions.  While ancient cultures were, by their nature, male dominated and paternalistic, religion offered those cultures justification for their beliefs.  Once again, for many Jews, Muslims and Christians, sexist views are validated by the Adam and Eve myth.  Eve was the one who was tempted and who first fell victim to the blandishments of Satan.  Many religious commentators and theologians have blamed only Eve for the fall of humanity.  Adam was blameless in their view but was seduced by Eve.  She used sex as a weapon to tempt and lure Adam.  Once again, Biblical myth has been used by many Jews, Muslims and Christians to cast women as gullible, unintelligent and sexually depraved.  They use sex to manipulate men, thereby implicitly endorsing male sexual control and even rape of women.  Women, in this view, are seen as religiously unclean and cursed because of childbirth and menstruation – curses that the creation myth says God imposed upon Eve because of her sin.

The New Testament also offers little solace to women.  While the historic Jesus must be credited with his outreach and compassion for the condition of women, Paul and the early church cannot.  Indeed, most of modern sexist Christian beliefs come from the writings of Paul.  He echoes interpretations of the creation myth by saying women were specifically created solely for the use and benefit of men.  He ordered that women be subservient to their husbands in ALL things.  They are to remain silent in church, he demanded.  They are to never have authority over any male older than twelve.  Their primary role in life is to bear children and to serve as a hard-working keeper of the home.

While there are clear examples in the Bible of women who were leaders, like Queen Esther, and women of character and intelligence like Rahab, Ruth, Priscilla, Mary Magdalene, and Lydia, the Bible is clearly full of sexist stories and teachings.  While those teachings are the product of ancient male dominated cultures and therefore logically reflect those ancient values, the problem is that such verses and stories have historically been used by religions to demean and control women.

Indeed, even in many contemporary and fundamentalist Synagogues, churches and Mosques, women are denied roles of adult leadership or public ministry based on Paul’s writings.  In many fundamentalist families around the world, religion is used to justify keeping women and girls proverbially chained to the stove and the crib.  Obtaining more than a rudimentary education is deemed worthless since females only need to know how to cook and clean.  Just as racism is linked and justified by religion, so is sexism.

In the trinity of major religious sins in our nation’s history is also that of heterosexism and homophobia.  I need not detail religious and scriptural beliefs about same sex relationships.  We have discussed them many times.  But the premise for such intolerance is rooted in the same religious myths and stories as that for racism and sexism.  Adam and Eve were created as male and female.  God intended, according to the myth, for love to exist only between the two contrasting sexes.  Men who lie with men are an abomination and destined for hell.  The same is said for women who lie with women.  Religions have thus relied on only a handful of scripture verses to justify the murder, imprisonment and discrimination of homosexuals.  Indeed, homophobia can only be based on religion.  Opponents to same sex relationships have few other arguments.  Even applying the test of what is supposedly natural falls apart as nature is replete with examples of same sex romantic interaction.  Using ancient myths and teachings written for totally different cultures and in pre-scientific times when an understanding of human psychology, genetics and sexual orientation were unknown, religions justify racial, gender and sexuality based hatred and discrimination.

Today, advocates of gay and lesbian rights are attacked for supposedly denying the right of free religious expression and belief.  That right and the freedom of personal faith must never be infringed.  But such rights of free religious belief do NOT extend to public and civic discrimination.  One may individually believe blacks and women to be inferior, and gays to be evil, but such beliefs are ONLY the purview of personal thought.  They have no place in how society as a whole treats the wide diversity of humanity.  Bigotry, sexism and intolerance have no place in any culture that celebrates universal human dignity and value.  We each may have the freedom to hate but we do not have the freedom to force others to also hate.

We can obviously comfort ourselves with an easy condemnation of religion.  After all, it is an easy target based on its countless misdeeds throughout history of which I have discussed just a few.  Of importance to us, however, are our own subtle forms of racist, sexist and homophobic thoughts and practices.  We each want to grow in our own attitudes and seek a better world that is free from ANY hidden or subtle forms of intolerance.

Implicit racism in many progressive churches, even within the Gathering, is alive and well.  How willing are we to be open and diverse in our traditions, services and music?  We may hope for a more racially diverse congregation but we hold fast to largely white forms of music, tradition and worship.  How often do we trivialize or even demean African-American music and spirituals as simple or less than great compositions?  I have often been amused at daylong religious services held by many African-American churches.  Instead of being more open to their extended worship, shared encouragement, bonding, and joyful, expressive musical celebration, I comfort myself with the thought that such practices are too extreme for my white, Protestant traditions.  Implicitly, my thinking is arrogant and smug.  Our way of worship is more enlightened, cultured and, simply, better.

Additionally, how much do I, and any of you – male OR female, default to the subconscious notion that men are better leaders and coordinators?  As I have thought about this, I realize that even within the Gathering, in what I hope is a decidedly feminist group, women serve in wonderful but still supporting roles – coordinating our coffee, snacks, cleaning, music and greeters.  Men coordinate our worship, our finances and serve as our primary church officers.   I do not demean any act of service performed here or in any church.  As Jesus said, the greatest of all people are servants.  I highlight these roles in the Gathering only to call attention to the potential of our own subconscious sexism.

Finally, how much do any of us hold homophobic beliefs?  Indeed, internalized homophobia is a problem for gays and lesbians too.  Gays can inwardly hate themselves for being different.  Many people, while outwardly tolerant, still consider homosexuality as abnormal and less than ideal.  Many believe that if one is gay, acting as straight as possible is best.  Highly flamboyant and feminine acting men or highly masculine women are, even among many of us, still considered odd and abnormal.  And, how often do any of us suppress inner laughter or even derision of the transsexual, cross-dresser or transgendered person?

All of us want to wear masks of alleged innocence.  We might even tell ourselves that we are not prone to racist, sexist or homophobic thoughts.  The truth, however, is we all must be on guard against the influences of religious belief that is judgmental, hateful and wrong.   We must not judge ourselves and others based on religious thinking.

And that is precisely why the Gathering must continue to work at the leading and progressive edge of non-religious spirituality.  Such a spirituality embraces a natural and intuitive understanding of humanity and the universe.  As those of us who read the recent Book Club selection Swerve know, the philosophies of Lucretius and Epicurus reject religious superstition.   Their revolutionary and pre-scientific understanding of the order of the universe, and our place in it, saw existence as an endlessly evolving but ultimately beautiful process.  Such a spirituality remains relevant today.  In that regard, there cannot be any qualitative difference between any created thing, much less between blacks, whites, men, women, gays or straights.  All are created equal.  We are each the stuff of galaxies, planets, canyons, oceans and animals.  We are literally their brothers and sisters.  The purpose of our lives, therefore, is to embrace its singular uniqueness.  We do so not with mutual hatreds but with a COMMON quest to enjoy the here and now – the pleasure of being, the joy of the moment, the celebration of simple food, friendships, nature and peaceful contemplation.

Let us find again the innocence of a life without fear or guilt.  Let us find again the innocence of youth that have no perceptions of human differences.  Let us banish all vestiges of religious judgment, intolerance and hate that subtly hide in our subconscious thinking.  For that matter, let us banish religion itself.  Let us embrace, instead, the cause of a natural and simple spirituality that sees the goodness and the joy of life abundant.

I wish all of you, here and listening online, much peace and joy.

 

Message 129, “We Find the Defendant…Guilty!”, 5-5-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

Click here to download message and listen:

Thank you for visiting our website and our Sunday messages. The principal outreach activity of The Gathering is the support of homeless youth in our area. If you would like to assist but are unable to attend our services, you can make a tax deductible donation to: The Gathering, 1431 Main St, Cincinnati, OH  45202.

 

Lewis Smedes, a well-known 20th century evangelical theologian, tells a story in his book Shame and Grace about his dying mother.  A week or so before his mother passed, at a point when she knew her end was near, she exclaimed to Lewis that she was glad that the Lord is so forgiving since she had been a grievous sinner throughout her life.  She was wracked by guilt and fear in her final days as she struggled to hold on to the saving grace she had been taught was hers.  Lewis could not imagine what possible sins she could refer to since she had raised five children on a small income and had tirelessly worked all her life as a devoted mother and wife.  What time could she possibly have had, Lewis asked, to supposedly have sinned in any great way?  Instead, as he said, this wonderful woman died feeling a wretch – not a good enough mother, good enough Christian or good enough human being.

I have heard from many gays and lesbians who struggle in the same way.  Raised in fundamentalist Christian homes and churches, they are unable to reconcile their innate sexuality with the teachings of their faith.  They see themselves as terrible sinners, they are wracked with guilt and experience great fear that they will suffer the eternal punishment of a hell they were taught is a homosexual’s fate.  They don’t fight the intolerance of their religion as much as they fight their own belief they are horrible sinners.

Just this past Thursday, upon Rhode Island’s approval of same sex marriage, the Bishop of Providence wrote in a letter to his archdiocese that,  “Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies, realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God…”  In other words, do not support or attend a gay or lesbian wedding or you might spend thousands of years in purgatory or even an eternity in hell.

There is an account of a 12 year old religious boy who came home one day from school and could not find his mother as he had expected.  He panicked, believing the apocalyptic myth of the rapture had taken place when God instantly gathers all true Christians into heaven and leaves behind non-believers to suffer Armageddon.  The boy was filled with guilt at his own apparent unbelief and sin, and fear that he had been forever spurned by God.  Like many children raised in religious families, this boy is not comforted by his faith but, instead, terrified by it.

My own story is one of seeking the warm embrace of Jesus who would not only forgive me for my homosexual thoughts but who would also cure me of them.  I tried for twenty years to deny my sexuality.  When that did not work, I turned to the power of Christ and hoped for ten more years that he would end my gay affliction.  I prayed, I studied the Bible, I changed my career and went to seminary all in a belief that God would cure me.  He did not.  When my feelings continued, my struggle became all the worse because Christians are taught that after being born again, one is a new creation who is clean, righteous and worthy of God’s company for all eternity.  How could I, someone who did not eliminate shameful gay thoughts from my head, be worthy of a holy and pure God?

Numerous psychologists and therapists report significant trauma in people who cannot reconcile their perceived misdeeds with their faith.  Many people enmeshed in fundamentalist religion or those who seek an escape from it suffer from fear, nightmares, obsessive compulsive disorders and depression.  Intellectually, they might understand mythological and inconsistent religious beliefs but subconsciously they are beset with guilt and fear of an angry deity.  One well known psychologist, Marlene Willens, has even controversially labeled such distress as a mental disorder she calls Religious Trauma Syndrome or RTS.

God, for many people, is not a benevolent force for good in the universe but an angry and punitive one who will cast persistent sinners into a lake of fire to be forever tortured by a great beast – Satan himself.  As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, homosexual women and people who are envious, angry, greedy, or deceitful will be eternally punished.  Those who supposedly sexually sin in any form – be it lustful thoughts, pornography, premarital sex or the like are equally condemned. The wages of sin are eternal death, Paul said.

Interestingly, a recent study and poll of over 14,500 people conducted by the University of Kansas shows that there is a high correlation between being deeply religious and having high levels of sexual guilt.  Even though religious people are as sexual as others, they are unable to find it healthy and fulfilling.  From the same poll, Atheists are shown to have much better sexual fulfillment.  79% of people raised or living in very religious households experience significant sexual guilt compared with only 29% of those who live in secular households.

About a year ago, along with a few other men, I read a book entitled Velvet Rage, by Alan Downs, which details the affects most gay men suffer as a result of perceiving, from a very early age, that they are different.  Gay men internalize this feeling of being different as a form of shame.  They subconsciously feel they do not measure up to the cultural norm of manhood.  Even after they come out, most gays manifest this internal guilt and shame in some form of rage – either rage at others, or a more hidden rage at themselves in the form of depression, suicidal thoughts, addiction, promiscuity, or insecurity exhibited by arrogance, materialism, flamboyance or work-a-holism.

Such feelings of shame also extend to the overall population.  Ours is a culture markedly defined by Judeo-Christian morality.  Even for the non-religious, the idea of sin is a pervasive one.  In countless ways, humans consciously and subconsciously fight what Lewis Smede’s mother experienced at her death.  For whatever reasons, we can inwardly believe we are not good enough, smart enough, noble enough, clean enough, moral enough or enough of any standard we use to judge ourselves and others.  Many of us were taught to think about ourselves in this negative light by a parent, other influential person OR, by a religion.

Indeed, the message of many religions is that humans, by nature, are evil.  We are born with the stain of Adam and Eve within us.  We are little more than brutes who must seek favor and salvation from a perfect deity – the only one who can cleanse us of our inherited sin and guilt.  This message highlights human brokenness instead of wholeness.  Just by our very nature, much like it is for gays and lesbians, religions see each human as evil and in need of divine rescue.

The repercussions of such internalized guilt and shame are legion and manifest themselves in all people the same way they do for gays and lesbians – rage at ourselves in the form of depression, insecurity, anxiety and behaviors to compensate for perceived inadequacy.

During this month of May, I want to examine with you ideas of religious guilt, innocence and redemption.  Such discussions complement our Book Club’s consideration of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Swerve, How the World Became Modern.  In this book recommended to us by Don Fritz, and one that I also highly recommend, whether you attend the Book Club or not, the perils of religious thought are contrasted with philosophies that changed history toward a greater understanding of human liberty, science and the meaning of life.

Of more important interest to us, however, is how we battle inappropriate guilt in ourselves.  How do we separate healthy spirituality from toxic religious belief?  How can we find wholeness, authenticity and a sense of contentment with who and what we are – and banish any internal rage, fear or shame?  How can we eliminate vestiges of unhealthy religious beliefs and Judeo-Christian morality from burdening our minds – even if we count ourselves non-religious?  How might we find, instead, a healthy, open and life-enriching spirituality?

One of the most important observations about many religions is that they function by encouraging fear – fear of Divine judgment, fear of hell, fear of eternal pain.  And such fears tap into the unique human “disease” – our awareness that we will die and our of fear ceasing to exist.  As the poet Dylan Thomas wrote, we rage against the dying of the light.  And so we seek a supernatural light that will grant us a reprieve from eternal darkness.

But that root based fear, that foundation of all religious thinking is the original toxic belief.  How can belief that is supposed to be about love for a god or goddess be based, instead, on fear of him or her?  If I hold a gun to your head and command you to love and honor me, you will likely do as I say and perform seemingly loving acts for me.  But is that really love?  Is it in any way devotion to me?  Or is it, instead, coercion and threat?  Judgment and hell are the symbolic guns pointed at humans by punishing deities.  To find wholeness, we must deny them.

Fear based religions are major causes of unhealthy guilt and shame.  Whether we are religious or not, the influence of religion on our society and codes of conduct leave each of us with seeds of doubt – are we good enough and do we measure up to the standards of our culture’s morality?

But such fear and guilt are false and inappropriate.  Healthy spirituality is life enhancing.  It encourages personal growth.  It promotes a simple moral standard – that of the Golden Rule.  It asks that we undergo inner change that is heartfelt, compassionate, empathetic and humble.   Instead of outward conformity to rules and standards of behavior, we’re called to love others as we wish to be loved.  Such behavior is deeply intuitive and known by almost all people – we each know what love and pain are.  Knowing that, we know how we should act toward others.

Interestingly, recent studies from the University of British Columbia indicate that altruistic and charitable acts by most religious people are motivated more by a fear of God than by basic empathy and compassion for others.  Another study of religious college students shows that they avoid sexual behavior due to religious fear and guilt and NOT because of any belief or teaching that premarital sex is wrong.  Contrary to the popular notion that religion alone fosters pro-social behavior, the study concludes that non-religious and secular persons act just as benevolently and just as morally as the so-called religious – but they act with motivations that spring from empathy instead of fear.

Fear based spirituality – religions that focus on sin, control, judgment and complex rituals of behavior – are toxic to our emotional health.  Spirituality that promotes tolerance, free thinking and personal responsibility is, instead, healthy.  Such spirituality encourages people to freely take responsibility for their own lives and actions instead of giving up control to a god who rewards and punishes.

Healthy spirituality does not necessarily reject the notion of a benevolent force or god in the universe.  Rather, it sees forces for good in the universe as enlarging the human spirit.  Healthy spirituality focuses on personal questioning, learning and growth.  It does not judge people as much as it acknowledges that all humans are flawed and our goal, therefore, is to continually change for the better – not to please a deity but to instead improve the world.  This spirituality sees humans not as depraved and sinful but as essentially good who yearn for the well being of others.

Indeed, fear and guilt often lead to the opposite.  If I give in to my fear of death, I will look out only for myself.  The psychological pathology of greed, self-interest and arrogance are rooted in a person’s fears.  If my spirituality does NOT involve a fear of death and punishment, I will have no need to be interested only in my well-being.  I will focus, instead, on the needs of others with the natural empathy and compassion I was created to have.

For our own lives, we can focus less on guilt for the mistakes we and others might make and more on taking personal responsibility for them.  In that regard, we determine if we have appropriate reasons to accept responsibility for a misdeed.  If so, we acknowledge the mistake, we make amends and then we move forward in our growth – working on ways to avoid the mistake in the future.

Guilt and fear, to the contrary, burden us with feelings of shame that often encourage the original negative behavior.  Our mistakes create guilt, which foster feelings of low self esteem and shame, which in turn often leads one back to making the same mistakes all over again.  There is no opportunity for healing, for forgiveness, for growth and for moving into the future.  We remain stuck in a religious and personal perception of our action – it is sinful, it is bad, we are bad, we are unworthy, and we are not good enough.

Obviously, as Pastor of a progressive church, I believe in a spirituality that is open, free and tolerant.  As much as we might examine our flaws in here, such introspection is merely a diagnosis.  Yes, we often fall short of the one universal standard of treating others as we want to be treated.  But such mistakes are the symptoms of our human disease of fear.  Our mistakes do not define who we are as nasty and pitiful creatures in need of a savior.  Instead, we are each beautiful and fantastically complex beings, part of a universe that moves, creates and recreates all on its own.

Our bodies and our minds mix within the realm of glorious mountains, endless stars, and wondrous fellow creatures.  Blessed with faculties that give us reason and intuition, we know we are inherently good because all of creation is inherently good – the result of fantastic creative forces.  The human spirit, therefore, is not evil and selfish.  It is generous, loving, and empathetic precisely because we are in union with other people and, indeed, all creation.  We deeply feel the hurts, pains and joys of others because we too experience them.  Our calling as humans is to see ourselves as a part of, not separate or superior to, the wider universe – beautiful, intricate, amazing and inspiring.

Our reasoning ability, alone among animals, to know of our eventual demise, is NOT a good thing.  It leads to fear…..which leads to superstition and religion……which leads to guilt…..which leads to shame and feelings of inadequacy.  But our ability to reason and think also tells us we are simply part of an eternal matrix of BEING – never ceasing to exist but rather an amalgamation of matter that ceaselessly resurrects itself into new creations.  Yesterday, we were the dust of stars drifting toward earth.  Today we are in human form.  Tomorrow we will be flowers, trees and animals.  Such truths, and not pre-scientific scriptures, tell us we have always existed and we always will.

If that is our spirituality, if that is our understanding of life and death, then we have no need for elaborate religious beliefs and ritualistic standards of behavior to judge us as good or bad.  We are already good.  We intuitively know how we must act toward others and how we can change for the better.  In the wide diversity of humanity, each person is holy.  We are not gay, black, female, Muslim, disabled or American.  We are simply one humanity joined in a dance with all creation.

Guilt, therefore, has no place in this understanding of ourselves.  Personal responsibility does.  Since that is the case, it is we who determine our destiny.  It is we who call on a universal sense of right and wrong.   It is we who are confident that our present existence must be enjoyed and celebrated in the here and now.  No fear.  No shame.  No hell.  Only life and love and guilt-free spirituality.

In that regard, I wish you, and those listening online, much peace and joy.

 

 

Ray N. is a Unitarian lay leader who is a straight ally and advocate for GLBT rights.  His faith journey – from Hinduism to Unitarianism – is a fascinating and inspiring story.

To download and listen to Ray’s message, please click below:

Message 128, “The Power of…Action!”, 4-14-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

To download and listen to the message, click here:

Thank you for visiting our website and our Sunday messages. The principal outreach activity of The Gathering is the support of homeless youth in our area. If you would like to assist but are unable to attend our services, you can make a tax deductible donation to: The Gathering, 1431 Main St, Cincinnati, OH  45202. 

We all know what the date is today.  It’s April 14th.  And so we know the deadline that tomorrow represents.  Like many Americans, I have put off to almost the deadline my civic responsibility to file my tax return.  I comfort myself with several excuses.  Because Pastors are considered self-employed, I pay 100% of Social Security and Medicare taxes instead of only half like most employees.  That means I almost always have a tax bill instead of a refund.  So, I wait until the last minute to file and pay.  But that’s silly.  The cost to me to file early would be minimal – a few cents of lost interest.  The cost to my psychological well-being for my delay, however, is significant.

It’s said that 20% of humans are chronic procrastinators – always putting off until a deadline – or even after one – to do what needs to be done – to pay bills, file taxes, finish a work project, or do needed repairs and chores around the house.  But such delay has personal and societal costs.  Chronic procrastinators often have greater health challenges – they tend to suffer from insomnia, drink more alcohol and have weakened immune systems.  They don’t delay due to time management issues but because of inner lies they tell themselves – they work better under pressure, they will fail, they are more spontaneous and creative at the last minute, the deadline is not that important, etc, etc.  Generally, chronic procrastinators spend more energy delaying an action than they do in its actual performance.  Ultimately, according to the magazine Psychology Today, changing procrastination habits are a matter of sustained cognitive therapy – working on and changing one’s underlying thought patterns.

But procrastination is only one issue in why many people don’t act.  Fear is one reason.  We fear failure, we fear risk, we fear the responsibility if we do act.  Simple laziness is another factor.  And, many people are comforted by the illusion of acting by talking and thinking about an issue more than actually doing something.  Such an attitude offers the subconscious satisfaction of feeling like they have acted when all they really have done is think and talk.  Nothing has really been achieved.

During my April message series on the “Power of…”, we looked at the power of universal and timeless ideas to create lasting change.  Such ideas offer one the ability to figuratively live forever as ideas can impact the world far into the future.  And, I looked at the power of character to influence the way we see ourselves and others.  Powerful character understands the limits of human virtue.  It’s empathetic of weakness, flaws and moral compromise.  Such character seeks change in the self and in others through positive reinforcement instead of judgment and punishment.

But if good ideas have lasting value and our character influences whether or not we act, how do we cross the third frontier by actually doing?  Indeed, it is said that successful people in life don’t necessarily have greater intelligence or ability.  They have simply mastered the ability to act in timely and decisive ways.  Will Rogers once commented that, “Chaotic action is better than orderly inaction.”  And Benjamin Franklin concluded that, “Well done is better than well said.”

Once again, this topic is a very important one to us as a faith community.  Churches are supposed to be dynamic places.  They should be alive and supercharged with lots of action!  As spiritual people, our primary goals should be to both change ourselves for the better and then change the world.  If we’re not actively doing that, on an individual and collective level, we might as well be dead.

I will offer the challenging statement that if any one of us – and I include myself – are not seeing significant changes in ourselves as a result of attending here for a time, and if we are not actively participating in serving our community, than perhaps we should not be here.  You should find another church that can better encourage you so that you DO act and I should be fired – for failing to act myself and for failing to help facilitate your action.  The Gathering will wither away and wind up on the proverbial dust heap of history unless we are, each one of us, acting to change our own attitudes, thoughts, and actions while also acting to serve a hurting world.  Sunday morning talk along with our expressions of compassion, love and tolerance are worthless (WORTHLESS!) unless you and I are people of action.

Just as our society is beginning to understand the dimensions of demographic change in our nation that will influence our politics and way of life far into the future, recent polling by the Pew Research company shows that there has occurred in the last ten years a 70% decline in active church involvement by those between the ages of 18 and 29 – today’s so-called millennial generation.  What the polling discovered is that millennials are fed up with the hypocrisy they see in contemporary churches.  They see organizations and people who talk a lot about so called morality but who do very little to correct social justice issues.

As they see it, Christianity and other religions began as social justice movements – ones that advocated for and actively served the poor, the sick, the sinner, women and all other possible outcasts.  Instead, today’s churches are seen as political or theological advocacy groups – one’s that involve themselves in debate, theory and talk.  There is too little emphasis, many young people believe, in actually doing the work of Jesus, Gandhi or Martin Luther King.  It’s far easier to talk about political, theological and moral issues, or write a check, than it is to serve a smelly homeless person, help an addict high on drugs, befriend one who is mentally ill or hold and soothe an AIDS patient.

As one twenty-something recently put it, “I don’t want to attend any more churches or be around any more church folks who are all talk and no action.  I don’t want one more person telling me they are a Christian when their actions scream that they are no more concerned with my plight thanAttila the Hun.  Fake “Christianity” is everywhere in America, and it’s because it is centered on “self” and what we can get from it.  And plenty of pastors preach to that end, too – how we can get more from God while never addressing the issue of what we should be giving back.”

Millennials want to get their hands dirty.  Disillusioned by the failures of politics and our financial system, many young people aspire to careers in social service.  They have little time or tolerance for the same old chatter, same old meaningless platitudes and same old posturing by many churches.  They want action.

And, as quick as I am and many of you might be to say, “Wait, we’re not like that!”, I challenge us to examine how much we also love the talk, the debate and the intellectual theorizing about our attitudes, politics, religion and social justice.  Yes, we can point to ways that we do help improve our world but is there a lot more we could do?  Is there more we could do to take our Sunday morning talk and then go out and actually live it – to work on actively changing ourselves so that we are the change we want to see?  We should ask ourselves, “Am I more empathetic, more humble, more giving, more peaceful, more forgiving, more gentle, more serving, more accepting, more understanding – than I was six months ago, a year ago, five years ago?”  And if we say we are, are we using our personal change to then change the world?  No matter our age, income or ability, are we continually seeking ways to serve our community?  Are we examining our effectiveness in serving others while searching for new and better ways to be the hands and feet of compassion?  Or are we, and am I, too much like the churches and Pastors that twenty-somethings scorn and avoid – too much talk and too little action, too focused on the self and not enough on serving the other?

Jesus deeply understood the power of action.  He spoke eloquently about the need to serve and the need to change.  But he did not simply engage in endless talk.  He touched.  He healed.  He sat down with and befriended sinners.  He lived a life true to his ideals of simplicity and humility when he could have leveraged his fame to gain wealth and power.  He challenged the talkers of his day – those who piously postured about their own morality and generosity while they ignored the real problems all around them.  Such people loved to talk.  They loved to pray aloud for all to hear.  They loved to flourish their seemingly large donations when they weren’t sacrificing much at all.  They loved to scurry off to the Temple and worship a loving God while passing by and ignoring the hungry, the blind, the leper, and the poor.  How much are any of us like them?  We love our Sunday mornings, our community, our friends, our discussions, our beautiful music, our comfortable church experiences.  But how much are we using the words, the music, and the nice experiences to actually do as much as we can to change ourselves and change our world?

We do not deny the power of ideas, words and knowledge.  They are essential to our purpose.  But it takes words AND action to get anything accomplished.  Talk plus action equals results.  That was an essential teaching of Jesus – tell me your good words of love and empathy.  More importantly, show me your deeds to prove you are sincere.  And the rest of the Bible echoes him.  His disciple John wrote that those who say they love their brother and sister humans but do nothing to show it through their service, their gentleness, and their willingness to forgive – they are liars.  They are frauds.  Or, as many young people say, they are posers, punks and “b.s.’ers.”

Paul, the founder of many early churches, demanded that the first Christians work out their salvation with fear and trembling.  Too many, he asserted, proclaimed a belief in Christ and assumed that was it.  I’m safe!  I have my free ticket into heaven.  But he deplored that thinking as all talk and no action.  Salvation is a matter of doing.  One must prove its reality.  One must offer evidence to the world that one’s inner heart has indeed changed.  One doesn’t do that with a simple profession of belief or with pious words, but with acts that literally show one is more loving, caring, giving, serving, humble, gentle, peaceful and kind.  One may not ever be perfect but one had better fearfully examine whether internal changes continue to occur.

While some of us do not claim a salvation through belief in Christ, most of us claim to be spiritual people who love, serve and give.  We should have tangible evidence in our lives, therefore, that we have worked out our understanding of salvation with much fear and trembling so that we are not found to be hypocrites – people who love to talk but fail to act.

So, how do we engage the power of action?  How do we stop procrastination, laziness and indifference in ourselves?  Most experts say that like all forms of change, we should take incremental steps.  Faced with large tasks, we too often fear their size or time commitment.  Instead, we can and should undertake one small step at a time – accomplishing one piece of a task instead of an entire project.  Should we be serving more here at the Gathering or in our community?  We can start with simple tasks, gain confidence and move on to more.  Soon, experts say, we will have accomplished our goal not in one sudden burst of activity but in a way that promotes enduring change.

Second, we should challenge our thinking.  Why don’t we act as we should?  Are we afraid of new responsibilities or failure?  We should intentionally tell ourselves that our fears are not valid as we think of times when we have acted and succeeded.  We can remind ourselves the emotional toll inaction takes on us and others.  Doing something – even if we spectacularly fail – usually brings more peace of mind than the self-doubt, worry and guilt we feel by doing nothing.  Most of all, we must be gentle with ourselves using Jesus, once again, as a model.  He did not judge, condemn or heap guilt upon people.  Instead, he tenderly and lovingly encouraged positive change.  We must do the same for ourselves.  Change is never easy but we can start small and build from there.

Let’s be real my friends.  Just talking about the need for action perpetuates what we are speaking against.  Each of us can first act by honestly examining himself or herself.  What areas within me still need to be changed for the better?  What things have I discussed or heard about here at the Gathering that I believe are valid and should be acted upon?  Have I actually put into practice the things I’ve heard here?  What more could I be doing to serve our congregation, our community and our world?  What small acts can I incorporate in my life so that I begin the journey toward being a person of action – not just to serve my needs but the needs of others?  What ideas, thoughts and beliefs have I not proven are genuinely within me because I have not acted on them?  Let’s not just think and ponder these questions.  Let’s resolve.  Let’s decide.  And then, LET’S DO!

Personally, I resolve to add one more hour a week, outside of my work with Gathering, to serve those who hunger, suffer or are in need.  And, I resolve to not just say I love family and friends but to show more tangible acts of love to them.  When you next see me in two weeks, I hope you will ask if I have acted, and if such changes are sticking.  Fill out the resolution lines in your program or online with small, baby steps of action you can take.  Keep the program with you.  Share your resolutions with a friend who will hold you accountable.  And then, DO them.  Afterwards, make even MORE small resolutions to act.  And do them too.  Adopt an attitude of growth, change and action.  As the Bible asks of all people, let us not love in word and talk, but in deed and truth.  Let us engage the power of action!

I wish you much peace and joy on your journey…

Click below to find a form on which to make your resolution.  Download, print, resolve and act!  Many blessings to you…

Action