FISHING FOR CLOUDS

Rev. Kathleen Ellis

13 May 01

Thank you so much for having me here today. I usually commute from College Station to Austin for my day off on Friday, and this time I didn’t have to go back on Saturday! And thank you, Greta and Martin, for arranging the date and preparing the order of service. The space, the choir, the interest in spreading the good news of Unitarian Universalism speak well of your promise. You are on the verge of something great here in South Austin, and I applaud your efforts.

Over fifty years ago I was baptized at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Shreveport, LA. In Vacation Bible School I began to learn about who God was and that Jesus was my friend. My journey had begun into the enormous topic of today’s sermon, in which I will try to capture some ideas about God. You might notice that most of the time I do not use male or female pronouns to refer to God.

To speak or write about God seems as about as reasonable as fishing for clouds that float overhead or simply appear as reflections or shadows below. Look at the shapes of clouds and two people will find different images, like a Rorschach test with no right or wrong answers.

Whether God and clouds exist "out there" somewhere or seem to become an integral part of land and water, a fishing net just won’t do. The idea of God exists even though Jews were not to speak the name,

Muslims were not to make visual images of it, Christians could not find adequate words for it, Buddhists and Humanists dispensed with a god concept, Hindus and Shintos made room for thousands of gods and goddesses,

multitudes claimed and reclaimed its feminine aspects, and on it goes. The Goddess worship of ancient days has experienced a revival through a celebration of the cycles of the moon, the blessings of fertility, the beauty of the earth, and the wisdom of the crone. Maiden, Mother, and Crone are all honored.

In addition to all these world views, we dare not ignore atheism as a belief system. Karen Armstrong, in her book A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, points out that atheism was once a position only painfully acquired by intellectual pioneers. It was a rejection of a particular idea of God. Today we don’t have to be great thinkers to become atheist. We have only to be swept up in this fast-paced, secular society. Who has time for God? Who needs the God we rejected as children? No doubt it is a relief to feel free from the terror some of us knew as children. We are free to follow our bliss.

Yet it is also true, as Armstrong suggests, that Homo sapiens might have been named Homo religiosus. There is something about us that calls us to worship Something with a capital S or to seek a connection with the universe beyond ourselves. So the questions we asked as children never quite go away. For instance:

Who is God? . . . What is God? . . . Is God male or female or neither one? . . . Does God have three persons or one? . . . By what name shall God be known? . . . There are dozens of deities and creators from which to choose, such as Al-Lah, Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, Christ, Krsna, Kali, Jehovah, Yhwy, Wotan, Athena, Raja, Copperwoman . . .The names spill out from an endless stream of creation stories that engage far more than our imaginations.

The Rev. Forrest Church says, "God is not God’s name. "God is our name for the highest power we can imagine." Some people believe in an angry God who can punish those who don’t bow down to him. I believe in a God expressed as love, goodness, justice, or the blessing of creation itself. We work in faith that these qualities of goodness will win against the harsh realities of sin and evil.

We play with language of God that doesn’t get in the way of the concept. Tillich called it the Ground of Being, though with lay people he used the idea of "ultimate concern." Martin Buber writes about the I-Thou relationship where God is present in our relationships. We incorporate what we know from science, psychology, sociology, and world religions into our concept of a divine power. When we became aware that Earth is not the center of the universe and when we learned about the theory of evolution, the notion of God simply expanded. The Creator of the universe, if that’s what we believed, must have been omniscient to design such an intricate system that continues to evolve over time.

Earl Holt said in a recent sermon that

"God is our name for whatever it is that gives us the capacity to look at our lives from the largest perspective. To speak of God at all is to remind ourselves that our lives are lived in a larger context, an infinite context, that what we do has greater significance and meaning than we often recognize. God does not manifest his will upon us by making us puppets on a string; we are not play-actors in a drama of someone else’s devising. But neither are we entirely independent beings whose object is to carve out whatever place we can in an indifferent or hostile universe which has no interest in us. We are co-creators with God of the world we inhabit, and the world that we will someday leave behind. Or at least so I believe."

Surveys show that 99% of U.S. citizens say we believe in God, yet that statement conceals a whole range of meanings that can be contradictory or even mutually exclusive. Fundamentalists would say that God is experienced today in the same way that Abraham, Moses, Muhammad, and other prophets experienced him.

When Moses asks God his name in the book of Exodus, God’s answer is usually translated, "I am Who I am" or "I am What I am." A closer translation is "I will be What I will be." This language suggests the realm of the future, and the future is the domain of freedom. This kind of latitude in the understanding of God allows it to remain a great idea even as its meaning evolves.

On the other hand, the statement "I do not believe in God" has had different meanings over time. Again, which God do you mean? Jews, Christians, and Muslims were all called atheists at one time by their pagan contemporaries.

Unitarian Universalists speak of our relationships to one another and the universe. Our Principles do not define God because the concept of God no longer fits neatly in a box, if it ever did. We choose not to explain the unknowable for anyone but ourselves.

Let’s take a familiar set of principles that are stated very simply. Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, taught two basic commandments: Love God and love your neighbor. . . . We still don’t get it. Wars are fought in the name of God among people who could be called neighbors. Unitarians and Universalists, who evolved from heretical positions of the second and fourth centuries, have consistently tried to expand the definition of God and neighbor.

Like the concept of God, the concept of neighbor no longer fits a narrow definition. Think about the recent political campaigns: The Democrats aspired to allow every kind of constituency around the table. The Green Party challenged us to simplify our lives so that all may share in the nation’s wealth. The Republicans made a noticeable effort to include many voices who have traditionally been left out of the political process. "Love your neighbor" is not just a religious idea anymore.

Our neighborhoods are changing--at least in theory. Television and internet have brought us into close proximity. And ever since we first saw the Earth from the surface of the moon in 1969, we have increasingly included animals, plants, water, and air in our ethical considerations. Religious concepts have needed to make room for the planets and galaxies as well as for microbes and DNA. This kind of understanding crosses faith boundaries, national borders, and cultural perspectives. In our expanded understanding of neighbor and neighborhood our greatest challenge and perhaps our highest calling is in our relations with one another. Someday we may need to include other life forms.

My science teachers taught that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. It changes form or breaks into atoms and molecules, but the particles still exist. It is fascinating these days to hear how science and religion seem to come together if you go far enough or deep enough.

Many religions have taught that like the universe, God can neither be created nor destroyed. Rev. Fred Muir believes that God and the Cosmos are one. He writes,

"The Cosmos as God is never-ending, with or without the life forms that compose its web of existence. There can be no destruction of the Cosmos, there is no risk of destruction -- it is life producing, nurturing, and sustaining despite humans."

Some people have even said the cosmos would be better off without the destructive tendencies of the human race. It is true that the natural world includes tragedy. These are usually known as "acts of God." Human beings do commit atrocities, sometimes in the name of God. When we picture God as Cosmos, we have the sense of connection not just with the natural world but with the divine.

We are born; we die; and we know this. It is in each life span, in each ordinary day that religion must have meaning if it is to have any meaning at all. Whether or not we attend services or believe a certain way matters, but only to the extent that it influences the lives we live day after day. Religious life is not about formal observations, but about ethical principles and spiritual truths. True religion is a way of living.

Countless stories teach us that to achieve enlightenment or to reach maturity, a boy must leave home, sever ties, go on a vision quest and return as a man ready to shoulder his burdens. Women often stay behind to tend the children, plant gardens, prepare meals. Sometimes they do this until someone leaves them (e.g., the children).

Meanwhile, dreams and memories and experiences have been happening all along and one day a woman wakes up and no longer fits her old self-image. Most often she does not sever her relationships. But she stops doing things only for others, she stops identifying herself in terms of others, and she begins to find her own identity and a new relationship with the divine.

Natalie Goldberg begins her book Long Quiet Highway with a story of Buddhist monks who begin a marathon run of 18-25 miles at 1 AM every morning for a thousand mornings. Then they go on a nine day fast, in which everything becomes crystal clear and they can smell food cooking miles away. Goldberg writes that maybe we need to go to the mountains in order to wake up to life. But maybe we need to work at our jobs, raise our babies, buy the groceries, and tend to one another with as much consciousness and determination as it must take to run a thousand marathons.

God lives within all of creation throughout the galaxies and in the connections between me and you, the trees, leaves, squirrels, birds, and insects outside these windows, and everything that exists. The Transcendentalists could see God in the natural world. Edna St. Vincent Millay declared, "I can move two blades of grass apart and put my finger on God’s heart." That’s how close God is to the world we inhabit.

In the story for all ages, God played hide and seek. The children found God in the grass or in the night or in people who share or in themselves. Some were not sure. And God said, "That’s okay because the most important thing is just to play the game. Let’s do it again! I’m sure I can find some other good hiding places." The children all called out, "Olly olly oxen free!" And the game started all over again.

Countless books have been written about the nature of God, the history of God, and the proof of God’s existence. I was taught very early in life that God is Love. I have always found a spark of hope in the midst of despair. It is a hope that God’s love will sustain me through the darkness.

We generally try to move, if we move at all, toward more love, more justice, more compassion, more wholeness in our lives. These virtues call us beyond ourselves. They insist that we step outside our own egos, insecurities, and inherited prejudices to see the world differently. Some of us call this God; some of us call it humanity’s quest for the greater good.

After all is said and done, all the questions asked and answers given, God will be What God will be. God is part of me but I can’t really explain that or prove it. My belief in God gives me hope for goodness in the world and a challenge to help make it so. We are free to use our lives in the service of the highest ideals we know. Our task can be said to use our freedom in the service of God.

How can we hear the voice of God if we never stop to listen?

How can God direct our steps if we’re not taking any?

Brief flashes of insight, fragments of truth, and portions of wisdom grace our lives. Let us gather these jewels where we may, and move with courage into the unknown.

Amen