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Welcome to Hillsboro United Methodist Church! If you are searching for deeper meaning in your life that includes lasting relationships, spiritual growth and service to the world you have come to the right place. We offer a safe place in which to ponder important life questions within an atmosphere of support. Our hearts, our minds and our doors are open. We hope that as you visit with us that you will find a place to call home.
Sermon - July 25th, 2010
A Whole Universe of Questions
Rev. Gwen Drake
Acts 17:22-32, Matthew 2:1-2
Prayer: O Holy One, let us listen with open minds and open hearts. May your grace and love flow freely through us. Amen.
The world is ambiguous. It does not come to us with answers attached to it. It is here. It is out there. We look at the world through our own filters: our filter of experience, tradition, reason. We each have our own unique perception of the world. The question is what do you see? What do you make of what you see?
Something I see is more diversity in my backyard, in my neighborhood, than even before. Now, that is easy for me to say because I grew up in a very white small Eastern Oregon town. Heppner had one black man who was someone’s hired man, and a few Korean children who were adopted. That’s all I remember. And our religious diversity was Catholics, Protestants, Seventh Day Adventist, a few Mormons I knew because most of them were from the Mormon part of my family, and the holy rollers. That was the religious diversity I grew up with. I did not have one classmate in my school who was Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu.
It is not that way anymore. And that is one reason why I am doing a series of sermons on the major World Religions. To seek understanding about our differences and our similarities, to build bridges between us and seek peace in our world because we all know that our world is very divided and even at war along religious lines as Cardinal Neumann has lamented, “O how we hate one another for the love of God.”
Another reason is to simply recognize people have never agreed, ever, and it might be safe to say, they never will agree on one world view, one perception on the meaning of life, which is what religion speaks to. Some of us, maybe most of us at sometime in our life, would just love to be given the answers to our questions about life. We feel like we are forced to wrestle with a whole universe of questions ourselves. Maybe there have been times when we have said, “Just tell me the answer!” Kierkegaard reminds us that although we think we would like to be told the answers to life’s questions, if we were told the answers we would not like the position that put us in. Why? Because it would deprive us of our freedom and our dignity. We would be like robots. All we would have to do is go look up the answer to our question. Instead, we have been given the freedom to choose for ourselves. Not for someone else---ourselves. We are free to choose.
The Apostle Paul walked into Athens and he was in the center of the western world’s thinkers. It was a place of vigorous discussion about philosophy and religion. They talked about religious things like we talk about the rain in Oregon—with ease and passion! These discussions about the meaning of life got carried into the Areopagus, the local city council chambers.
Now what Paul did when he came into the city was brilliant. He did not tear down their shrines and idols, not literally or metaphorically. He did not tell them they were wrong or stupid to worship the way they did. He simply started adding another story to the equation—his story and the story of Jesus.
The people of Athens noticed right away. They asked, “What is this know-it-all saying?” “He’s preaching about foreign gods!” “We need to have the city council check him out!” So they brought him to the Areopagus and said, “Okay, wise guy, tell our most learned leaders about the strange things you have been telling us.”
Now, really, the people of Athens loved hearing about new and strange things. So Paul stood up and said, “I see that you are all very religious.” And Paul continuing telling them that there was something true, something right, something good in their religious impulses and the strongest evidence of the presence of a true religious feeling in Athens was the altar to an unknown god. Now, I could take a cynical perspective and say, “That altar to the unknown god? That was just in case they missed one. Tha was their insurance policy! You should know that, Paul! Well, maybe Paul did know that; however, he saw this altar as a sign that the people of Athens were seeking and open to a whole universe of questions when it came to life and God and what it all meant. He saw their yearning for more understanding. And he told them, “Your unknown god is the God who made the world and everything in it. Your unknown god is the God who gives life and breath and all things to you. God created us so that we would probe, investigate, explore, inquire, look for God and find God—though indeed God is not far from each of us. For ‘In God we live and move and have our being,’ just as some of your own poets have said.”
This is an incredible speech Paul gave, especially when his initial reaction to all the idols and altars he was distress. He could have denounced their religious ways and called them sinners, pagans, heretics, idol-worshipers. Except he didn’t.
And I am not going to do that either when we look at other religions. I will quote from their writings and poetry and scriptures. I will use their language. I will speak to our common ground. I will not be so arrogant to say that our way is the only way to the truth. I hope all of us can be like Paul was in his situation—very inclusive and welcoming of the strange religious impulses he saw in Athens, knowing that they saw strange religious impulses in him. It is all about our perspective, our world view.
Robert Fulghum, a Unitarian, tells this story about a flight he was on from Australia to Athens. He was sitting with a carpenter from Australia and a professor of hydrology from India. Now that would be an interesting flight for a Unitarian or a Methodist! They started talking about God because with their meals (this was a few years back), came a little card with a prayer of thanksgiving on it. The professor from India started the conversation by announcing to the others, he was not thankful to any of the gods for this particular meal. So, the Australian, who also was not impressed with the quality of the meal composed a prayer of complaint and the discussion took off from there.
The Australian’s theology was based on fleas and dogs (doesn’t surprise me). He said arguing about whether or not God existed was like fleas arguing whether or not the dog existed. And not only that, arguing over the correct name of God was like fleas arguing over the name of the dog! (Now, you all know what dog spells backwards, right?) The Australian said arguing over whose notion of God was correct was like fleas arguing over who owned the dog. This was the Australians version of theological truth.
Then the professor of hydrology from India gave his version. By the way, hydrology does have something to do with water. His business card said, “the scientific study of the properties, distribution, and effects of water in the atmosphere, on the earth’s surface, and in soil and rocks.” Yep, the study of water. The professor started with Australia. He said, in Australia, people worship the sun—on the beach—with most of their clothes removed. And to get to Athens, they were flying over countries where people believed it was the will of Allah that women should be completely covered, even on beaches. The name of God varied from country to country; the holy book was not the same, the rituals and dogmas and routes to heaven were not the same. And so certain were the followers of the different religions that they would gladly go to war—kill others—to have their beliefs and metaphors prevail. Yet in this same plane, flying peacefully along, were the same people. It’s troubling. Why? Then the professor spoke of water.
“Water is everywhere and in all living things—we cannot be separated from water. No water, no life. Period. Water comes in many forms—liquid, vapor, ice, snow, fog, rain, hail. But no matter the form, it’s still water.
“Human beings give this stuff many names in many languages, in all its forms. It’s crazy to argue over what its true name is. Call it what you will, there is not difference to the water. It is what it is.
“Human beings drink water from many vessels—cups, glasses, jugs, skins, their own hands, whatever. To argue about which container is proper for the water is crazy. The container doesn’t change the water.
“Some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it iced, some fizzy, some with stuff mixed in with it—alcohol, coffee, whatever. No matter. It does not change the nature of the water.
“Never mind the name or the cup or the mix. They are not important.
“What we have in common is thirst. Thirst! Thirst for the water of Life!
“I don’t know much about God,” the professor said. “All I know is water. And that we are momentary waves in some great everlasting ocean, and the waves and the water are one.” Then he poured himself and his two seat mates a glass of water and they drank. (Robert Fulghum, Uh-Oh, 1991).
We each come to the series on World Religions with our own baggage—our own perspectives, ideas, practices, and prejudices. We come with a lot of institutional baggage. I want you to open a window in your heart while you listen, if you can. It’s okay if you can’t. Notice what is going on, though, and acknowledge the closed window and try to understand what it is in you that closes you off.
I chose another Scripture to be read this morning from the Gospel of Matthew, that is traditionally read as part of the Christmas story, the story of the Wise Men, the magi. In Jesus time this could have meant a number of different kinds of people—magic workers or sages. Traditionally they are thought of as astrologers; they looked for signs from God in the stars. Something happened in the stars that told these foreign priests to follow the star to Bethlehem. They packed their bags and traveled miles, bringing expensive gifts, to see a baby. They weren’t Christians, of course. They weren’t Jewish either. They were Gentiles, practicing their own religion. They were among the first to see the baby Jesus. I find this both amazing and inspiring. Wise people who are seeking God, finding God in a new and profound way from their own religious background.
We don’t know what happened to them after they returned to their homes. We do know they went home another way—both literally and metaphorically. Literally, because they were instructed in a dream to not return to King Herod and tell him about the baby. Metaphorically, because they saw God in a whole new way, they went home as changed people, affected by what they experience. Their worldview was opened. They went home another way.
I hope we can be like these ancient wise people. I hope we are faithful people willing to look through a small window at these other faiths to see God and life in a new way, to learn about them and learn about ourselves.
There is a whole universe of questions and I encourage you to wrestle with them. No one else can wrestle with them for you. It is your choice, your freedom of choice. I don’t have the answers for you, only you have the answers for you.
We come together in this place to remember we do not wrestle alone. Our brothers and sisters in the pews wrestle with them also. And God wrestles with us—if we are willing. And in our wrestling, just as Jacob wrestled all night with an angel or God or that deep part of himself, we will emerged a new person. Jacob did. The Magi did. I believe the Apostle Paul did. I believe we will, also. If we so choose. Thanks be to God.
Amen.