Talking about God and Humanity I had planned for this morning s sermon to be easy. We have so many new folks, I thought maybe it would be a good idea

Transcription

1 Talking about God and Humanity I had planned for this morning s sermon to be easy. We have so many new folks, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to clarify how Unity thinks about some basic ideas. The topics for the next couple weeks are actually embedded in our 5 Basic Principles, printed on the bulletin. Not sure we all read them but how hard could it be to talk about our Basic Principles? Then Spirit revealed that my theme for this year should be Faith In Action. Hmmmm.talking about God and Humanity in a way we can integrate into our lives. Well, ok, here goes. God and humanity do not present the chicken and egg problem clearly God came first. But it took humanity to introduce a curiosity about God, or a power greater than ourselves, or why the world works the way it does. Humans have reflective thinking. We wonder about stuff. And initially we imagined the power greater than ourselves to just be bigger, more powerful versions of us. Greek and Roman Gods, Hindu gods, Aztec gods most of them have fairly human characteristics. We created God in our image and likeness. Sort of the opposite of the bible verse. But that s where we started. Then mystics began to imagine a force, a power that was not contained in anything like a form we are familiar with. It was not in form at all. It was unknowable and unnamable. Herein lies the divine paradox we always struggle with: to grasp with human understanding a concept not human and beyond our understanding. And to try to shape that understanding within the limits of language. To know something you cannot describe. Unity speaks of this power using many names: God, the Divine, Spirit, the Universe, One Mind, Source, Oneness, Father-Mother-God. Emilie Cady was a contemporary of the Fillmores and wrote for Unity Magazine. Her book, Lessons in Truth, was first published as a series of articles in 1894 and 95. At that time, all language around God, even the most progressive and gender neutral philosophy, used the male pronoun. Here is how Dr. Cady speaks of God: God is Spirit, or the creative energy that is the cause of all visible things. God is not a being or person having life, intelligence, love and power. God is that invisible, intangible but very real something we call Life. God is perfect love and infinite power. God is the total of these, the total of all good, whether manifested or unexpressed. 1

2 God is Spirit. We cannot see Spirit with these fleshly eyes; but when Spirit clothes itself with a body, makes itself visible or manifest in the material, then we recognize it. God is love. We cannot see love, nor grasp any comprehension of what love is, except as love is clothed with a form. All the love in the universe is God. God is wisdom and intelligence. All the wisdom and intelligence that we see in the universe is God. God as infinite wisdom lies within every human being, only waiting to be led forth into manifestation. God, the source of our existence every moment is not simply omnipotent (all powerful), he is omnipotence (all power). He is not alone omniscient (all knowing) he is omniscience (all knowledge). He is not omnipresent (everywhere present), he is omnipresence (the essence of being in all at all times in all places). God is not a being having qualities, he is the good itself. If you think this still sounds kind of remarkable compared to other views of God, imagine what it sounded like in Not God as the hand reaching out of the clouds of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Not thinking, judging, loving God but the energy and essence of wisdom and love itself. In The Revealing Word, Charles Fillmore says, God is more than God s universe; God is prior to and is exalted above it, but at once God is in the universe as the essence of it. God is both transcendent and immanent. Rabbi David Cooper says in his book, God is a verb. God is always godding. Let your brain rest a moment. What if we simply agree that God is not a person or a thing. God is the One Power and One Presence, active in my life and in the universe. Do you have to intellectually know and understand energy and light travel and stars to appreciate soaking up the sun on a beautiful spring day? Much of our understanding can arise from our experience. And our relationship to this One. Fillmore says, God is personal to us when we recognize God within us as our indwelling life, intelligence, love and power. Cady says, To the individual consciousness God takes on personality, but as the creative underlying cause of all things, He is principle, impersonal. As expressed in each individual, He becomes personal to that one. Cady points out, God is. Human exists. She says exists come from ex, out of, and sister, to stand forth. Humans stand forth out of God. 2

3 We are the creation of God; the offspring of God. There is the analogy of the drop of the ocean. The drop contains all that the ocean contains yet the drop is clearly not the entirety of the ocean. Some people prefer the analogy of the wave, to avoid any appearance of separation. Yet we are not all God. In Unity we refer to the three-fold nature of humanity. We are Spirit. Our innermost, real being; the absolute part of us, the I AM of us has never changed though our thoughts and circumstances may have changed thousands of times. Sometimes we refer to this as the Christ of our being. It is the same in all of us, yet uniquely individualized in each of us. It is equally powerful in potential in all of us. This part of us is a standing forth of God into visibility. Soul or mortal mind is the region of the intellect where we do conscious thinking and we exercise free will. This is our point of choice, to be informed by the external world or to be informed by the I AM. Finally, we have bodies. The vehicles that carry Spirit and soul out into the world. No matter how much we may identify with these bodies, we are more than our bodies. The body is the external clothing of the soul, the soul is the clothing of Spirit. And the divine tension is to know all these aspects of ourselves and yet know our oneness. We are not three separate things that can be divided there are three aspects of our one expression on earth. I mentioned we sometimes refer to our Spirit self as the Christ of our being. Unity is based on the teachings of Jesus and yet, our theology is quite different than much of mainline Christianity. It is sometimes considered blasphemous or disrespectful. Here are some distinctions we make. Traditional Christianity believes that Jesus was unique and the only expression in the material world of a being fully human and fully divine. Jesus was fully God in the world, taken on flesh, and separate from all others. Unity believes that Jesus was like us, fully human and with that Divine Spirit or Divine Spark mentioned in the Daily Word and that Jesus was unique in his ability to fully realize his divinity. We all have that potential. The things I have done you can do also, and more are the words in the New Testament that hint our view is accurate. Words that Jesus spoke encouraging those around him not to view him as the Messiah or savior, but as a teacher and rabbi demonstrating the Truth waiting to be discovered by us all. 3

4 Most faiths, not just Christianity, portray the relationship between humanity and the Divine as one requiring obedience or service or even servitude of humanity to the Divine. There are paths to earn good or suffer the consequences. This is very critical. I would characterize the relationship between humanity and the Divine in Unity s teachings as one of co-operation. We speak of our ability to co-create with the Divine. If we are the inlet and outlet for the expression of the Divine in the world, then it is simply incumbent upon us to be open and receptive to the flow. There is no merit system. We are connected to infinite Source if we are open. We express our divinity to the extent we are aware and the extent our human mind does not create barriers and blocks to the fullest expression of our true selves. This does not mean that we discard awe and humble adoration when considering the infinite beauty, power and sacred expression of God. We simply use that awe to open ourselves to the flow, to the connection, to our oneness with all that is. The vehicle we have to bring our expression of Spirit into the world is our humanity. Psalm 139 says, I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. How many of us stand before the mirror and say each morning, Thank you God for this fearfully and wonderfully made body? How many of us understand the role our humanity plays in being Spirit in the world? In John 9, the disciples ask Jesus why a man is born blind. They wonder if it the result of his own sins or the sins of his parent. Pretty common thinking. Jesus says, Neither! This man is exactly as he is so the works of God could be made manifest. What if there is not one single thing wrong with any aspect of your humanity? What if every aspect of your physical, mental and emotional being, every choice you make, is part of your unique expression of Spirit? And what if everything we judge as a challenge, a disaster, a flaw, is just a tool for us to use learning the fullness of our potential? What if there really are no pat answers to any of our questions? What if spirituality is not a course of instruction but a path of experience and exploration? What if each of us is uniquely different and we are all the same? What if we are never alone and there is never more than just me? I want to invite each of us to explore our beliefs about God or whatever name we use and our relationship to that something higher. What do we believe about ourselves, humanity, our world? 4

5 I will end with a quote that is not from Unity but I like it for today. It is from the British Eastern Orthodox Bishop, Kallistos Ware. It is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder. Have a great week of wonder and mystery. 5