Rev. Beth Dickerson November 18, 2018 Lake Street Church The Sacred at the Center of Existence Psalm 19: 1-4 and a reading from Black Elk I had lunch

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1 Rev. Beth Dickerson November 18, 2018 Lake Street Church The Sacred at the Center of Existence Psalm 19: 1-4 and a reading from Black Elk I had lunch this past week with a very interesting person. He is the Rev. Dr. Norval Brown. Dr. Brown will be our keynote speaker On Friday night November 30 th when we will kick off our congregational work examining what it means to be white in a multi-racial multi-cultural community. I guarantee you will enjoy hearing Dr. Brown speak. He is dynamic, educated (University of Chicago), and experienced. But, that is not why I m bringing him up. I bring him up because he is the epitome of someone who has the Divine at the center of his existence. Everyone s life has a center. Our center is the hub around which all decisions revolve. For some, survival is the hub from morning until night. For others, the acquisition of wealth or material goods drives daily choices. In some Western cultures, the center of life is pleasure-seeking, gained through entertainment, drugs, alcohol, and sex. But a God-centered life is one that revolves around the character of God. A fine but distinct line exists between being God-centered and being religion-centered. Many religion-centered people think that their lives revolve around God, when, in truth, they are enslaved to a religious system. Many false religions, and even some Christian denominations, focus so much on strict performance standards that the relationship with God is pushed into the background. Neither being church-centered nor being activity-centered can substitute for being God-centered. In order to differentiate between a God-centered and a religion-centered life, it helps to know the difference between the two. You might ask yourself these questions: 1

2 * Do I live with the vague, uneasy feeling that God is continually displeased with me? * Do I secretly judge others who are not as actively engaged as I am in church or charity work? * Do I believe there to be a clear distinction between the sacred and the secular as it pertains to daily life? * Do I consider religious-looking activities a means by which I can gain God s favor? * If my religious activity slackens, what is my motivation to resume it guilt? fear? If guilt or fear is the motivator for any church-based activity, you may have a religion-centered life. A truly God-centered life feels off balance when prayer, meditation or spiritual focus is lacking. For a God-centered person, the motivation to return to those practices stems from desire, not guilt, similar to how one who has fasted all day by evening hungers for food. A religion-centered life draws clear lines between the sacred and the secular, considering only religiously tainted activities as having any spiritual worth. The Divine draws no such lines and encourages us to glorify God in the mundane chores of daily living. I d like to explore with you the concept of God as Jesus experienced and interpreted this divine Higher Power. At the center of Jesus life was a profound and continuous relationship with the Spirit of God. Jesus was known by his contemporaries as an exorcist who cast demons out of people and as a healer of diseases. That was attributed to the power of the Spirit working through him. The historical Jesus did not understand himself to be the son of God. In the earliest writings in Matthew, Mark, and Luke as well as the Nag Hammadi 2

3 Scripture, the Apocryphal Gospels, or Q he never once made this declaration. This denial does not preclude affirming that Jesus was an epiphany or disclosure of God, or the embodiment or incarnation of the Wisdom of God. It is very clear from early literature that Jesus sees himself as being in relationship to God and letting the Spirit work through him. The image of the pre-easter Jesus, the historical Jesus, as the one who experienced God is quite different from the most common understandings of Jesus. Imaging Jesus as the son of God or God incarnate is commonly linked to the notion that Christianity is exclusively true and Jesus is the only way. What I m suggesting, along with Marcus Borg and other scholars, is that Jesus, rather than being the exclusive revelation of God, is one of many mediators of the sacred. In other words, I m suggesting that the Divine spoke and still speaks through many different people such as the Buddha, Confucius, and Muhammad. And I believe that the Divine speaks through some of you. I realize that some Christians would consider this view to be sacrilegious. However, I have never been able to swallow the claim in John 14:6 when Jesus is quoted as saying, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you remember, we talked weeks ago that the gospel of John was written approximately 150 years after Jesus lived and there is evidence that much of what it written seems to be fabrication of the early Christian communities. I ask you, what are the chances that God would speak only to and through this group of Jewish people living in Palestine? However, what I do find highly credible is the image of Jesus as a spirit person. I embrace challenging our most common ways of thinking about God and considering alternative ways of imaging God. I quote Borg when I say, The most common modern understandings of God are deist or super naturalist. Speaking broadly, the deist way conceives of God as a supernatural being out there who 3

4 created the world a long time ago, who established natural laws as a way of ordering it, and who no longer has much to do with it. The super naturalist way also sees God as being out there, and differs from deism only by affirming that God from time to time supernaturally intervenes in this world. The image of God that goes with the understanding of Jesus as a spirit person is very different. Rather than being an article of belief, God becomes an experiential reality. The experience of the spirit person of Jesus suggests that God is not to be thought of a remote and transcendent creator far removed from this world, but imaged as all around us as the one in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts). In this context, Jesus becomes a powerful testimony, modeling for us the reality and knowability of God. In this way, the word God refers to the sacred at the center of our existence. Believing this, we begin to see how the Divine is both transcendent and immanent. Transcendence refers to the aspect of God s nature and power that is wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all known physical laws. In religious experience, transcendence is a state of being that has overcome the limitations of physical existence and by some definitions has also become independent of it. The transcendent God is typically addressed through prayer and meditation. It is reflected in Psalm 19, which Grayson read for us. Psalm 19 implies that God is out there, in the infinity of the heavens and the stars. In fact, if one continues to read Psalm 19 the next verse begins, In the heavens God has set a tent for the sun. This contrasts with the immanent God, a God who is said to be fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways. The immanent God dwells within. That is why we bow our heads when we pray. We are praying to the Divine that is inside us at the core of our being. f us. We are all One. 4

5 Native American beliefs, which are in both an immanent God and transcendent God, are deeply rooted in their culture. Native Americans believe everything is sacred from the tallest mountain to the smallest plants and animals. Their belief is that a lesson can be found in all things and experiences and everything has its purpose. I particularly like this quote from Native American, Walking Fox. Spirituality is not religion to the American Native. Religion is not a Native concept, it is a non-native word, with implications of things that often end badly, like Holy wars in the name of individuals God's and so on. Native people do not ask what religion another Native is, because they already know the answer. To Native people, spirituality is about the Creator, period." The first Mass of Thanksgiving on American soil was actually celebrated by the Spanish with the Timucuan Indians in attendance on September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida. Even though Native Americans were not exposed to Jesus and Christianity until then, I find it interesting that Native Americans and Jesus had similar understandings of the Spirit. When we think of Jesus, as well as Native Americans, being in touch with the Spirit that was in and around him at all times, it implicates how we think of being a Christian. The shift focuses from believing in Jesus or believing in God to being in relationship to the same Spirit that both Native Americans and Jesus knew. In other words, being Christian moves beyond belief to a relationship with the Divine. I m sure that Lake Street Church will continue to be diverse in the many faith beliefs that are represented in the hearts of congregants. I know a number of you profess to follow the practices of Jesus without necessarily embracing the concept of Jesus as the incarnation of the Divine. Others of you embrace trinitarianism. What unites us are the practices of Jesus that lead us forward as we create the Kingdom of God here on earth a place of love, justice, and equality for 5

6 all. And we are united as we are led by the immanent Spirit that is in, among, and through us as we continue on our individual spiritual journeys. Blessed Be and thanks be to the Divine. 6