Are you saved? This question often arises at holiday gatherings where political. philosophies and theological conclusions all converge together.

Transcription

1 Are You Saved? The Rev. Gail R. Geisenhainer, Senior Minister First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor Sunday, November 09, 2014 Are you saved? This question often arises at holiday gatherings where political philosophies and theological conclusions all converge together. First a word about a theological term. Today I ll be using a fair amount of God language. In twenty-first century America, God is a word with so many meanings that God becomes a word with no meaning. Whenever we use the word God, now, it requires some kind of explanation. I m reminded of the quip attributed to a Unitarian minister. When responding to a congregant who announced, I don t believe in God, the clergyman said, Tell me about this God you don t believe in, chances are I don t believe in him either. The word needs explaining. For today s purposes, I am using God to represent the kind of God most likely to be found in the major Christian churches in places here, like Ann Arbor and Saline, Ypsilanti and Dexter. Even that is vague, I know. But that s where I m starting. Have you ever been asked, Are you saved? Perhaps at work or at the Thanksgiving table? Is it your theology to think in terms of heaven and hell, the saved and the damned? How to respond if we re asked this? My summary answer, my own short answer is this: Yes. Are you saved? Yes, would you please pass the green beans. Page 1 of 8

2 My yes is grounded in theology, in science, and in experience. My personal theology is a blend of Christianity, Buddhism, Humanism and Science. Salvation, for me, is about evolving, learning, growing, sharing, supporting, caring, and the release of suffering. To ask if I am saved, to me, means to ask if I am connected and engaged in the release of suffering, connected and engaged in the well-being of others, connected and engaged in making a positive difference in the world. Theologically, Salvation often means conversion, the turning away from sin and the embrace of righteousness. I believe in salvific conversion.., but I think my definitions might startle more traditional theologians. For me, salvific conversion is more like the one in John Newton s hymn, Amazing Grace. To be saved is to move from one paradigm to a better paradigm. Was blind, but now I see, Lost and now Found. Imagining myself cut off from others, an Island of rugged individualism, autonomous, self-made, and, then, realizing I am one among many, part of the whole, integrated into the lives of others. This conversion would be salvation. To be lost, unsaved, means to me being capable of imagining others are unclean in the eyes of God just because of who they are. To be lost, to me, means to be able to say things like God hates you because you are gay. To be lost is to imagine that it is ever, EVER, ever OK to shoot black children in the streets. Lost means to go about planting my gardens, walking my dog, watching college football, and forget that our economic system was built on the slave labor of black men and women and still relies on excluding black men from prosperity and participation through structures of systematic harassment, incarceration, and murder. Page 2 of 8

3 To be lost, to be unsaved, is to be disconnected, aloof, to be unaccountable for the well-being of others. To be lost is to buy into the illusions of separateness, I offer this insight from the writings of Albert Einstein: A human being is a part of the whole called by us the universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest a kind of optical illusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affections for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. What Einstein, here, calls liberation and foundation for security I might refer to as Salvation. What he names an Optical Illusion.., a Delusion, I would name being lost, being blind, imagining oneself to be unconnected. Too often, when we get asked, Are you saved? we are expected to agree that saved means to have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. That is a discrete theological assertion with which I cannot, could not agree. Jesus as savior implies a sacrificial theology.., where someone or something has to be destroyed to secure my well-being. Some ancient religions used sacrifice rituals to assure favor from their gods. Some tossed female virgins, babies or strong young men into volcanoes to appease Page 3 of 8

4 their gods. Some used animal sacrifice.., offering blood of chickens or young lambs to please their gods. This is a zero-sum theology. It is win-loose. You save yourself by sacrificing whatever you label as the other. The elect go to heaven, the damned go to hell. The hierarchies ripple down once this polarizing becomes normative. The elect are better than the damned, white over black, male before female, pure.., and impure. And it reveals a god who must be bribed to do good things. This is not what we teach here. I do not work from a win-loose paradigm. I find that repugnant and indefensible. I work from a win-win platform. We are connected, interrelated and mutually accountable to one another. Have you ever wondered how it is that so many Unitarian Universalist congregations carry the name, All Souls? The core of 19th century Universalism taught that after death.., All Souls, everyone, would be united with a loving, father God. No exceptions. Universalist Christianity teaches that God is Love and God loves everyone: no exceptions. God gets dragged into politics. That is never a good thing. In the United States, so much fringe and unaccountable distorted Christian theology has moved into the public discourse. What gets presented as theology is what I would call bad theology. It is fractured, polarized and removed from the religion whence it came. There is a difference between Christian theology and the politicized and polarized fragments that have infested the public discourse. I now call this Cultural Christianity.., it is based in the religion, but no longer accountable to the religion or the people that practice that religion. Cultural religion is what Christian (or Jewish, or Muslim or Buddhist) language Page 4 of 8

5 looks like after it is raided, invaded, fractured, cherry-picked and rearranged by folks intending to make a point that cannot be made by that theology in its unbattered forms. I think that much of what passes as Christianity in Cultural Christianity is not the good news of Jesus.., but, rather, the intersection between intentional antiintellectualism and the tortured fears, projections and dire predictions of Apocalyptic theology. Much of this can be traced to imbalanced readings of the Christian Book of Revelation. Cultural Christian Apocalypticism is all about escalating revenge, escalating violence to fulfill the so-called plan of a violent God. This theology justifies war. We would do well to learn how to hear it, learn how to see it, learn how to ensure that it does not inform the decisions of our political leaders. Cultural Christianity is bad theology. It often cherry-picks threads and elements of Biblical text and distorts them into mandates for social order. Bad theology emphasizes Dominion and Submission as Power-Over others. This is wrong. What we teach here is that no one religious framework should be used to justify domination of anyone over anyone else. All life is to be valued equally. Christians or Muslims or Jews should not dominate the political working of any country. Men should not dominate women, whites should not dominate blacks. We teach that humans, animals, plants, and the living earth are all to be respected and encouraged to thrive. I m not saying anything goes. Unitarian religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs taught that it matters what we believe. A theology of dominion makes it permissible to fracture the earth, poison the water, toward the goal of exploiting the gas and oil that are trapped in the earth beneath our feet. A theology of cooperation, connection and mutual accountability, a theology like Unitarian Universalism, guides us to protect the Page 5 of 8

6 natural resources and the well being of our planet and all life. It matters what we believe. Hellfire and damnation in the after life are used in Cultural Christianity to separate people that matter from people that don t matter. Unitarian Universalism asserts that all people matter. We are one, connected in a web of living. We are responsible, not in an after-life, but right now, we are responsible for our daily decisions, our every action, we are responsible for easing the suffering of others. We are saved not by being god s favorite people, not by claiming a particular belief.., we are saved by reaching out to all people with compassion and with kindness. We are saved by saying no to evil in any form. Since the late 19th century, Cultural Christianity has made a hash of embracing the advances of science. As a result we get bad theology and bad science. Creationism is a classic artifact of bad theology and junk science. Good gosh, even the current Roman Catholic Pope gets it about evolution! It is frustrating and disheartening to me to see what a firm grip this bad theology can have on so many Americans who vote. Then we get the assertion that somehow God hates people who are gay. We are hammered with the distortion that God hates anyone who is not white, heterosexual, wealthy, and male.., or white, heterosexual, submissive, and female. Unitarian Universalism recognizes a God that is all embracing love. We favor the bumper sticker theology that claims: God Loves Everyone. No Exceptions! Page 6 of 8

7 Many of us here, in this Congregation, are not theists. We do not understand the world as depending on or including what others experience as God. Some of us are atheists.., we are against common views of God. Many of us are non-theists. Much like Buddhists, we understand the world without a God. When we are at the water-cooler at work, sitting in the stands at a kids soccer game, or gathered around a Thanksgiving table, our theologies ought never be used to intimidate, bully, or beat up upon anyone else. Are you saved? Yes, thank you. And please pass the green beans. Are you saved? Yes, my religion teaches that everyone is in the embrace of a loving God. Our religion understands the universe to be a partner in living. We are here to work with the planet, to protect its resources, and relieve the suffering of others. We are not here to call each other names. We are not here to divide people into categories of greater or lesser worth. And, during dinner, we are not here to hijack the conversation into polarized arguments about theology. We are here to express gratitude. Yes, we are saved., our religion saves us from selfishness, from greed, from isolation and despair. Our salvation springs from our compassion, our struggle to ensure justice and peace, and our gratitude for the gifts of life, the gifts of food, the gifts of family and friendship. Thank You. HYMN # 300 With Heart and Mind Page 7 of 8

8 BENEDICTION: May our minds be clear, receptive to revelation and new truth. May our hearts be brave, seeking justice and welcoming others. May our hands be strong, eager to reach out with compassion. My we ever Go Forth in Peace Amen and Blessed Be Page 8 of 8