Message 133, “The Gathering at a Crossroads: What Does It Mean to Serve?”, 6-16-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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There are many famous speeches given by Martin Luther King, Jr.  One that stands out is a sermon given near the end of his life entitled “The Drum Major”.  In it, King used as the illustration for his message an episode described in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus is talking with his disciples.  Two of them, John and James, get into a debate over which of them would sit at Jesus’ right hand once he became King.

The book of Mark is often considered the most accurate of the four Gospels.  It was the first and earliest to be written, there is no narrative of the miraculous virgin birth and a vital portion of the last chapter, number 16, detailing Jesus’ bodily resurrection, is widely considered by almost all scholars to have been appended to the text many years after the original.  Such a fact calls into question the veracity of the resurrection but it also highlights the probable truth of the rest of Mark.

The account of James and John arguing over who would be the right hand man to Jesus is therefore likely to be a true story.  They were not debating over who would sit next to Jesus in heaven but rather who would would be his most trusted adviser when he became King of the Jews – a David like figure that many followers of Jesus hoped he would become.  Indeed, few contemporaries of Jesus saw him as a supernatural Messiah.  He was instead the hoped for great leader who would rally Jews to defeat the Romans and re-establish the powerful nation of Israel.

As King told this story in his 1968 sermon, the disciples of Jesus did not get it.  They were as blind as many people were to the essential message and purpose of Jesus.  As Jesus himself said, he acted as a teacher and rabbi not to be waited on, and fawned over, and treated like an indulgent celebrity, but instead to serve others and to be an example of the true heart of God.  Indeed, in the Bible story recounted by Martin Luther King, Jesus tells his disciples that his mission was not to be an earthly King with great power.  Rather, he envisioned a more transcendent Kingdom – a Kingdom of the heart where ethics of compassionate service, humility and forgiveness ruled the day instead of religious hypocrisy and false piety.  No matter who would sit at his right hand and thus enjoy that dubious status, Jesus pointedly reminded his followers, and Martin Luther King was implicitly saying the same to his followers, that the greatest of people are not Princes, Army Generals or muti-millionaires, they are lowly servants.  Those who are great, serve others.  Those who are great, are humble.  Those who are great, put others first.  Those who are great empower not themselves, but other people.

King implored his listeners at the Ebeneezer Baptist Church to work against the all too human impulse to be a drum major.  All people, he said, crave attention, praise, power and status.  We seek such things, he said, in the cars we drive, the houses we live in, and the ways we treat other people.  Racism is the result of the drum major syndrome, he said.   One group of people seeks to assert itself and act superior to others based on skin color.  War is also the result of the drum major syndrome as nations brutally seek domination over weaker ones.  King pointed to the example of America’s war in Viet Nam as our own national drum major attitude of arrogance.  Great people seek not to be the first among races or the first among nations.  They seek to be first in love.  First in generosity.  First in serving others.

I find it fascinating that one great prophet of history, Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about the example of another great prophet – Jesus.  Both led non-violent movements against the oppressors of their day while calling people to radical compassion, humility, gentleness and the moral standard of decency and justice for all people.  Both died for the sake of their cause.

King looked not only to Jesus as an example but also to Mohandas Gandhi – another prophet for the ages.   Gandhi was born with a servant’s heart.  His passion in life was to serve the poor by teaching them the means to self-sufficiency.  When granted great power because of his large following, he gave it up to others – preferring to cede the limelight and instead lead a life of profound simplicity.  All three men – Jesus, Gandhi, and King – rose to historic greatness not because of their strength, their cunning or their physical power, but because they nurtured and empowered other people.  They were classic servant leaders.  Jesus washed the feet of his followers, Gandhi offered his life as an example of how to live simply and justly, King surrounded himself with other intelligent people to whom he gave power and responsibility so that the Civil Rights movement would endure without him.  As much as they taught about the ethic of serving others, they lived it out.

Indeed, looking at all of the prophets depicted in the painting behind me, they each have one thing in common.  They were first and foremost servants.  As Martin Luther King said in his “Drum Major” sermon, “Everybody can be great.  Because anybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.  You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.”

As we reflect on our ten year birthday as a congregation this month, we have rightly acknowledged our primary purpose and reason for existence is to seek inner growth in ourselves so we can go out and serve others.  Our ultimate reason for existence is not to sit here and enjoy our cozy club of friends, it is to serve.  Many of you, during our discussion time after last week’s message on what it means to grow, suggested new ways we can serve others.  I applaud those thoughts as I am heartened by this congregation’s hunger to serve.

In order to serve others, my message last week on the importance of growth and my message this week on the importance of service to others, are intrinsically tied together.  We cannot continue to serve others unless we grow.  We cannot grow unless we each serve.  While it is comfortable to remain who, what and where we are today, that is not and never has been our purpose.   As much as it would be easy for me to find comfort in our status quo and simply coast along, I am not satisfied with where we are today.  I hope none of you are either.  We are a progressive church.  We have so much more to do and so many more places to go.

Jesus did not tell his twelve disciples to join him in a small club and retreat from the world.  He expanded his following to include and serve women, the disabled, non-Jews and many others.  Thousands eventually followed him.  Gandhi was not content to practice non-violence and simplicity on his small ashram farm in South Africa.  He moved back to India precisely to expand the number of people he could reach by empowering them to self-sufficiency while demanding their rights.  Martin Luther King did not limit his protest march to Birmingham or his bus boycott to Selma.  He empowered our entire nation to enter an era of greater justice.  This congregation was not content, at its beginning, to closet itself in a small huddle around its rejected leader.  It incorporated itself as a church, opened itself to the wider community and moved to a new space that brought many new members – myself included.  Such acts were undertaken as a mission to serve as many people as possible.  We must never forget that mission.

All servant prophets have a moral vision.   They refuse to retreat to the comfort of their small clan.  They are not visionaries of growth as a means to power, prestige and wealth.  They are visionaries of growth in order to serve – to expand their compassion and their moral ethics of justice to as many people as possible……..precisely because they are SERVANTS.  As Martin Luther King said in another speech of his, “Life’s most urgent and persistent question is: what are you doing for others?”

As the Gathering embarks on its next decade, we must emerge from a decade of formation into a teenage time of growth in wisdom, maturity and greater service.  Our mission to be a progressive servant leader in this community calls us to actually get out there and serve – to be the hands and feet of compassion to homeless and impoverished youth.

To be a servant leader in our community, our call is to remain humble in who and what we are.  Our vision is not to seek beautiful and elaborate buildings or large, applauding crowds of people.  We know our limits while also acknowledging we have wisdom and insight.  We have a progressive, non-religious message of spirituality that is important in a world where fundamentalism hurts so many.  Our call is to humbly offer our message to as many people as possible.

We will be servant leaders by living true to our ideals.  By understanding that ethics like forgiveness and non-violence are essential qualities in any human, our work is to practice them toward one another and toward the wider world.  This involves listening to other opinions, refusing to engage in angry or hate filled speech and remaining respectful of all opinions – political, faith based or otherwise.  As individuals and as a congregation, we will act and speak with peace.  We will model to others, as a means to serve them, the way of tolerance, respect and peace – even for those with whom we disagree.

We will be servant leaders through collaboration between ourselves and with other people and organizations in the community.  Far from believing we have all the answers or all knowledge, our goal is to work with others in ways that leverage the abilities of many.  We will hlep empower others to find meaning and purpose in life by serving and coordinating outreach to the poor, hungry and homeless.  We will empower people in ways to facilitate, lead, innovate and create.  We will help empower homeless children and youth in our community to break the cycle of poverty – to learn, work, grow and achieve self-sufficiency.

We will be servant leaders by our celebration of all people.  We will embrace diversity as a way to serve a community of many cultures, races and sexualities.  We will serve our world by welcoming the unique contributions and differences of any and all people.

Finally, we will be servant leaders by our emphasis on the spiritual nature of servitude.  We are all interconnected in the grand design of life.  What affects others, affects us too.  We serve not just to benefit one child or even a few.  We serve to touch the future of all life – us, our children, the strangers outside these doors.

The topic of this message asks what does it mean to serve?  For any of us, serving defines our very reason for existence.  Church is not a social club that offers a brief but nice Sunday interlude.  From the simple to the extraordinary, we touch other lives.  From making a pot of coffee, to holding the hand of one who is sick, to greeting another with a smile, to cleaning a bathroom, to feeding the homeless, to offering soothing music, we sublimate our needs, our wants, our comfort for the sake of another.  We sacrifice.  We give.  That’s our calling.  That’s our duty.  That is the only way we will survive and the only way we will grow.

Only thirty-four days before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “Drum Major” sermon.  At its close, he spoke poignantly of what he wanted said at his funeral.  He did not want to be known as a Nobel Peace Prize winner.  He did not want to be known as a leader of a movement.  He did not want to be known as a speaker or a drum major of anything.  He wanted it simply said that he fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the imprisoned, and cared for all humanity.  He wanted it known that he was first and foremost a servant.

My friends, let that be said of any one of us.  That we were a servant.  That we served above and beyond ourselves.  That we served with our love, our humility, our generosity, and our passion to learn and grow so we can serve even more.  For each of us, and especially for this place called the Gathering, we live to serve……………….and we serve to live.

I wish you all much peace and joy.

Message 132, “The Gathering at a Crossroads: What Does It Mean to Grow?”

© Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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Recently, when a reporter noted that the currently popular singer Britney Spears had experienced some significant improvements in her bustline, the thirty year old celebrity quickly protested.  “I have not had breast implants.  I have merely undergone a growth spurt!”

As ironic as it might sound, Britney speaks to a larger question we each face.  How much do we change due to external influences that artificially cause us to enlarge, and how much do we instead initiate a process of deliberate and planned inner growth of the mind and soul?  In other words, do we simply change, or do we actually grow?

As we all know, change is inevitable.  Importantly, however, change is not necessarily growth.  When we grow, we qualitatively improve for the better.  We’ve learned something valuable.  We’ve gained wisdom, hard won experience and expansion that is good and helpful.  Growth is almost always intentional.  Indeed, growth is a process that should never end.  The status quo is not an option.  In a world that is rapidly changing, we can either grow or fall steadily behind.  By failing to plan our own growth, we have paradoxically planned for our failure.  We will change, but it will not be for our good.

As the Gathering nears its ten year birthday, we have a justifiable reason to celebrate.  Very few churches of our size last more than a few years.  More importantly, very few churches that begin from nothing reach a point where we find ourselves today – a congregation that attracts new members, is consistently able to meet an annual budget of $50,000, and is actively serving and changing lives for the better.  Henry Ward Beecher once said that, “We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but rather by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.”  By that measure, the Gathering has grown substantially.

Birthdays that matter, however, look not so much to the past but rather to the future.  Holidays and anniversaries clearly celebrate what has already happened, but they importantly look forward to the “yet to be.”  What comes next?  How do we build upon the past?  What can we do to insure continued birthday celebrations far into the future?  Ultimately, how do we continue to grow and what strategies must we commit ourselves so that change is not forced upon us?   How do we, instead, embrace growth that is planned and derives from our inner values and beliefs?

I would be seriously remiss as a Pastor if I did not encourage growth in every one of us.  I would also be guilty of malpractice if I did not promote our growth as an organization and community.  Whenever I depart my position here, I pray that any legacy I leave behind will be one of positive and planned growth.  And I don’t hope for modest growth at our  margins.  I hope for real, durable and significant change for the better in you, in me and in the Gathering.  What I most pray for is that the amorphous thing we call the Gathering will be firmly on a path to long term survival and impact.  I pray for a progressive faith community that endures far into the future and one that nourishes and serves the needs of our grandchildren’s generation – a faith alternative to dogmatic and harmful religion.  As I often like to repeat, we give and serve today for the sake of others – both present and future.

But, as much as we serve others, we indirectly give to ourselves.  By planning to grow, we also serve our values and our purpose for living.  The Gathering has helped me to substantially grow into a more open-minded, confident, and capable man.  Spiritually, intellectually and emotionally I am a different man than I was almost four years ago when I began as Pastor.  And, I hope many of you can say the same due to your time at the Gathering.  If that is so, then we must both selfishly and selflessly plan for continued growth.  We must go deeper, broader and more boldly into the future in ways that expand who we are and what we do.  That must be a mission not only for us as a community, but for each one of us personally.  What can we do for ourselves and for others that stretches us and grows us in new and challenging ways?

For most faith communities, four engines of growth have been identified.  These so-called engines enable both individual and collective growth in ways that deepen the faith experience and help invite new members.  The goal for us is not just to expand numerically, but to expand in deeper but profound ways.  How many more volunteers are we sending out into the community?  What new areas of service do we build and promote?  How do we encourage fellow members to be increasingly at peace with themselves and the world?  What new insights into life do we discover and share?  Ultimately, how do we make a difference – individually and collectively – in other lives?

The four engines of growth in most churches are: 1) Engaging children’s and youth programs;  2)  Adult community-building experiences that foster supportive relationships and friendships; 3)  Meaningful and diverse ways to serve others, and 4)  Interesting and inspirational adult Sunday services.  Faith communities that focus on those four engines of growth will, it is said, grow in depth and in numbers.

Indeed, according to statistics on why new visitors return to a church, 36% say they do so because of the so-called sermon, 32% return due to the friendliness and welcoming nature of the congregation and 30% return because they enjoyed the overall worship experience.  For us, we would be wise to focus our qualitative and numerical growth efforts on these areas.

We obviously lag in offering children’s and youth programs at the Gathering.  While this is a chicken or egg issue for us – we don’t have many youth as a part of the congregation – that may well be due to our lack of programs for them.  I challenge us to work to rebuild a children’s program.  We can begin small and offer an engaging children’s experience perhaps once a month – thus requiring a rotating group of perhaps four adult teacher volunteers who would only serve a few times a year.

We do offer multiple opportunities to build adult friendships at the Gathering.  Indeed, this is one area many of us feel is best about our church and what keeps us coming back.  I challenge us, however, to seek growth in our racial diversity and in how we become even more inclusive for women in leadership roles.  We must be intentional in those efforts – perhaps purposefully inviting African-American friends or electing women as our leaders.  I also challenge each of you to help us grow by taking the initiative in planning community building events.  I cannot organize them alone.  I need other organizers and idea makers to plan and execute movie nights, pub nights, field trips, pot-lucks and other creative and fun events.

In serving our community, we have grown tremendously over ten years.  As a still small church, we have grown over the last few years from serving one charity to now serving five.  While I caution us not to over-extend ourselves, there is still room for growth in this area.   Out of approximately fifty regularly attending members, 19 serve in outreach efforts.  While almost everybody serves our congregation in some way, I challenge us to raise the number of volunteers who serve in outreach.  Even if it involves baking a few cookies for homeless kids, there are countless simple ways to serve in outreach.  As we expand our volunteer numbers, we can then explore more ways to serve the community.

Specifically, I call us to explore new outreach projects like obtaining new financial grants to further serve homeless youth – perhaps by joining or starting a tutoring program.  Also, we might partner with an organization like Habitat for Humanity and actually help, along with other groups, build a home for a homeless family.  Once again, we need ideas and organizers to plan and implement such new projects.

I firmly believe that a faith community that is primarily oriented toward serving others will never fail.  Volunteering in our city builds community between those of us who do serve, it underscores our purpose for existence as individuals and as a church, and it offers the kind of inner satisfaction that only giving and serving can bring.  As long as I am Pastor, we will be an outreach oriented faith community constantly seeking new and better ways to serve.

Finally, there is room for growth in how we conduct our Sunday services.  I want to continue to grow as a speaker and I seek your honest but gentle thoughts on how I can improve.  I encourage growth in the types and varieties of musical expression we offer – specifically looking to occasionally include more African-American music, inspirational songs by contemporary pop and rock and roll artists as well as other types of music.  I challenge us to be more inclusive and diverse in our so-called worship liturgy – occasionally including inspirational poems, dramas, videos and member participation in our services.  Overall, I challenge us not to become stuck in always doing things the same way but to expand our worship to sometimes include practices that speak to the wide diversity of age, gender, race, culture and sexuality.

As always, we need visionaries and thought leaders to facilitate those initiatives.  While I am responsible for Sunday services, I am not an island.  I welcome not only fresh ideas but also people who will lead the effort to execute them.  We are an intelligent and creative group who can collectively respect our Sunday traditions while engaging those of the future.

Last on my list on how we can grow, I encourage us to honestly consider moving to a new space.  As I have already discussed, such a move is not an answer to our growth.  Brick and mortar will never be more important to us than hearts and minds.  But our church space is a reflection of who we are and it sends out subtle but strong messages to those who might attend.  While our current space has served us well, I believe we must plan for a space that will add to our qualitative and numerical growth.  We want a space that can help us grow in each of the growth areas I’ve listed – in a youth program, in building stronger community, in serving outside charities and in our worship experiences – those on Sunday mornings and also those for our weddings, child dedications and funeral services.

If we think of the great prophets throughout history, they did not seek mass numbers of followers.  Rather, the huge numbers of people who did follow them came as a result of their deliberate plans and ideas.  Who we are as individuals does not happen by random accident.  We exercise, we read, we learn, we work, we eat, we seek medical care – all to help us grow.  If we choose to stagnate, we initiate our slow demise.  The Gathering is no different.  We need your help not to maintain who and what we are now, we need your help in how we become deeper, stronger, and better.   If this place matters to us and to our personal growth, we need everyone’s help.  We need ideas and leadership so that on June 23, 2053, there will be a Gathering birthday celebrating a thriving progressive community built upon the planned growth that we initiate.  By our past hard work and dedication, we have this unique gift called the Gathering – one that comforts, serves and enlightens.  Let us boldly and creatively build its future so that this gift will keep on giving.

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Message 131, “We Find the Defendant…Redeemed!”, 5-19-13

(c)  Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

To download and listen to part one of the message, click here:

Watch the video here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SheaMMd8H5g

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Some of you may remember the 1994 film entitled “Shawshank Redemption.”  It is a grim and often gritty movie that, on the surface, seems to indict our prison system and how it dehumanizes convicts.  On a deeper level, and consistent with its title, the film’s theme deals with the subjects of religion and sin.  The movie is a subtle but very strong indictment of religion.   It’s a modern parable on the struggle all of us have in finding spiritual redemption from religious imprisonment.

Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, is an innocent man wrongly convicted of killing his wife and her lover.  He’s sentenced to two life sentences.  We watch as he enters and is then confined at the Shawshank prison – the actual film location being Ohio’s Mansfield Prison.  He enters a dark and forbidding place with thick, black walls, grey prison cells and a community of prisoners who have been turned into malicious brutes by oppressive and petty rules.  The prison is overseen by sadistic guards and a corrupt warden who nevertheless considers himself a devout Christian.  Each prisoner is given drab clothing and a Bible – which the warden says is the only path to a prisoner’s freedom.  The warden tells Andy that he believes in two things – discipline and the Bible.  While Andy’s soul is under the control of God, Andy’s body is his.  As the warden tells Andy, he controls when Andy will eat, sleep and perform his bodily functions – said, as you might imagine, in much more colorful language!

Andy befriends a fellow convict named Red, played by Morgan Freeman.  As a former accountant, Andy is assigned to work in the prison library but he soon volunteers free financial and tax advice to guards and fellow prisoners.  He finds purpose in helping others – even the guards who persist in abusing him.

Andy’s accounting expertise is also employed by the warden who orders Andy to help him “cook” the prison books so that he can embezzle funds collected by renting out prison labor.  At one point, Andy learns that the real killer of his wife confessed to the crime and he seeks the help of the warden to win his freedom.  The warden refuses, preferring to keep Andy locked up in a sinister, hypocritical and dark filled life.

Over twenty years pass and we learn that during this time Andy has secretly used a rock hammer to methodically dig a hole through the thick wall of his cell.  He hides the hole he is digging behind pin-up posters – first of Rita Hayworth, then Marilyn Monroe and finally Raquel Welch.  Watch with me now a short video clip of Andy’s dramatic escape from the Shawshank prison…

(YouTube video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SheaMMd8H5g )

Without being too simplistic in finding meaning from the movie, which is currently listed by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best films of all time, it is not difficult to find anti-religious symbols and themes.  Andy is an Everyman – a guy like any of us – who is born innocent but sentenced to a life of guilt and shame within the confines of sin filled religion.  As he says, “The funny thing is – on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.”  Implicitly, Andy tells us that without religion, he was good.  With it, he became bad – a person who not only compromises what he naturally knew to be good, but one who advances the nefarious interests of prison – or, symbolically – religion.  The prison system is, indeed, a metaphor for religion and the actual Shawshank prison building is a symbol of it – a foreboding place that prevents escape.  Like religion, it entraps and brutalizes all who enter.

Prison rules and regulations dictate how a person will live – much like religion.  Indeed, the character played by Morgan Freeman, upon his release, finds it almost impossible to function without prison rules – or metaphorically – the rules and beliefs of religion.  As Red says, “These walls are funny.  First you hate them, and then you get used to them.  Enough time passes, you get so that you depend on them.”  Like prison, religious rules often become a source of ironic comfort to people.  It is easy to like the confines of absolute answers and absolute rules of behavior.

The warden of Shawshank clearly represents a religious leader like a Priest, minister or even Pope – a corrupt and evil man who talks about faith and doing good but who lusts for money and whose compassion is twisted.  Even the warden’s claim that he believes in two things – discipline and the Bible – is a clear reference to many religious leaders and their emphasis on sin and punishment.

Andy uses a rock hammer to chip away at the thick walls of religion.  He hides the hammer by placing it in a cutout within his Bible.  The humor of realizing that, indeed, the Bible is his ironic and symbolic means to redemption and freedom is not lost on many viewers.  For many people, it is only after genuine and deep examination of ALL interpretations of the Bible that one finds consistent and sensible answers to the meaning and purpose of life.  For me, seminary taught me the words and verses of the Bible and one, literal interpretation of it.  Only by examining and studying many other interpretations of it did I realize the Bible has wisdom to offer but it cannot, and was never intended to be, something to be interpreted as literal fact.

Andy conceals his escape tunnel behind sexualized posters of women – paper barriers to real freedom.  Religion, like many prisons, tries to control human sexuality but it is only by finding sex to be healthy and normal that one gains escape from a prison of guilt and shame.  For many people, especially gays and lesbians, religion’s views on human sexuality are inconsistent with reality.  Religion tries to define good and bad sexuality without any understanding of its innate function as a natural and, indeed, biological expression.  Sexuality is something wired into human DNA.  It is the creative force behind all existence.  Indeed, as the author Steven Greenblatt writes in his book The Swerve, existence, death and re-creation are all sexual.  The entire universe is sexual.  Religious efforts to define sex as something dirty and evil are not consistent with the reality of it.  It is a natural and creative impulse that is deeply implanted in every person.  We do not choose our sexuality.  It is wired into us.  That fact is something humans intuitively know.  We are taught by religion and religiously influenced cultures, however, to feel guilt and shame over it.  Symbolically, Andy’s path of escape from religious prison and its rules about sex lies behind breaking through his own sexual desires – in his case, the sensual poster of a nearly naked Raquel Welch.

Finally, Andy must ultimately escape by crawling through a length of sewer pipe.  In a scene reminiscent of that of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables fleeing through a Paris sewer, Andy finds redemption only after crawling through filth – symbolic of the lies, prejudices, hypocrisies and sins that religions teach and practice.  After he emerges from the prison sewer pipe, Andy is bathed in a type of reverse baptism.  He exults in the rain that literally and figuratively cleanses him of prison and religious excrement.  The image of him outstretching his arms, like a Jesus free of a religious cross, is powerful.  He embarks on a life of spiritual freedom – moving to the place of his dreams: a beach on the Pacific Ocean where the open water and vast skyline symbolize the freedom available to all.

Like Andy, my reason for exploring the sins of religion – those of imposing guilt, racism, sexism and homophobia – is to explore ways to redeem it.  My purpose this month has not been to create an echo chamber where we all affirm our distaste for man-made religion.  Rather, I want to discuss ways we can redeem religion through an enlightened and free thinking spirituality.  We help to redeem religion by, like Andy, working to free ourselves and others from its confines of rules and beliefs that demean and stifle the human spirit.  Our goal at the Gathering is to be a place where people can be redeemed from religion and enter, like Andy, a wide expanse of spiritual freedom.   That spirituality celebrates human life in the here and now, it celebrates all people and it practices the very simple moral code of the Golden Rule – to love and serve others as we wish to be loved and served.

Redemption, for most of us, is defined as a sincere willingness to confess a misdeed, apologize for it, make amends for it and, finally, to seek ways to change so the same misdeed is avoided.  If a person or institution undertakes each of those steps, he or she will find redemption – a state of being washed clean and renewed.  For many, redemption includes a restoration of relationship with those who have been wronged.  Doorways of forgiveness are opened as love and compassion are allowed to re-enter, while shame, bitterness and anger are pushed out.

In order for us to therefore promote spiritual redemption, we will have to continue telling how we and others have been hurt by religion.  Such stories are not intended to impose guilt on those who are religious.  Instead, they are a means to tell the truth and to bring into the light the suffering felt by so many.   Much like the truth and reconciliation efforts undertaken by Nelson Mandela in post-apartheid South Africa, the world must know how religion has harmed women, how it has practiced racism, how it has burdened countless people with fear and guilt, how it has murdered, how it has loved money over people, how it has turned away millions of gays and lesbians who want nothing to do with anything that tells them are deviant, evil, and hated by God.  Stories of hurt and pain, told not to shame but to enlighten, are good.  Stories of how religions hurt instead of heal can be told with gentleness and empathy.  We can hate the beliefs while loving the believer.

It is an ironic assertion, but many non-religious people are, if we think about it, more moral, more pious and more holy than those who adhere to religious beliefs.   Jesus sharply denounced religious hypocrites consumed with status, money and showy piety.  He promoted, instead, the kind of spirituality that sought the heart of God – a heartfelt compassion, humility and gentleness that respected everyone – women, the disfigured, the sick, the mentally ill, the poor, prostitutes, thieves, prisoners and all other outcasts.  He did not seek the outwardly wealthy, powerful and pious people but rather those who are inwardly genuine and true – those who might be broken by life or burdened by the rules of religion.  He wanted to set people free from trying to be good enough according to arbitrary religious rules.  He simply befriended and supported those who are pure of heart – no matter their religious belief, or lack of belief.

And that defines many people who are non-religious but nevertheless spiritual.  Such people, like many of us at the Gathering, are not perfect or blameless.  But, those who have rejected religion often promote the goodness and rights of all people and all creation – much like Jesus did.  Is it better to divide and scorn people based on an arbitrary interpretation of ancient religious rules and writings?  Or, are those who, like a creator god or goddess, respect and celebrate people no matter their sexuality, race, religion, wealth, status or ability – the truly good and pure of heart?  Yes.

Religion can be redeemed and transformed into a Jesus form of spirituality by seeking what many great thinkers and prophets have taught and practiced throughout history.   The Greek philosopher Epicurus encouraged the radical notion that all people have the right to pursue happiness.   Such a view believes that the great purpose of life is to be happy and thus our goal is to find it both for ourselves and for others.  No human should have to suffer hunger, poverty, discrimination or hatred.  A spiritual and practical goal for us is to build a world of happiness for all people – a world free of racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty and injustice.  If we worship the unique beauty and goodness of all created things, we will transcend the hurts of a materialistic and man-made world and find, instead, the simple pleasures of nature, community, food, sex, contemplation and love.  Much like Henry David Thoreau believed with the philosophy of Transcendentalism, the path of spirituality lies through a celebration of nature and all created things.  This spirituality seeks the so-called Buddhist middle way that shuns the mindless desires of wealth and also the needless wants of poverty.  Pleasure is found not in desiring things or, in the lack of them, but instead in life and people and creation.

Redeemed spirituality will thus pour like a cleansing rain on us.  It will free us of confining and absolute beliefs.  No rules.  No division of people.  No judgment.   No hell.  Instead, freedom!  Instead, unity and respect!  Instead, only one rule – the Golden Rule.

Our calling as spiritual people, as people of progressive faith, must be to show others the way to religious redemption.  That way tears down the prison walls that limit and confine human behavior – behaviors that do no harm to others.  This spiritual pathway opens up the prison cell that fears death.  It invites a joyful celebration of the life we have now and the heaven we must build here on earth for all people.  Our calling is to literally be the change we want to see – people who are spiritually free, giving, open, honest, compassionate, tolerant, joyful, hard working, always questioning, always seeking, non-violent, humble, grateful, and forgiving.  Those are not religious ideals – they are eternal, universal and good spiritual ideals.

Let us redeem religion.  Let us cleanse it.  Let us transform it.  Let us find within it a pure and honest spirituality that truly sets us free.

I wish you, as always, much peace and joy.

Messsage 130, “We Find the Defendant…Innocent???”, 5-12-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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Thank you for visiting our website and our Sunday messages. The principal outreach activity of The Gathering is the support of homeless youth in our area. If you would like to assist but are unable to attend our services, you can make a tax deductible donation to: The Gathering, 1431 Main St, Cincinnati, OH  45202. 

John Milton, in his sixteenth century poem Paradise Lost, describes in detail the mythic fall of humanity.  Adam and Eve are granted total freedom within the perfect realm of Eden except for one rule not to eat from the Tree of All Knowledge.  Of course, they break this rule and are forever condemned by that defiance.  Every one of their future offspring, including all of us, are said, according to Milton’s poem, to inherit that condemnation.  As humans, we are born sinful, evil and separate from the company of God.

In a direct rebuttal to Milton’s poem, however, William Blake wrote his series of poems, Songs of Innocence, over two centuries later in 1789.  In his poems, Blake celebrates the inherent purity of infants, children and youth.  We are not born as terrible sinners, he wrote, but instead as innocents, much like little lambs.  In contrast to Milton’s dark view, Blake’s perception of humanity is hopeful, encouraging and positive.  Songs of Innocence is a beautiful expression of ideal human spirituality.

But beautiful is not a word to describe the most enduring of human institutions – that of religion.  Not only is religion the source of most fear and guilt, as we discussed last week, its historic record as an institution can only be described as ugly and sinful.    On almost any issue of human progress, religion has stood in the way.  Religion’s stain upon history is far from being a source of enlightenment.  Killing, despair, intolerance and hatred are the legacies of man-made religious organizations.  From ancient religions that demanded human sacrifice, to Greek and Roman religious worship of torture, sexual orgies and war, to the Inquisition when alleged heretics were burned at the stake, to modern day religions that justify hatred or the mass murder of non-believers, ALL religions are branded by their acts of death, intolerance and enslavement.  None are pure.  None are without sin.  None are historically good.  Indeed, man-made religion has been the sly serpent in the grass, tempting us and leading us away from the light of a natural spirituality into the dark and sinister realm of lies and injustice.  It is by religion, not by any mythic devil, that our human innocence has been lost.  It will only be through enlightened spirituality that we find it again.

It is for such reasons that I have put religion on trial in my message series this month.  Last Sunday, we found the defendant, religion, guilty for its imposition of fear, shame and guilt on humans.  Today, I sharply question the claimed innocence of that same defendant which veils itself in supposed purity.

Indeed, the sins of religion are many.  Of importance to us as Americans, however, has been historic religious intolerance in our nation of blacks, women and homosexuals.  Indeed, Judaism, Islam and Christianity have for centuries used their religious beliefs and their scriptures to justify and sanction racism, slavery, sexism and homophobia.

Many Jews, Muslims and Christians throughout history have found reference in the Old Testament story of Noah to define their view of blacks and Africans.  According to the story found in the Biblical book of Genesis, after the ark landed safely following the flood, Noah retreated to his tent where he celebrated his survival by getting drunk and taking off all his clothes. Sprawled naked in some form of sexual degradation, Noah is discovered by his son Ham who thrills at this sight of his father.  He gossiped about it and even celebrated it.  In deep shame and anger, Noah used his influence with God to cast eternal condemnation on Ham’s son and all of his later progeny.  He declared a curse on Caanan, Ham’s son, saying he shall be a servant to all his fellow humans.  Interpreting the twists and turns of convoluted Biblical myth and genealogy, many Jews, Muslims and Christians interpret ‘Ham’ as a Hebrew word for ‘dark’ or ‘black’.  They also believe Cush, the grandson of Ham, to be the first human to populate Africa.

From this very ancient myth, one that lacks any relevance to actual history or to any rational and scientific fact, three of the major world religions have often relegated the African and black race to a degraded status.  That status was used to justify their enslavement.  Africans and blacks are cursed by God to forever be sexually sinful and to forever be a servant to the rest of humanity.  It almost defies our ability to comprehend how anyone, ancient or modern, could use the Noah myth as a basis for racial hatred and bigotry.  Whether this is an accurate interpretation of the Noah story or not, it is simply evil.

Jefferson Davis, the President of the southern Confederacy, referred to this interpretation when he said, “Slavery was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation.  Slavery has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts.”

From George Whitefield, the famed evangelist credited with the religious Great Awakening in America, to Robert Dabney, an influential late 19th century Presbyterian minister, the humiliation, bondage and degradation of blacks has been based on religious and Biblical grounds.

While it must be said that religion was also the source of the anti-slavery, abolitionist and Civil Rights movements, it cannot be denied that religion and the Bible have historically been used to justify racism and slavery.  In his letter to Titus, found in the Bible, the apostle Paul wrote, “Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.”

The Catholic Church and many Popes held slaves.  St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and John Calvin all upheld the religious doctrine of racial slavery claiming that while it was not a part of God’s original plan, it is a legitimate and useful part of a fallen world.  Certain races, these supposedly great men of Christian history implicitly claimed, are destined to be slaves because of their original sinful heritage detailed in the Bible.

Such religious racial views still persist in modern religions.  Tami Winfrey Harris, an African-American author writing in Psychology Today, cites a landmark study of over 22,000 white Protestants.  The study was conducted over a forty year period.  This study, recently published in an academic psychology journal, indicates high levels of racism in those who are highly religious.

About ten years ago, I myself sat in a Bible study lecture presented by a Christian fundamentalist who endorsed the racist interpretations of blacks as cursed and condemned to forever be servants.  Even in my then religiosity, I was shocked and disgusted.  To my lasting shame, however, I did not walk out of that lecture.  And, while it is not explicit in what they publically proclaim, such views are also those of many leaders of the Creation museum, sitting only a few miles from here.  While it is wrong to say all religious people are racist, it is absolutely correct to say that racists have throughout history found justification for their views in religion and the Bible.

Much like racism, sexism also finds extensive expression in religion.  For centuries sexist and paternalistic views of women have been justified by world religions.  While ancient cultures were, by their nature, male dominated and paternalistic, religion offered those cultures justification for their beliefs.  Once again, for many Jews, Muslims and Christians, sexist views are validated by the Adam and Eve myth.  Eve was the one who was tempted and who first fell victim to the blandishments of Satan.  Many religious commentators and theologians have blamed only Eve for the fall of humanity.  Adam was blameless in their view but was seduced by Eve.  She used sex as a weapon to tempt and lure Adam.  Once again, Biblical myth has been used by many Jews, Muslims and Christians to cast women as gullible, unintelligent and sexually depraved.  They use sex to manipulate men, thereby implicitly endorsing male sexual control and even rape of women.  Women, in this view, are seen as religiously unclean and cursed because of childbirth and menstruation – curses that the creation myth says God imposed upon Eve because of her sin.

The New Testament also offers little solace to women.  While the historic Jesus must be credited with his outreach and compassion for the condition of women, Paul and the early church cannot.  Indeed, most of modern sexist Christian beliefs come from the writings of Paul.  He echoes interpretations of the creation myth by saying women were specifically created solely for the use and benefit of men.  He ordered that women be subservient to their husbands in ALL things.  They are to remain silent in church, he demanded.  They are to never have authority over any male older than twelve.  Their primary role in life is to bear children and to serve as a hard-working keeper of the home.

While there are clear examples in the Bible of women who were leaders, like Queen Esther, and women of character and intelligence like Rahab, Ruth, Priscilla, Mary Magdalene, and Lydia, the Bible is clearly full of sexist stories and teachings.  While those teachings are the product of ancient male dominated cultures and therefore logically reflect those ancient values, the problem is that such verses and stories have historically been used by religions to demean and control women.

Indeed, even in many contemporary and fundamentalist Synagogues, churches and Mosques, women are denied roles of adult leadership or public ministry based on Paul’s writings.  In many fundamentalist families around the world, religion is used to justify keeping women and girls proverbially chained to the stove and the crib.  Obtaining more than a rudimentary education is deemed worthless since females only need to know how to cook and clean.  Just as racism is linked and justified by religion, so is sexism.

In the trinity of major religious sins in our nation’s history is also that of heterosexism and homophobia.  I need not detail religious and scriptural beliefs about same sex relationships.  We have discussed them many times.  But the premise for such intolerance is rooted in the same religious myths and stories as that for racism and sexism.  Adam and Eve were created as male and female.  God intended, according to the myth, for love to exist only between the two contrasting sexes.  Men who lie with men are an abomination and destined for hell.  The same is said for women who lie with women.  Religions have thus relied on only a handful of scripture verses to justify the murder, imprisonment and discrimination of homosexuals.  Indeed, homophobia can only be based on religion.  Opponents to same sex relationships have few other arguments.  Even applying the test of what is supposedly natural falls apart as nature is replete with examples of same sex romantic interaction.  Using ancient myths and teachings written for totally different cultures and in pre-scientific times when an understanding of human psychology, genetics and sexual orientation were unknown, religions justify racial, gender and sexuality based hatred and discrimination.

Today, advocates of gay and lesbian rights are attacked for supposedly denying the right of free religious expression and belief.  That right and the freedom of personal faith must never be infringed.  But such rights of free religious belief do NOT extend to public and civic discrimination.  One may individually believe blacks and women to be inferior, and gays to be evil, but such beliefs are ONLY the purview of personal thought.  They have no place in how society as a whole treats the wide diversity of humanity.  Bigotry, sexism and intolerance have no place in any culture that celebrates universal human dignity and value.  We each may have the freedom to hate but we do not have the freedom to force others to also hate.

We can obviously comfort ourselves with an easy condemnation of religion.  After all, it is an easy target based on its countless misdeeds throughout history of which I have discussed just a few.  Of importance to us, however, are our own subtle forms of racist, sexist and homophobic thoughts and practices.  We each want to grow in our own attitudes and seek a better world that is free from ANY hidden or subtle forms of intolerance.

Implicit racism in many progressive churches, even within the Gathering, is alive and well.  How willing are we to be open and diverse in our traditions, services and music?  We may hope for a more racially diverse congregation but we hold fast to largely white forms of music, tradition and worship.  How often do we trivialize or even demean African-American music and spirituals as simple or less than great compositions?  I have often been amused at daylong religious services held by many African-American churches.  Instead of being more open to their extended worship, shared encouragement, bonding, and joyful, expressive musical celebration, I comfort myself with the thought that such practices are too extreme for my white, Protestant traditions.  Implicitly, my thinking is arrogant and smug.  Our way of worship is more enlightened, cultured and, simply, better.

Additionally, how much do I, and any of you – male OR female, default to the subconscious notion that men are better leaders and coordinators?  As I have thought about this, I realize that even within the Gathering, in what I hope is a decidedly feminist group, women serve in wonderful but still supporting roles – coordinating our coffee, snacks, cleaning, music and greeters.  Men coordinate our worship, our finances and serve as our primary church officers.   I do not demean any act of service performed here or in any church.  As Jesus said, the greatest of all people are servants.  I highlight these roles in the Gathering only to call attention to the potential of our own subconscious sexism.

Finally, how much do any of us hold homophobic beliefs?  Indeed, internalized homophobia is a problem for gays and lesbians too.  Gays can inwardly hate themselves for being different.  Many people, while outwardly tolerant, still consider homosexuality as abnormal and less than ideal.  Many believe that if one is gay, acting as straight as possible is best.  Highly flamboyant and feminine acting men or highly masculine women are, even among many of us, still considered odd and abnormal.  And, how often do any of us suppress inner laughter or even derision of the transsexual, cross-dresser or transgendered person?

All of us want to wear masks of alleged innocence.  We might even tell ourselves that we are not prone to racist, sexist or homophobic thoughts.  The truth, however, is we all must be on guard against the influences of religious belief that is judgmental, hateful and wrong.   We must not judge ourselves and others based on religious thinking.

And that is precisely why the Gathering must continue to work at the leading and progressive edge of non-religious spirituality.  Such a spirituality embraces a natural and intuitive understanding of humanity and the universe.  As those of us who read the recent Book Club selection Swerve know, the philosophies of Lucretius and Epicurus reject religious superstition.   Their revolutionary and pre-scientific understanding of the order of the universe, and our place in it, saw existence as an endlessly evolving but ultimately beautiful process.  Such a spirituality remains relevant today.  In that regard, there cannot be any qualitative difference between any created thing, much less between blacks, whites, men, women, gays or straights.  All are created equal.  We are each the stuff of galaxies, planets, canyons, oceans and animals.  We are literally their brothers and sisters.  The purpose of our lives, therefore, is to embrace its singular uniqueness.  We do so not with mutual hatreds but with a COMMON quest to enjoy the here and now – the pleasure of being, the joy of the moment, the celebration of simple food, friendships, nature and peaceful contemplation.

Let us find again the innocence of a life without fear or guilt.  Let us find again the innocence of youth that have no perceptions of human differences.  Let us banish all vestiges of religious judgment, intolerance and hate that subtly hide in our subconscious thinking.  For that matter, let us banish religion itself.  Let us embrace, instead, the cause of a natural and simple spirituality that sees the goodness and the joy of life abundant.

I wish all of you, here and listening online, much peace and joy.

Message 129, “We Find the Defendant…Guilty!”, 5-5-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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Thank you for visiting our website and our Sunday messages. The principal outreach activity of The Gathering is the support of homeless youth in our area. If you would like to assist but are unable to attend our services, you can make a tax deductible donation to: The Gathering, 1431 Main St, Cincinnati, OH  45202.

Lewis Smedes, a well-known 20th century evangelical theologian, tells a story in his book Shame and Grace about his dying mother.  A week or so before his mother passed, at a point when she knew her end was near, she exclaimed to Lewis that she was glad that the Lord is so forgiving since she had been a grievous sinner throughout her life.  She was wracked by guilt and fear in her final days as she struggled to hold on to the saving grace she had been taught was hers.  Lewis could not imagine what possible sins she could refer to since she had raised five children on a small income and had tirelessly worked all her life as a devoted mother and wife.  What time could she possibly have had, Lewis asked, to supposedly have sinned in any great way?  Instead, as he said, this wonderful woman died feeling a wretch – not a good enough mother, good enough Christian or good enough human being.

I have heard from many gays and lesbians who struggle in the same way.  Raised in fundamentalist Christian homes and churches, they are unable to reconcile their innate sexuality with the teachings of their faith.  They see themselves as terrible sinners, they are wracked with guilt and experience great fear that they will suffer the eternal punishment of a hell they were taught is a homosexual’s fate.  They don’t fight the intolerance of their religion as much as they fight their own belief they are horrible sinners.

Just this past Thursday, upon Rhode Island’s approval of same sex marriage, the Bishop of Providence wrote in a letter to his archdiocese that,  “Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies, realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God…”  In other words, do not support or attend a gay or lesbian wedding or you might spend thousands of years in purgatory or even an eternity in hell.

There is an account of a 12 year old religious boy who came home one day from school and could not find his mother as he had expected.  He panicked, believing the apocalyptic myth of the rapture had taken place when God instantly gathers all true Christians into heaven and leaves behind non-believers to suffer Armageddon.  The boy was filled with guilt at his own apparent unbelief and sin, and fear that he had been forever spurned by God.  Like many children raised in religious families, this boy is not comforted by his faith but, instead, terrified by it.

My own story is one of seeking the warm embrace of Jesus who would not only forgive me for my homosexual thoughts but who would also cure me of them.  I tried for twenty years to deny my sexuality.  When that did not work, I turned to the power of Christ and hoped for ten more years that he would end my gay affliction.  I prayed, I studied the Bible, I changed my career and went to seminary all in a belief that God would cure me.  He did not.  When my feelings continued, my struggle became all the worse because Christians are taught that after being born again, one is a new creation who is clean, righteous and worthy of God’s company for all eternity.  How could I, someone who did not eliminate shameful gay thoughts from my head, be worthy of a holy and pure God?

Numerous psychologists and therapists report significant trauma in people who cannot reconcile their perceived misdeeds with their faith.  Many people enmeshed in fundamentalist religion or those who seek an escape from it suffer from fear, nightmares, obsessive compulsive disorders and depression.  Intellectually, they might understand mythological and inconsistent religious beliefs but subconsciously they are beset with guilt and fear of an angry deity.  One well known psychologist, Marlene Willens, has even controversially labeled such distress as a mental disorder she calls Religious Trauma Syndrome or RTS.

God, for many people, is not a benevolent force for good in the universe but an angry and punitive one who will cast persistent sinners into a lake of fire to be forever tortured by a great beast – Satan himself.  As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, homosexual women and people who are envious, angry, greedy, or deceitful will be eternally punished.  Those who supposedly sexually sin in any form – be it lustful thoughts, pornography, premarital sex or the like are equally condemned. The wages of sin are eternal death, Paul said.

Interestingly, a recent study and poll of over 14,500 people conducted by the University of Kansas shows that there is a high correlation between being deeply religious and having high levels of sexual guilt.  Even though religious people are as sexual as others, they are unable to find it healthy and fulfilling.  From the same poll, Atheists are shown to have much better sexual fulfillment.  79% of people raised or living in very religious households experience significant sexual guilt compared with only 29% of those who live in secular households.

About a year ago, along with a few other men, I read a book entitled Velvet Rage, by Alan Downs, which details the affects most gay men suffer as a result of perceiving, from a very early age, that they are different.  Gay men internalize this feeling of being different as a form of shame.  They subconsciously feel they do not measure up to the cultural norm of manhood.  Even after they come out, most gays manifest this internal guilt and shame in some form of rage – either rage at others, or a more hidden rage at themselves in the form of depression, suicidal thoughts, addiction, promiscuity, or insecurity exhibited by arrogance, materialism, flamboyance or work-a-holism.

Such feelings of shame also extend to the overall population.  Ours is a culture markedly defined by Judeo-Christian morality.  Even for the non-religious, the idea of sin is a pervasive one.  In countless ways, humans consciously and subconsciously fight what Lewis Smede’s mother experienced at her death.  For whatever reasons, we can inwardly believe we are not good enough, smart enough, noble enough, clean enough, moral enough or enough of any standard we use to judge ourselves and others.  Many of us were taught to think about ourselves in this negative light by a parent, other influential person OR, by a religion.

Indeed, the message of many religions is that humans, by nature, are evil.  We are born with the stain of Adam and Eve within us.  We are little more than brutes who must seek favor and salvation from a perfect deity – the only one who can cleanse us of our inherited sin and guilt.  This message highlights human brokenness instead of wholeness.  Just by our very nature, much like it is for gays and lesbians, religions see each human as evil and in need of divine rescue.

The repercussions of such internalized guilt and shame are legion and manifest themselves in all people the same way they do for gays and lesbians – rage at ourselves in the form of depression, insecurity, anxiety and behaviors to compensate for perceived inadequacy.

During this month of May, I want to examine with you ideas of religious guilt, innocence and redemption.  Such discussions complement our Book Club’s consideration of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Swerve, How the World Became Modern.  In this book recommended to us by Don Fritz, and one that I also highly recommend, whether you attend the Book Club or not, the perils of religious thought are contrasted with philosophies that changed history toward a greater understanding of human liberty, science and the meaning of life.

Of more important interest to us, however, is how we battle inappropriate guilt in ourselves.  How do we separate healthy spirituality from toxic religious belief?  How can we find wholeness, authenticity and a sense of contentment with who and what we are – and banish any internal rage, fear or shame?  How can we eliminate vestiges of unhealthy religious beliefs and Judeo-Christian morality from burdening our minds – even if we count ourselves non-religious?  How might we find, instead, a healthy, open and life-enriching spirituality?

One of the most important observations about many religions is that they function by encouraging fear – fear of Divine judgment, fear of hell, fear of eternal pain.  And such fears tap into the unique human “disease” – our awareness that we will die and our of fear ceasing to exist.  As the poet Dylan Thomas wrote, we rage against the dying of the light.  And so we seek a supernatural light that will grant us a reprieve from eternal darkness.

But that root based fear, that foundation of all religious thinking is the original toxic belief.  How can belief that is supposed to be about love for a god or goddess be based, instead, on fear of him or her?  If I hold a gun to your head and command you to love and honor me, you will likely do as I say and perform seemingly loving acts for me.  But is that really love?  Is it in any way devotion to me?  Or is it, instead, coercion and threat?  Judgment and hell are the symbolic guns pointed at humans by punishing deities.  To find wholeness, we must deny them.

Fear based religions are major causes of unhealthy guilt and shame.  Whether we are religious or not, the influence of religion on our society and codes of conduct leave each of us with seeds of doubt – are we good enough and do we measure up to the standards of our culture’s morality?

But such fear and guilt are false and inappropriate.  Healthy spirituality is life enhancing.  It encourages personal growth.  It promotes a simple moral standard – that of the Golden Rule.  It asks that we undergo inner change that is heartfelt, compassionate, empathetic and humble.   Instead of outward conformity to rules and standards of behavior, we’re called to love others as we wish to be loved.  Such behavior is deeply intuitive and known by almost all people – we each know what love and pain are.  Knowing that, we know how we should act toward others.

Interestingly, recent studies from the University of British Columbia indicate that altruistic and charitable acts by most religious people are motivated more by a fear of God than by basic empathy and compassion for others.  Another study of religious college students shows that they avoid sexual behavior due to religious fear and guilt and NOT because of any belief or teaching that premarital sex is wrong.  Contrary to the popular notion that religion alone fosters pro-social behavior, the study concludes that non-religious and secular persons act just as benevolently and just as morally as the so-called religious – but they act with motivations that spring from empathy instead of fear.

Fear based spirituality – religions that focus on sin, control, judgment and complex rituals of behavior – are toxic to our emotional health.  Spirituality that promotes tolerance, free thinking and personal responsibility is, instead, healthy.  Such spirituality encourages people to freely take responsibility for their own lives and actions instead of giving up control to a god who rewards and punishes.

Healthy spirituality does not necessarily reject the notion of a benevolent force or god in the universe.  Rather, it sees forces for good in the universe as enlarging the human spirit.  Healthy spirituality focuses on personal questioning, learning and growth.  It does not judge people as much as it acknowledges that all humans are flawed and our goal, therefore, is to continually change for the better – not to please a deity but to instead improve the world.  This spirituality sees humans not as depraved and sinful but as essentially good who yearn for the well being of others.

Indeed, fear and guilt often lead to the opposite.  If I give in to my fear of death, I will look out only for myself.  The psychological pathology of greed, self-interest and arrogance are rooted in a person’s fears.  If my spirituality does NOT involve a fear of death and punishment, I will have no need to be interested only in my well-being.  I will focus, instead, on the needs of others with the natural empathy and compassion I was created to have.

For our own lives, we can focus less on guilt for the mistakes we and others might make and more on taking personal responsibility for them.  In that regard, we determine if we have appropriate reasons to accept responsibility for a misdeed.  If so, we acknowledge the mistake, we make amends and then we move forward in our growth – working on ways to avoid the mistake in the future.

Guilt and fear, to the contrary, burden us with feelings of shame that often encourage the original negative behavior.  Our mistakes create guilt, which foster feelings of low self esteem and shame, which in turn often leads one back to making the same mistakes all over again.  There is no opportunity for healing, for forgiveness, for growth and for moving into the future.  We remain stuck in a religious and personal perception of our action – it is sinful, it is bad, we are bad, we are unworthy, and we are not good enough.

Obviously, as Pastor of a progressive church, I believe in a spirituality that is open, free and tolerant.  As much as we might examine our flaws in here, such introspection is merely a diagnosis.  Yes, we often fall short of the one universal standard of treating others as we want to be treated.  But such mistakes are the symptoms of our human disease of fear.  Our mistakes do not define who we are as nasty and pitiful creatures in need of a savior.  Instead, we are each beautiful and fantastically complex beings, part of a universe that moves, creates and recreates all on its own.

Our bodies and our minds mix within the realm of glorious mountains, endless stars, and wondrous fellow creatures.  Blessed with faculties that give us reason and intuition, we know we are inherently good because all of creation is inherently good – the result of fantastic creative forces.  The human spirit, therefore, is not evil and selfish.  It is generous, loving, and empathetic precisely because we are in union with other people and, indeed, all creation.  We deeply feel the hurts, pains and joys of others because we too experience them.  Our calling as humans is to see ourselves as a part of, not separate or superior to, the wider universe – beautiful, intricate, amazing and inspiring.

Our reasoning ability, alone among animals, to know of our eventual demise, is NOT a good thing.  It leads to fear…..which leads to superstition and religion……which leads to guilt…..which leads to shame and feelings of inadequacy.  But our ability to reason and think also tells us we are simply part of an eternal matrix of BEING – never ceasing to exist but rather an amalgamation of matter that ceaselessly resurrects itself into new creations.  Yesterday, we were the dust of stars drifting toward earth.  Today we are in human form.  Tomorrow we will be flowers, trees and animals.  Such truths, and not pre-scientific scriptures, tell us we have always existed and we always will.

If that is our spirituality, if that is our understanding of life and death, then we have no need for elaborate religious beliefs and ritualistic standards of behavior to judge us as good or bad.  We are already good.  We intuitively know how we must act toward others and how we can change for the better.  In the wide diversity of humanity, each person is holy.  We are not gay, black, female, Muslim, disabled or American.  We are simply one humanity joined in a dance with all creation.

Guilt, therefore, has no place in this understanding of ourselves.  Personal responsibility does.  Since that is the case, it is we who determine our destiny.  It is we who call on a universal sense of right and wrong.   It is we who are confident that our present existence must be enjoyed and celebrated in the here and now.  No fear.  No shame.  No hell.  Only life and love and guilt-free spirituality.

In that regard, I wish you, and those listening online, much peace and joy.

Ray N. is a Unitarian lay leader who is a straight ally and advocate for GLBT rights.  His faith journey – from Hinduism to Unitarianism – is a fascinating and inspiring story.

To download and listen to Ray’s message, please click below:

Message 128, “The Power of…Action!”, 4-14-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

To download and listen to the message, click here:

Thank you for visiting our website and our Sunday messages. The principal outreach activity of The Gathering is the support of homeless youth in our area. If you would like to assist but are unable to attend our services, you can make a tax deductible donation to: The Gathering, 1431 Main St, Cincinnati, OH  45202. 

We all know what the date is today.  It’s April 14th.  And so we know the deadline that tomorrow represents.  Like many Americans, I have put off to almost the deadline my civic responsibility to file my tax return.  I comfort myself with several excuses.  Because Pastors are considered self-employed, I pay 100% of Social Security and Medicare taxes instead of only half like most employees.  That means I almost always have a tax bill instead of a refund.  So, I wait until the last minute to file and pay.  But that’s silly.  The cost to me to file early would be minimal – a few cents of lost interest.  The cost to my psychological well-being for my delay, however, is significant.

It’s said that 20% of humans are chronic procrastinators – always putting off until a deadline – or even after one – to do what needs to be done – to pay bills, file taxes, finish a work project, or do needed repairs and chores around the house.  But such delay has personal and societal costs.  Chronic procrastinators often have greater health challenges – they tend to suffer from insomnia, drink more alcohol and have weakened immune systems.  They don’t delay due to time management issues but because of inner lies they tell themselves – they work better under pressure, they will fail, they are more spontaneous and creative at the last minute, the deadline is not that important, etc, etc.  Generally, chronic procrastinators spend more energy delaying an action than they do in its actual performance.  Ultimately, according to the magazine Psychology Today, changing procrastination habits are a matter of sustained cognitive therapy – working on and changing one’s underlying thought patterns.

But procrastination is only one issue in why many people don’t act.  Fear is one reason.  We fear failure, we fear risk, we fear the responsibility if we do act.  Simple laziness is another factor.  And, many people are comforted by the illusion of acting by talking and thinking about an issue more than actually doing something.  Such an attitude offers the subconscious satisfaction of feeling like they have acted when all they really have done is think and talk.  Nothing has really been achieved.

During my April message series on the “Power of…”, we looked at the power of universal and timeless ideas to create lasting change.  Such ideas offer one the ability to figuratively live forever as ideas can impact the world far into the future.  And, I looked at the power of character to influence the way we see ourselves and others.  Powerful character understands the limits of human virtue.  It’s empathetic of weakness, flaws and moral compromise.  Such character seeks change in the self and in others through positive reinforcement instead of judgment and punishment.

But if good ideas have lasting value and our character influences whether or not we act, how do we cross the third frontier by actually doing?  Indeed, it is said that successful people in life don’t necessarily have greater intelligence or ability.  They have simply mastered the ability to act in timely and decisive ways.  Will Rogers once commented that, “Chaotic action is better than orderly inaction.”  And Benjamin Franklin concluded that, “Well done is better than well said.”

Once again, this topic is a very important one to us as a faith community.  Churches are supposed to be dynamic places.  They should be alive and supercharged with lots of action!  As spiritual people, our primary goals should be to both change ourselves for the better and then change the world.  If we’re not actively doing that, on an individual and collective level, we might as well be dead.

I will offer the challenging statement that if any one of us – and I include myself – are not seeing significant changes in ourselves as a result of attending here for a time, and if we are not actively participating in serving our community, than perhaps we should not be here.  You should find another church that can better encourage you so that you DO act and I should be fired – for failing to act myself and for failing to help facilitate your action.  The Gathering will wither away and wind up on the proverbial dust heap of history unless we are, each one of us, acting to change our own attitudes, thoughts, and actions while also acting to serve a hurting world.  Sunday morning talk along with our expressions of compassion, love and tolerance are worthless (WORTHLESS!) unless you and I are people of action.

Just as our society is beginning to understand the dimensions of demographic change in our nation that will influence our politics and way of life far into the future, recent polling by the Pew Research company shows that there has occurred in the last ten years a 70% decline in active church involvement by those between the ages of 18 and 29 – today’s so-called millennial generation.  What the polling discovered is that millennials are fed up with the hypocrisy they see in contemporary churches.  They see organizations and people who talk a lot about so called morality but who do very little to correct social justice issues.

As they see it, Christianity and other religions began as social justice movements – ones that advocated for and actively served the poor, the sick, the sinner, women and all other possible outcasts.  Instead, today’s churches are seen as political or theological advocacy groups – one’s that involve themselves in debate, theory and talk.  There is too little emphasis, many young people believe, in actually doing the work of Jesus, Gandhi or Martin Luther King.  It’s far easier to talk about political, theological and moral issues, or write a check, than it is to serve a smelly homeless person, help an addict high on drugs, befriend one who is mentally ill or hold and soothe an AIDS patient.

As one twenty-something recently put it, “I don’t want to attend any more churches or be around any more church folks who are all talk and no action.  I don’t want one more person telling me they are a Christian when their actions scream that they are no more concerned with my plight thanAttila the Hun.  Fake “Christianity” is everywhere in America, and it’s because it is centered on “self” and what we can get from it.  And plenty of pastors preach to that end, too – how we can get more from God while never addressing the issue of what we should be giving back.”

Millennials want to get their hands dirty.  Disillusioned by the failures of politics and our financial system, many young people aspire to careers in social service.  They have little time or tolerance for the same old chatter, same old meaningless platitudes and same old posturing by many churches.  They want action.

And, as quick as I am and many of you might be to say, “Wait, we’re not like that!”, I challenge us to examine how much we also love the talk, the debate and the intellectual theorizing about our attitudes, politics, religion and social justice.  Yes, we can point to ways that we do help improve our world but is there a lot more we could do?  Is there more we could do to take our Sunday morning talk and then go out and actually live it – to work on actively changing ourselves so that we are the change we want to see?  We should ask ourselves, “Am I more empathetic, more humble, more giving, more peaceful, more forgiving, more gentle, more serving, more accepting, more understanding – than I was six months ago, a year ago, five years ago?”  And if we say we are, are we using our personal change to then change the world?  No matter our age, income or ability, are we continually seeking ways to serve our community?  Are we examining our effectiveness in serving others while searching for new and better ways to be the hands and feet of compassion?  Or are we, and am I, too much like the churches and Pastors that twenty-somethings scorn and avoid – too much talk and too little action, too focused on the self and not enough on serving the other?

Jesus deeply understood the power of action.  He spoke eloquently about the need to serve and the need to change.  But he did not simply engage in endless talk.  He touched.  He healed.  He sat down with and befriended sinners.  He lived a life true to his ideals of simplicity and humility when he could have leveraged his fame to gain wealth and power.  He challenged the talkers of his day – those who piously postured about their own morality and generosity while they ignored the real problems all around them.  Such people loved to talk.  They loved to pray aloud for all to hear.  They loved to flourish their seemingly large donations when they weren’t sacrificing much at all.  They loved to scurry off to the Temple and worship a loving God while passing by and ignoring the hungry, the blind, the leper, and the poor.  How much are any of us like them?  We love our Sunday mornings, our community, our friends, our discussions, our beautiful music, our comfortable church experiences.  But how much are we using the words, the music, and the nice experiences to actually do as much as we can to change ourselves and change our world?

We do not deny the power of ideas, words and knowledge.  They are essential to our purpose.  But it takes words AND action to get anything accomplished.  Talk plus action equals results.  That was an essential teaching of Jesus – tell me your good words of love and empathy.  More importantly, show me your deeds to prove you are sincere.  And the rest of the Bible echoes him.  His disciple John wrote that those who say they love their brother and sister humans but do nothing to show it through their service, their gentleness, and their willingness to forgive – they are liars.  They are frauds.  Or, as many young people say, they are posers, punks and “b.s.’ers.”

Paul, the founder of many early churches, demanded that the first Christians work out their salvation with fear and trembling.  Too many, he asserted, proclaimed a belief in Christ and assumed that was it.  I’m safe!  I have my free ticket into heaven.  But he deplored that thinking as all talk and no action.  Salvation is a matter of doing.  One must prove its reality.  One must offer evidence to the world that one’s inner heart has indeed changed.  One doesn’t do that with a simple profession of belief or with pious words, but with acts that literally show one is more loving, caring, giving, serving, humble, gentle, peaceful and kind.  One may not ever be perfect but one had better fearfully examine whether internal changes continue to occur.

While some of us do not claim a salvation through belief in Christ, most of us claim to be spiritual people who love, serve and give.  We should have tangible evidence in our lives, therefore, that we have worked out our understanding of salvation with much fear and trembling so that we are not found to be hypocrites – people who love to talk but fail to act.

So, how do we engage the power of action?  How do we stop procrastination, laziness and indifference in ourselves?  Most experts say that like all forms of change, we should take incremental steps.  Faced with large tasks, we too often fear their size or time commitment.  Instead, we can and should undertake one small step at a time – accomplishing one piece of a task instead of an entire project.  Should we be serving more here at the Gathering or in our community?  We can start with simple tasks, gain confidence and move on to more.  Soon, experts say, we will have accomplished our goal not in one sudden burst of activity but in a way that promotes enduring change.

Second, we should challenge our thinking.  Why don’t we act as we should?  Are we afraid of new responsibilities or failure?  We should intentionally tell ourselves that our fears are not valid as we think of times when we have acted and succeeded.  We can remind ourselves the emotional toll inaction takes on us and others.  Doing something – even if we spectacularly fail – usually brings more peace of mind than the self-doubt, worry and guilt we feel by doing nothing.  Most of all, we must be gentle with ourselves using Jesus, once again, as a model.  He did not judge, condemn or heap guilt upon people.  Instead, he tenderly and lovingly encouraged positive change.  We must do the same for ourselves.  Change is never easy but we can start small and build from there.

Let’s be real my friends.  Just talking about the need for action perpetuates what we are speaking against.  Each of us can first act by honestly examining himself or herself.  What areas within me still need to be changed for the better?  What things have I discussed or heard about here at the Gathering that I believe are valid and should be acted upon?  Have I actually put into practice the things I’ve heard here?  What more could I be doing to serve our congregation, our community and our world?  What small acts can I incorporate in my life so that I begin the journey toward being a person of action – not just to serve my needs but the needs of others?  What ideas, thoughts and beliefs have I not proven are genuinely within me because I have not acted on them?  Let’s not just think and ponder these questions.  Let’s resolve.  Let’s decide.  And then, LET’S DO!

Personally, I resolve to add one more hour a week, outside of my work with Gathering, to serve those who hunger, suffer or are in need.  And, I resolve to not just say I love family and friends but to show more tangible acts of love to them.  When you next see me in two weeks, I hope you will ask if I have acted, and if such changes are sticking.  Fill out the resolution lines in your program or online with small, baby steps of action you can take.  Keep the program with you.  Share your resolutions with a friend who will hold you accountable.  And then, DO them.  Afterwards, make even MORE small resolutions to act.  And do them too.  Adopt an attitude of growth, change and action.  As the Bible asks of all people, let us not love in word and talk, but in deed and truth.  Let us engage the power of action!

I wish you much peace and joy on your journey…

Click below to find a form on which to make your resolution.  Download, print, resolve and act!  Many blessings to you…

Action

Message 127, The Power of…Character, 4-7-13

(c) Doug Slagle, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

To download and listen to the message, please click here:

Thank you for visiting our website and our Sunday messages. The principal outreach activity of The Gathering is the support of homeless youth in our area. If you would like to assist but are unable to attend our services, you can make a tax deductible donation to: The Gathering, 1431 Main St, Cincinnati, OH  45202. 

Imagine, if you will, that you have volunteered to join an experiment supposedly about thinking under duress.  You’ve joined an experiment conducted by the Yale University Psychology Department.  You’re asked, along with another person, to pick lots to determine who will play the role of the teacher and who will be the learner in the experiment.  Your pick assigns you as the teacher.  The other person’s pick is to be the learner.

The learner is seated in another room and an electric wire is affixed to his arm.  You are seated at a console not far from the experimenter – the scientist running the test.  On the console in front of you are switches each designated by an increasingly higher level of electric volts.  A wire leads from the console into the next room and is attached to the learner.

The experimenter asks you to read pairs of words to the learner along with four words possibly associated with the word pair.  The learner is to pick one word that best describes the association.  You are instructed to flip a switch to shock the learner for each incorrect answer.  The switches increase at 15 volt increments up to 450 volts.

As you pose the word pair questions, the learner makes many mistakes.  At first, the learner expresses only mild discomfort at the lower level shocks you administer.   Increasingly, however, the learner feels pain and at about the 90 volt level – he screams.  Around the 150 volt level the learner utters a piercing scream and begs to be released from the experiment.   You are told by the experimenter to continue with the test.  With each wrong answer and at each level of electric shock, the cries of pain from the learner get worse.  At 300 volts, the learner refuses to respond – which is considered a wrong answer.  You are told to administer a higher shock.

At some point, you ask if the shocks inflict lasting damage.  You even ask to also be released from the experiment.  You are reluctant and anguished as the wrong answers pile up.  Each time you show reluctance to continue, the experimenter reads one of five responses:  “Please continue”, or “The experiment requires that you continue” or “Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on”, or “It is absolutely essential that you continue” or, finally, “You have no other choice, you must go on.”

The question I pose to each of you is: how far would you go in administering shocks?  How far would I go?  Would you stop at the level when the learner screams and begs to quit the experiment?  Would you quit when the cries are horribly piercing?  Would you quit when the learner does not even answer?  Would you go all the way to maximum shock level of 450 volts – a level that can be fatal?

What you are NOT told is that the learner in the experiment is an actor.  He or she is never electrically shocked.  No pain is inflicted.  As the teacher in the experiment, you do not know this.  The ultimate point of the experiment is to test YOUR level of compliance and the influence of YOUR moral character on decisions you make.

Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, ran this experiment in 1962.  Its results were immediately controversial and have been ever since.  Before the experiment was run, he asked 100 senior psychology students and 45 leading psychiatrists in various medical schools to predict how many teachers would inflict the maximum voltage.  The average prediction was that less than 1 percent of teachers would inflict the maximum shock.  Most predicted the teachers would stop when the learner asks to quit.  The results, however, startled everyone.  66 percent of teachers went to the maximum level of 450 volts…..although every teacher expressed concern at some point.  Every teacher exhibited various levels of tension with some weeping and trembling.  Even so, the vast majority went forward as they were told.

This experiment has been duplicated many times since 1962 in many other nations and even in non-descript locations without the prestige of Yale’s name.  Results have all been statistically the same.  The first test used only men.  The same test has been run with only women and the results were nearly identical.  While some have argued many teachers quickly surmise the pain is faked and the experiment is not real, the overwhelming results from many tests over many years prove otherwise.

Stanley Milgram concluded from the results that, “Ordinary people, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few have the resources needed to resist.”

As we consider the topic for today on the power of character, it is sobering to contemplate how we might act in such an experiment.  What is the level of our own morality and how strong is it?  Each of us likely believes that we are moral individuals – not perfect but essentially good, compassionate and honest.  We might skirt the edges of morality in some minor ways but when it comes to basic integrity and intrinsic character, we believe we are good.

But what constitutes character?  Is it something innate?  Are we naturally virtuous or is virtue something learned?  Do we have the free will to be good or bad?   If we can choose how we act, are we therefore morally responsible for our actions?  How is morality encouraged in our society – through laws and threat of punishment or by the simple desire to be good?  Ultimately, how do we tap into the power of character in a way that leads to healthy, decent and productive lives?

Such questions have been asked for thousands of years.  One psychologist defines moral character as an individual disposition to express right or wrong conduct across a range of situations.  Character and virtue were major considerations of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle.  Both believed that humans are morally responsible creatures who consciously choose their behavior patterns.  Each person can learn to be virtuous.  We choose to be good or we choose to be bad but it is our choice.  Unlike other animals, we are responsible for how we act.

Character has also been the subject of world religions.  All religions assert that virtue is a matter of choice.  We choose to follow the ways of God or we don’t.  Christianity recognizes that all humans are sinful and thus in need of a Savior – Jesus Christ.  By choosing to believe in him, we receive forgiveness AND we are reborn as moral people.  As the Bible says, the evidence of the Holy Spirit in a Christian is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, gentleness and self-control.   Believing in Christ makes one good.

Overall, traditional religions and philosophers believe human character is consistent.  We either act with moral intentions in most situations or we don’t.

As we have just seen, however, many contemporary studies have proven this notion is false.  The Milgram experiment showed that otherwise good people can act in ways totally inconsistent with their beliefs and morality.

In another recent study, seminary students were asked to deliver a sermon on helping others.  While being driven to a church filled with people waiting to hear the sermon, the seminary students were either told they had plenty of time before their sermon or they were told they were late.  Just before entering the church, they were confronted by a fellow student who had fallen, was groaning in pain and in need of immediate assistance.  Students who were told they were late rarely stopped to help.  Students who were told they had plenty of time almost always stopped to help.

Because of studies like this and the Milgram experiment, many theorists argue that character and morality are situational.  Virtue in people is not “robust” and consistent as Aristotle claimed.  It changes with circumstances.  It is nuanced.  It is vastly complex and highly variable even in otherwise good and decent people.  Indeed, despite our belief that we are each moral people, the startling fact remains that we each have within us a tendency to be shockingly bad.

In a landmark recent book entitled Against Moral Responsibility by Bruce Waller, it is argued that our human concept of morality and justice is deeply flawed.  It is based on our human instinct to reward good and punish bad actions.  Each human has a strong moral code that demands punitive justice.  We judge.  We heap scorn on wrongdoers.  We punish through isolation, shame, prison or broken relationships.  Waller maintains, however, that science and psychiatry have shown that human morality is often NOT a matter of choice.  We are not morally responsible for our actions.  How we act is subject to a number of external influences we cannot control – like the situations we face, our level of education, how we were raised, our environment, our genes, and our mental and physical health.  In other words, we are like all other animals in our inability to choose our character.

Waller encourages humans to stop judging others and to stop imposing punitive consequences for bad behavior.  He encourages our society stop imprisonment as a form of punishment and work, instead, toward teaching and restoring good behavior.  He advocates positive reinforcement instead of negative punishment.  Overall, humans are neither to be praised for good character nor maligned for bad.

Indeed, the Milgram study proves that moral people often act in seemingly immoral ways.  Many of the teachers in that experiment reported that when they were told to continue shocking the learners, they did not think about what was moral behavior towards the learner.  Instead, they focused on what was right in terms of obeying authority and doing what was good for an important test.  Their moral inclinations toward the learner were superseded by the moral inclination to obey.   The same morality was true of the Christian seminary students.  They were focused on the importance of doing the right thing for those waiting to hear their sermon.  Their morality was not blind but was, instead, refocused.

This situational understanding of character is of great importance to us.  Indeed, as a church that asks more questions than it affirms absolute beliefs, we ought to question our own understanding of what it means to have good character.  Clearly, a majority of us would have acted like most of the teachers in the Milgram experiment and like the seminary students.  I confess to often being flustered and short with some people in the busy hour before our services begin.  Our character is not absolute.  It is subject to change and evolve.  It is open to different circumstances.  Ultimately, the character ascribed to any one of us is not perfect.

If all of this is true, how do we leverage the power of our character to improve the world?  If our character is not always a matter of choice, what can we do to become better people?  What is a standard of good character to work towards?

While many prophets and great people of history offer us examples on character growth, as with many areas of human conduct we can look to Jesus as a role model.  We see in him a form of situational morality.  He shouted at and name-called his opponents when he was angry.  Confronting greed by those who were selfishly selling goods in the Jerusalem Temple – the house of God – Jesus flew into a rage.  He violently turned over tables and angrily yelled.  Even allowing for righteous indignation, Jesus was often not meek or gentle as he encouraged in others.

When faced with imminent arrest and execution, Jesus was not calm or at peace, as he had also encouraged.  He struggled with a desire to run away.  Would he be a hero of great character or a weak coward?  For a time, what he would do was in doubt.

Despite his weaknesses, however, we see a model of character for us.  We see that Jesus understood the limits of human character.  He challenged the hypocrites of his day to stop judging others.  He noted that only those who are without sin should judge others.  Implicitly, he noted that nobody is perfect.  All of us have flaws in our character even as we self-righteously condemn others.  He asked that we stop pointing out the minor flaws in others when we have major flaws of our own.  We must examine our own flaws and work on them before we presume to judge others.  As Confucius said, “When we see people of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see people of bad character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.”

Most of all, Jesus was deeply empathetic about human bad behavior.  He reached out to sinners with compassion and understanding.  To the woman caught in an act of adultery, he was tender and kind.  He did not approve of her misdeed as much as he simply offered his love and encouragement to change.  He did the same for the Samaritan woman who had been divorced multiple times – one who had married a serial number of husbands.  He was similarly understanding toward thieves, prostitutes and the greedy.

Much like the author Bruce Waller advocates in his book, Jesus often practiced positive reinforcement by loving and encouraging the allegedly immoral.  Matthew, a greedy tax collector, became a pillar of the Jesus movement.  Peter, a weak, impulsive and cowardly man, became a leader of the early church.  The thief crucified next to Jesus became one of the first souls to enter heaven.

For Jesus, character evolves.  Good character acknowledges past mistakes and learns from them.  Good character is not fixed, legalistic and punitive.  It is open, flexible and empathetic.

Even as Jesus occasionally acted in imperfect ways, he encouraged change in others by forgiving them, by turning the other cheek and by refusing to use violence.  In an ironic twist on promoting good character, Jesus refused to punish wrongdoing.  He simply forgave it while advocating change.

The power of character in Jesus was his ability to empathize with weakness.  Character is not defined by perfection.  Character is not unchanging.  Character is life enriching, ever evolving and ever understanding of different circumstances, influences and motivations.

We’ve recently seen the power of such character in those who have changed their minds about gay marriage.  We’ve seen the strength of character it takes to suddenly empathize with outcasts like gays and lesbians.   We see a journey from judgment and intolerance to one of understanding.   The character of such changed people – like our own – is not perfect.  It may have once been filled with hate.  But as Jesus taught, good character learns.  Good character develops empathy for those who suffer.  Good character grows.

It would be easy for me to stand here and talk about the many qualities that comprise moral character.  But most of us already know those.  Such statements by me would be a waste of time and highly hypocritical.  As much as I yearn to be a good person, I often fall short.  I make mistakes that are both intentional and not.  What I do ask of us is to honestly examine our own hearts and minds about the kind of character we have.  As Confucius said, we can look to the examples of good people to follow – and Jesus is one of those.  Imperfect in his own ways, he was still a man possessed of wisdom and insight far beyond normal human capacity.  Because he intuitively knew the variable imperfections of character – much like modern science has shown – he was deeply understanding of human foibles.  Contrary to self-righteous prigs who delight in wagging their fingers at others while possessing great immorality of their own, Jesus did not judge as much as he understood.  He did not punish as much as he forgave.  He did not arrogantly assert his own perfection as much as he encouraged humble confession and change in others.

We are all flawed people capable of nasty passions and ill-advised actions.  The power of our character lies in our ability to empathize with the flaws of others.  The power of our character lies in our desire to learn and grow from our mistakes.  The power of our character does not forget, despite our imperfections, all of the ways we can be good.  Instead, the power of our character understands that we are weak and fragile creatures who nevertheless aspire to the greatness of pure love for all.  Let us each resolve to continue on that beautiful path…

Message 126, “The Power of…Ideas”, Easter Sunday, 3-31-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

To download and listen to the message, click here:

As we consider today the power of ideas and especially the power of the Easter idea, we’re reminded that there have been a lot of silly ideas throughout human history.  Such ideas have often been based more on superstition than on science.  But some were just plain silly.  In Victorian England, books written by women authors could not be placed on library bookshelves next to books written by men – unless the two were married.  High heeled shoes were first invented in the seventeenth century for rich men – as a status symbol so they could physically announce their supremacy.  In ancient Egypt, prospective brides were jailed for deception if they used too much makeup to disguise their less than good looks.  During Nancy Reagan’s efforts to discourage drug use in the 1980’s, thousands of pencils were distributed to high school kids in New York City.  Printed on them was the message “Too Cool to Do Drugs”.  Students avidly used the pencils but this motivational idea ended badly.  As pencils were repeatedly sharpened down, the message on them soon became “Cool to Do Drugs” and then, simply, “Do Drugs”.

During Medieval times, rabbits were believed to be living miracles.  It was observed how fertile rabbits can be.  Some female rabbits conceive second litters even when already pregnant with a first.  Others are able to conceive without a partner – they have the reproductive organs of both sexes.  This ability to reproduce without mating was noted by the early Church and rabbits were quickly seen as miraculous – akin to the Virgin Mary and to the resurrected Jesus.  In this way, the rabbit became synonymous with Easter.  And the myth of the Easter bunny was born.  To make the rabbit festive and appropriate for children, the idea was adapted so that the Easter bunny was NOT portrayed as eagerly reproducing but, instead, as carrying brightly colored eggs.   While many contemporary Christians believe the Easter bunny is a secular or even pagan symbol, it began as a pre-scientific but very Christian idea – one that tied the miracle of the Resurrection with the seeming miracle of self-conceiving rabbits.

As silly as many of these ideas are, we nevertheless note the power they have held over people.  I have a picture of my youngest daughter Amy, when she was one or two years old, clutching to her cheek an Easter egg she had proudly found.  In that innocent image is the joy she felt in her discovery – not in candy or a toy but in an egg of all things!  She was inspired by the Easter Bunny idea that her mom and I had taught her.  In her hands was actual proof that the Easter Bunny is real!

Hopefully, for Amy and for many of us, this joy of Easter persists.  Indeed, Easter and the Easter Bunny are not so much the stuff of mythology but of reality.  Today, we celebrate the very real idea of renewal and rebirth in ourselves and in our world.  Much like countless adults and children have celebrated over the years, Easter reminds us that evil, death, despair and destruction are not permanent.  New life is all around us.  Hope fills the air.  The promise of a better world is ours to make.  This joy of the Easter idea is found in the symbol of the empty tomb.  Death is denied.  Hate will not triumph.  Goodness still thrives.  We have the figurative opportunity to live forever.  O grave, where is thy victory?

I was recently asked by a member here to share some Bible verses that are good for funerals and memorial services.  I had to confess that I recommend very few.  Most death related verses in the Bible speak of our hope in a resurrected Christ and the need to believe in him if we hope to go to heaven.

Whether or not you believe in a resurrected Christ, that is not for me to impose on you and not for me to pronounce today.  And, it is not the point of a funeral service or of Easter.  Both are celebrations of lives well lived that have brought goodness and joy into our world.

At the brief funeral for Jesus on the first Good Friday, however, his followers did not celebrate a life well lived.  They were in despair.  They were frightened and defeated.  The possibility of their own executions seemed imminent.  Hate, intolerance and religious hypocrisy seemed to have won.  Jesus and his movement were both dead.

But whatever happened on that first Easter, whether a deceased Jesus was once again physically alive or whether the myth of his resurrection was hatched, that does not matter.  What does matter for us and for our world today is that Jesus’ ideas were resurrected.  For us, it’s not that his body came back to life that has lasting value.  It’s that his ideas did not die.  The power of good ideas, the power of universally true ideas, the power of just, kind, forgiving, compassionate and generous ideas — these are still alive and well.  Out of the ashes of defeat and death, rose the powerful moral force of Jesus’ ideas.

The power of ideas to shape human history is unquestioned. Here we are two thousand years later celebrating either a very real or a very mythic event.  But that’s not why we celebrate Easter. It reminds us to seek after what Jesus and others taught and practiced.  With its ideas, it confirms to us that there is, indeed, figurative life after death.  Much like Jesus, we have the ability through our own ideas or by following those of others to improve the world and symbolically live forever.

Indeed, the world was reminded over the past month that Jesus’ ideas are still very much alive.  His ideas have been practiced millions of times but they were recently manifest in the first actions of a new Pope.  Since many of us are not Catholic, we do not see the Pope as an earth bound spokesman for God.  As an old, white male – the Pope seems out of touch with changing demographics and beliefs.

But we also see in him glimmers of Jesus ideas.  He chose as his new name that of Francis – one that no other Pope in history has taken.  His name hopefully speaks a lot about his values and how he might help use the ideas of his namesake, and of Jesus, to change the world for the better.

Francis of Assisi, from whom the Pope took his name, resurrected the ideas of Jesus like no other.  Born in the twelfth century to wealthy parents, he was a playboy in his youth – enjoying wine, women and the good life.  Spending time in prison after his capture as a soldier, Francis of Assisi saw a vision of Jesus who implored him to change the Church and thereby resurrect his ideas.  The Church at that time was the most powerful institution on earth.  It was vastly rich and its Priests and Bishops lived like princes.  In the town of Assisi, Francis saw how the poor lived in a damp, disease ridden swamp at the foot of sun bathed hills on which the nobility resided in splendor – including the Bishops and their elaborate churches.   Kept away from them all was a large leper colony.

Taking Jesus’ ideas to heart, Francis of Assisi radically changed his life.  He renounced a great inheritance and symbolically stripped himself naked in front of his father as a way to shun a life of wealth.  He embraced poverty as the only way for him to care for others.  He founded the Franciscan order of monks whose simple mission was and is to practice and follow the compassionate ideas of Jesus.  The greatest of those ideas was summed up in one of Jesus’ teachings – one that Franciscans still consider their inspiration: “Those that will be great among you, let them serve.”

The centerpiece of Jesus and Franciscan ideas is to build caring communities.  Instead of exalting the needs of the selfish individual, it is the community that is foremost.  One gives up self-interest and replaces it with  pure love and service for others.

Francis and his fellow monks worked with and served the poor.  They purposefully reached out to lepers with assistance and compassion.  Lepers were only allowed into villages at night and they had to ring a bell to announce their presence.  Most people ran away or hid themselves from the terribly deformed lepers.  Francis and his monks instead ran to them.

Serving as a religious advisor to crusading soldiers fighting Muslims in Egypt, Francis secretly met with the Arab Sultan to seek forgiveness and peace.  The sultan was impressed.  On his return to Italy, Francis ordered that Franciscans no longer evangelize to people of other faiths or seek their conversion.  He encouraged, instead, peaceful co-existence and mutual respect for Muslims and non-Christians. .  Indeed, Francis of Assisi taught that it is by one’s actions and NOT by one’s words that the ideas of Jesus are conveyed.

And Francis deeply believed in the inter-connectedness of all creation.  He is often called the Patron Saint of the environment.  Expressing ideas that are remarkably similar to those of native-Americans, Francis of Assisi spoke of fire, the moon and the stars as his brothers and sisters.  He literally preached to and tended birds and animals as fellow creatures in need of care.

Above all, Francis of Assisi valued deep humility in himself and in Franciscan monks.  Status, wealth, and power were to be avoided.  Humbly serving and giving to others is the path to a legacy that endures far beyond earthly life.

Such ideas were not originated by Francis.  He adopted them as ideas taught and practiced by Jesus.  A thousand years after the death of Jesus, when the Church had become an institution that executed in one month over 80,000 heretics and Jews, when its Priests and Bishops lived in opulent palaces, when it sponsored wars to convert Muslims by violence, when it refused to offer baptism, communion or compassion to lepers, Francis of Assisi showed that the timeless ideas of Jesus were not dead.  They had lasting power.  In Francis of Assisi they had been resurrected.

And those ideas are still alive today – perhaps in the actions of a new Pope.  We may not agree with all of this Pope’s religious doctrines but we can hope that through him the great ideas of Jesus will be resurrected in the Church today.  Pope Francis is said to be a humble man.  He is said to want simple food and lodgings.  He is said to have told fellow Cardinals that their first priority must be to serve the poor.  He is said to have scolded Priests who refuse to baptize infants born to unwed mothers.  He is said to have encouraged his fellow Argentine Bishops to endorse Civil Unions for same sex couples.  Just last week he is said to have encouraged love, understanding and learning from those who are not Christian.  He is said to have recently stated that authentic power comes to those who serve others instead of the self.

Adopting the name of Francis and saying nice things are good.  But, as Francis of Assisi taught, we hope in the coming years that Pope Francis’ actions speak louder.  Nevertheless, once again, the world is witnessing the power of ideas to endure.  Ideas have power when they are universally true to all people.  They have power in how they touch human lives for the better.  They have power when they are continually resurrected in people like us.

We celebrate Easter this year and every year because we value the ideas of Jesus.  We celebrate it because it affirmed then, as it does now, that light prevails over darkness, good defeats evil, love conquers hate, forgiveness is greater than bitterness, compassion is stronger than indifference and heaven on earth is a better vision than the hell of poverty, war and injustice.

We celebrate Easter because we know that Jesus ideas are resurrected in us.  Because they are, we will influence the world long after we have breathed our last.  We are people who reach out to family, friends and strangers with unconditional love.  We are people who work with our words and our hands to serve and care for others.  We are a people constantly seeking the better in ourselves – yearning to release the angel deep inside. Our legacy of giving, our legacy of compassion, our legacy of quiet humility, our legacy of gentleness and forgiveness – these are the fruits of our lives well lived.  Such is the currency of eternal life granted to each one of us.  Such is the currency that granted Jesus and Francis of Assisi enduring life.  The ideas of service to others that we practice will carry forward – granting us a resurrection and an eternity far more real than if our bodies or even our spirits lived on.  We do not serve to selfishly gain an afterlife.  We serve for the sake of others.  We serve for the sake of creating and building a heaven on earth right here and now for our generation, and for the thousands of generations yet to come.

Two weeks ago, a member here at the Gathering reminded me and several of you about the enduring power of Jesus’ ideas.  When an elderly member, having with her only a thin coat, said how cold and deeply chilled she was, Danny took off his own heavy winter coat and gave it to her.  “Here”, he said, “it’s yours to keep.”  Forgive me Danny for calling attention to your quiet act of goodness.  Francis of Assisi once said, “Remember that when you leave this earth you can take with you nothing that you have received – ONLY what you have given.”  That!  That is the beauty, power and greatness of the Easter idea.

May each of us live now and forever more with peace and joy…I wish you a happy Easter.