A sermon preached by Rev. Henley, June 29.
Let us sit quietly, close our eyes for a moment, and allow ourselves to reach into the recesses of our memories, looking for a time to remember when we when we were out-of-doors. There will probably be an image that comes to your mind that often comes into your thoughts. Perhaps, it is a place where you allow your mind to wander to—often. The image is probably very real to you.
Is there water,
Or mountains, woods,
Or forest.
A pond, or creek, or wide delta river.
Is there sand,
Or dry, hard-packed desert earth,
Or rocks of many colors.
Is there the sound of a sea gull,
Or a gaggle of geese honking above,
Or the quiet stealth of a deer in the woods?
Is it as if it were yesterday? Do you smell the water or the woods, or feel the humid air or a dry breeze? Is there the sound of silence, or rushing water, or crashing waves? How often do you go there, to that place, why do you “go there?” When?
Rachel Carson wrote in THE SENSE OF WONDER,
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds, the ebb and flow the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the … refrains of nature—the assurance of dawn comes after night and spring after the winter.”
Our experiences of nature fuel us, feed us, long after we have retreated to the indoors and taken up the “busyness” of our modern lives.
When you are on holiday or vacation, when you find yourself outdoors do you feel as though Nature is your church? Do you call it a religious experience? If so, you may be a religious naturalist?
Religious naturalism is a philosophy of religion which places Nature at the heart of its theology? Spinoza is considered to be the first “modern” philosopher of religious naturalism. However, during the 1940s and ‘50s, Henry Nelson Wieman and other professors of the University of Chicago Divinity School, developed the ideas that inform today’s religious naturalism movement. Another contributor is Ralph Burhoe, Emeritus Professor of Theology and the Sciences at Meadville/Lombard Theological School, recipient of the 1980 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, and author of the book TOWARD A SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY.
Essentially, Nature is the object of worship. And not, as you might at first think, in a pagan or pantheistic way, but in a more developed theology which recognizes the complexity, the processes, the interconnectedness, and the mystery of our existence.
One of the philosophers today who makes a case for religious naturalism as a theology is Donald Crosby. In his book A RELIGION OF NATURE, he describes nature as an entity or process worthy of worship. He says that Nature functions as a religious object, just as “Yahweh, Allah …God, Zeus ... Tao, [or] Brahman.
His argument is that all religions have similar “functions” that define them as a religion. These functions are Uniqueness / Primacy / Pervasiveness / Rightness / Permanence / and Hiddenness. Nature meets all these functions. As briefly as I can, because of our time limitations:
By uniqueness he means that the religious object – Yahweh / God / Allah / Nature has a singular, extraordinary place in a person’s life.
By primacy he means that the religious object is the most important interest in a person’s life.
By pervasiveness he means that the religious object is the most “integrating force in” one’s personal existence—the foundation for all a person feels, thinks, and behaves.
By rightness he means the religious object provides the “… healing, transforming, saving force in the life of the religious person…”
By permanence Crosby means the religious object, in the midst of the changeable, surprising, sometimes devastating, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes joyful, erratic life we live, is always there. Something in which we can believe and trust, “immune to” the flux of life.
By hiddenness he means the religious object offers us that “overpowering sense of mystery and awe.”
Nature has all the functions of any religious object Crosby and others write.
They make convincing arguments. I can see that if a person had trouble with the word “God,” she might turn to religious naturalism. If a person saw religion as a destructive force throughout humankind’s story, yet wanted religion in his life, then I could see where religious naturalism would be a viable alternative for him. Atheists and agnostics can embrace religious naturalism.
After all, Ursula Goodenough wrote in THE SACRED DEPTHS OF NATURE, in the end aren’t we all looking for the same thing, we want to know “How Things Are and Which Things Matter… How the universe came to be, how humans came to be, what happens after we die, the origins of evil and tragedy and natural disaster. Which Things Matter becomes codified as a Morality or Ethos: the … Ten Commandments, the … Sermon on the Mount, the Five Pillars of Islam, …” and I’ll add the Buddhist Eight-Fold Path, the Taoist Way, among many the ways.
Who are we to say that a person has to use the word “God” in order to live the kind of life that our Existence calls us to live? We can be religious naturalists and Buddhists. We can be religious naturalists and Christians. Crosby wrote:
“In the perspective of a religion of nature, no promise is held forth of living forever in [a] personal form. We are finite beings, and our lives shall someday come to an end, just as they came into being at a particular time. It is likely that our species will someday cease to exist as well, but there is life to be lived here and now, sorrows and disappointments to be borne, goals to be achieved, and joys to be experienced. Through it all there is a quiet contentment and gratitude for the gift of being alive, even if for only a limited span of time. The measure of a human life … is not its duration but its donation—what it contributes to the world from whence it came and to which it shall return.”
The measure of a human life … is not its duration but its donation… I am reminded of the Hebrew Scriptures Genesis 3:19, In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread / Till you return to the ground, / For out of it you were taken; / For dust you are, / And to dust you shall return.”
From our reading this morning we heard in Genesis 2:15, God placed the human in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. And in Luke 12:48c we read, “…Everyone to whom much was given, of them much will be required, and from … [those] entrusted [with] much…” more will be demanded.
You see, if all the insects died, scientists tell us, then we would probably all die. However, if humankind died, it wouldn't make that much of a difference in Nature. What that tells me is this-while we may be the most insignificant link in the food chain, we have the most responsibility! Much is demanded of us.
All of these words are semantics for a creature who has developed a consciousness and a conscience. They are all metaphors for a Mystery which is beyond our comprehension.
There are a hundred billion galaxies in the universe, with perhaps 100 billion stars in each one. Something is responsible for the existence of all that we see and all that is which we cannot see. And, each one of us is responsible for choosing for ourselves a religion, a philosophy, an ethics, and a morality which honors our existence and the mystery of the Something.
If we love our lives, if we love our existence, if we love Nature, if we love God, if we love SOMETHING, then we are called to live out that love. We are called to take care of our environment. We are called to take care of all that sustains our existence.
I am not going to tell you what that will look like for you, and I certainly am not about to tell the congregation we MUST DO such and such or this or that—as a church we need to figure that out together. However, I have to say, the news is not good for the animals in our food chain. I have been considering, for a while giving up beef and pork. And this week’s news convinced me that it would be a step in the right direction. I am reminded of the story I hear a long time ago, about a cow, being led to slaughter with her herd, decided something is wrong. So she bolted! It was some town I think in the Midwest. She hid in the woods and the townspeople fed her. Eventually, she was given a pardon. If you search on the web, you will find many stories like this, put in “animals on the lam.”
I encourage all of us to thoughtfully and contemplatively look at the foods we eat, especially the meat, and consider what it means for our lives.
To end, I will repeat – If we love our lives, if we love our existence, if we love Nature, if we love God, if we love SOMETHING, then we are called to live out that love. We are called to take care of our environment. We are called to take care of all that sustains our existence.
AN EXCERPT FROM THE NATURE OF RELIGION AND A RELIGION OF NATURE BY DONALD A. CROSBY
In the perspective of a religion of nature, no promise is held forth of living forever in [a] personal form. We are finite beings, and our lives shall someday come to an end, just as they came into being at a particular time. It is likely that our species will someday cease to exist as well, but there is life to be lived here and now, sorrows and disappointments to be borne, goals to be achieved, and joys to be experienced. Through it all there is a quiet contentment and gratitude for the gift of being alive, even if for only a limited span of time. The measure of a human life … is not its duration but its donation—what it contributes to the world from whence it came and to which it shall return.
THE SUMMER DAY BY MARY OLIVER FROM NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, 1992, BEACON PRESS, BOSTON, MA
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
"THE STREAM OF LIFE" BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE FROM SINGING THE LIVING TRADITION
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. and my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
Posted by UNMC Office at July 1, 2008 07:31 AM