|
The Third Option Isla and I have a friend who is into do-it-yourself religion. It’s actually quite popular these days, “designer religion” where you take a little of this and a little of that and come up with something that satisfies your needs for structure without insulting your intelligence. It’s trickier for our friend because he’s a Methodist minister, the one who married us, by the way. You don’t want to see your pastor with a little Buddha on a chain around his neck. But, our friend has been on this journey for a while and at Christmas, emailed us to tell us his progress toward enlightenment. It seems it always goes the same way. It begins when you start to question the basic tenets of faith you have affirmed and preached for a lifetime. The first to be called up for scrutiny is the very existence of God. That’s the place to begin because it is the first question of theology ancient or modern. Every adolescent that comes up through our Sunday school will ask the question, out loud or to himself. Usually they get tired of the struggle after a while, the alternatives being equally undesirable. If there is no God then how do I explain the existence of everything including myself? If there is a God then my parents were right - and that is more than I can deal with at this stage in life. So, they mostly put the question on a back burner, and often religion in general, until some life event brings it to the forefront. But, people who have dealt with theology for a lifetime, like preachers, don’t have that luxury. Instead of tabling the question, it just festers and makes them grouchy. So, they go down to Starbucks for a double grande latte mocha decaf with cinnamon. And there, surrounded by other questioners with their lap tops open, it hits them – an epiphany! The solution. Of course! There is no God at the center of the universe which means the universe must center around ME! Then you go and find some trendy new age theologian or philosopher to verify your discovery. Our friend found one – he emailed us the link in case we wanted to seek enlightenment as well. From there it gets even better. Being the center of the universe means that there is no reality except that which I think into existence. There is no absolute truth, just my truth. I invent stories to replace those that are too primitive and simplistic to satisfy my expansive world view. The Jesus born in a manger story with shepherds and wise men was designed for people far below my level of spiritual enlightenment and theological sophistication. Since reality and truth are mine to invent, I will replace those images with ones that suit me and give order and meaning to life as I have designed it. My friend along with the aid of his theological guru has decided that all stories are equally valid (Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed) as long as the story advances the causes of love and justice in the world. After all, he must speak with some authority; any one who was excommunicated by the Catholic Church as a heretic must be dangerously close to some forbidden truth. But, wait a minute I protest. Let’s go back a couple of sentences. The litmus test my friend glibly inserted about advancing the causes of love and justice. Who says? If you get to create our own reality to suit your particular needs then so do I. Who says love and justice have any absolute or universal validity? Maybe in my reality that is not the truth I choose. So, I’m going to send him an email and tell him that I don’t believe in love. There is certainly no empirical evidence for it and we rational thinkers need evidence to support our assumptions. That which we euphemistically call love is in fact a biological reaction largely sexual in its essence. Then over years it morphs into a kind of comfortable co-dependency. The kindness we show our loved ones and the gifts we give are out of gratitude for their loyalty and a guarantor of reciprocity. Love is supposed to be about self-giving but finally it turns out to be all about me and protecting my interests. Enlightened self-interest – isn’t that what designer religion is supposed to serve? Even the myths we propagate about love are indefensible. The notion that there is one person in the world meant for each of us, our perfect soul mate. Do the math; the statistics render that notion ridiculous. There are seven billion people on the planet. The chances of your even being in the same country with your one-and-only are remote, and of meeting and developing a relationship – microscopic. I choose other stories to give structure to my existence as I have designed it – thank you – stories about mutually guaranteed needs gratification. And I don’t believe in justice either. Again, with a population of seven billion, a person could drive himself nuts trying to make it come out even. If everyone is supposed to be treated fairly than why doesn’t everybody get an even start? Life isn’t fair, why should I knock myself out trying to make it something it isn’t? I don’t choose that principle as a guiding myth for my construct of reality. I choose rather, one that is empirically demonstrable – called the law of nature. The strong don’t help the weak, they eat the weak. In my world view things are a lot more straight forward with uncluttered motivations – the religion of enlightened self-interest. What is growing up among us is the unfortunate product of enlightenment without humility. The only absolute in the world is me because the only absolute I can comprehend is me. It’s a silly result of an involved process that assumes that if I can’t process it with my little onboard computer, then it must not exist. The notion that there is a mainframe at the center of the universe that I cannot access is just too frustrating to be considered from my exalted position. Our poor little programming allows only for processing time linearly in one direction while “The Mainframe” can process time in any direction, past present and future being equally available. My little programming only allows access to one plane of existence while “The Mainframe” can process a myriad of overlapping planes of existence. I can only be one place at a time while “The Mainframe” can be present everywhere at once – fully present everywhere at once! The very contemplation of that either humbles me or forces me to create an alternate world view at which I stand at the center. One of the unwritten rules of sermonizing is that if you are going to spend three quarters of your time on the set up, the pay off better be worth it. Lots of people have invested twenty minutes of their lives on that expectation. So, here goes: a third option. There is another option. Given we cannot access the realm of God with our puny onboard equipment and can generate no empirical evidence of his existence, leaving us with the choices of either taking the whole thing by raw faith or choosing the more popular and socially sanctioned option of rejecting the concept of God and setting ourselves up as the center of our universe and the chief designer of a religion that works for us. The advantage of this second option is that it doesn’t require that cumbersome load of humility that faith requires. The third option (wait for it) God comes into our realm. We can’t go where God is so God comes where we are. It’s the Christmas story. Also it’s the story of Adam and Eve where God came to walk with them in the cool of the day. Abraham where God dropped by to have a chat on his way to deal with Sodom and Gomorrah. Jacob – God challenged him to a wrestling match one night. Moses had such a close encounter that his face glowed. We can’t access God with our rational mind with its five senses. But God can communicate himself directly to our souls by another route – we call it, inspiration, revelation, epiphany. Paul called it “a knowledge beyond knowing.” John Wesley called it “the assurance.” It’s a certainty that is planted in us with no rational moorings and without explanation. God spoke the world into existence and can certainly speak his word and will into his created beings. I call those implanted messages God’s cookies. “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us!” That is the third option. There remains one pressing question to be addressed, Why? Why would the God of the universe set aside his glory, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent glory just to interact with puny humans whom Isaiah described as appearing like grasshoppers from where God sits? Pitiful mortals who can only process time as linear and in one direction and from only one point at a time. God being above time and space can be fully present everywhere at once and intersect time at any point and from any direction. God’s ways are above our ways as the heavens are higher than the earth. But, he came – to us. He keeps coming. He came incarnate in a manger in Bethlehem. He comes to us in times of need or deep devotion by some means outside the normal rational one we have come to trust. Why? Let me answer that question with a story. I went to Disneyland the Thursday after Christmas. Like you, I tend to go only when I have guests from out of State. We had three friends from Hawaii. I decided not to go, let it be girl’s day out. I don’t have to enumerate for you all the reasons why a person might not want to go to Disneyland the week after Christmas when all the schools are out and all the tourists are in town. Besides if I went it required taking two cars, the other five could all fit in the Honda. Besides that, the idea of having a day to myself with no agenda sounded pretty good. So, I hear you questioning, how is it you ended up going? Everyone was in the kitchen getting ready, preparing a lunch basket, and I was there in my robe and slippers, when my daughter, Emily, snuggled up next to me and with a very sad expression said, “Daddy, aren’t you going to Disneyland?” So I got dressed quickly and we took two cars. When we got off the tram and were headed to the entrance, Emily squeezed my hand and said, “Daddy, I’m so glad you came.” “Why is that?” I asked. “Because, without you it would be boring, and besides, whose arm would I grab hold of when I got scared.” That’s why. Because God loves me like I love that child. And if he wasn’t with me, whose arm would I grab hold of when I get scared? We have people in the hospital who do their best to hide their anxiety and legitimate fear of dying. I visit, then I leave. But, I leave behind the One whose arm they can grab, day or night, visiting hours or not. The next time somebody questions why you persist in your archaic religious beliefs, impossible myths and why you still go to the church after most of intelligent society has moved into the post-Christian world view. Just say, “But whose arm would I grab hold of when I get scared? Besides, how can I ignore a God who constantly whispers his love and peace to my soul?” “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his Spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story,” and I’m sticking with it.
|