Broken God

Broken God:
A Cross-Eyed View of Our Common Life Together

Bill Bekkenhuis

January 17^th, 2010

[IMPORTANT NOTE: FOOTNOTE NUMBERS FOR REFERENCE ONLY - LINKS DO NOT WORK]

Introduction

Welcome, everyone.

The blurb in the Spectator said, "In a Christian world view, Christmas celebrates our discovery of God's presence in our flesh and blood lives. Easter, on the other hand, celebrates our discovery of the counter-intuitive nature of the God who comes to us in our flesh and blood lives: a broken God. Join us in a conversation regarding what healing or what hope, if any, a broken God can share with broken people in broken communities in a broken world. Or, "Why a Christian would choose to worship at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley (of all places :-)."

Now that I'm actually here with paper in hand, I'm not sure I can deliver on the promise of that blurb. I am certainly not going to be able to deliver on it directly as I don't intend to talk about God or Jesus Christ or the incarnation or the atonement or being washed in the blood or accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior or on Anselm's Ontological Proof for God. Nor am I going to explicitly state why Bill Bekkenhuis, Christian, has determined that the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Lehigh Valley, of all places, is where, at this point in his life, he can best worship the Christian God.

At least... I'm not going to address any of those issues directly.

There's an old joke from my brief stint in professional Scouting with the Minsi Trails Council.

It seems a District Executive went to his district's Fall Camporee, which was a rainy event. At some point, in the troop campsite that had offered him a berth for the weekend, he lay down by the fire to take a nap and left his boots by the fire to dry out.

A young Scout built up the fire without noticing the boots and, when the DE awoke, he saw the boots had burned.

The next week, in the office, the Scout Executive submitted his expenses for the week and along with meals and mileage and some other items, listed, "Hiking Boots – Fall Camporee - $95.00".

When his expense report came back, he noticed they had reimbursed everything but the boots.

He went to his supervisor and asked about the boots.

"I'm sorry," said his supervisor, "the boots are your personal property and are your responsibility."

"But," the DE said, "I only need hiking boots because I'm a professional Scouter and they burned at an official Scouting event at which I was required to attend."

"Sorry," said the supervisor, without looking up from his desk, "the boots are denied."

The next month, in a bit of defiance, the DE again listed the boots on his expenses.

The supervisor called him into the office. He wasn't in a particularly good mood.

"Listen! I told you before. The boots are denied. They are your own personal property. If you know what's good for you, you'll just let it go."

The next month the DE's somewhat complicated expense report came through without the boots. A bit crestfallen, the supervisor approved it all and went to the DE's desk to hand it to him personally.

"Look," he said, "You're a good man and a good Scouter. I'm happy to have you on the team. Thanks for dropping the issue with the boots. The rest is approved."

The DE looked up from his desk, smiled at his supervisor and said, "The boots are there, Sir. You find them."

So, a gentle warning. God is in this talk. Jesus Christ crucified and risen is in this talk. The forgiveness of sins is in this talk as well as the significance of accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

You find them.ⁱ

Part One: Death

I figured I'd start by bringing everyone down and talking about death.

Whenever I've taken this tack before, or evaluated some other Christian theologian who has taken it, the response always seems to be something along the lines that death is merely a part of life – as Bob Newhart's psychiatrist character once said, 'the last part' – and, as adults, we learn to accept and deal with it.

So, rather than arguing, let's presume that we can all rationally accept the reality of our own death.

Right?

Now, how would I argue that point...?

I guess I'd start out by observing that it can't be that big a deal. After all, we've all been dead before :-)

Let's face it, one hundred and fifty years from now, I will be dead.

But, one hundred and fifty years ago, I was also dead.

If asked how I felt, at the time, about the Southern states seceding from the Union, a quite proper reply would be, "I didn't feel anything. I was dead."

Which is pretty much how I expect to feel one hundred and fifty years from now when glaciers cover the world and the biosphere is ravaged.ⁱⁱ I'll feel dead. Which is to say, I expect to feel nothing at all.

I didn't experience any sense of loss or discomfort one hundred and fifty years ago, I don't see any reason to anticipate any sense of loss or discomfort one hundred and fifty years in the future. Right?

What's wrong with that argument? Is there anything wrong with it?

Somehow, I suspect there is something wrong with it.

And I also believe I'm not alone in my suspicions.

Because we generally don't say that we were dead in the past. We generally say we weren't born yet. Just a simple difference in language but food for thought: why do we distinguish, in language, between not being born yet, on the one hand, and being dead, on the other?

For some reason, the status of being dead is apparently reserved to those who were once alive and not to those who have simply not yet been born.

If I went around talking about how much I miss my dear friend Fred Figedus who was never born and never will be, I'd get locked up.

Still, the fact remains. Two hundred years ago we were dust and two hundred years from now we will be dust and, as we didn't have any apparent problem with the first state of affairs, one wouldn't reasonably expect to have any problem with the second state of affairs.

Now, one of the things I've heard from folks from time to time is, "I don't have any problem with my own death... Oh, no. I just have a problem with the deaths of other people, e.g. friends and family, that I care about." But why should this be? Are there any rational grounds for thinking that another's death is any more to be feared than our own? If death is no big deal for us, then is there any reason to think death would be any big deal to any other living creature?

A person could respond to that by saying that death of other people bothers us while the thought of our own eventual death does not because it is only natural to miss the dead, on the one hand, while we certainly won't be in any position to miss ourselves, on the other. But one can miss things at significantly different levels. If I break a favorite coffee mug, I may miss it. Is that really comparable to losing a much beloved pet, a spouse, a life-long friend, one's child? Is there really nothing more involved than, "gee, I really got used to seeing that old beast around the house." (I mean the dog, not one's spouse. :-)

There's another intriguing thing about the word "death." Death, as it turns out, is apparently quite a useful metaphor for referring to the end or nothingness of all sorts of non-biological things. We can refer to the death of a relationship, the death of an institution, the death of a way of life. Think of the bartender who says to the cook, on a Monday, 'boy, it's really dead in here tonight." What exactly does he or she mean – and why use that particular word? Wouldn't it suffice to say it's really... well, quiet? (As in, quiet as the grave? :-)

(On the same note, it would be quite unusual, I would think, for a funeral director to use the same expression with his assistant. "Boy, it sure is dead in here tonight." I mean, what on earth would he mean? :-)

You know, I remember growing up in Seaford, Long Island during the '60s and '70s. As I reconnect with classmates on Facebook I see contemporary pictures as well as old elementary school pictures. A lot of these people I haven't laid eyes on or spoken to since the day we graduated from high school – and some of them were in my classes from kindergarten on up.

I'm aware of the passage of time and the way we've scattered and developed our own separate lives in that time. I'm aware that I had a mother and a father and a dog named Red and a brother and sister-in-law and three nieces who were closer to my age than my brother was and so, once every weekend, we were playmates for an afternoon and had our three-generational meal that Sunday night.

Now, in my current life, Mom and Dad and the dog are all dead, my brother and former sister-in-law are divorced and my three nieces are now all grown with kids and adult issues of their own and are scattered all over the Eastern seaboard. We are friends, but we are no longer playmates, and years pass between the times I get to see them face to face. About ten years ago, I re-visited Seaford to see the house where I grew up. I walked right past it without recognition. (This is not as strange as it may sound in suburban Long Island :-)

Now, is it not reasonable to say that the entire life I knew in Seaford, Long Island – family, school friends, teachers, Scout leaders, home – is dead? The life I knew so well back there and then is now only available to me, as are other dead or lost friends and family members, through fading memories of a life, or a way of life, that no longer exists?

Maybe this is the answer regarding the question as to why the word "dead" is reserved for the period after our lives and not before them. Before we have a life, only potentiality is lost. My dead non-existent friend Fred Figedus is not to be mourned because there is no Fred Figedus to miss the life he never had and no attributes that I can miss because he had none. After we've had a life – with it's richness of experiences, friendships, memories, causes, projects, hobbies, etc. - it is actual value, not merely potential value, that is lost. Or so it seems to me.

There is a sense that despite our best efforts and, in fact, the best of all possible efforts, the value of life – all of life – our connectedness to each other and the world - is ultimately lost and forgotten.

And that raises the most radical question regarding our current efforts – namely, since everything we know or value or commit ourselves to dies then what, in the end, is the point of all our efforts? Why do we get up in the morning? Why do we give a damn about stuff that is destined to fade into nothingness? How many ancient Sumarians are known to us today? Doesn't that at least raise the question, "did their lives and loves and struggles ultimately mean nothing ?"ⁱⁱⁱ

As the philosopher Charles Hartshorne put it, "If 'All's well that ends well" is a sound principle, what are we to make of the apparent facts that a human life ends in death and that being dead seems as far as possible from being well?" ^iv

So I submit to you the following suggestions.

First, that we recognize that we are mortal and that on some given day in the future our biological organism and all that is based on it, such as our subjective life of the mind or of the human spirit, will die. That's just plain hard-wired into our biology.

Second, that we recognize that what is lost in an untimely death is our actual value as well as our potential value and that what is lost in even a timely death is our actual value.

Third, that we recognize that death at a more symbolic or metaphorical level encompasses not only the day or event of our own biological death but also the 'death' of institutions, ideologies, ways of life, communities, nations, jobs, etc. upon which our lives, as social beings rooted in language, are so involved.

Fourth, I would think – if we're fair-minded about the issue – that because of our ability to anticipate, in our minds, worlds that do not yet exist, that we recognize that the these very hard facts regarding death and its implications at least raise the question that death threatens our normal day-to-day peace of mind in which life is meaningful, valuable and purposeful.^v

In short, every foretaste, every anticipation of that last day... every suffering, every disappointment, every failure and every discernment of the human capacity for evil in ourselves and others puts the question to us: is the positive meaning and purpose and value that all people ultimately find in life and that all people ultimately need to function in life not also ultimately based on an illusion? What Ernest Becker called, "the vital lie."^{vi vii}

Part Two: Superstitions Regarding Death

When an animal is faced with death, it tends to fight or run... and so do we.

But human fighting and running not only takes place in the same, literal arena as a mouse cornered by a snake, it takes place in the symbolic, or psychological realm as well.

So, we not only literally run or fight in response to an immediate threat of physical death - we also deny, avoid or attempt to overcome those people or institutions or events or other realities of life that anticipate our eventual, literal deaths.^viii

And, again, while animals only engage their fight-or-flight mechanism when actually faced with the threat of literal death, humans - due to their linguistic, symbolic capacity to be ever confronted by their own death and the death of all they love - have their fight-or-flight mechanisms constantly engaged.

How do people manage to get through the day without the constant struggle of justifying the meaning, purpose and value of life in the face of death distracting if not outright crippling their ability to function in the world?

I believe there are three primary strategies, if you want to call them that or, as I prefer to call them, superstitions.

The first is denial or escapism.

In denial, people attempt to put death as well as anything representative of death out of their minds and their life. They deal with death by not dealing with it. That's the flight option.

Any distraction can work – business, senseless hobbies, alcohol or drugs, the entertainment industry, etc.

Anything that completely absorbs us and keeps our minds from thinking.^ix

Anyone who, like myself, has proved an abysmal failure in meditation, can prove this to themselves by sitting in a quite place where they won't be disturbed and try – just try – to either empty their mind or focus on some inconsequential object or mantra for just five minutes.

Beyond flight, a second option is the option of taking on and fighting or overcoming death through a direct assault on death's domain.

Let's call it the "kill the bastards" option.^x

We defeat death by brute force. This is the theme of any number of action, superhero or vigilante movies. Unfortunately, of late, it has also – in my opinion – been the theme of our foreign policy.

Even the 'kill the bastards' crowd knows you can't ultimately conquer death through counter-force.

So, while overcoming death may be temporarily possible in the sense of overcoming the actual concrete reminders or anticipations of death we encounter in day-to-day life (e.g., failure in business, the loss of an important relation, the on-set of a serious illness or, nationally, vanquishing a nation perceived as a threat to national security), it is quite obviously impossible to forever evade the reality of one's own eventual death as well as the eventual death of all one values and loves.

So there is a third strategy available, a hybrid of fight and flight - deal-making.

In deal-making, people attempt to achieve mastery over death in one area of life (which could, quite literally, be anything - career, home, family, patriotism, helping the poor, sex, and – let’s not forget - religion^xi, etc.) as a way of overcoming the reality of death. The strategy that says, “I may die, but my life’s meaning will continue to live on because I accomplished ‘X’.” Ernest Becker calls this an Immortality Project^xii. ^{xiii xiv xv}

So long as I'm successful at my career, my life meant something. So long as I have children, my life meant something. So long as I'm the most religious person in my church, my life meant something.

So what's the problem with all these strategies for dealing with death beyond the obvious one that they're all based in illusion and deception?

The fact is, all these approaches – fight, flight or deal-making - have toxic side effects, personally and socially.

First, they create, in both the individual mind and in community sensitivities, what might be called Dominions of Life and Death into which the 'stuff' of life - events, situations, people - are consigned. Into the first domain, the Life Domain, goes everything that society says either wards off or distracts one from or enjoys some negotiated level of success over death.

The Life Domain is the home of the beautiful people, the advantaged, the healthy, the rich and famous, the well socialized and cultivated, the ones we see in commercials who look so unlike the ones we meet on the bus or, for that matter, in the mirror.

Into the Death Dominion goes the nasty bits of life, including suffering, evil, our 'shadow' side, and people such as gays, people of color, the poor, the mentally ill, the homeless, those of other religions, the aged, the criminal, and all those who are stigmatized for one reason or another. All of these are literally consigned to the Death Domain, society's trash can, as a sacrifice, excluded from one's personal life, marginalized in society, eliminated if necessary, and forgotten.^xvi

It's the reason we avert our eyes when we see a beggar on the street.

I'd argue that we spend much of our psychic energy on the process of sorting each person or situation we encounter into these domains such that we can appropriately, if that's the word, respond to them.

Another aspect of these distorted ways of dealing with death is that instead of loving people and using things, we learn to love things (specifically those things that advance our Immortality Project) and use people (specifically those people who advance our Immortality Project - treating them, in effect, as if they were nothing more than things).

In essence, all these approaches coincide in that the engine that drives them consigns those events, situations and people - that is, those that either force us to deal with death or that neglect or hinder our Immortality Projects - to the Death Domain. This is the heart of what afflicts us, indeed, possesses us as people and it is, in my opinion, very, very powerful in its ability to distort individual persons. ^xvii

And these approaches not only have an individual or personal side (e.g., the person who sacrifices their health and their family to advance their business – or to feed a drug addiction) but a social side as well. Because it is not just individuals who are distorted but families, communities and nations as well.

It is not only individuals who struggle against death and to establish themselves over and against other people, but our social institutions also contend against each other in the struggle for survival. One business strives against another while both form alliances and join conflicts with the government, labor unions, etc.^{xviii xix}

The problem with these superstitions, again aside from being based on fantasy rather than reality ^xx, it that once a person or institution is taken by one of them, they will do anything, sacrifice anything or anyone, to maintain that which, to their individual or corporate minds, serves their ultimate survival interests in the face of death's threat.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if there are any defining characteristics of a fantasy-based appraisal of death it would be its splendor (as in the Life Domain described above), on the one hand, and its absolute ruthlessness when it comes to the sacrifice of people, communities or the natural environment.^xxi

When the stakes are an individual or corporate entity's survival, no price in blood is too high – whether the blood of others, or one's own.

Part Three: A Hopeful Realism Regarding Death

I believe that if death is viewed in all realism, absent denial and fantasy and wishful thinking – including religious wishful thinking - then hope is the only true antidote to death and death's assault on human meaning, value and purpose. ^xxii

Think of the most ordinary of situations. A student faced with failure. A person losing their job. Someone struggling with cancer. Why do they persevere? Because, at some level, they still have hope.

But there are many forms of hope. Strong hopes and weak hopes. Hopes based on fantasy and hopes based on realism.

Where, in life, does one go for the source of hope in the face of the end of all things? ^xxiii

Well, oddly enough, hope in its most undiluted and most trustworthy form turns out to be an ironic hope, a paradoxical hope.

It is a hope that comes to us when hope, in its usual connotations, is not possible. ^xxiv

It is a hope that some, including myself, claim encounters us in its purist form in the full light of reality as it is and not as we might wish it to be. It is a hope that encounters us and allows us to clearly see and accept the most unacceptable, the most deathly parts of ourselves and our life's situations and allows us to see and accept the most deathly events in the world. It is a hope that nonetheless comes to us in our darkest hour, in our most grievous suffering and on those occasions when the veil is pulled away and we are staring into the abyss with our eyes wide open.^xxv

And because such a hope is, by definition, unanticipated, it cannot be manipulated through positive thinking or some other neuro-linguistic programing (as much a fan as I am of such efforts in the penultimate aspects of life such as goal achievement). One might practice in its discernment and must act upon it when it presents itself, but it is no one's possession – it is free.

Now, having said all this about encountering hope in hopelessness, don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing for masochism or wishing suffering on anyone. Lest of all myself.

And this hope is not an excuse to shirk working to make ourselves better people and to improve the quality of our lives and the lives of those around us and to improve the lot of every creature in this world.

Indeed, it is this tough-minded, realistic hope that empowers working for change in the most hopeless of situations.

It isn't that hope isn't present in the happy, healthy, successful and prosperous times of life because it certainly is. But one can always wonder to what degree such a hope is a false hope based – whether we recognize it as such or not – on our fragile personal circumstances of the moment. Worse still, maybe the hope we have in happier times is founded on the superstitious, fantastic and distorted forms of living I described above. If one is committed to truth, then a false or distorted hope is certainly worse than no hope at all. ^{xxvi xxvii}

But I believe that hope that comes to us where no hope is possible, paradoxical though it may be, is the most certain guide to the true character and destiny of the universe. ^xxviii

It is, I believe, just such a hope that is offered to us in our ordinary lives just as they are and to us just as we are and in our communities just as they are if we have the eyes to see it and the trust to act on it, no matter how limited our scope of possible actions may be. ^xxix

Part Four: Engaging Life as Individuals

So what are the new possibilities for someone who ultimately trusts reality at its core? For someone who trusts reality even when encountering with utmost realism the specter of death, death's implications and the varying sufferings and disappointments that are death's heralds? Someone who believes that even concealed within death itself is a powerful and unlikely and unanticipated hope that not only carries us in our despair but also illumines all the other events, both great and small, of our lives? An ever-present hope that is not dependent on our good fortune nor on our achievements, whether those achievements be moral, cultural, financial, etc, but that is instead hard-wired into the very nature of reality? ^xxx

What is life like at those times where we experience the end of fantasy and superstition regarding death? ^xxxi

I guess the first thing that happens is we quit the rat race. As Lily Tomlin once famously said, the winner of the rat race is still a rat.

Now, as I said before, nothing in what I've said should lead to the conclusion that we are not to strive mightily in this world, and that we shouldn't work to achieve our goals – goals on behalf of ourselves, our family and friends, our community, our nation and our world.

It is a wonderful thing that someone can devote years of their life to winning an Olympic medal. As the runner and missionary Eric Liddell, as portrayed in the movie "Chariots of Fire" says, "God made me for a purpose. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure." In the movie Liddell, a strict Calvinist, refuses to run in an Olympic heat on the Sabbath despite all the pressure put on him by the British Olympic committee.

Years later, according to theologian Langdon Gilkey, Gilkey knew Mr. Liddell in an internment camp in China during WWII.

Known as much for his athleticism as for his missionary work, the other missionaries attempted to recruit Liddell to coach boy's sports on Sunday and he refused. Faced with the confinement and boredom of the camp, the boys began to fight each other. Liddell reluctantly began coaching and reffing games on Sundays.^xxxii

Consider this. He would not break the Sabbath for his own glory nor for the glory of his King and his country. But, when it came down to it, he'd break it to keep some long-forgotten boys from scraping with each other.

That's the kind of balance the world invites us to once we've dropped our fight, flight and deal-making efforts with regard to death.

There's another word for that type of balance and that's the word, "freedom." ^xxxiii

There's a song by Dylan that claims you have to serve somebody. But if one is embraced by this type of hope and released for this type of freedom, you really don't have to serve someone – not in that sense. You are free to serve anyone – compelled to serve no one. ^xxxiv

Along with quitting the rat race is the demystification of our lives. We no longer treat ourselves or others or, for that matter, the natural environment with which we co-exist, as objects or tools in the fulfillment of our superstitious immortality projects, we consider them as creatures with their own integrity.

In other words, everything that happens is no longer "all about us."

When a realistic hope grasps us even in the face of life at its worst then, freed from our own drivenness and neediness, we find ourselves set free to be available to others. ^xxxv

Lastly, along with quitting the rat race and releasing the rest of reality to be creatures in their own right rather than props in our show comes a reality-based self-acceptance.

Realizing that the hope we've encountered is not self-generated allows us to accept it as a gift and accept ourselves exactly as we are in the cold light of dawn and not as we might wish to be. As we release others to be creatures in their own right rather than props in our show, so too do we release ourselves from the unrealistic burden of being the heroes of our autobiographies. Again, it's not all about us. It is not all about our accomplishments – moral or otherwise. And it is not all about our failures – moral and otherwise. ^xxxvi

Part Five: Engaging the World as a Community

All churches, and probably all societies, aspire to be role models for how the world should be. We can look at the Good Community project at Missouri State University or our own Unitarian Universalist Principals and Purposes to get examples of how most of us believe the world should get along and what the world owes its citizens and, particularly, its most vulnerable citizens: the poor, the sick, the children. ^xxxvii

It's not hard to figure out. Peace with justice. Food, housing and medical care. Opportunities for education and culture. Opportunities to contribute to society through paid and volunteer labor. Recreation. A sustainable relationship between nations and with our natural environment.

The problem is not conceiving it... the problem is doing it.

When an individual or community is captivated by fantasies of escaping from, overcoming or doing a deal with death in its myriad anticipations and precursors, it is hard to have enough energy or freedom or courage to put one's very existence on the line on behalf of the good community.

We – both as individuals and communities – ensure we'll take care of Number 1 first. The rest get what can be spared.

And the argument has been made that it is even harder for organizations, institutions or societies to take self-preservation out of the driver's seat than it is for individuals.^xxxviii

And, as I said before, this is not magic. One can't use some mind game to pretend that we can act on an unconditional hope or trust in reality if we don't, in fact, have that hope and trust.

But we can, as individuals within a community, prepare ourselves for the possible visitation of such hope. I would suggest the following disciplines for a community such as the UUCLV both in its capacity as "the church gathered" on Sunday's and "the church scattered" the other six days of the week.^xxxix I call them disciplines because while some may come easier to some people than others (which is part of the reason we need each other) they still take a bit of conscious application – particularly when times are tough and hope is more elusive than usual. ^xl

The first and foremost discipline is celebration.^xli In my opinion, what takes place in our sanctuary on a Sunday should be celebratory. Other things can certainly occur in the sanctuary and some occasions in our communal and national life are less conducive to celebration than others. But if reality and life are sustained by a hope that is trustworthy even in the most hopeless of situations, then what better way can we dramatize that daily truth then through a public event and testimony that is, at its core, a party.

The second discipline is learning.^xlii Again, as both individuals during the week and in our corporate mode on Sunday, learning communicates an openness and vulnerability to the world as well as a useful reminder that we don't know everything. It is completely appropriate that a community such as ours, grounded in hope, should function not only as a party but as an educational campus for all matters whether religious or secular.

A third discipline is personal growth.^xliii Yes, in the end death takes us all, our friends and loved ones, and our projects. But to use such time as we have to encourage and cultivate the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual growth of our community and those our community touches is a powerful witness to the trustworthy nature of life despite all evidence to the contrary. I recently lost a friend to a decades long struggle with cancer. Her doctor told her that as she had no chance of survival, she might want to consider foregoing further chemotherapy in the hope of increasing the quality of life in the time she had left. Even though I think it would have been perfectly acceptable to go that route, as a free person she chose to go down fighting her unbeatable foe. That's the type of hope I'm talking about. Her decision, while realistically useless against the imminent threat of death, affirmed to herself and communicated to others what she really believed about life. That's personal growth.

A fourth discipline of the community is friendship.^xliv The UUCLV is an institution but, when I think of the UUCLV I don't primarily think of the institution but of my friends within the institution. Our institution is really a collection of small groups and many face-to-face interactions. As friends we again are called to get over ourselves and into the lives of others. We come here because we enjoy – and need – each other's company. That, in the end, is the answer to getting more people into this church – find them, befriend them and – once they're here – give them something to do. ^xlv

A fifth discipline of the community is service.^xlvi Whereas friendship is a call to get over ourselves as individuals, service is a call for us to get over ourselves as a community. Surely there is no more distinguishing mark of how free a community is than by what it does for people who are not its members.

A sixth element of our community is encouragement.^xlvii A community whose foundation is hope can play an essential role in the larger society by offering words of encouragement. In a world in which hope often comes in disguise whereas anticipations of death are flagrant and obvious, our primary purpose is to perceive this hope and share it with others. We are not a professional social work organization nor are we psychotherapists. We cannot solve everyone's problems. But we can share with everyone – no matter their situation – a word of hope.

The seventh and last suggested discipline of our community is accountability.^xlviii With myself more so maybe than most, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And I'm a much better person in my mind and imagination than I am in the flesh. (At least, my friends and family and co-workers keep telling me that, so I suppose it's true :-) ) But our community is a place where our ideals and our aspirations for ourselves, our community and our society hit that cold, unyielding and sometimes thoroughly annoying thing called, "reality". And that, when you come right down to it, is the justification for the endless hours many of us spend in meetings talking about procedures and budgets and organizational charts, etc.

Conclusion

This concludes my presentation. I've been vain enough to print out copies of my remarks. [Actually, I was vain enough but not competent enough. The edited, printed version is coming out a week after the presentation – which is probably a good thing :-) ] Those of you who expected, hoped or dreaded hearing a great deal of Christian theology from me this morning will be either relieved or aggrieved to see that such theology is embedded in the endnotes of my talk. I opted for end notes over footnotes for ease of disposal for those allergic to Christian mythology.

I've talked about destructive strategies towards dealing with death and death's tokens or precursors. Strategies based on fantasy and superstition that, to the extent we fall captive to them, will come to possess, enslave and cripple us as human beings and, ultimately, destroy us – both as individuals, as a community, and a species, possibly taking the rest of the biosphere with us into extinction.

I've talked about a reality that encounters us in all of life but which I believe is ultimately and most perfectly revealed in the very darkest moments of life. A reality that paradoxically guarantees the meaning, value and purpose of life at the very point where that meaning, value and significance are most seriously challenged.

I suppose that this could be considered, by the thorough-going skeptic, as the very last and perhaps the very most cruel illusion of all. ^xlix

And logically they certainly make a serious point – possibly the most serious point against the position for which I argue and one that is certainly a great deal more weighty than discussions about the coherence of technical, theological affirmations.

But then we're finally left with a last dilemma – the choice to accept a hope in the fundamental meaning, purpose and value of reality and human existence or to instead live with the knowledge that such hope, while absolutely essential for human personal and corporate life, is ultimately an illusion we bewitch ourselves with in a universe both dead and disinterested.

Thanks, all, for your patience and attention.

Questions or comments? ^l

i One of my faults as an amateur theologian is to go all academic on folks. In the midst of preparing this talk, a friend of mine who was both a gifted school teacher and an accused child molester chose to take his own life shortly before he was due to plead in the case. Without venturing any judgments on guilt or innocence I can only say that the magnitude of this tragedy, for all involved as well as for society as a whole, has really forced me to confront the issues in this talk at a thoroughly experiential level. And, even more recently, tens of thousands of people are dead and dying in Haiti following last weeks earthquake. Having dealt with the death of my one friend, I find myself incapable of even grasping the suffering involved in the deaths of tens of thousands. Events like these truly force the question regarding what we actually believe in our gut as well as our head.

ii Or the glaciers will have melted? I forget. Whatever :-)

iii 9 As a cloud vanishes and is gone,
so he who goes down to the grave does not return.
Job 7:9 (New International Version)

iv Charles Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes; p.32

v 1 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. 2 All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, [a] the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.
As it is with the good man,
so with the sinner;
as it is with those who take oaths,
so with those who are afraid to take them.

3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. 4 Anyone who is among the living has hope [b] —even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

5 For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing;
they have no further reward,
and even the memory of them is forgotten.

6 Their love, their hate
and their jealousy have long since vanished;
never again will they have a part
in anything that happens under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 9:1-6 (New International Version)

vi Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death, Chapter Four

vii Even someone who commits suicide has some distorted form of hope that they can take action to "improve" their situation. Consider the person who says, "I can't take it anymore" and puts a gun to their head... only to let their hand drop down helplessly to their side saying, "Oh, what's the point?" Now that person truly has no hope. :-)

viii 5 He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.

6 He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.

7 He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.

Lamentations 3:5-7 (New International Version)

ix 34"Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. 35For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth.

Luke 21:34-35 (New International Version)

x 1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses,
who trust in the multitude of their chariots
and in the great strength of their horsemen,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
or seek help from the LORD.

Isaiah 31:1 (New International Version)

xi I can't find the citation, but theologian Karl Barth once said something to the effect that Church is where sinners (Christians? :-) go to make their last stand against God.

xii See The Denial of Death - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Use www.google.com and search "denial of death" "wiki")

xiii 16And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

18"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '

20"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

Luke 12:16-20 (New International Version)

xiv 11 Their tombs will remain their houses forever,
their dwellings for endless generations,
though they had named lands after themselves.

12 But man, despite his riches, does not endure;
he is like the beasts that perish.

13 This is the fate of those who trust in themselves,
and of their followers, who approve their sayings.
Selah

Psalm 49:11-13 (New International Version)

xv 17Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

1 Timothy 6:17 (New International Version)

xvi 19 Evil men will bow down in the presence of the good,
and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.

20 The poor are shunned even by their neighbors,
but the rich have many friends.

21 He who despises his neighbor sins,
but blessed is he who is kind to the needy.

Proverbs 14:19-21 (New International Version)

xvii 16When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

Matthew 2:16 (New International Version)

xviii 1After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2With a mighty voice he shouted:
"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a home for demons
and a haunt for every evil[a] spirit,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.

Revelation 18:1-2 (New International Version)

xix 8Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.

Mark 13:8 (New International Version)

xx 17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.

Psalm 33:17 (New International Version)
(For "horse", substitute any aspect of creation! )

xxi 26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle had gone against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom, but they failed. 27 Then he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall. The fury against Israel was great; they withdrew and returned to their own land.

2 Kings 3:26-27 (New International Version)

Note that the human sacrifice to his nation's god "worked" – at least in the short term.

xxii 17 I have been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what prosperity is.

18 So I say, "My splendor is gone
and all that I had hoped from the LORD."

19 I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.

20 I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.

21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."

25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;

Lamentations 3:17-25 (New International Version)

xxiii Albert Einstein, in response to a reporter's question on the most important question one can ask of the universe, replied, "I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves." I read about this, I'm sure, in Stephen Hawking's, A Brief History of Time but cannot find it now for love or money. See http://www.ortholog.com/archive/compleat_scientist/a_friendly_universe.php

xxiv 18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."

20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

1 Corinthians 1:18-30 (New International Version)

xxv God is not lost to Eliezer entirely. During the hanging of a child, which the camp is forced to watch, he hears someone ask: Where is God? Where is he? Not heavy enough for the weight of his body to break his neck, the boy dies slowly and in agony. Wiesel files past him, sees his tongue still pink and his eyes clear, and weeps.

“ Behind me, I heard the same man asking: Where is God now?

And I heard a voice within me answer him: ... Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows"

From Night (book by Elie Wiesel) at Wikipedia. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_(book)#cite_note-N61-23

Elie Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor and his novel is based on his first-hand experiences in a Nazi concentration camp.

xxvi During the question and answer period following this talk, I was asked if I was saying that someone who didn't accept Christ couldn't have hope. To give what I hope is a better answer now than I gave in the heat of the moment, I'd reply, "Yes and no. "Yes" in that if your hope is somehow conditional, then you are open to the charge that your hope is at least potentially based on superstition or illusion. "No" in that I'm not claiming that one needs to embrace Christian theology, Christian culture, Christian language, Christian identification, etc., to understand or experience what I'm talking about. Christians believe that the entire world was created by God in Christ yet only a small portion of that world is now – or ever will be – identified with "Christendom". Christians – even Christians in the Unitarian Universalist church – have a responsibility to share the good news of Christ crucified with everyone through word and deed. But the revelation of hope in the midst of hopelessness, that is, God in Christ crucified and risen, is the possession of no person and no institution – even if that institution be as venerable as Christendom.

xxvii 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again.

John 10:15-17 (New International Version)

xxviii In the midst of my friend's suicide and the earthquake in Haiti, I was grateful for the 'Miracle on the Hudson" one-year reunion on Friday and will take it – the salvation of one airliner's passengers and crew - as the better clue to the meaning, value and purpose of life - without denying or depreciating the reality of either the personal tragedy of my friend or the very public tragedy of the Haitian cataclysm. This is what is meant, theologically, by the word "miracle" – it is a sign of God's ultimate authority over the world even in the midst of all the many evil things that happen. And the celebrations of the survivors on Friday in the full light of what might have happened to them and what did happen to my friend and multiple thousands in Haiti is what I would call, "worship." It is what should (and often does) happen in our sanctuary and every sanctuary each Sunday. Celebration.

xxix The lesson of Job: Per Satan, God's prosecuting attorney in the Heavenly Court, take Job's good fortune away and he'll curse God's name. Such, apparently, is not the case. At one point, Job defiantly says,

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him

Job 13:14-16 (New International Version)

xxx 13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Colossians 2:13-15 (New International Version)

xxxi 15. Thus the Word condescended to man's engrossment in corporeal things, by even taking a body. All man's superstitions He met halfway; whether men were inclined to worship Nature, Man, Demons, or the dead, He showed Himself Lord of all these.

On the Incarnation of the Word (Athanasius) (See http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2802.htm )

xxxii See Eric Liddell (Wikipedia) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Liddell

xxxiii 1It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Gal 5:1 (New International Version)

xxxiv 14Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants.

Hebrews 2:14-16 (New International Version)

xxxv 44"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Matthew 13:44 (New International Version)

xxxvi 2Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.

1 Corinthians 4:2-4 (New International Version)

xxxvii See The Good Community Committee at http://www.goodcommunity.missouristate.edu/IntoToGC.htm and see Unitarian Universalist Association Principles and Purposes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalist_Association#Principles_and_Purposes

xxxviii "The difference between the attitudes of individuals and those of groups has been frequently alluded to, the thesis being that group relations can never be as ethical as those which characterize individual relations."

Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society, p.83.

xxxix I cannot find the exact quote but I'm certain the distinction between "the church gathered" and "the church scattered" came from Elton Trueblood, The Incendiary Fellowship.

xl I'd like to respond to another question I received after the talk – a bit more artfully, I hope, than I did at the time :-) Someone said something to the effect, "I have so much on my plate already, I'm exhausted, and now you're urging me to embrace this hope and do even more for the church?" I hear you :-) But that's not what I meant at all. It is not my wish for people to exchange the idol of career success (for example) for the idol of "church volunteer who sacrifices themselves on the cross of church committeedom" :-). The point is that once we've been released from our bondage to our idols / demons / powers / gods we are radically free to expend that once-captive energy where we will. Augustine supposedly once said, "Love God... and do as you please." And Luther once shocked his parishioners by exhorting them to, "Sin boldly!" The Christian faith is a call to such radical freedom that no less a personage than the Apostle Paul had to defend himself, on more than one occasion, from the charge of preaching immorality.


1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

Romans 6:1-3 (New International Version)

xli Worship, in Christian lingo.

xlii Christian Education

xliii Pastoral Care

xliv Fellowship

xlv I must admit I've been less than diligent in my support of the UUCLV. I have a half hour walk or so to get to the church and Sunday is about the only day that I don't HAVE to get up at the crack of dawn and be somewhere. Commitments to youth and adult RE compel me to go even when I don't feel like it :-) So when someone new comes here, we need to find what motivates them and connect them to an appropriate task that will engage that motivation.

xlvi Missions

xlvii Evangelism

xlviii Stewardship

xlix 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

1 Corinthians 15:16-19 (New International Version)

l One last point. While I recognize the truth in what I have presented, I have by no means assimilated it into the totality of my life and my behavior. It is, in fact, not that kind of thing. Grace comes to us as it does and the possibility of slipping back into old ways is clear. John Calvin supposedly once said that the human mind is an "idol factory" and no sooner do we we rid ourselves of one idol than we adopt another. I do not believe I, as a Christian, have any particular advantage over those who are not Christian beyond the fact that I believe my experiences with the Bible, books about the Bible and people explicitly committed to the communal reality described in the Bible (that is, the Christian church) have helped me discern the human dilemma, God's response to our dilemma, and the new human possibility as individuals in community. I am vain enough to print and distribute my remarks but not so vain as to believe God sent me to the UUCLV to turn everyone into orthodox Christians :-) My purpose at the UUCLV is to encourage.