Spirit of life,
Known by many names,
Spoken of in many tongues,
Bring our attention to you as we gather this hour
to expand our minds,
to renew our faith and
to strengthen our fellowship.

We pause to feel our thankfulness for the blessings of our lives:
The healing we've experienced whether or not we know the cause,
The warm connections with family and friends,
The means to enjoy the earthly pleasures of human form,
The gifts we constantly receive from each other, and
And the opportunities which brighten our future.

We pause to remember that all is not well.
War, hunger, disease, homelessness,
poverty and affliction ravage the world.
Each of us, no matter how blessed our lives,
struggles with our own demons.
Just about all of us have lost loved ones we miss dearly.
Many of us have chronic health problems we cope with daily.

These joys and woes mingle together inseparably,
always turning the waterwheel of time.
Under the endless cycle of the good and bad,
the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral,
There is truth which endures the test of time.
These truths are the foundations
upon which we can rely in times of trouble.
These truths affirm the inherent worth and value of each individual.

May we experience the calling to know these truths.
May we choose the respond with our whole being.
May our search for enduring truth be fruitful.

And if we experience no calling or choose not to respond,
May our faith remain strong that life is good and worth living.

... SO BE IT

Readings[1]

A quote from R. D. Laing

In most traditional religions, with the exception of Buddhism and Taoism, the quest is understood as a longing of the soul for its creator, God. However, the idea of "God" as male deity who rules, judges, loves, and understands, guides and leads, as many traditions have taught, restricts the possibility for some people to find what they are seeking. It is hard for these individuals to refer to "God" in their attempt to describe the broadest form of spiritual existence. Some who have had faith or believe in certain principles know that there is a mystery in the reality of God. That when the search for the divine begins, the first step is toward a deeper way of relating, of understanding the dimensions of the mysterious, of seeking evidence of truth, and trusting in the "presence that exists."

From Northrop Frye in his book The Great Code:

What I am concerned with at present is not the question of whether God is dead or obsolete, but with the question of what resources of language may be dead or obsolete. The metaphorical and metonymic phases of language have been in large measure outgrown because of the obvious limitations that they imposed on the human mind...The word "God" is a noun, and so falls into the category of things and objects...

In Exodus 3:14, though God gives himself a name, he defines himself as "I am that I am," which the scholars say is more accurately rendered, "I will be what I will be." That is, we might come closer to what is meant in the Bible by the word "God" if we understood it as a verb, and not a verb of simple asserted existence but a verb implying a process accomplishing itself.

Noun or verb, I agree with Woody Allen's way to resolve the existence of God: If only God would give me a clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss Bank account.

My final reading comes from Viktor Frankl in his book, The Unheard Cry for Meaning:

The concept of God need not necessarily be theistic. When I was fifteen years old or so I came up with a definition of God to which, in my old age, I come back more and more. I would call it an operational definition. It reads as follows: God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies.

SERMON

During the first 75 years of the 20th Century, there was a move away from the use of the term `God' in Unitarianism and to some degree in Universalism which diminished God's importance as science, technology, and biblical scholarship advanced. During that time, many UUs might have joined Woody Allen in his comment in the movie Love and Death, "If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever." As our Century draws to a close, the pendulum has swung back and there is strong interest in many houses of worship across the world for spirituality, for an experience and understanding of God. Within our association, the new people joining our congregations, many from the baby boom generation, are searching for God and appreciate our open and accepting approach to the many paths people can take and our wide embrace of a diversity of sources of inspiration and guidance. They appreciate our stress on the individual nature of the desires which guide their search rather than molding the person to fit into a historical revelation. These searchers today feel at home with us.

Certainly searching for God is not for everyone. Some here today have a Humanistic value system constructed over the span of many years. Their Humanistic value system may completely meet these people's needs when encountering difficult life decisions and circumstances. They have no need of sacred texts to assist them in determining right from wrong. Concerns about having a faithful relationship with a Being greater than ourselves does not awaken them in the middle of the night. These people may take comfort in seeing death as the snuffing out of a candle without worry about being destined for heaven or hell. Their actions need no referent other than what is good for them, good for humanity and/or good for the earth.

And there are those who have been born with or adopted a faith in God which they cannot explain or justify. The explanations and guidelines found in the Bible make sense to them without proof. Their loving God, for some made visible in Jesus, cares about them and is discernible operating in their lives and in the world around them. These people do not need to know anything more about God than what can be gleaned from the scriptures of God's prophets, allowing their faith to carry them beyond their understanding. For them, believing in God is enough.

Between the believers and the unbelievers there is a third group who are on the fence. These people are often found in Unitarian Universalist congregations. Many of these folks have become disenchanted or dissatisfied with the religious tradition of their family. They read the Bible and see a God made in a human image rather than the other way around. Women are alienated by the way they are viewed and treated. Environmentalists are turned off by the lack of appreciation of nature and its wisdom. People seeking an affirmation of the legitimacy of the individual are disappointed in Biblical reliance on hierarchies of authority.

Yet another portion are former believers or unbelievers who have had their faith fail the test when it was needed. The result of perhaps reading an unorthodox book, the death of a child in a hit and run accident, a chronic debilitating disease, a broken marriage or alienation of a friend, the failure of one's business or the loss of property to natural disaster can shake our foundations and find them wanting. Our faith can crumble under the weight of personal tragedy.

It is hard to be in these latter two groups. To be a believer or an unbeliever allows one to have conviction and certainty when facing life's challenges. The questioner and the doubter don't feel the believer or the unbeliever's confidence in their own views to make the hard decisions which life thrusts upon us. The right and wrong path is less clear to the questioner who can often see both sides of an issue adding to their confusion.

I identify these different faith stances which reside in any religious congregation - including this one - to point out that each of us may be working with different questions and issues in our religious lives. Some of us are completely content to be just where we are whether we are a believer, unbeliever, questioner or doubter. Others find themselves uncomfortable with where we are and feel an urge, an inner desire, a yearning for something more.

Wherever one finds oneself in the spectrum of belief and unbelief, the desire to search for God can arise within us. Whether one views it as a flaw or a gem, human beings, to use Dietrich Bonhoeffer's expression, seem to have a "God shaped blank in the soul." It seems in the evolution of every culture from pre-history to the present, some manifestation of a super-human figure or figures appears to make sense of human existence. It is fundamentally human to look (with not a little distress) at the mystery of being born like water springing from a hillside, navigating the streams and rivers of a lifetime then passing away into the great ocean and wonder where we come from, where we are going and what will be our ultimate end. The promise of searching for God is getting some answers to these questions to put our minds and hearts at ease.

This desire to search for God can be disturbing no matter where one is on the believer/unbeliever spectrum. The believer is no longer satisfied with an understanding of God revealed in scripture or interpreted by the priest. They seek their own direct experience of their faith to confirm it. The unbeliever can also experience doubts that come unbidden or an unexpected sense of divine presence which shakes them down to their shoes. The questioner can become dissatisfied with the ambivalence of agnosticism and want solid reliable answers to their inner questions. The doubter mired in disappointment can feel closed in by their lack of confidence in anything and reach out for help. Thus the search for God has a kind of discomfort which can drive it forward.

The search for God can also come from an isolated place of despair. In the pain of suffering can be a crying out to know if there is anything in living which makes that suffering endurable. In difficult circumstances, the misery drives the search forward grasping for some source of assurance and comfort which can ease the pain. The seriousness of the search for these sufferers can be intense because the value of being alive is at stake.

One of the most powerful motives for engaging in the search for God is an unexpected experience of a universal love which uncritically embraces everyone and everything. This feeling of oneness is so profoundly satisfying it can change the course of one's life. I was quite content to work toward my goal of being an electrical engineer at U.C. Berkeley until I experienced this kind of love after playing a game of chess with a much stronger opponent. (A moment of inner illumination comes in all kinds of ways!) It changed my life and planted a desire to know the source of this experience, to find a way back to it and to share it with others.

However one comes to the point of the decision to search for God, for Yahweh, for Allah, for the Truth, for Ultimate Reality, in whatever language and direction the search begins, the decision can be transformative and life shaping. The searcher wants something they do not believe they have and in acknowledging that inner yearning open themselves to new experience and understanding. It is an electrifying, energizing, intensifying experience to admit one's need and begin to act.

Although the search may take an outward form in reading, reflection, engagement in spiritual practices and ritual, there is a parallel inner form developing as the individual explores what they already believe, seeking the wholeness that extends beyond us.

Along the way, the image of what is being searched for often changes. The first image discarded is the childhood God: a super-parent, the old man in the cloud or a mountain top with magical powers hurling thunderbolts or watching to see if we brush and floss every night keeping a detailed ledger of our every activity for the balancing of accounts on judgment day.

Another milestone is beginning to realize just how much projection is involved, taking our own ideas and shaping God in their image. I sang in the Oakland Interfaith Gospel choir during the mid 80's which has gone on to become fairly successful. I remember singing in a Missionary Baptist Church around Christmas time. We processed in to sing down the center aisle right past the crèche. I looked down at the characters and was surprised to see a chocolate brown baby in the manger. Seeing Jesus as a dark skinned Semitic person suddenly changed my feeling about Christianity. The assumption of Jesus being fair skinned, blonde and blue eyed comes right back in your face.

Many have found this human propensity to fashion God in their own image proof that God really is a fiction, a deception to be exposed. When one does the historical research, analyzes the Biblical texts, inconsistencies, holes, additions and deletions, the personality and politics become visible. The Bible tumbles off its pedestal crashing to the dirt and mud. For many the seeking ends here.

One of the detours while searching for God is to become distracted by the limitations of understanding and awareness of those who communicate to us experiences of the divine through revelation. It is easy to approach revelation looking for its errors rather than seeking the wisdom it contains. After all, the Bible is an ancient text written for people 2000 even 3000 years ago. The world has changed and our understanding of the universe is greatly different. Even if we know Hebrew and Greek, there is much mystery in the Bible which cannot be fully understood because of what is missing or left out.

One of the key steps in searching for God is moving past the possible errors (as Biblical scholarship is hardly an exact science) seeking the Truths the text seeks to communicate. No sequence of symbols recording a moment or insight of the past can contain a living God who is fully knowable only in each moment. Certainly our senses are quite limited in their ability to capture that which is beyond perception and cognition. Yet the fundamental nature of our humanity has not changed over all those years. Deep insights and understandings of the human condition and what is beyond it can still be gleaned from Biblical pages to guide the search for God.

To search for God as a Unitarian Universalist is to honor the multiplicity of sources of inspiration and guidance for the journey. Rather than following one exclusive path, Unitarian Universalism recommends attentiveness to many guides and many paths as well as our own personal experience. We believe in a kind of spiritual checks and balances system which can correct the errors of deluded teachers and erroneous texts. In the comparing and contrasting, the fundamental qualities of the search for God become clear in the development of the seeker's discernment.

Just as important as developing spiritual discernment is finding fellow searchers to share the path. It is quite dangerous to search for God alone as there are many deceptions which can arise within the seeker's imagination. The seeker must at times make themselves vulnerable as they set aside their armor to open themselves to new experience. One must put aside one's defenses to step into the unknown and risk being hurt.

Our congregation can serve the searcher for God as a place to share their individual journey while also respecting the diversity of belief and unbelief. Each of us has our own way to find inner and outer peace which is unique. This diversity, wisely used, can serve the seeker well on their spiritual journey. To my mind, it is what we do best: provide a open non-judgmental environment for religious exploration.

What is at the end of the search for God? It would be foolish for me to answer this question. My understanding and description of what is at the end of my search may not be what will be at the end of your search. But I believe that though we may discover many things along the way of greater power than ourselves, in the end there is at most one God. And that by whatever road our search takes, we finally arrive at the same God which is one with what is real.

Whether we discover God, as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, conjunction, article, dangling participle or grammatical error, whatever image or concept we settle on, there will be shared values we can cherish together which form the bedrock of our fellowship.

We do not have to think alike, to love alike.

SO BE IT.

Copyright (c) 1996 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.

[1] From God in All Worlds Edited by Lucinda Vardey, 1995, Pantheon Books, New York,

ISBN 0-679-44214-6