“what we do grows out of what we believe. . .”
Unitarian Universalism has a rich history, and many great thinkers to draw upon, both from within our tradition and outside it. In this sermon from April 6, 2008, the Rev. Dr. Jim Nelson explores several of these voices from the early parts of the 20th century and what they can tell us in today’s world, from Reinhold Niehbuhr to William Ellery Channing to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Nelson serves the Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church of Pasadena, California as senior minister.
The Likeness to God
by Rev. Dr. Jim Nelson
Reinhold Niehbuhr was a Methodist minister, theologian, historian and social commentator in the middle part of the 20th Century, and, in his time, one of the more influential religious thinkers in America. He wrote a number of books, and as I mentioned some weeks ago about sermon titles, Niehbuhr was good at titles.
Here are a few:
Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic [about his time as a parish minister in Detroit]
Moral Man and Immoral Society
The Nature and Destiny of Man
The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
The Irony of American HistoryHe was a realist and warned about the use of power and how too often power combines with arrogance and becomes dangerous. He would have much to say about our times.
He wrote what is called the serenity prayer. It goes like this:God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.The first part is often used in 12 Step programs, and indeed captures much of what is essential in religion. Niebuhr understood that faith is about acceptance and transformation, about surrender and courage, that what we seek in our faith, and in our faith communities, are ways to understand the world –- what is -– but also ways to transform ourselves and the world to become more of what we hope for and what we believe. He understood that faith was meant to help us become better people and so build a better world.
Niebuhr helped define a religious age. He and Paul Tillich, Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr, were religious thinkers who believed that the inner world and outer world were connected, that the spirit and flesh were one, that what we believe translates into action, that what we do grows out of what we believe. They all argued that faith without works is dead, and agreed with Jefferson that our religion is seen in what we do more than in what we say.
They all suggested that our moral lives grow out of our faith, that spirituality was the living out of religious faith, and that the essential part of a spiritual and moral life is to grow our very own souls.
This is the task we all face –our souls, our spirit – whatever word you want to use for that deep down and essential part of you. That part of you without which you are not who you are, that part that is the you of you, that if you lose, you lose your self.
Ever ask yourself: who am I and why am I here? You should. Ever see your beautiful and lively and shining face in the morning mirror, or maybe it is some other kind of face, and ask: what is the point of all this? Why am I alive and what kinds of things should I be doing? Whether you believe in some kind of God or divine purpose or not, even if you believe we are just here by the chance collision of natural forces, how do you answer this question of who are we and what are we here for? How do you grow your soul?
I want to suggest that we are here for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to live better lives. All the religious experiences in the world, all the sophistication or depth of theological thinking, all the clarity of belief, all the excellence in practice does not mount to a hill of beans if we don’t live better lives. That is the bottom line. We are, in the deepest and truest sense, what we do. We are loving only if we love; we are generous only if we give freely; we are free only if we are not in bondage. It doesn’t work any other way. Can I say I am a musician because I really feel it in my heart that I have great music in me? No way. I would be a musician only if I made music. We live in a real world and live real lives.
The other day, I was talking with a parent, and, like every parent, she wants what is best for her kids, and like parents the world over she hopes her kids do well. We love it when our kids are stars and are rightfully proud of them - when they do well in school or in sports or in the arts - the kinds of things for which humans take bows and gather applause. That is great when it happens.
But that is not what our children are or should be — we hope for them that they become good people, that they grow good souls. Ty Cobb was one of the greatest baseball players ever but he was an awful man, angry, mean, and vengeful. Sports, entertainment, politics — they are full of people who are rotten — arrogant, whiney, spiteful, biased, selfish. Accomplishments are great and ought to be celebrated, but the bow on the stage is not the mark of religious greatness or maturity.
The prophet Micah said this: what else is expected of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God? What else is there? Abraham Heschel, said that this kind of religion has gone out of fashion. Instead of Micah’s question we too often ask the reverse, “What do I require of a God that I would believe in, what do I require of a community I would give myself to, give my energies and heart to?”
This is all too easy to do and it one of the great sins of the modern world. We ask ”What is it in for me?” Instead of “What is required of me?” “What can I get” rather than “What can I give?” Well, communities of faith are here so that we don’t forget, so that we don’t forget that we must ask over and over and over: what is required of me? And I know of no better answer than Micah’s: do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with each other and our Gods. This is how a soul is grown; this is how we redeem the world; this is where we encounter the sacred.
William Ellery Channing was born on April 7, 1790 and, as much as anyone in the beginning of our faith here in the US, he is responsible for who we are. His influence was wide and deep –- the number of famous Unitarians influenced by Channing is great. Niebuhr and King numbered Channing among their influences. His sermons are worth reading. He defined the religion of his age, and it is the defining religion we share today.
[There is a local connection to Channing. His son and family lived in a house where the Pasadena Museum of History now stands. His son was a medical doctor and an inventor. He invented the first fire alarm system for cities. His daughter, Grace Ellery Channing, was a writer.]
Channing rebelled against the Calvinism of his day and came to believe that our souls are created in a likeness to God, that resting within the human spirit are all of the seeds of divinity. Channing argued that the Calvinist picture of the world was a cruel and wrong one. What kind of imagination, he wondered, could believe that God would create humans as imperfect beings, and then punish them for eternity for those imperfections? Born sinful, we die sinful said that Calvinists; we are saved or damned by whim. Nothing we can do. I remember being taught this phrase: I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord. I was also taught that that was the only way out of condemnation — belief. But I couldn’t believe. This was not affirming.
Instead of this, Channing offers a picture of possibility -– that in us lies the possibility for goodness. And that our task, then, in life, is to grow our soul in likeness to God. This is how we learn to live better lives. Affirming that love and justice are sacred trusts, our job is to act justly and seek justice, and to love. It is to grow a soul, for it is in the fullness of our soul, that what is sacred in human life will be found.
I would imagine that sometimes it is easy enough to think that the Calvinists are right. Look around the world and there is more than enough evidence of sinfulness. The cruelty humans are capable of seems endless. We are often petty –- I know I am all too often. From torture to slavery to environmental destruction, racism and sexism and economic exploitation – the list is long. But Channing –- he was no fool nor a Pollyanna –- had a faith that at the heart of existence was something good and holy. For him that was God. And his faith, and it was an act of faith, was that we are made in the likeness of God.
Emily Dickinson once described faith in the following way:
Faith—is the Pierless Bridge
Supporting what We see
Unto the Scene that We do not—
Too slender for the eye
It bears the Soul as bold
As it were rocked in Steel
With Arms of Steel at either side—.My colleague Galen Guengerich comments: ‘Emily Dickinson is right about faith: it connects what we see and what we do not. By its very nature, faith begins as a pierless bridge. It is not the result of clambering up onto a pillar of reason, or knowledge, or evidence, or even of experience. Faith is a leap of the moral imagination.’
Channing means by this faith –- his best phrase is, I think, that we seek to become what we praise –- that God is the sum of our highest ideals and hopes. He would agree that faith is a leap of the moral imagination. He means that we can be good and courageous; we can do what is right and true. Not that we will, but that we can, and it is this possibility within us that is the source of faith and of hope. He really did -– as do I — believe the Calvinists were wrong. We are not condemned sinners in the hands of an angry God. We are, rather, endowed with souls that can grow in moral and spiritual stature. It doesn’t means we will, just that we can. And we have to do the growing. And the growing is a moral growing –- faith without works is indeed dead.
Channing believed that we did this best –- grow our souls -– in a community. He understood that it took work, that it combined thinking and reflecting, and acting. He was no fool; he understood that we are capable of small and great evil. He knew he lived in an imperfect world, one filled with sorrow and evil, but he also believed those evils could be addressed, and perhaps even overcome.
He championed the freeing of slaves. After serving his congregation for over twenty years he proposed to do the Memorial service for a friend –- Charles Follen, the ardent abolitionist. His church’s governing Board said ‘no’ [times have changed haven’t they –- an interesting governance issue here] and he preached only one more time at Federal Street Church before he died. It broke his heart.
He encouraged the formation of Sunday schools; Horace Mann was a member of his congregation; he was instrumental in starting the Transcendentalist Club; Dorothea Lyn Dix who pioneered reform of the treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill was a member.
Channing believed that in unfolding the divine within us, our outer lives would be transformed. And that in this we could act to transform the world through our acts of love and justice -– things like Young and Healthy and Union Station, Esperanza and Big Saturday, Pastoral Care and teaching in RE, being an usher, pledging generously to this congregation — these are just a few of the things we do to grow our souls. Things we do outside the church — coaching kids, mentoring, cleaning up streams and roadways, tutoring. Things like that. Acts of love and justice. Meaning in our lives will come from our lives — what we do and how we live. Deeds, not creeds. This is how we grow our souls.
Channing knew this. He knew that our lives could be better, that we could grow our souls, that we could transform this world through acts of love and justice. He knew that we could encounter the sacred -– in worship, in just being together for higher ideals, in music and literature and the arts. He knew we could grow our souls in likeness to God.
Last Friday was the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. He died having grown his soul, and ours too. He died championing peace and the rights of workers. He died because his faith was large, and presented a leap of moral imagination. He died believing that we can grow into a likeness to God. He had a dream that our world could reflect what is sacred.
I have a dream, too, and that is that we will continue to translate our faith into action, that we will be an agent for justice and peace and freedom in Pasadena; I have a dream that we will be known by our works and by how large our souls grow, by our likeness to God.
Martin Luther King Jr said that Channing was an importance influence in his life. So in memory of Channing born 228 years ago tomorrow and King, these words of King:
“Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get someone to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long … Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize … Tell them not to mention that I have three of four hundred other awards … I’d like someone to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. Say that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. I just want to leave a committed life behind.”
Amen. Amen to that. The Likeness to God. Just look in the mirror and you will see. Grow your soul. Acts of love and justice. Amen.
Benediction, from MLK. Jr.
Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve.
You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.
You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.
You don’t have to know Plato and Aristotle to serve.
You don1t have to know Ball’s Treatise on the Atonement to serve.
You do not have to be on the Internet to serve.
You don’t have to know what spirituality is to serve.
You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
Source: “The Likeness to God” (PDF) by Rev. Dr. Jim Nelson, senior minister at Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church of Pasadena, California, preached April 6, 2008.
Tags: deepening, History, Jim Nelson, living faith, Martin Luther King, Rheinhold Neibhur, William Ellery Channing
