Images of God

My first image of G-d looks very much like Charlton Heston, as Moses, when he came down from Mount Sinai in the Ten Commandments.

This is probably not a mistake.

By that, I mean, that’s probably how the movie moguls wanted it to be.

This is in no way to imply that G-d looks like Charlton Heston.

I know that G-d was supposed to be the burning bush, but as a kid, watching the Ten Commandments over the Easter weekend, I couldn’t yet make that conceptual leap.

So, G-d looked like Moses to me for a while.

Robe and staff, a powerful man, an authoritative voice. An angry G-d with rules that he threw down upon the people, for disobeying.

What is your earliest image of G-d?

By now in my life, Charlton Heston has thankfully been replaced by a multitude of images of G-d, and I no longer have to rely on Chuck.

I’m of an age that when I was a kid, John Denver starred in a movie with George Burns, who played G-d. While I’m sure we didn’t go to the movies to see that film, I’m sure I saw it on television. And so the image of G-d the angry punisher was joined by G-d the loving trickster.

The next popular image of G-d I had was that of Allanis Morrisette, in the movie Dogma. As G-d, she didn’t say anything, and she wore an outfit that seemed to come right out of Forever 21. But as G-d, she smiled, benevolently, and she gave forgiveness and mercy.

Add to this dozens of images of G-d from 16^th century woodcuts, paintings of many periods, and what am I left with?

A complex image, a multitudinous image of what G-d might be. If G-d even is, at all.

Many of us struggle with the idea of G-d. Some of us here don’t believe in anything that even remotely smacks of an idea of G-d, but still this image of G-d is powerful, and even we wrestle against it.

A little earlier in the service you were invited to consider the images of G-d that have failed you in your life.

I haven’t read any of the responses, but I think I can make a pretty good guess about what some of the cards have to say.

We are, after all, a group of people, like many other groups of people, and our common humanity is formed from many common experiences.

I’m guessing there are comments in the cards about abuse, about abandonment, about loved ones dying without explanation. There are probably cards about how life hasn’t been fair, or that G-d didn’t love you in the way you were promised as a child.

I don’t wish to minimize any of those experiences.

I merely name them as being universal experiences.

If we can see that our common humanity is indeed common, then we can not only more easily sympathize with the other 7 billiion people with whom we currently share our planet.

Each of these people has had reason to cry in their lifetime. Sobs of grief, tears of laughter, a deep sigh of contentment or resignation.

The air that is in our lungs right now will someday be in the lungs of all of these people.

One of our favorite hymns goes “When I breathe in, I breathe in peace, when I breathe out, I breathe out love.”

Today we have had five more people join our Fellowship. Five more people with whom we shall breathe, locally, and intentionally, to create community.

Often people who join our community are those who have been disappointed by the image of G-d they were given as children. That image of an all-powerful protector, failed to protect them. Or the image of 

an angry-father G-d scared them. Or the omnipotent G-d abandoned them.

This, of course, can be expanded to also include the churches of our youth.

Like many other local churches, we’ve been talking this month about the theme of G-d. For us, this can be a tricky topic, because there are so many triggers so many of us have around G-d and G-d language.

Even if we don’t believe in this thing called G-d, still the concept exists all around us.

For many years, anytime anyone would say to me “I’ll pray for you,” or “Have a blessed day” my blood would practically curdle. I found their statements to be intrusive and presumptuous. Who decided I needed their G-d for anything?

One day, however, I realized that often these expressions, when offered intentionally and thoughtfully, were mere an act of kindness.

An act of extra kindness.

“I’ll pray for you” doesn’t automatically mean “if you don’t convert, repent and give up your sinful ways, you’re going to Hell where you will burn, burn, burn!”

It is a simple offering of care an intention.

How often to you struggle to find a phase that explains to the person that you care about, that you will think of them, in the most sacred way you know how, in hopes that they will heal, or that their situation will improve?

Tandi Rogers, Growth Strategies Specialist for the UUA, and a friend of mine were having a discussion recently, and she gave me permission to share this story with you.

"In my darkest hour the church curmudgeon showed up on my doorstep with a huge painting of flowers he knew I loved. He walked across my bed with muddy boots, pounded a handful of nails in the wall, hung the picture, turned to me, and said, "I know you're hurting and I'm going to sit here and be with you while you cry some. But we need you. Every morning look up at this picture and know that the world needs you. So do whatever you need to do to get back on your feet, because it's too hard to walk this path with out you.” 

That's why I've given my life to my religion and my religious community, because quite frankly, I've lost my life and was reborn, re-gathered, reclaimed, and recalled. 

Suck it up. We'll let you rock in the corner for only so long. The world needs you."

Might not that man, that curmudgeon become a new image of what we wanted G-d to be? Can we let go of our pain and disappointment about what we thought G-d should have been?

And instead embrace an idea that we are all holy expressions? Each of us is a miracle. A miracle of evolution and natural processes, each of us has survived as individuals because we, most of the time unwittingly, have been able to thwart off the dangers of life so far?

Can you come to see yourself as holy enough to bring a picture of flowers to someone, in your flawed, muddy boots, and hang that picture for someone else?

Can you be gracious enough to be grateful for those muddy boots and the carrying human being they brought into your life?

So often we hear that people join churches to feel a deep connection with something larger than themselves.

Look around you.

Collectively, we are that thing we wish to find.

May we have the wisdom to recognize this truth, the grace to celebrate it, and the wherewithal to endure this, our beloved congregation.

So mote it be.

© 2012 The Rev. Joseph M Cherry

Written for and delivered to

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County

December 09, 2012

Give Me That Olde Time Religion!

I must admit to you a certain, romanticized version of ministry in the 19th century.

There is a certain, heroic quality to the Circuit Riding ministers of the Mid- and Actual West. Riding from town to town by horseback, preaching the Gospel of a God too loving to condemn man, or the Gospel that mankind itself is the power the world needs to address our ills.

Planting churches wherever two roads crossed in a small town.

But then I think about road dust, and no consistent places to rest my head and uncertain sources of my next meal, and I feel less tempted.

But still within in me is the urge to share our liberal faith’s good news of both our own capabilities and responsibilities to make Earth a little bit more like the Heaven we imagine.

A few week’s back, while waiting for others to gather for our semi-traditional meal together before our Board meetings, Dane and I popped into the suit shop. We had a few minutes to kill, and there was a pretty awesome suit in the window, so why not?

They didn’t have that exact suit in my size, but I did try on another three-piece suit. I’ve never had a three piece suit, as they’ve been sort of our fashion for a while, but I think they’re making a come back.

Anyway, while I was trying on the vest part of the suit, Dane said he could see me in the pulpit, wearing the vest, after having taken off my jacket, and rolled up my sleeves, raising a ruckus from the pulpit about a Loving God. Sweating, gesticulating and preaching about our mission in the world: to make it a more just place. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll quote Theodore Parker quickly: “The arc of the universe is long, and it bends toward justice.”

Part of my work as your Interim Minister is to take a good look around the congregation and it’s systems, and to ask a lot of questions. Why do you do this? What is the history behind that? How did this tradition come about? When was this paid serious attention to? Who, at your core, are you?

Church today is in service of the question, who, at your core, are you?

I know that this morning’s service is far from what we’re used to doing, and yet it is part of the fabric, the genetic code of this congregation.

The un-named child from this morning’s story loves all the flowers equally, but still has a favorite. How is that possible? Is it because the child’s sympathy for the flower that needs the most care has tipped their affection, alerted them to their concern?

It takes a gentle reminder from “Mama” that God loves all beings equally and sends a gentle rain on the just and the unjust alike to remind our child that there are no favorites.

How often have you both proclaimed a level playing field of caring, and yet upon further reflection discovered a favorite?

It is probably impossible not to have a favorite in almost anything. We have lots of favorites. Our favorite foods, the flowering bush that never fails to make us smile, our favorite chair here at the church and at home.

We have favorite smells, and favorite colors.

Favorite causes that we support.


My gentle challenge to you this morning, friends, is to spend a little less time with your favorites, and try new things. After all, your favorite flavor of ice cream was once unknown to you.

While we are in this time of church transition, it is an especially good time to try new things here, too. While the congregation works toward making the best match possible with your new, world-class minister, it is a terrific time to try a different committee, or another new way of engaging with the community.

Next week we will be officially welcoming new members into our Fellowship. Lots of new going on.


And so what about the past, what about this “Olde Time Religion”?

It is that, it is our past, and in part it informs both our present and our future. Because we are a liberal faith, open to self-examination, we are not tied to the past as if we were its prisoner, rather, the past is a reference point, a place we have been.

And yes, we, the global we, found comfort there. Or else we wouldn’t have stayed here, where we are. And yes, also, upon reflection and discussion, we have gently moved forward from the past to where we are today.

And the journey does not stop here.

The journey continues on. Someday, 40 years from now, when this congregation is on the eve of celebrating 100 years of Fellowship, someone may discover an order of service from Rev. Jody, Rev. Steve, Rev. Grace, or Rev. Leroy, and say “Well, that’s not how we do it now!” in astonishment and with interest. We cannot predict where we will be in 40 years, just as those folks who founded this church in 1953 could not predict where we are today.

But be it 1953 or 2053, one thing will be constant, our openness to self-examination, our religious practice that beliefs are subject to careful consideration, and that some old practices will be left behind, and new practices embraced.

The arc of the universe IS long, and it does bend toward justice.

And the rain comes to the just and unjust alike.

The question remains, what are we to make of that which have been given.

May we be inspired to use our time and talents in ways that create a more fair, equitable and loving world.

Amen.

© Rev. Joseph M Cherry

Written for and delivered to

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County

December 2, 2012.