Progressive Faith Sermons - Dr. Roger Ray

T. S. Eliot may have been painfully prophetic when he described our nation as being hollow folk with heads full of straw. None of the major religions represented in our nation have successfully created an influential conversation about character, honesty, or personal or corporate virtue. Maybe we could try again? Perhaps a time of reading the sayings of Confucius, without the distraction of a rival theology, might help us to spend time thinking about becoming better people.

Americans are dying from gunshot wounds in America at a rate of about 47,000 per year. That number looks more like the casualty count on a battle field! In fact, it is about the same as the number of deaths in the Gaza Strip during the two years of the recently ended war with Israel. But for us, this is a death toll that goes on year after year, almost entirely due to the Republican Party's unwillingness to support sane gun laws at a federal and state level. It is time to stop voting for Republicans until hey agree on a cease fire with America.

Acknowledging that evidence and critical thinking are crucial to a credible faith, the other side of that coin is that there is a great deal that not only is not known but, in fact, cannot be known. The most amazingly smart and insightful astro physicists still look up at a star filled sky with a sense of awe, a genuine humility in the face of what can only be described as a mystery. Our intellectual capacity does not define the limits of what is. We remain in a state of wonder at the mystery which we must experience without ever hoping to define it.

How do we know what we know? Philosophy tells us that knowledge can be inherent, deductive reasoning, or it can be based on experience. What it cannot be is just imagination or personal prejudice. Science, which looks for knowable facts, depends upon something being at least 3 things: observable, repeatable, and testable. Everything else is either personal preference or something we should be more suspicious of than gas station sushi!

We have hot wars in the Ukraine and Gaza. A border skirmish between Thailand and Cambodia, and an unknown potential for violence in Iran. Why do we find lasting peace so difficult in an age when the potential for devastating warfare is so great?

We have always had both priests and prophets but we are quickly growing beyond our need of priests who provide the rituals, religious texts, hymns, and institutions of organized religion. But the prophets, the ones who inspire us and challenge us to be and to do what it really means to be spiritual people, to embody courage, work for justice, and guide our society in ways of compassion, where will we find them when the church is no more?

Beyond the fear of A.I. taking over our nuclear arsenal and attacking us is the very realistic fear that A.I. along with automation and robotics, will quickly and dramatically end the need for human employees in very many parts of the economy. Left unchecked, the wealthy will reap a windfall from these changes and the working class will be plunged into poverty, unless we make changes to our economic system that will turn A.I. into a blessing rather than a fearsome curse.

230 years ago, in his Age of Reason, Thomas Paine implored his fellow Americans to break free of the mental prison imposed on them by monarchs and priests and to embrace a mental freedom found in reason. The pendulum has swung more than once since that time but clearly, we are living in a time in which propaganda is more warmly embraced than is critical thinking. As Bob Marley sang, "Free yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds."

If we follow the norm of never talking about politics or religion in polite company, we become a society that doesn't know how to discuss the important matters of politics or religion in a polite way. In fact, our faith (beliefs about ethics) are quite relevant to our politics (public policy). With civility, mutual respect, and rational language, let's have an exchange of ideas in search for common ground.

We inherit prejudices from our family of origin as well as the culture around us and in the media. The first time our irrational prejudices are confronted, it is unlikely that we will give them up. For most of us, overcoming gender, racial, sexual orientation, or religious prejudices was a process of many steps taken over several years. Once free of that curse, we will do well to remember that our transformation took time, reflection, critical thinking, and no small amount of patience out of other people because we need to become the prophets who challenge the many prejudices that remain a part of our society.

Our mind can be our worst enemy, the invisible opponent who keeps us from staying in the battle with our visible opponents. We need to learn to pay attention to how our internal voice is talking to us. Does it tell us that we are a loser, does it call us stupid, or insist that we give up? If so, we really need to take control of our self talk, to focus of positive thoughts, encouragement, and hope. Persons of conscience in this time of great social struggle have to remain "cheerful" as we continue to fight the good fight.

For centuries the world's religions have constructed a mental prison in which they try to control the conduct of their adherents through threats of eternal torture or, for the very good, promises of eternal reward. However, once you awaken to the reality that these are empty promises and threats, in a world where there is not heaven or hell, then there are no moral absolutes . . . then we are left to discern for ourselves, "how shall we then live?"

Between Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day, let us consider what it is that holds couples together in this age of liberty when neither church nor society has much to say when a couple decides to call it quits. Are we trying hard enough to foster healthy relationships what create a healthy environment both for child rearing and retirement? Does our faith have something to say about commitment and self sacrifice?

We have now seen Donald Trump through the first 100 days of his second term and what we have witnessed has been a horrifying attack on our constitutional democracy. It is sad to have to admit that the clowns are now running the circus but what is more frightening is that our nation may not survive the Trump administration with either our constitution or our democracy intact. We cannot just avoid talking about politics and hope that everything will be ok. We are in danger and there are no hoofbeats of a coming cavalry coming to save us. We will either unite and save ourselves or we will not be saved.

By the end of the first century of the common era, the message of Jesus the preacher had been entirely transformed into a message about Jesus, turning the spokesperson of radical compassion into a magical symbol who hods out a promise of life after death. We have no reliable sources to tell us much about the message of the historical Jesus since the authors of the New Testament had their own agendas which had little or nothing to do with what the historical Jesus had to say. We have only hints and suggestions of what really happened on the first Easter but this message attempts to strip away the dirt and stones that both Rome and the early church tried to bury Jesus' message under.

Estrangement among family and friends is a sad occurrence which is becoming increasingly common in a society that continues to trend towards isolation and loneliness. Our decade is more polarized than most but even though we can rehearse the arguments to defend our distance from parents, siblings, and formerly close friends, we really can do better if we make reconciliation our goal. Sometimes we have to put some distance between ourselves and those who would extinguish our "light" but estrangement should be a last resort. Let's not be too hasty in giving up on love.

The greatest moral failing of the modern world may be our quiet acceptance of what Dorothy Day called "our filthy rotten system." Every year the income gap grows wider and the gap in ownership of capital becomes more stark. If we cannot change course it is not hyperbole to predict that the USA is on its way to becoming what we have too easily called a "third world country."

If we ask ourselves what it was about the historical Jesus that inspired the loyal following and explosion of writing on his behalf in the first century of the common era, beyond all of the talk about a kind of divine fire insurance, we find a message that is unique and powerful and nearly impossible to incorporate into our lives: Love your enemies. As Marcus Borg described him, Jesus was the teacher of radical compassion and that, in the most healthy spiritual context, is why we still talk about him today.

The Bible doesn't speak with one point of view nor does it teach a singular message. Religious people have to be willing to enter the debate which is found even within the pages of scripture in order to choose the right path towards a healthy spirituality. You can find harsh judgement and prejudice in the Bible, and, if you look, you can find the cure for harsh judgement and prejudice. It just depends on what you are looking for.

Realizing that he had made a tragic mistake by ending his engagement to Regine Olsen, the Great Dane, Soren Kierkegaard, wrote in his journal, "To live without love is a mistake for which there is no reparation, either in this life or in the life to come." Successful coupling is more difficult in modern times when we no longer need a spouse for the basics of survival but, in the end, falling in love was never really about survival. It is about meaning, and who couldn't use more meaning in life, along with a little coffee and poetry?