A Sermon by Kenneth W. Phifer Delivered at First UU Church Ann Arbor 12/14/03 HOW RELIGION CAN SAVE US Religion is arguably the most dangerous force on earth. It initiates and inspires and perpetrates violence far beyond any other societal institution in history. It does so under the banner of divine will, which makes it impervious to criticism and often incapable of change. Religion is arguably the most powerful force for good, for healing and compassion, for binding up the wounds of war and reconciling enemies, for finding a path out of chaos into harmony. Jonathan Swift?s tart comment that we ?have just enough religion to make us hate one another but not enough religion to make us love one another? is very much to the point. Religion is a force that can pull us either way, towards hatred or towards love. Religion can and often does work grievous harm upon humanity, but religion can also save us. Religion can save us from our worst selves, those parts of our humanness that allow or urge us to hurt others by word or deed, those parts of our humanness that allow or urge us to think only of ourselves. The great Universalist preacher of the early 19th century, Hosea Ballou, taught that we need to be saved not from fiery pits or frozen depths in the afterlife but from our worst inclinations and behaviours in this life. These are the things that cause us and those whose lives we touch to be miserable and from which we need to be saved. Ballou believed that there was a life beyond this one into which all human beings would go and that it would be a blessed existence for all. Whether that is true or not, and far fewer people today believe that than believed it 200 years ago, the place to begin the work of salvation is here and now. The Buddhist Dhammapada tells us that ?Here a person grieves, hereafter a person grieves?Here a person rejoices, hereafter a person rejoices.? By working for salvation here and now, if there is life beyond this one, we will be taking the first steps towards making that life a time of happiness for all. If there is no afterlife, then we will be doing vital work in making the time we have on earth decent and fair for all. Religion has a critical role to play in salvation. That role is not about esoteric theology or mystical states. It is about the ways in which religion by its very nature is able to give hope to the human enterprise and work towards a better life for every human being. There are three reasons for this, three ways in which religion can help to save us. The first is that religion is global, universal, comprehensive. Every religion that has endured has had teachings that point to universal salvation. Christian Scriptures say that ?Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous? (I Peter 3:18) and that ?there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.? Jews begin their Bible with tales of cosmic creation and the creation of a single individual and then another, not Israelites or Jews, just human beings, ?male and female were created in the divine image.? (Genesis 1:27 ) We read then of Noah and the covenant God made with the whole human race. All humanity is to establish courts of justice and to refrain from murder, robbery, and adultery. Later the prophets speak words of universal salvation. Isaiah declares that ?In the days to come?all the nations will stream towards the (holy mountain)?and they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation nor ever again be trained for war.? (Isaiah 2: 2, 4b) In the Koran there is this teaching of Allah: ?To every people was sent an apostle to teach them in their own language, in their own country, making things clear.? (Sura 10, verse 47) Buddhism offers these words among others about universal salvation: ?The Tathagatas do not enter ultimate liberation until all living things have entered ultimate liberation.? (Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti 4) The Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures tell us that the Vow of the Buddha Amitabha is a bodhisavata vow ?to save all beings.? In GLEANINGS FROM THE WRITINGS OF BAHA?U?LLAH 115, we read that ?Thou has no desire except the regeneration of the whole world, and the establishment of the unity of its peoples, and the salvation of all them that dwell therein.? One of the commandments in Sikkhism is to ?let all humanity be thy sect.? (Adi Granth,Japuji 28 M.1.p. 6) and Shintos encourage ?All ye under the heavens! Regard heaven as your father, earth as your mother, and all things as your brothers and sisters.? (Oracle of Atsuta) All the religions have understood at some deep level that the only faith worthy of the name is a faith that includes all humanity and all life. One danger of such a faith is that it will be misread into the false notion that there is only one language, one set of symbols, one path that can be followed to salvation. Isaiah Berlin once noted that the worst fault of religions is their susceptibility to ?the belief that those who do not share my faith--or my race or my ideology?do not share my humanity.? Wiser is the urging at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893 by our own church?s Eliza Sunderland that we undertake the serious study of all religions. Many religious people have been busy about that task over the past 100 years. What they have learned is that the most important truths of each faith are also part of every other faith: that love is what counts the most, that God is at best a Mystery, that while truth may always be the same our understanding of it will change and need new and sharper expression, that so long as religions have mutual respect they will prosper, but animosity among the religions makes peace impossible. In the last couple of decades,, there has been an upsurge in interfaith efforts, built on an awareness that respect for one another enables us to have a conversation with one another.Conversation enables us to see the deep truths that unite us and to live with the different languages we use to express those truths without contempt or warfare. There have been two Parliaments of the World?s Religions in the past ten years and a third is planned for next summer. A central theme of these gatherings is a renunciation of religion?s use of and support for violence. Another central theme is the effort to develop a global ethic to which all the religions can give assent. There are numerous smaller gatherings, all with a global outlook. In Berlin last year, there was a meeting of Jews, Christians, and Muslims under the sponsorship of the United Religious Initiative. One of the ways in which they conversed was to have each participant speak another?s narrative. In Ann Arbor, our own Interfaith Round Table has been working together for a dozen years to understand and to celebrate that which we hold in common and to be tolerant of the ways in which we are different. There are seeds of universalism in every religion. As they grow, they encourage a global outlook that can only help to save the world. A second way that religion can help to save us is by its long-term focus, its sense of eternity. The gloomy writer of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Bible wrote that the Almighty ?hath placed the eternal in the human heart.? A man worn out by the trials of life, he was not making a simple assertion about going to heaven and living with God forever. Rather he was pointing to several things. First of all, he was saying that hope is part of our humanness. Part of who we are is to believe that as terrible as things are now, they can and they will improve. Hope means that we are willing to sacrifice for that future even if we do not see it?just as parents do for their children and one generation does for the next. When parents immigrate to a foreign land, they do so knowing the challenges a strange language and culture will present to them, but in the hope that their children will live better. When men and women go to war?which I wish they would never do?it is at least in part because they believe that what they are doing will make the world a better place. Hope is part of the eternal in our hearts. It can inspire noble actions. To have the eternal in our hearts also points to our need for enduring values. We want to know what we can count on, how to be good, the lessons that we can teach our children for their benefit. One of the reasons that religions have developed sacred texts is to preserve those values that matter and those stories that illustrate truths of importance to us. We can read today, as Chinese men and women did 2500 years ago, the wise sayings of the TAO TE CHING, and find guidance for our own lives in the 21st century. Number 44 tells us that ?If you know when you have enough, you will not be disgraced. If you know when to stop, you will not be endangered.? In an age of superabundance for some and horrible deprivation for too many others, those ancient words speak a truth we need to hear. We can read Hebrew Scripture and then read the commentaries on that Scripture found in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, and once again find insight into how we might live our lives more honorably. In the Babylonian Talmud are found these words among many others about the Exodus: ?In that hour when the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, the ministering angels wanted to sing a song of praise before God. But God said to them, ?My handiwork (the Egyptians) is drowning in the seas, yet you want to sing a song before Me!?? Well might the most powerful military force on the planet heed those words to remember that those whom we kill are not just the enemy, ?the bad guys,? but human beings like us. That which is eternal in our hearts has to do with enduring values. Finally, to have the eternal in our hearts is to have the capacity to think long- term, not just of this moment. The Zen Buddhists, for example, speak of their task as ?infinite gratitude for the past. Infinite service to the present. Infinite responsibility to the future.? Christians in Europe built great cathedrals not over a period of years or even decades but over a period of centuries. The cathedral in Cologne, for example, an astonishing structure of beauty and inspiration, took more than 700 years to build. Religion takes the long view. Buddhist and Hindu doctrines speak of vast eons of time of creation and of humanity working out our fate in one incarnation after another until by our karmic effort we reach nirvana. The Jewish people thinks of itself as being nearly 5800 years old. The Roman Catholic Church dates itself to a saying of Jesus 2000 years ago about establishing his church on the rock who was Peter. The eternal in our hearts is about trans-historical vision and labor, enduring values, and hope. When we are thinking with eternity in our hearts, then we are concerned about the impact of what we do on future ages. We will want to look at the consequences of our actions in terms of our children and grandchildren and countless ages beyond them. Gerald Barney, an Episcopalian layman, a physicist, and the head of the Millenium Institute, prepared a series of reports on the future of humanity at the turn of the century and as we move into the 21st century. An essential feature of these reports was the limitation of government and business in dealing with the future. Barney suggests that governments seem incapable of thinking beyond the next election, in this country at most two years. Democratic politics is short- term. Non-democratic politics is the same. Both fear the loss of power. They act in ways that may be beneficial over the long haul but are primarily concerned with continuing in office, be it an elected one or one held by force. Business is also a short-term enterprise. Businesses generally operate on short-term business plans of three or five years. A durable product is defined as one that lasts for three years. Too many corporate executives have used personal short-term gain against the long-term interests of their companies, its employees, and its stockholders. This kind of short-term thinking is playing havoc with the earth. Barney and others have made clear that we cannot continue paving over arable land while increasing our population. We cannot continue to ignore the growing signs of global warming. We cannot continue to pretend that poverty does not really matter as long as ?I have mine.? The only way to think about these and many other critical issues of our times?the destruction of rain forests, the pollution of our rivers and lakes, the eradication of species, etc.--is long term, 50 or 75 or 100 years. Barney pleads with religious leaders to work to inject into public discussions the long-term perspective, the perspective of enduring values and of hope. Religion per se cannot design ecological plans or political systems or economic institutions that will work for the good of all. What religion can do is to insist that such plans and systems and institutions think not just of personal or short-term gains. What religion can do is to inject the spirit of eternity into all conversations about how we should live and work together. A simple way to do this would be to require that every legislative act and every executive directive justify itself in terms of our children and grandchildren. Religion can help to save the world by its focus on eternity. The third way in which religion can make a major contribution to saving the world is through morality. A critically important element in religion is its role as a proclaimer of moral values and as a critic of individuals and society when those moral values are violated. Edward O. Wilson makes the point that religions possess strength to the extent that they codify and put ?into enduring poetic form the highest values of humanity consistent with empirical knowledge.? The religions that have lasted?as the religions of ancient Egypt and the Assyrians, for example, have not?are those that have met Wilson?s test. What is most interesting about that fact is that at the heart of almost every religion is a simple moral truth, stated in different words and elaborated on in different stories and accounted for by different myths of theology, but all saying the same thing: if you would prosper, then love one another. Nothing could be more empirically sound than that. Here is a small collection of variant versions of this ethic of love ( or ethic of reciprocity, or Golden Rule, or Silver Rule ): Bahai-- And if thine eyes be turned toward justice, choose thou for thy neighbor that which thou choosest for thyself; Hinduism?This is the sum of duty: do naught to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain; Judaism?What is hateful to you, do not to others. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary; Zoroastrianism?Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others; Buddhism?Hurt not others with that which pains yourself; Christianity?All things whatsoever ye would that others should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets; Islam?No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself; Jainism?A person should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated. There are many ways that love manifests itself. Peace is one of them, as the 200 religious leaders from more than a dozen religions recognized in the Assissi Decalogue of January, 2002. These leaders pledged, among other things, to work for non-violence, mutual respect, mutual forgiveness, and for an easing if not an end to the misery of the poor and helpless. Peace through non-violence is what the Samaritan Israelites offer the world. These people live lives of non-violence in the midst of the frighteningly violent hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians. They are friends to both peoples and are now building a center on Mount Gerizim, their holy mountain. It is to be a place of peace where enemies can meet and become friends. Ending the misery of the poor and the helpless brings out another aspect of love, justice. Justice is the great cry of the ancient Hebrew prophets. ?Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,? thundered Amos. Albert Schweitzer answered the call of justice and went to Lambarene. Dorothy Day answered the call of justice and went to the streets of New York to be a voice for the voiceless. Bread For the World feeds the hungry, as does our local Hunger Coalition. Habitat for Humanity builds houses for those who need them and Interfaith Hospitality Network shelters the homeless. This congregation participates in all of these efforts to make the world more just. Righteousness is the partner of justice, said Amos. Righteousness is benevolence toward all creatures and universal love without partisanship. Confucius called righteousness the essential nature of human beings. Zoroastrianism suggests that ?through the best righteousness, through the highest righteousness? one is able to catch a glimpse of the Divine. Buddhism speaks of ?the jewel of Righteousness, whereby the world is gladdened.? Archbishop Anastasios of Albania exhibits righteousness. A Greek by birth, he was asked to go to Albania when communist rule ended there. Albania was a land where religion had been forbidden for more than four decades and where the religious divide between Christians and Muslims was very deep. What he did was to build schools and hospitals where people of any faith or none could come and be educated or cared for. What he did was to build clinics where Muslims could be treated, using money that he might otherwise have used to build Orthodox Christian churches. What he did was to care for individuals in their need and respect every way of life. Violence was a constant threat, and he had to survive a referendum that could have forced him into exile, but he won that referendum. Albania?s Prime Minister Fatos Nano says of Archbishop Anastasios, ?I can?t think of anyone who has contributed more to the rebirth of Albania as a free European nation.? This is what righteousness can do?help rebuild a nation. Love is what religion is about or it is unworthy of the name, the love that is peace, the love that is justice, the love that is righteousness. To love one another is the morality of every good religion. It is a desperately needed truth in this weary world of ours. There are three ways that religion can save us from the misery of life as it is here and now for so many and from the threat of horrors that we might inflict upon all humanity and the planet in the future. Religion has a global outlook, an eternal perspective, and a moral purpose. If your short-term memory is working as poorly as mine does, or if you took advantage of this peaceful time to catch a little sleep, I have made it easy for you to remember the main points of the sermon. You can be a star at the coffee hour or sermon discussion. Think of the first letters of the three key words global, eternal, and morality, G-E-M, which spell; GEM. When religion really is a GEM, it can do a great deal to help save the world. What more priceless GEM could there be than that? BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Gerald O. Barney, with Jane Blewett and Kristen R. Barney, GLOBAL 2000 REVISITED: WHAT SHALL WE DO? A REPORT ON THE CRITICAL ISSUES OF THE 21ST CENTURY PREPARED FOR THE 1993 PARLIAMENT OF THE WORLD?S RELIGIONS, The Millennium Institute, 1993. 2. ?????????????..THRESHOLD 2000: CRITICAL ISSUES AND SPIRITUAL VALUES FOPR A GLOBAL AGE, The Millennium institute,1999. 3.Joel D. Beversluis, Project editor, A SOURCEBOOK FOR THE COMMUNITY MOF RELIGIONS, The Council for a Parliament of the World?s Religions, 1993. 4. Stewart Brand, THE CLOCK OF THE LONG NOW: TIME AND RESPONSIBILITY, Basic Books, 1999. 5. Eknath Easwaran, NONVIOLENT SOLDIER OF ISLAM: BADSHAH KHAN, A MAN TO MATCH HIS MOUNTAINS, Nilgiri Press, 1984. 6.Marc Gopin, HOLY WAR, HOLY PEACE: HOW RELIGION CAN BRING PEACE TO THE MIDDLE EAST, Oxford University Press, 2002. 7. Jonathan Sacks, THE DIGNITY OF DIFFERENCE: HOW TO AVOID THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS, Continuum, 2003. 8. Edward O.Wilson, CONSILIENCE: THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE, Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. 9. Howard Zinn, Introduction, THE POWER OF NONVIOLENCE: WRITINGS BY ADVOCATES OF PEACE, Beacon Press, 2002. Copyright 2003, Kenneth W. Phifer, All Rights Reserved