PRAYER

Mystery of many names, and mystery beyond all naming, we contemplate this past week and our hearts are heavy. We are frightened, worried, anxious, and uneasy. We find ourselves echoing the words of the character played by Sir Lawrence Olivier in Marathon Man, “Is it safe?” That maddening question was asked over and over again to Dustin Hoffman’s character as he was strapped in a dental chair and tortured with a high speed drill. Is it safe? Is it safe?

          It used to be said that there was safety in numbers, but the Holocaust, the Gulags, Pol Pot’s Killing Fields, and bucolic rolling hills surrounding Virginia Tech seems to nullify such naïve notions. It is not safe. It will never be safe, and we’d best get used to it. In the late 1940’s I was taught a prayer that I said each night as I kneeled beside my bed, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep and if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” I used to think that, that was a terrible thing to teach a child to say right before turning out the lights, but now, I’m not so sure. Perhaps, there was some wisdom in that prayer. Perhaps, it let me in on the adult secret that I hadn’t always been here, and there’d come a time when I’d be here no more. Perhaps, just perhaps, that was a good thing for me to know at the age of 4.

          This past week’s massacre holds for me a bright and shining moment. Holocaust survivor Dr. Librescu stood in the doorway to his classroom, Room #204, Norris Hall and was shot five times as he yelled for his students to escape out the windows. The image of this man who had survived the worst that Nazi Germany could throw at him, the image of this man staving off death as his young pupils jumped to their freedom, this is the image that I wish to hold in my heart when I think of Virginia Tech. There was a massacre that day, but there was also an active demonstration of the power of love.

          Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention once recorded a song entitled, It Can’t Happen Here. It was a parody and ironic because Zappa, whose favorite vegetable was tobacco, knew anything can happen anywhere, and more precisely, whenever something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.

          May we in the coming weeks not demonize the young Korean man who perpetrated those acts of violence. All efforts to scapegoat and marginalize him now are beside the point. He is one of us, and whatever his crimes we ourselves are capable of the same. To deny this is to invite disaster upon ourselves. Yes, it’s good to remember the noble acts, those done by the better angels of our natures, but we must never forget that other angels attend us and those lesser angels of our natures will, if ignored, act out when we least expect it.

We pray this in the name of everything that is holy and that is, precisely, everything.

Amen.

SERMON

Gangster State

 (Enemy Combatants All)

Responsive Reading: #579 The Limits of Tyrants 

 “First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” (Martin Niemoeller)

Introduction:

          Fear can make people do odd things, and it is the fear generated by the events of 9/11 and the events following that which have created an atmosphere of terror in this country. In this atmosphere the present regime has co-opted the rights of the people and is going about the business of greedy business in the name of our country. I don’t much like that. And I’m not alone in that dislike.

          In an article copyrighted by the New York Times in 2004 Anthony Lewis has this to say;

“Fear of terrorism – a quite understandable fear after 9/11 – has led to harsh departures from normal legal practice at home. Aliens swept off the streets by the Justice Department as possible terrorists after 9/11 were subjected to physical abuse and humiliation by prison guards. Then, Attorney General, John Ashcroft, did not apologize – a posture that sent a message”

          Anthony Lewis continues, “Inside the United States, the most radical departure from law, as we have know it, is President Bush’s claim that he can designate any American citizen as an “enemy combatant” – thereupon detain that person in solitary confinement indefinitely, without charges, without a trial, with a right to counsel.

          “There was a stunning moment in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address when he said that more than 3,000 suspected terrorists (quote) have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way: They are no longer a problem for the United States.” (End quote)

          In all these matters, there is a pervasive attitude: that to follow the law is to be weak in the face of terrorism. But commitment to law is not weakness. It has been the great strength of the United States from the beginning. Our leaders depart from that commitment at their peril, and ours, for a reason that Justice Louis D. Brandeis expressed 75 years ago.

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes lawbreakers, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself.

          Senator Edward Kennedy just this past month on the 29^th of March 2007 stated at an event organized by the Alliance for Justice, “At the heart of many of the serious challenges we face is the Bush Administration’s lack of respect for the rule of law.”

          What I present to you today is not meant to convince you that the political right is wrong, or that the political left is correct. All I really want to do is pull back from this lawless situation that we find ourselves in, and ruminate upon what others have done in similar situations. And within that rumination I hope that we can find the room to understand what is happening to us as a people and a nation. The murder rate in big cities in this country has gone up since the inception of the war in Iraq, and need I mention the events at Virginia Tech this past Monday? Perhaps if we can get a perspective upon what is happening, then we can more readily go out and act, and stop simply reacting.

          If you think that there is no chance that you are in danger from this government and that there is no way in hell that you would ever be considered an enemy combatant then I’m afraid that you are in the gravest danger.

The trouble starts with a State that wants all the attention. They’re jealous of life and as an institution, just like a cooperation, it, the government, the state, really has no life. As the former Yale Chaplain, William Sloane Coffin, remarked, “To die for one’s own country is on the same level as dying for the Post Office.” 

During the initial stages of the Iraqi War the New York Times had a picture of an Iraqi man carrying the wrapped body of his sixth month old son. He’s walking into a cemetery where the article says the gravediggers have all run away because of the bombing. Down from where the man digs a hole for his little boy, another man stands waist deep in a grave. The black flies are everywhere. They cover the ground before he thrusts the blade of the shovel in. He is standing among the remains of his brother who died in the last Gulf War. There isn’t much there. In a hefty garbage bag hanging over an adjacent headstone are what remains of his sister-in-law and her two daughters. Remains is so apt a word here.   I turn the page quickly I simply can’t read any more of this. Staring back at me is a young Iraqi who has bandaged leg stumps holding him upright in his bed. I can see the Broadway billboards now, “Collateral damage does Porgy and Bess.”

This, from my former teacher and head of the philosophy department at the University of Florida from 1965-1971:

Authoritarianism is the long shadow which the human species has dragged after itself during its historical pilgrimage toward the light. No one knows whether, during our immensely long trek, we have made any lasting advance in the direction of that light; but everyone knows that the only way of having a direction in which to advance is by facing toward that light and intending that direction. (Dr. Thomas Hanna, End of Tyranny 35)

          Now let’s consider the long shadows of political leadership and what those shadows can cover up, and where eventually we end up when so led.

          The 20^th Century theologian Karl Barth says this about Pontius Pilate:

He was bound to act according to strict law, but does not do so and lets himself be determined by ‘political considerations.’ (Barth, Dogmatics in Outline 108)

Pontius Pilate, a man who essentially disappears from history, evaporating like the water that dripped on the floor after he washed his hands of the whole ordeal, broke a covenant that existed between himself and Rome. As an administrator and agent of the Roman Emperor, Pilate was expected to carry out the Roman law. But, Pontius Pilate did what was expedient. Expedient – politic though perhaps unprincipled.

Karl Barth gives me the title to my sermon here:

In the person of Pilate the state withdraws from the basis of its own existence and becomes a den of robbers, a gangster state, the ordering of an irresponsible clique. (Barth, Dogmatics in Outline 111)

          And what does this mean that Pilate broke the Roman covenant – what does it mean that he would not uphold the Roman law?

          Covenant is relationship and relationship presumes personhood. As long as Pilate acts according to what he knows to be Roman Law he occupies the personhood of his life. Yet, when he breaks covenant, even the pagan covenant of Roman law – he breaks with relationship, personhood and becomes a loose cannon.

What does Pilate do? He does what politicians have more or less always done and what has always belonged to the actual achievement of politics in all times: he attempts to rescue and maintain order in Jerusalem and thereby at the same time to preserve his own position of power, by surrendering the clear law, for the protection of which he was actually installed. Remarkable contradiction! (Barth, Dogmatics in Outline 111)

          What I’m saying is this; in a post-modern world where we have lost the myth of reason’s ability to explain the universe or God, when the metanarrative seems to have lost its foothold, where ambiguity reins downs upon us until we are soaked in the showers of impotency, perhaps it is time to rejoice! Rejoice that we live in a time when the State is a negative format. Rejoice that we live in a time in which we can understand the developing scenarios. Rejoice that we live in a time when we can see in the dark room of our souls that the polarities have been reversed.   Everything we know to be light is seen now by the state as darkness and everything that shines forth from the state is nothing but bright midnight.

Are you confused as to what to believe, what to act upon, what next to do – take a look at this country under its present regime and go ye therefore in the opposite direction.

          Yet, unfortunately, the imagination of the people in this country is produced, coddled and prodded by sound bites & wars that look like super-bowls. Smart bombs, and shock and awe are Reality Television at its ultimate destination – we sit and watch as other people die.

As Rome degenerated and eventually fell the emperors gave the people bread and circuses to fill their stomachs and amuse their spirits. We watch as the covenant is being broken and we cheer as the pieces fall down around us. We fail to see that those maimed, starved and blown up are, in fact, ourselves.

          In the immortal and unforgettable words of the cartoon character Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

          The reason we are the enemy is we are out of covenant and communion – even with ourselves. 

As Thomas Paine expressed it … “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives (in) to a superficial appearance of (its) being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. (Hanna, The End of Tyranny 13)

          As time goes by and more and more original wrongs slide into the category of the right we begin to be able to witness horror and turn away with a shrug. How long will it be before Virginia Tech becomes a documentary, is given an award, and we forget about it? But even though these meteorites of injustice do not annihilate us they do alienate us. 

          Susan Sontag recently wrote in The Nation;

It will always be unpopular – it will always be deemed unpatriotic – to say that the lives of the members of the other tribe are as valuable as one’s own tribe. (Sontag, The Nation 11)

If freedom cannot be found in the Gangster State, then there’s even less hope for the dominant culture’s churches. Since the time of the early Levites when the high temple positions were up for the highest bid, churches have been tainted by the State. There have always been and always will be gangster churches mirroring gangster states. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his feelings about the German Church’s actions during World War Two would be a good witness here.

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Cassius says, “And why should Caesar be a tyrant then? Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf, but that he sees the Romans are but sheep.”

          The truth be told we are not comfortable in this society with the gray areas of life. Reason and its metanarrative have brought us to a place that appears to be a crossroads. One road leads to truth, life and justice – the other to destruction. Unfortunately, the roads are marked with a sign that spins freely in the ground at one moment announcing the road to the right being the road to perdition, then a change in the wind declares it to be the road to the left.

Left or right, it simply makes little difference at this point in our country’s history. “For nearly 800 years since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, our laws have insisted that every single human being is entitled to some kind of judicial process before he or she can be thrown into jail … We have gone back to a pre-Magna Carta medieval system, not a system of laws, but of executive fiat, where the king – or in this case the president – simply decides, on any particular day, I’m going to throw you into prison.”

And that prison is a small “Devil’s Island” comprising 45 square miles at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Guantanamo is, in fact, at this point in time, an interrogation camp – the kind outlawed after the Nazi Holocaust in the Geneva Convention of 1949. It is an interrogation camp that is totally and flatly illegal. During the 17^th Century the English Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act to keep political prisoners from being sent to remote islands and never seen again. This practice is precisely what the Bush Regime has revived.

George W. Bush mirroring Pontius Pilate has broken covenant with the law of our land. Covenant is relationship and relationship presumes personhood. As long as George W. Bush follows the law of the United States and the Magna Carta he can be said to occupy the personhood of his life. Yet when George W. Bush breaks that covenant as he has done by ruling by presidential fiat, then he breaks relationship with the law of the land, he breaks relationship with the personhood of his life, and be becomes nothing more than a loose cannon, a man beyond the law – there is a name for this. George W. Bush is, in fact, in sheer opposition to; the Constitution of the United States, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the will of the people and the Kingdom of God whatever you perceive that Kingdom to be.

We can blame it on 9/11. We can blame it on the President. The President can blame it on Osama Ben Laden and the terrorists can blame it on fate, but “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

I wish I could take credit for the title of the sermon. But I can’t. The title comes from an

episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show I liked so much I did a service on it a few years ago.

What’s going on is that Buffy is in love with somebody and is complaining that he is acting all jealous,

but won’t admit it. Buffy is talking to her friend Willow and when Buffy complains to Willow that

her boyfriend is being totally irrational Willow says, “Love makes you to the wacky.” To which

Buffy responds: “That’s the truth.”

I agree with Buffy. Love does make you do the wacky. I’ll bet everybody in this sanctuary

has at least one story of wacky behavior caused by being in love. Which begs the question, why?

Why does love make us do the wacky? Why do we risk our jobs, our friends, our futures, our very

lives in the name of love? What is it about romantic love that not only does it have its own holiday,

but it provides both the greatest joys and the worst agonies imaginable, because truly, what can be

better or worse than the total agony of being in love?

I was looking for a definition of love and found several I want to share with you. The first

is from Ambrose Bierce and states that love is a type of insanity curable by marriage. You laugh

now, but file this one away for later.

How about this one. It’s from a conference of sociologists back in 1977. Listen carefully:

Love is the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive

fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feeling by the object of the

amorance.

I dare you to try to turn that into a poem. In fact, I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable with the person

who came up with that one dating my daughter. There are, of course, long dictionary definitions,

but I think part of the problem we have in defining love is that in our culture, love is required to be

all things to all people all of the time.

We love our spouse or our partner, certainly. But we also love our cars, our kids, our favorite

colors, our food, our jokes, our art, and on and on. The word “love” has as many meanings and

covers as much ground as the word “God.” Eskimos have 20 words for snow and we have one word

for love. At least the Greeks had four words for love: Eros, or romantic love; agape or spiritual love;

philia or Platonic love; and storge or natural affection, like that of a parent to a child. But we English

speaking people, with a language that has by far the biggest, most encompassing vocabulary, we only

have one word for love. Why is that? I think part of it is that our culture is very schizophrenic about

love and there are enormous sensitivities around it, especially romantic love.

Page 2 of 7

For example, you may have heard of the late Leo Buscaglia who once taught a course on love

at UCLA called Love 1-A and wrote many books on the subject. Dr. Buscaglia taught that love is

something we need to learn about and that understanding and dealing with love isn’t something that

just comes to us by osmosis. As a matter of culture and social behavior, I think we can all agree with

that. As you might imagine, however, Professor Buscaglia’s course created some controversy as

people complained that university is no place to teach about love–seriously–university should be

reserved for important stuff like history, language, science, and engineering. Besides, love is, well,

a delicate subject, one that should be kept in a brown paper wrapper and only spoken about in hushed

whispers behind closed doors or on the streets or under the covers.

I don’t know about you, but I think all of that is just ridiculous. I agree with, of all people,

Benjamin Disraeli, who said “We are all born to love. It is the principle of existence and its only end.”

Disraeli was right on at least two counts: first, as I’ll explain in a minute, we are born to love. The

mechanisms of romantic love are hard wired and we are bound to that drive, those desires, like

nothing else in life except eating and drinking. And second, I believe that romantic love, sex, and

reproduction are the very purpose of our natural existence, the focus of life, and the only inherently

meaningful thing about life itself beyond simply being.

I have a book called Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice for All Creation by Olivia Judson. It is a very

clever book written as if Dr. Tatiana were answering letters about sex, reproduction, and other

related issues from a wide variety of members of the animal kingdom. Talk about wacky. I’m telling

you, insect reproduction in particular is bizarre and often deadly. Males in several species literally

die for the opportunity to mate and pass on their genes. If life on this planet is the design of some

intelligent creator, then he or she was on serious drugs when they came up with the myriad methods

of sexual reproduction extant in the animal kingdom. If you want to get educated and blown away

at the same time, I highly recommend reading Dr. Tatiana.

Now, insects don’t have the capacity for rational thought. At least we don’t think they do.

Their behavior is thus controlled by their genetic code and is hard wired into their very being. How

else can you explain the sometimes suicidal and often dangerous behavior indulged in by a whole host

of critters in the animal kingdom? For a long time people believed that humans were immune to that

sort of hard wiring, that our big brains removed us from the ranks of creatures who were

programmed for certain responses and behaviors in the world of romantic love, sex, and reproduction.

It is becoming crystal clear that we were very wrong about that. Very wrong indeed.

Study after study has shown that desire and what we call romantic love is the result of

chemical processes in the brain that are not only hard wired, but result in brain activity that is virtually

indistinguishable from being on hard drugs, and in particular, drugs like cocaine. Now think about

that for a second. Being head over heels in love results in or from, take your pick, brain activity that

is indistinguishable from being on hard drugs. Robert Palmer was right: we are addicted to love. Is

it any wonder that people routinely behave insanely when they are in that stomach wrenching, sleep

deprived, dramatic phase of love? The poets who wrote about love didn’t know the half of it.

Page 3 of 7

It turns out that the brain is, in fact, the most important organ related to love, sex, and

reproduction. At every turn, genetic programs, working through the brain, guide humans in their

dances of love. And, I know it’s not exactly politically correct to say this, but the scientific truth is

that men’s and women’s brains are significantly different in the programs they run, the systems they

create, and the desires they generate when it comes to romantic love. This is true about almost every

aspect of romantic love and reproduction, including sexual orientation, desire, and how the sexes

view their role in the courtship dance. And the most recent studies show that socio-cultural

influences are less important on these very fundamentally hard wired programs than anybody

suspected. Thus, while it is true to there is a large variation in what signals and stimuli people

respond to in actualizing romantic love impulses, those impulses and the genetic programming

underlying them are resistant to socio-cultural influences.

Here are a few specific (and I think amusing) results to ponder:

In a study of the effect of pictures of beautiful women on the brains of men, researchers found

that the pictures activated the same reward circuits in the brains of heterosexual men as did food and

cocaine. Here is proof–as if we needed it–that men truly are visually stimulated. As co-author of the

study, Dan Ariely of MIT, said, “This is hard-core circuitry. Beauty is working similar to a drug.”

Another study showed men a slide show of random women, each being projected for several

seconds; but the men could extend the viewing time for each picture by pressing keys on a keypad.

You can guess the result. The men worked frantically to keep the beautiful women on the screen,

on average pressing the keyboard more than 4,700 times over a 40 minute span, prompting one

researcher to observe that “these guys look like rodents bar-pressing for cocaine.”

As far as women are concerned, studies have demonstrated, for instance, that a woman’s

choice of which men she says she finds “sexy” changes depending on how close she is to ovulation.

When close to ovulation, women tend to prefer the almost stereotypical tall, dark, rough-hewn guys,

while selecting more round faced “nice guys” at other times. Women are also thousands of times

more sensitive to musk-like odors than are men, which makes perfect sense when you think about it.

When it comes to studying romantic love, there is one person who stands out beyond all the

rest. She is Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in New Jersey, and Dr. Fisher is a leader among the

army of scientists who are studying the biological bases for romantic love.

Dr. Fisher has written two popular books on the subject, Why We Love: The Nature and

Chemistry of Romantic Love and The Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, andWhy We Stray

. And in 2002, she published a landmark study on what is happening in the brains of

people who claim they are head-over-heels in love. I cannot possibly do justice to her work here, but

let me talk about Dr. Fisher’s theories on how human beings fall in love.

Dr. Fisher has proposed that human beings fall in love in three stages. Stage one consists of

simple and generic lust–that undifferentiated general sense of desire. Studies show that lust is

Page 4 of 7

mediated in the brain by the hormones testosterone and estrogen, with testosterone having been

shown to play a large role in women. These hormones appear to function to get people out looking,

so to speak.

The second stage is attraction to a specific person. This is that truly love-struck phase where

each instant apart is a lifetime, where you call each other 20 times a day, and where you can’t eat,

can’t sleep, and can think of nothing else. In the attraction phase, a group of neuro-transmitters

called “monoamines” play an important role. These include dopamine; adrenalin–the chemical of fight

or flight; and serotonin, which plays a role both in romantic love and depression–big surprise there,

right?

Dopamine is the “reward” chemical and its production is what we are after when we

desperately need to be with our beloved. It’s also the chemical that is made in bucket-loads when are

brains are exposed to cocaine. Serotonin is the tricky one in that it can actually induce temporary

insanity. Thus, many of the millions of people who do crazy things for love, who swim rivers naked,

jump out of airplanes with friends to hold up gigantic signs of proposal while they parachute into a

lover’s back yard, and all the other stuff you’ve ever heard about, many of those people may actually

qualify as temporarily insane.

The third phase in Dr. Fisher’s scheme is called attachment and it involves becoming bonded

with and attached to a specific person. It is marked by the sense of calm, peace, and stability one

feels with a long-term partner and is driven by the brain chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin. Crazily

enough, oxytocin and vasopressin seem to interfere with the production of dopamine and adrenalin,

which is why the madness of the head-over-heels attraction phase fades as the attachment phase

progresses–a finding that actually provides a basis for the otherwise cynical definition of love I

quoted earlier as a type of insanity curable by marriage.

In fact, studies have shown that vasopressin is responsible for monogamy in a critter called

the prairie vol. Once vasopressin is triggered in the brain of the prairie vol, that vol is faithful to its

mate for life. Block the vasopressin and that very same vol becomes promiscuous. These are very

powerful chemicals. Things are obviously much more complicated in humans–history teaches us that

vasopressin does not work nearly as well in people as it does in prairie vols–but, Dr. Fisher

nonetheless cautions that you should never mess around with somebody you do not want to fall in

love with, because if you generate enough oxytocin and vasopressin, you very well might fall in love

despite yourself.

As a result of her’s and others’ studies, Dr. Fisher has drawn the remarkable conclusion that

romantic love is not actually an emotion like joy or sadness. Instead, she claims it is a motivation

system, a drive, a need that compels people to go out and find a partner and is more akin to the need

to eat than being happy or sad. Romantic love, the attraction phase, says Dr. Fisher, is an even

stronger desire than simple lust. “People don’t kill themselves just because they don’t get sex,” she

says. But they will and do kill themselves over failed romantic love adventures.

Page 5 of 7

There is so much more going on in evolutionary biology, but I don’t have the time to go into

even a fraction of it. What I will say is the discoveries of how deeply hard wired we are for lust,

attraction, romantic love, and attachment are not a surprise to me. Put simply, reproduction is much

too important to leave to the whims of consciousness and culture.

And it makes sense that humans would be subject to the same forces that other higher animals

are since we share common ancestors and evolved together on this planet. Said another way, before

there was consciousness, there was reproduction and all the drives and hard wiring that nature

provided to insure the continuation of life. For the last handful of millennia perhaps, humans have

been able to cogitate about love and sex and reproduction. But a million years ago, those things just

had to happen for the species to continue and nature had to insure that they would by hard wiring in

the proper mechanisms. And nature was obviously successful since we are all here today. Science

has and continues to confirm that we have inherited those mechanisms and we call them romantic

love.

My point in telling you all this is not to pretend to be able to fully explain why or how we fall

in love, or even the biological basis for romantic love. It’s much more complicated than this, of

course. Rather, my point is to simply suggest that there is in fact a powerful biological basis for

romantic love, that it matters, and we should openly and fearlessly take account of it in our lives.

But these revelations do not sit well with many people, who bristle at the thought that humans

might be subject to instincts, hard wired instructions, and that something as sacred in our culture as

romantic love and all the trappings of courtship, marriage, and the like that go with it, might be the

product of brain chemicals that mimic the actions of drugs. As unsettling as the scientific discoveries

may be, I think the truth is that we humans are a natural part of the natural world and are certainly

a product of evolutionary biology. But we are also conscious beings with the ability to make choices

that either compliment or reject the signals, motivations, and desires that our DNA has made part of

our experience of life.

This is why it is useful to think of ourselves as both a “what” and a “who”. The what is the

primate creature that Mother Nature created out of the raw materials of life and that is subject to the

same laws, the same forces, and the same desires as the other higher level creatures on the planet.

The who is a relatively new entity, a conscious being who seemingly at least, can make choices about

how to proceed with existence and at present, seems to be a little bit confused about what life, the

universe, and everything is supposed to mean. These two aspects of humanity coexist in one body.

Both matter.

This is also the reason I think people are often confused when they ask the question, “What

is the meaning of life?” Life is a process that goes on all around us, has been going on for millions

upon millions of years. Humans are included in the process of life, but so is a snail darter or an

elephant or a wasp. So when we think of life in the broadest sense, it is clear that the purpose and

meaning of life is survival, reproduction and all that goes with it.

Page 6 of 7

But when they ask the question,”What is the meaning of life?”, many people use the word

“life” to substitute for consciousness and sentience. And that, as they say, is a very different question

and not one I have any desire to tackle today. Well, actually, I will say this. Whatever purpose or

meaning there is to human existence, as opposed to life generally, has to been created, invented as

it were, which is the role of culture, religion, and other philosophical enterprises that seek to imbue

our conscious existence with meaning. But the meaning of life itself, the purpose of life, that is clear:

it is to survive, today, tomorrow, and always.

Up until thirty to fifty years ago, most educated people saw a human baby as a tabula rasa,

a clean slate upon which anything could be written without the pesky influences of instincts and other

hard wired instructions, or drives. Virtually nobody who studies these things today thinks of a baby

as a tabula rasa. That concept has been relegated to the same graveyard as phlogiston and the ether.

Having said that, I must emphasize that just how much has been pre-programmed or hard wired and

how powerfully is subject to debate, some of it fierce. Still, it is clear that we are born with hard

wired drives, call them instincts, call them predispositions, call them an inborn style, but they are

there. And probably the most powerful, the one that dominates so much of our lives, is the need for

romantic love. Like every other creature on the planet, human beings modify their behaviors to

accommodate those incredibly powerful desires–or as Willow says, we all do the wacky.

Can these drives and desires be overcome by the who that we are–our conscious selves? Of

course they can. People routinely choose to do behaviors that conflict with the urges and desires

brought about by romantic love and its chemical addictions to a person. It happens all the time. It’s

one of the things that distinguish us from insects and the rest of the animal world. A praying mantis

will go ahead and get its head bitten off in exchange for the opportunity to mate. Even the most

testosterone and dopamine driven man, however, is most likely to decline that offer.

But does the fact that we can control our behaviors mean we should not acknowledge the

drives and desires that are making our lives both wonderful and miserable? Shall we pretend that we

have conscious control of who–and what gender–we find attractive and that any feelings we

experience that are not sanctioned by the dominant culture are to be labeled as sinful and wrong?

My answer is an emphatic no. I think it is time we looked at these feelings, these desires,

without embarrassment, without shame, without feeling defensive that we are, after all, the product

of evolution and are children of the Earth as much as children of our conscious souls.

While the idea that romantic love is a hard wired mechanism might spoil some of our notions

of romance, it is also liberating. I suggest that if people would let go of the notion of the tabula rasa,

would let go of the notion that falling down the rabbit hole of romantic love is a conscious choice,

and realize that all those powerful feelings and urges are perfectly natural and are deeply imbedded

into the essence of our natural being, perhaps we could all relax a little and not be so harsh with each

other and ourselves.

Page 7 of 7

Moreover, once that admission is made and the feelings themselves brought out into the open

without embarrassment, they are much easier to deal with. Suppressed feelings and desires have a

way of growing in the dark, just like mushrooms, but tend to lose their almost preternatural hold on

us once we put them in the light of day.

Preachers routinely, and for thousands of years, have taken nature to be sinful. Western

culture definitely assigns passion to the dark side, the night side, the female side of life, the side that

is opposed by the light of reason, the cold hard facts of rationality that is ruled by the day and the

male sky god. But when you pull all of nature over into the side of sin, you degrade the deepest and

most fundamental parts of what we are as living creatures and deny the importance of millions of

years of evolutionary biology.

Our behavior matters, of course, and I am not advocating or justifying rampant infidelity and

wackiness just because we are hard wired for romantic love and all the feelings and desires that go

with it. But I do think our ancestors and our Western religions got it totally wrong. I think that the

world being split into male and female with romantic love and sexual reproduction, however those

drives and desires may manifest in any individual, creates most of the pure joy and happiness we

experience in life. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that when we accuse a young man or

woman of being “superficial” because they are attracted to somebody because that person is beautiful

or sexy, we’ve got it backwards. There’s nothing superficial about it; rather such attraction is one

of the most deeply rooted aspects of our natural existence. It is not only not sinful, it is part of the

very essence of the inherent meaning of life.

Let me conclude by reaffirming that Willow was absolutely right when she told Buffy “Love

makes you do the wacky.” We understand why that is so just a little better now than our mothers and

fathers and their mothers and fathers did, but the feelings, the desires, the power of love remain

undiluted and are eternally ours. No matter the cultural spin we put on them, love, sex and

reproduction are simply fundamental to us and our beings. We truly are born to love. It is our

birthright, our purpose, our meaning, and our glory.

First Unitarian Universalist Church

Presented April 15, 2007

Revised for print

Copyright © 2007 by Jim Checkley

PRAYER

Mystery of many names and Mystery beyond all naming, we gather here today to celebrate the resurrection of life. What this resurrection means can be, and is, as varied as the people who go to make up this community. But encompassing them all is the notion that what was dead and useless has been sloughed off and a rebirth has begun. Let us be gentle with ourselves when we are rebirthing, bringing forth that which is new and different from ourselves. Let us find the wisdom to treat ourselves in these moments as we would treat a newborn child. Holding our newness gently let us rock back and forth and sing lullabies – songs that sooth the soul. And help us, Great Spirit within, to recognize when others are so engaged, when others are bringing forth from themselves a new way of being, a new way to amplify the glory of the Light that surrounds us all.

          Some of us have figuratively been entombed in the rock hardness of our hearts. May that hardness melt away and may we emerge from our self-made tombs renewed with no sense of remorse, or regret. The harden-hearts of our past are past. We are new creatures in this moment and in this moment we celebrate the quite human ability to take to flights of fancy and return to earth changed creatures.

          Bless all those here with the ability to see themselves new again. Give us all the willingness to let go of others so that they may change and grow, and above all forgive us for thinking that we’ve had it figured out years ago. 

In the name of everything that is holy and that is, precisely, everything. Amen.

SERMON

Your Heart Will Live Forever

A Resurrection Twist

Jack R. Harris-Bonham 

Introduction: There is a Shinto temple in the southern end of Honshu Island – the biggest of the islands that go to make up Japan. Legend has it that it was first built in 4 BC, but probably the 7^th Century is more like it. I say “first” built because when ever it was first built over 2000 years ago, or 1400 years ago it has been rebuilt every 20 years since that time. They don’t tear down the 20 year old shrine and build another one, they ritualistically dismantle it, then on an adjacent site it is rebuilt from entirely new materials, but following exactly the same ancient plans.

          Is it the same shrine – the Ise Shrine or more commonly know in Japan as Jingu – “The Shrine” – is it the same shrine that exists today first built in the 7^th Century? Or is it only a reproduction of the long-lost original building – oh, an exact reproduction no doubt - last rebuilt in 1993 – but still a reproduction?

          In a similar manner each and every cell in our bodies is replaced every seven years. If you’re 49 years old – you’ve inhabited 7 totally different bodies, oh, each was an exact reproduction, but each was still a reproduction.

          If at the age of 49 you’re fortunate enough to have your grandmother around like my wife, Viv, did when she was 49, then what exactly is it about you that your grandmother loves? In other words, what is it that’s stayed constant during those seven reproductions?

          For the people of Japan the soul of the Ise Shrine centers around the fact that each time the Shrine is rebuilt it is built and used as a Shinto Shrine, the Shrine – Jingu!

          No rich person bought it and lived in it, held dinner parties in it, raised children in it, died in it.

          It was never used as a stable for a nobleman’s horses.

          It was never used as an amusement park centering on the quaint past.

          It is a shrine, a holy temple, and it always has been.

          And what makes it a shrine is that Shinto priests maintain it, hold Shinto rites in it, clean it, protect it, and every 20 years lovingly dismantle it and build it anew; fresh, raw, pristine. Trees grown in the generation of its parent temple – trees nourished on rain that fell on the former temple, nourished by sunshine that also graced the former temple – these trees are used to rebuild the shrine. And then, somewhere between the dismantling and the completed reconstruction the soul of Ise, Jingu, is passed on.

          So … what is it that your grandmother loved in you? What is it that makes you lovable? It’s probably not because you tripped grandma at the escalator, or took the biggest piece of her birthday cake, or kicked her cat.

          Yes, you were grandma’s little girl, but even genes can’t force someone to love a brat!

          You were grandma‘s nice little girl.

          When I was Pastor at the First Christian Church in Big Sandy, Texas for two years I attended a spring birthday party at the city park.

          Lois Davis was there. She was my eldest parishioner at 86. When I was leaving the party she was sitting at a picnic table with a young lady in her mid-twenties. Lois introduced me to this young lady like she was the Queen of England – the young lady, not Lois. I could see the love that Lois held for her granddaughter and I could see the concern, love and affection that were coming from the granddaughter.

          Buddhists do no believe in a permanent self. They see the apparition we call self as the mere resemblance of outward form recognized by memory.

          The Buddhists see themselves as the Ise Shrine, rebuilt moment to moment.

          Each time we identify with the appearance of self and turn inward as if there were a boundary between us and them – each occurrence of that diminishes our opportunities to join the stream of life that never ceases to flow and change around us.

          Our clutching is like the desperate flailing of a drowning victim – demonstration of self – true!, but totally ineffective.

          For the Buddhists making a splash is not what it’s all about. What matters is noiselessly entering the stream and being in flow.

This reminds me of a story that is told by Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen in her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom. This is the story.

As an adolescent, I had a summer job working as a volunteer companion in a nursing home for the aged. The job began with a two-week intensive training about communication with the elderly. There seemed to be a great deal to remember and what had begun as a rather heartfelt way to spend a teenage summer quickly became a regimented set of techniques and skills for which I would be evaluated by the nursing staff. By the first day of actual contact, I was very anxious.

          My first assignment was to visit a ninety-six-year-old woman who had not spoken for more than a year. A psychiatrist had diagnosed her as having senile dementia, but she had not responded to medication. The nurses doubted that she would talk to me, but hoped I could engage her in a mutual activity. I was given a large basket with glass beads of every imaginable size and color. We would string beads together. I was to report back to the nursing station in an hour.

          I did not want to see this patient. Her great age frightened me and the words “senile dementia” suggested that not only was she older by far than anyone I had ever met, she was crazy, too. Filled with foreboding, I knocked on the closed door of her room. There was no answer. Opening the door, I found myself in a small room lit by a single window, which faced the morning sun. Two chairs had been placed in front of the window; in one sat a very old lady, looking out. The other was empty. I stood just inside the door for a time, but she did not acknowledge my presence in any way. Uncertain of what to do next, I went to the empty chair and sat down, the basket of beads on my lap. She did not seem to notice that I had come.

          For a while I tried to find some way to open a conversation. I was painfully shy at this time, which was one of the reasons my parents had suggested I take this job, and I would have had a hard time even in less difficult circumstances. The silence in the room was absolute. Somehow it almost seemed rude to speak; yet I desperately wanted to succeed in my task. I considered and discarded all the ways of making conversation suggested in the training. None of them seemed possible. The old woman continued to look toward the window, her face half hidden from me, barely breathing. Finally, I simply gave up and sat with the basket of glass beads in my lap for the full hour. It was quite peaceful.

          The silence was broken at last by the little bell, which signified the end of the morning activity. Taking hold of the basket again, I prepared to leave. But I was only fourteen and curiosity overcame me. Turning to the old woman, I asked, “What are you looking at?” I immediately flushed. Prying into the lives of the residents was strictly forbidden. Perhaps she had not heard. But she had. Slowly she turned toward me and I could see her face for the first time. It was radiant. In a voice filled with joy she said, “Why, child, I am looking at the Light.”

          Many years later, as a pediatrician, I would watch newborns look at the light with that same rapt expression, almost as if they were listening for something.

          A ninety-six-year-old woman may stop speaking because arterioscloerosius has damaged her brain, or she has become psychotic and she is not longer able to speak. But she may also have withdrawn into a space between the worlds, to contemplate what is next, to spread her sails and patiently wait to catch the light.

          The heart that can catch the Light and live forever is equal to the soul of the Ise Shrine.

          But it must be practiced. The shrine never stops being a shrine because it is filled with shrine activities.

          The heart that never dies is the heart that is turned outward not towards the other as opposed to one’s self, but toward the other as one’s self.

          In the 2^nd Century AD the Catholic Church almost elected Valentinus as Pope. He came in second. Too bad, the Catholic Church and perhaps the face of Christianity itself would have been changed forever if the Gnostic Valentinus had filled the shoes of the fisherman.

          Valentinus believed in resurrection from the dead, but it was a resurrection from the death of self-interest, selfishness, egoism. Those grasping around us – thieves, robbers, politicians, generals, presidents – they are the dead. They gather around themselves wealth, power and imagine that, that will keep death or anonymity at arm’s length or ease somehow the pain of their eventual disappearance.

          How much better would it be to simply disappear each moment – disappear into breath, disappear into watchfulness, disappear into the non-anxious presence, disappear and be reborn as passers-by, reborn with the heart that never dies.

          How can one fear a thing that will change nothing? How can death take from us that which we have already surrendered?

          In the movie, The Last Samurai, Ken Watanabe plays a samurai who teaches a Union Officer, played by Tom Cruise, what Bushido – the way of the samurai warrior – is all about.

          The movie is worth the ending of the film alone.

          Watanabe is mortally wounded and dying on the battlefield. As he slumps into Tom Cruise’s arms he sees his life as one perfect moment after another perfect moment, fully lived, fully realized – the scene switches to cherry blossoms blowing from an orchard and the dying samurai whispers, “Each moment perfect … it’s … all … prefect.”

          The 20^th Century’s greatest Protestant theologian, Paul Tillich, summed up all his theology in one statement, “Ultimately, everything’s okay.”

          The apostle Paul echoes similar thoughts when he says,

          I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me … (Galatians 2:20a)

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1^st Corinthians 15:55 KJV)

          So why did your grandmother love you? Yeah, she saw a nice kid there, but also she saw herself there in you … the rebuilt temple … the home of the heart that never dies.

Prayer

Mystery of many names, and mystery beyond all naming, today we’re going to talk about you – the mystery. Wanting to speak about profound secrets, and enigmas – things beyond human comprehension puts us in the rather embarrassing spot of having to wing it! May our wings be sturdy enough to buffet the winds of doubt, may we journey over the sea of profound inexplicability, and resting upon the mast of a fishing boat may we watch as odd forms are brought from the depths. May our spirits be like those in dreams as we watch, marvel, and do not fear that which is beyond reason.

          It’s not knowledge that we seek this morning. We have knowledge, and ways of getting more. But rather it is an understanding of our place in the scheme of things that we intuit this morning. Give us the wisdom that goes beyond mere knowledge to that place in our hearts where we comprehend a peace that passes all understanding. It is that peace we look for, it is that peace that we desire, it is that peace that lures us into the unknown.

          May we forgive ourselves for not being totally human. May our compassion override our sense and may we reach out even when we fear to do so. Franklin Delanor Roosevelt once said that all we have to fear is fear itself. But we fear love, we fear acceptance and rejection, we fear poverty, we fear the shame of growing old and out of control … the real question is what is it that we do not fear?

          Sitting quietly, and letting our breath slow down may we land in a spot where the good and the bad are but names for preferences, may we sit as the rocks, immovable, constant, and always present. May our hearts grow to accept whatever it is that comes our way, and may we see in each instance a chance to simply be there.

          We pray this in the name of everything that is holy and that is, precisely, everything. Amen.

The Great Escape

The Baptism of Jesus

As Seen From the Viewpoint of

Jesus, Himself

Matthew 4:1-11(NIV)

Gospel of Judas 2:16-20

(Jesus said) “Let whoever is strong among you humans bring forth the perfect human and stand up and face me.” And they said, “We are strong!” But their spirits did not have the courage to stand up to face him – except Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand up to face him, even though he was not able to look him in the eyes, but turned his face aside. (Translated by Karen L. King)

Introduction: (Go out into the congregation and walk up and down looking at as many who will let you – return to the pulpit.)

I’m very happy to be here today.

I saw many things as I walked among you. The eyes are, after all, the windows of the soul.

My name is Judas Iscariot … and no, I am not the warm up act for Jesus. Jesus chose not to come here today. More of that later. Why, you might be wondering, am I here? Good question! I’m here because I was the favorite disciple, and I remain the favorite. It’s a long story.

          Jesus knew and he still knows that he can count on me to tell the story, set the record straight, lay it out for you so that – perhaps – you’ll understand? There’s always the chance that you will not understand, or choose not to want to understand. That’s okay, many have not understood, many have gotten it wrong.

          I know that I am expected to speak of Jesus’ Baptism. Jesus, and I, we have spoken of this event many times. Each time, we seem to learn more. It’s as if the baptism itself were still going on, in some bizarre and timeless way. Like the baptism was a marriage and funeral of sorts, a ceremony of union with death and life that has lasted to this very day, this very hour, this very moment.

          I’m very happy to be here today!

          Once Jesus said to me, “Come and I will teach you about the things that no human will see. For there exists a great realm and a boundlessness whose measure no angelic race has comprehended.” [Jesus loved to speak in hyperbole.) He continued, “In it (the boundlessness) is the great invisible Spirit – the one whom no angelic eye has seen nor any inner thought of heart contained, nor has anyone called it by any name.” (Gospel of Judas 10:1-4)

          It’s like a Koan. The Great Invisible Spirit that no angelic eye has seen, so obviously, it’s not in heaven. The Great Invisible Spirit that no one’s heart has been able to imagine, so that it’s not of human origins. The Great Invisible Spirit that is beyond naming – mystery of many names, mystery beyond all naming.

          I’m very, very happy to be here today!

          When I was a boy, my friends and I used to play near the dunes where the Goat Lady lived. The Goat Lady was old, real old. There was a wrecked chariot in those dunes, and we boys imagined that the Goat Lady had once been the lover of the Roman Centurion who had wrecked the chariot and lost his life. She stayed now in the dunes, because it was the only place that had anything that still could remind the old woman of her lover, when he was in his prime, healthy, strong, vibrant, tanned and delicious. We, too, dreamed of a time when the Goat Lady had been young and beautiful.

Now, she herded a scrawny bunch of goats over these dunes, drank their milk and occasionally they said when a goat would meet with an accident and die, she’d cook its meat and eat its strength. Yet … no one could remember ever smelling the smoke of a goat meal. We boys knew why! She lived off the bodies of boys who had disappeared from their villages, and we were thrilled that in those dunes, we faced more than simply an old woman. We faced a fierce enemy – an old, evil one who lived off the flesh of young boys.

          One afternoon we took some apples out into the dunes and ate them there. I grew sleepy and napped. I was awakened by the sound of laugher. Opening my eyes I expected to join in the fun, but instead I couldn’t move. I’d been buried up to my neck in the sand. My friends circled me chanting, “The Goat Lady’s coming! The Goat Lady’s coming!”

          One of the boys keeping watch came running from the top of the dunes. His expression told everyone that what they chanted was true. She … was … coming.

          They were gone before I could beg them to stay. I could hear the belled lead goat as it made its way toward me. I squirmed, I wriggled, nothing. My bowels moved and … I passed out.

          When I awakened the sun was setting. I had been pulled from my grave. I had been cleaned up and was wearing a rough white robe. I remember wondering if I had died and gone to heaven, yet the hole was still beside me – the empty tomb!

          I want you to know – from that day till this one – I have never been afraid – ever – well, almost never! I had been reborn, recast, remolded into something very much like me, but not quite me. It was as if I was this big energy – The Great Invisible Spirit – that now simply went by the name of Judas Iscariot.

          The feeling didn’t last. You notice that. You feel great and think, this is the way it will always be – in love, fully invested, made in the shade, got your swerve on – but no, things change.

          The mind that stops is the mind that dies. Latching onto something in our life, in our presence … stopping the mind to rest in the shade of good feeling … these are the things that rob us of our ability to simply … keep … going.

          I’m so very happy to be here today!

          Jesus, now, he had the mind of someone who could simply keep going. They stood around him, and they all had stones. There was that beautiful woman, still smelling of the bedchamber, and the eyes of the men … those eyes. They were looking for a victim, hell, they had found a victim, but they were feeling generous, hey, let’s share this adulterer with the new prophet … that weird one from Galilee … he won’t know what to do!

          What would you do? The leaders of your community standing against a law breaker … an outsider … wanting you to light them up so that the disenfranchised can get what they deserve. It’s a lot of pressure.

          But that Jesus, hey, man, what can I say? Never knew a man who knew human nature like that man. There they were with all those … rocks! The sheer enormity of them – a crowd full of rocks and strong arms, working arms, killing arms.

          You know that saying “Can’t see the forest for the trees!” Well, they got it backwards; it’s really “Can’t see the tree for the forest.”

          Jesus wasn’t worried about an arsenal of rocks, no; he was just worried about that first rock. Yeah. He knew, that’s the one that would be the hardest to throw, that first rock was more than simply a rock – that was a modeling rock, an expression of a throwing behavior and my friends, that’s all a mob wants is a model, give ‘em a model – Sieg Heil! – and you can get them to do anything.

          The blood of the genocides of every generation scream now from the rocks themselves, “We are innocent! We are innocent!”

          Jesus’ mind didn’t stop, you see, he bent down and drew on the ground. He doodled! 

          The fate of a young, healthy, sexy woman was at stake – she was so close he could smell her – and he doodled on the ground! You can’t fake that. That’s the stuff of legend. I was there, and I was armed and ready. Jesus, what a party pooper!

          (Mocking voice) Let he who is without sin throw the first stone! Man, this guy could mess up a wet dream!

          That one little sentence – Let he would is without sin throw the first stone – and all of a sudden it’s a rock dropping contest!

          When I was a boy I used to pester the blacksmith in my village. Well, all we boys did. Fire and smoke – name me a boy who doesn’t want to play with fire and smoke. The blacksmith was always warning us, “You’re going to burn yourself. Be careful!”

          One day I saw the most beautiful horseshoe, pretty and new, I picked it and dropped it.

          “Burned yourself, didn’t you!?” came the blacksmith’s laughing retort.

          “No,” I said, “it just don’t take me long to look at a horseshoe.”

          Yeah, my mind bounces, too. Maybe that’s what attracted us to one another in the first place. Jesus and me.

          He gave me power over the purse cause I could figure things in my head, and was good at business. He mocked me sometimes for thinking too much about money, and then that jerk Michael Angelo paints me clutching my purse and spilling the salt. Salt and money they were equals back then – one as precious as the other.

          But Jesus knew. When the chips were down, when there was no one else to turn to, then he could turn to me. My mind could follow his, we could move together and I could see what he was driving at – at least part of it.

          I did stand up to him. True, I couldn’t always look him in the eye, but I stood up when he needed someone to stand up. “Stand up, stand up, for Jesus you soldiers of the cross, lift high his royal banner, it must not suffer loss.”

          He told me I’d be cursed for all time, and jokingly referred to me as, “The Thirteenth God of the Thirteenth Realm.” What a sense of humor, what a weird sense of humor. Jesus would have liked Austin – probably lived south of the river.

          “Keep Jesus Weird!” That’s the bumper sticker I’m waiting to see.

          I am so very, very happy to be here today.

          Jesus knew the holy books and the holy stories. We didn’t call him Rabbi for nothing, ya know!

          He talked of Ezekiel and the contest he had with the priest of Baal. Ezekiel challenged the priest of Baal to a sacrificing contest.        The priests of Baal went first and to tell you the truth, I can’t remember how good their sacrifice was, cause no matter how good theirs was, that wasn’t the point.

The point was old Ezekiel was the man when it came to sacrifice and he had a deep and abiding faith in the one whose name we do not speak.

          When the priests of Baal had finished with their meager sacrifice Ezekiel – what a showman! Ezekiel has buckets and buckets of water poured on the wood of the sacrifice, drenches it! Then, he calls down fire from heaven and wham-o! The altar is burned so completely, that there is nothing left of the sacrifice. Nothing! The crowd went wild! (Cheer into microphone)

          But old Ezekiel he was just getting warmed up. He showed the crowd that there was absolutely nothing up his sleeves, and then … he called down fire upon the 400 priests of Baal – wham-o! – and it was like Hiroshima.

          You’d think that Ezekiel would be pretty happy at this point – sort of like Evil Kenevil jumping the Grand Canyon and not getting hurt.

          But no, Ezekiel went away by himself right after that. He went into the wilderness and hid in a cave, and didn’t eat for days. He sat there listening for the voice of the one whose name we do not speak, waiting for a comforting word from his Lord and Master.

The wind blew mightily outside the cave and at first Ezekiel thought he heard the voice of Lord in the wind, but then realized you could hear whatever you wanted to hear in the wind. A storm came along, and there was lightning and thunder and Ezekiel listened carefully for the voice of the Lord. But the voice of the Lord was not in the wind; not in the storm. But after the storm, when the quietness of evening settled on the cave and the dancing firelight images made their way across the cave walls that’s when Ezekiel heard the voice of the Lord. The still small voice.

          The still small voice … is still small. It’s not in the stock market … not on the World Wide Web … not on your cell phone. It’s in the quiet. It’s in the silence. It’s in the gaps.

          Jesus heard the voice of the wind, but it wasn’t the voice of God. Satan has been called the Prince of the Power of the Air. The Prince of the Power of the Air what a nice way to call someone a bullshitter!

          And what did Satan say? “Hungry Jesus, well, you’re the son of God, command these stones to become bread!” But the voice of the Lord was not in the wind, not in the air, not in the prince of the power of the air. Jesus said, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

          Then Satan took Jesus up to the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem – now Jesus swears he didn’t eat for forty days, but it sound to me like he might have stumbled onto some mushrooms! What do you think? So there he is with Satan standing on the pinnacle of the Temple, and Satan says, “Throw yourself down, for it is written he will give his angels charge over him, and will not allow him to strike his foot against a stone.”

          Jesus felt the adrenaline. Sure. Standing way up there his feet itching, he could feel the wind tugging at his clothes, as he did a swan dive into the hands of God.

          But the Lord wasn’t in the adrenaline, and Jesus said, “Do not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”

          So now Satan took Jesus to door number three; the highest mountain in all the world and showed him all the storming activity of mankind, the hustle and the bustle, the moving and the shaking, the glitter and the gold, Jesus could have it all for a simple nod in Satan’s direction.

          But the voice of the one whose name we do not speak – the Great Invisible Spirit – was not in the storming of humankind

          And Jesus said, “You don’t hook me, Satan. My mind sees you, acknowledges the power of evil in the world, and moves on. I’m not stuck in evil.”

We are here to serve the still small voice. If you can’t hear it, how can you serve it?

          Listen. (pause) The still small voice is still small.

          I am so very happy to be here today.

          The Romans were getting tired of the trouble Jesus was causing. They and the Jewish leaders. It was Passover and they just wanted the festivals to go on without a hitch. Tempers were high and the crowd was involved.

          They hallelujahed when Jesus entered Jerusalem and now their voices were vicious, rapacious, sanguine.

          Pilate offered Barbaras, but the crowd would have none of that. They had raised him up and they could take him down.

          But I’m getting ahead of myself.

          Jesus knew that if he weren’t careful, the group he’d gathered about him, those called his disciples, would be dispersed before he could show them his best prophetic trick. We all need our audience – his twelve and the others who are rarely mentioned. Perhaps they gathered for the last time there in Jerusalem?

          He pulled me aside. He told me what to do. I was to tell them – the authorities – where he would be that night – in the Garden – surrounded by sleeping followers.

          He told me, he said, “As for you, you will surpass them all. For you will sacrifice the human being who bears me. Already your horn is raised up, your anger is full, your star has passed by, and your heart has prevailed” (Judas 15: 4-8)

          I turned him in. It was a betrayal … of sorts. Without me, there would have been no Road to Emmaus. Without me, there would have been no surprises in the Upper Room! Without me he couldn’t have shown them the trick … the secret behind it all. “Pay no attention to the Spirit behind the curtain.”

Conclusion: You know my reward. It has been written that I hanged myself, but the truth is, they stoned me. And I don’t mean they took me behind the stable and shared a Doobie with me. No, they picked up stones – maybe the same ones that had been dropped earlier, ya think? And the modeling came easy. They’d run off and not seen Jesus crucified, but they’d seen others crucified. The modeling came compliments of the state, and their anger turned those stones into a which stone can be thrown first contest.

They sent me into the Spirit world.

And it is from the Spirit world with the breath of Spirit that I speak today.

Jesus has left the building!

In other words…

          “You can kill the protestors, but you can’t kill the protest!”

          I’m so very glad to be here today.

          As I walked around among you this morning I found what I was looking for. I saw it there in the meeting of our eyes. Spirit recognizing Spirit. And the still small voice though still small, has many listening and some even understanding. 

          You don’t need to believe this. It’s not demanded. Really nothing is demanded. It’s all quite all right, just like it is.

          Some day the human being who bears you will be sacrificed. It’s true. Already your horn has been raised up, your anger full, your star has passed by, and your heart … your heart will prevail. I just know it.

Amen, and again, I say, Amen.