IS GOD LOVE?

A Dialogue Sermon
James Ishmael Ford

21 October 2001

Back on Sunday the 16th, the regular worship service that immediately followed the nightmare of the 11th of September, I spoke at some length about where we might seek depth, what meaning we might pull out of such unspeakable horror, how we might respond to this event with love. After the service one among us asked me within that context, what I meant by the term love?

This certainly is a fair question. After all I was using the word love in a sense that seemed synonymous with what many of us would call God. I was speaking of something mysterious and powerful, something that, at least as I was using it, could be understood as more powerful even than death.

But is this true? Is there such a force, such a power in this universe or at the very least within our human hearts? In the face of the 11th, as in the face of many truly horrific moments in our human lives, we need to ask, is this true? We need to ask whether there is anything that deserves the name divine love, or God?

The dignity of the human spirit demands our asking this question. The great gift of our existence is our ability to know. We are aware. In a wondrous sleeping universe, we are awake. So, what is it that we see as we examine the world around us? If we are awake, what is it that we can know?

Fortunately for me, today I’m not the only one on the hook. As our regular attenders here know, we’re aiming to have a dialogue, or perhaps more appropriately, a polylogue sermon every month. These are those services in which I speak briefly (I know after last Sunday there are several among us, particularly those who have to do with our children’s Religious Education program, who believe I am not physically capable of being briefly anything.), but today I undertake to briefly present some definitions and thoughts on God and love, and then to turn it over to you all. Today we struggle together.

We Unitarian Universalists are committed to the belief that wisdom resides within each and every one of us. And sometimes that wisdom is best found when we tease it out within conversation, within our presence each of us to the other. Wisdom may occur in that moment of asking and reflecting and sharing. So, let me define some terms, let me share a thought or two, and then I hope some among us in this sacred space and this special hour will open your own hearts, show the light of your own mind, and help us all in our great struggle toward meaning and purpose.

First God. Our English word is Anglo Saxon and shares meaning with the word good. But, interestingly it appears to derive from a Sanskrit root meaning to call upon, to invoke, or to implore. I find this sense of that to which we appeal very interesting, something a bit richer than the traditional definitions, such as in Webster’s: “A being conceived of as possessing supernatural power, and to be propitiated by sacrifice, worship, etc; a divinity; a deity; an object of worship.”

Of course for us, as inheritors of the religions of the book, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we may be more intimate with that second definition in Webster’s: “The Supreme Being; the eternal and infinite Spirit, the Creator, and the Sovereign of the universe…” Or, as it plays out in a somewhat broader understanding, while still rooted in that scriptural context, the third definition in Webster’s: “A person or thing deified and honored as the chief good; an object of supreme regard.”

All that said I find myself drawn back to the idea of appeal, of calling out, of imploring. What is this call of our human hearts, this longing, this praying? Well, I think that directly leads us to the idea of love. Here we find another rich and ambiguous word, one with which we struggle and use in wildly contrasting senses. And yet a word to which we seem to return, over and over again in our need and desperation.

Webster’s defines love as a “feeling of strong attachment induced by that which delights or commands admiration; preeminent kindness or devotion to another; affection; tenderness...” Etymologically love is complex, as is the range of emotions to which we attach that word as signifier. Ancient words meaning “belief” and “to please” give nuance and shade to our English word love. But, way back, at that Sanskrit beginning, or more properly the mythical Indo-European root, we find love is desire. Love is what we want, what we need.

So, divine love: what is this need, this deep and profound need to which we appeal? At times like this, hard times where meaning is elusive, there is an inclination to believe God and divine love are all illusions, wishful thinking. I think there is truth to this analysis. We do create idols, false images of our imagining, and worship them as God, or as love. These are projections of our unhealthy needs, our desires for certainties that cannot be fulfilled, lusts that will never be satisfied, resentments and hatreds that will never end. We create them and worship them. But they are false gods. They betray us at the first difficulty.

The question must be, is there something more? Is there something deeper? Is there a God not created out of wishful thinking or mere clinging to illusions, a God that can be called love, or a love that can be called God? Personally, I don’t think there is a god that can be called love. I believe there is no great human being in the sky that cares about us as we care for each other, who has a plan, who watches over us and snatches us from disaster, or never puts us against such evil over which we cannot prevail. I’ve never seen the trace of such a divinity.

However, even as I say this, I feel the cautions of teachers over the years, of pointing in other directions than the hollow words of ancient catechisms, those storehouses of orthodoxies that carry no meaning for me. So, for example, Nancy Willard catches my heart and cautions me with her poem “A Hardware Store As Proof of the Existence of God.”

“I praise the brightness of hammers pointing east/like the steel woodpeckers of the future,/and dozens of hinges opening brass wings,/and six new rakes shyly fanning their toes,/and bins of hooks glittering into bees,

“and a rack of wrenches like the long bones of horses,/and mailboxes sowing rows of silver chapels,/and a company of plungers waiting for God to claim their thin legs in their big shoes/and put them on and walk away laughing.

“In a world not perfect but not bad either/let there be glue, glaze, gum, and grabs,/caulk also, and hooks, shackles, cables, and slips,/and signs so spare a child may read them,/Men, Women, In, Out, No Parking, Beware the Dog.//In the right hands, they can work wonders.”

I admit here is a different god, one of potential and creativity that is not separate from our own joys and sorrows. This is a God that beckons and hints at me, and winks out of the dark night. And it is here in that possible where love takes on, for me, the qualities of divinity.

So, is there a love that can be called God? Yes, I am sure that is true. I’ve seen the traces of this divine love hundreds of times. It is the love that pulled those policemen and firemen into the Twin Towers when everyone else was running away. It is the love that allows a hundred pound woman to lift a truck off of her child.

And it is much more. It is the love that empowers us in every act that does not directly benefit us in the sense of continuing our genetic inheritance. The poet Lucille Clifton writes “love the silences/love the terrible noise/love the stink of it/love it all/love/even the improbable foot/even/the surprised and ungrateful eye.” This mysterious love, I think is divine, is God.

The Christian writer C.S. Lewis speaks of the grubby roots of our affections. I am sure it is possible to trace the beginnings of our sense of connection, of that profound urge within us that pulls us toward each other, and to create, to magnify creation. Those grubby roots have certainly flowered in our human condition. We’ve awakened within the cosmos and have found a sense a love for it and for every blessed creature within it, that pulls us to good, a good I can call God.

And this urge, for me, is enough. It speaks to what we need, and it points us in directions. To summarize: As we examine our loves we can, I believe, come to a deeper understanding, a love that is divine, that is sacred, that is enough. But, what do you say? Where have the years of your experience taken you? What does God mean in your life? What does love speak to for you and yours?

Who will share their heart?



*****



Let me conclude with some of the wisdom of Mary Oliver.



You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

Love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

Are moving across the landscapes,

Over the prairies and the deep trees,

The mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

Are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination,

Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

Over and over announcing your place

In the family of things.



Amen.