Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Etc., Are Verbs

A couple of weeks ago I was at Skiles downtown, enjoying pizza with a friend and I noticed over his shoulder a TV screen. The sound was off, but the picture was there. They were showing a “sporting event.” I use that term loosely. I think it was called extreme fighting or ultimate fighting, something like that. It was basically just two guys kicking and hitting each other. They were whaling on each other. Until they ran out of energy and then they were just sort of flailing their arms and eventually one of them was declared the winner. When he was declared the winner, he pointed up to heaven and did a little dance, I’m assuming to thank God for his wonderful victory. Now I’m not sure what that guy’s concept of God is, heck I’m not even sure what my concept of God is, but at that moment my idea of God was: As that guy was pointing up to heaven, apparently giving God credit, God was looking down and saying, “Ummm, no thanks, buddy; I don’t want the credit for that.”

When I was in seminary a few years ago, I learned a new idea, well I learned several new ideas, but one in particular. It was the doctrine I’ll call “You don’t get the credit; you just get the blame.” It goes something like this: If you do something right, then that’s not really you doing that, that’s God working through you or the Spirit working through you or Jesus working through you or something; it’s not you. But, if you do something wrong, then that’s all you, buddy, that’s your fault. That didn’t make any sense to me. I can understand saying, “If you do something right, then that’s not really you, that’s God or the Spirit working through you.” I’ve had times, believe it or not, when I’ve done things, like write a sermon and I’d get to the end of it and read through it and think: my goodness, I didn’t have any idea that this was what this was going to end up as; it’s better than I could have imagined. It felt like it wasn’t me doing that, it was the Spirit or God, or the Source or whatever you want to call it, working through me. So I can go along with that. But why doesn’t it go the other way? If you do something wrong, why not say: that’s not your fault, that was the devil or the evil spirits or whatever working through you. But that’s not how the doctrine of “You get all the blame, but none of the credit” works. I just don’t think that’s right.

Also, when I first started going to Western Theological Seminary, apparently my reputation preceded me, because one of the professors that I met immediately called me the “high priest of heresy.” I think he meant it jokingly, but I thought, “I’m not that heretical, am I?” I’m in the mainstream of at least liberal theology. Come to think of it, that was probably why I was called the “high priest of heresy.” I wasn’t orthodox enough. Now “orthodoxy,” as you probably know, means “right belief,” believing the things the church or the religious tradition says to believe. “Orthopraxy” means “right action.” I think it means doing justice and loving kindness and acting compassionately.

I’m reading a book, “God Is Not One.” It’s by Stephen Prothero, who is a religion professor at Boston University. The basic premise of his book is that everybody says, “God is one” and “we’re all one big happy family” and all that, but how can that be if the major religions of the world are so different? How can you reconcile Buddhism, that doesn’t believe in a god and Hinduism that believes in many gods? In that book, he talks about orthodoxy and orthopraxy, but what he is talking about is “right belief,” the doctrine and dogma of religions and about the rituals and routines of religion, like lighting a candle during the service. He doesn’t talk much at all about what I consider orthopraxy, which is doing justice, loving kindness, acting compassionately. I think religion without justice is impotent.

Jesus goes to the temple, sits down and begins teaching, while the people gather around him. Up walk several men and they bring a woman with them. They tell Jesus that this woman has committed adultery. They caught her in the act of adultery. They say to Jesus. “What should we do? Because Moses says she should be stoned to death. What say you, Jesus?” They did this, according to the story in the Bible, to test him, to see if he would say, “Yes, Moses was correct, stone her.” But he writes on the ground, scribbling in the dirt, basically ignoring them. But they keep pestering him saying, “What should we do?” He looks up and says, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Then he goes back to writing in the dirt. He looks up again and they’ve all dispersed; all but the woman. He says to her, “What happened to them?” She says, “They left.” Jesus says, “Well they did not condemn you, neither do I; go and sin no more.”

Jesus, I think many Christians would assume, was the first Christian. Let’s go with that, probably all of us here know he was Jewish, but for this story let’s say Jesus was the first Christian. It seems to me that Jesus was a Christian who didn’t just believe things … he was not just a noun “Christian,” he was a verb “Christian.” He took action. He saved the life of this adulterous woman. He shamed the men who brought her to him.

Many of us probably know the story of Moses from the Hebrew scriptures or from Charlton Heston’s portrayal of him in the movie, “The Ten Commandments.” One of the stories of Moses is that he led the Jews out of Egypt. He went to Pharoah and said, “Let my people go!” And Pharoah eventually said, “Okay.” And so they went. Assuming that story is true, Moses was a Jew who believed things, but he also did things. He was a noun “Jew,” but he was also a verb “Jew.” He took action. He led the Jewish people out of slavery to freedom.

The Dalai Lama has written many books. I think my favorite book that the Dalai Lama has written is “The Four Noble Truths.” If you haven’t read that book and you get the chance, I would highly recommend it. It explains, I think very well, suffering, and talks about how it can be alleviated from others and ourselves by acting compassionately toward others and toward ourselves. The Dalai Lama is a Buddhist. He believes things, but he also does things. He’s not just a noun “Buddhist,” he’s a verb “Buddhist.” He takes action. He writes a book that some of us find helpful.

Varion Fry lived in France. He was a frail man, an intellectual, not religious. He was apparently a humanist. You might not expect that Varian Fry would have stood up to the Gestapo, but he did. He helped 1500 people escape from Nazi occupied France in 1940 and ‘41. Varian Fry was a humanist who did things, he didn’t just believe things (or not believe things). He was a noun “humanist,” but he was also a verb “humanist.” He took action. He helped 1500 people escape from Nazi occupied France.

At this point in the sermon, I was going to quote the beginning of the Hippocratic Oath, the oath that doctors take, that says, “First do no harm.” But I looked it up online and it’s a common misconception that the Hippocratic Oath begins, “First do no harm.” That’s not true. In spite of that, I would still say that religious people who want to be verb religious people and not just noun religious people, should first do no harm.

The first church I pastored was a small church in a small town. The first summer I was there, the only summer I was there, I put together a little flier, not unlike the flier we have on our back table. It was about what I saw that church as or what I wanted that church to be, I think. I knocked on a hundred doors in that little town, and handed out fliers to a hundred people, or stuck fliers between the door handle and the doorframe. A week or two later, no one had come to church as a result. Then one Sunday, I saw a new person sitting in church. She was about five rows back. So, about ten minutes into the service, during our passing of the peace, I walked up to her and I said, “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.” She said, “No, this is the first time I’ve come here.” I said, “Oh, great.” She said, “I came because of the flier you left at my door.” I said, “Oh, wonderful,” She said, “But I won’t be back.” What? She said, “I don’t feel welcome here.” How could that be? She walked maybe 5 steps into the building, up some stairs and then ten more steps into the sanctuary and sat down. She was there for 10 minutes. Yet she didn’t feel welcome. Now I know why she didn’t feel welcome. She wasn’t one of the family or friends of the powers that be. They made her feel unwelcome. Immediately. I look back on that and I think: That wasn’t really a church; that was a social club. That was a place that just cared about the people inside the four walls. They didn’t care about opening the doors of the church and welcoming new people in. But I opened the doors and welcomed new people in (or at least one new person in) and they didn’t like that at all, because that’s not who they were. Anytime a church only cares about the people inside the four walls, and doesn’t care about welcoming people in or helping people who don’t go there, it isn’t a church, it’s a social club.

If Interfaith Congregation is only about going to Denny’s after the service, or having a potluck on Wednesday night, or going bowling or playing miniature golf, then we wouldn’t be a church or a house of worship, we’d be a social club. We become a church or a religious institution or a house of worship when we feed the poor on Saturday morning, when a couple of us walk for peace in downtown Holland on Thursday afternoon, when some of us go to the city council and ask the council to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance in Holland to protect gays and lesbians and bisexual and transgender people. That’s when this place becomes a religious institution or a house of worship and not just a social club. If it were just a social club, I wouldn’t want to be here.

My daughter graduated from high school the other day. They had a wonderful graduation ceremony, held at Fountain Street Church in downtown Grand Rapids. The commencement speaker was a guy from Africa, about 30 years old, who when he was 13 was forced into the military; he was forced to kill or be killed. Thankfully he escaped from that and fled to the United States and now works for the United Nations. He told the students that they could overcome any obstacle, if he could escape from that situation. He concluded his remarks by reading the poem “Invictus,” by William Ernest Henley. The poem concludes with these two lines. “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” Each one of us, regardless of the faith tradition we come from, is responsible for our own actions, for doing justice and loving kindness and acting compassionately, because each and every one of us is the master of our fate, each and every one of us is the captain of our soul.