Tom's First Sermon at Union Gospel Mission

[This is what my talk would be, if the Union Gospel Mission would allow, me, an unordained Buddhist, to give a sermon there. But, ahh, it's, um, not likely that I'll be allowed ... I would guess.]

I want to talk tonight about the fictional children’s story set in the Garden of Eden found in Genesis 1, 2 & 3. It’s a wonderful tale, even better than "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," but like "Goldilocks...," it never truly happened.

It’s an especially swell tale, that Eden thing, though. It’s the OBVIOUS story that a tremendously-insightful ancient person would invent to explain the beginnings of human life.

Think about it: God is Perfect, All-Knowing; Has nothing; Needs nothing. Then, just for kicks, he divides the universe in half.

Before the first day, he creates time, separating it from stillness.
On the first day, he separates darkness and light.
On the second day, he separates heaven and earth. … and so on.

God, ONE UNIFIED PERFECTION, WHICH IS CONTENT FREE, is dividing, like a growing human cell, dividing and multiplying and, in a process of evolution, coming to life. For, what else can he do? Perfection has no counterpart. So, he creates a counterpart by cutting Himself in half an endless number of times.

In the Garden of Eden, which is the opposite of the chaos of the life on earth that God created in the first seven days, He divides Himself from Himself, creating a companion, his image, Adam. And later, to give a companion to Adam – so that Adam can be that much more like God – cuts a piece out of the first man, giving him a woman.

And then, rather slyly, He creates that which is forbidden, separating it from that which is fully available: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil and The Tree of Immortality are forbidden, separate from all of the other vegetation which Adam and Eve may eat. [So now, it seems, that Adam and Eve are made less like God, to whom nothing is forbidden.]

Now, it’s a curious thing. Adam and Eve only know about the The Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, and not about the The Tree of Immortality. [I’ll get back to that later.]

Because it is human nature – or, truly, the nature of all life – to be especially, keenly interested in whatever is forbidden, Adam and Eve end up eating the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, just as God had wanted them to. For now, they are even that much more like God. They are exploring; going beyond themselves, exercising their free will. [For how else, other than by thinking about what you're not supposed to do, can anyone exercise free will?]

God, now, kicks Adam and Eve out of Eden – making them, then, EVEN MORE like God. Remember, God had kicked himself out of “Perfect Oneness which is Content Free.” Now, God is kicking Adam and Eve out of the BORING AS HELL Garden of Eden, where you are not confronted by challenges.

Now, Adam and Eve have left their so-called idyllic spot. Just like us, Adam and Eve have been left to fend for themselves on the dangerous – and sometimes cold and wet – pathways of earth.

Now, we are told, God installs the cherubim and a flaming sword at the gate of Eden to keep Adam and Eve out, lest they eat of the Tree of Immortality. [BTW, be aware that this information seems to tell us that Adam and Eve were never immortal up to this point.]

The cherubim and the flaming sword. What do they represent? Cherubim is plural for cherub. So, here another duality. What are the TWO cherubs? [A cherub is defined as “Usually represented as a pudgy, blond haired child that has wings sprouting from his/her back.”] So, what do the TWO cherubs represent?
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Let us pause here for a moment.

The story, I hope you all are coming to understand, IS METAPHORIC!!! It is not to be taken as a concrete happening, as conservative, painfully-literalist Christians are inclined to take things.

Why MUST there be a fictional story in the Bible? [A book already full of parables (i.e. fictional stories), I might add.] Because it is only through metaphor that psychological issues can be addressed. Religion is about spiritual matters, not dead rocks. There are some things we cannot tell each other about: specifically, those experiences that happen within the lonely space of our minds. We cannot comprehensively communicate our suffering and gladness. Language is a blunt, crude, wholly-inadequate instrument. Thus, until [referencing 1 Corinthians 13] we meet face to face, and see through the glass clearly] we need metaphor.
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Now, what do the two cherubs with the flaming sword represent? Fear and desire.

Fear and desire are the two things that bar us from the Tree of Immortality. Fear and desire are the two prime things in human nature that make us unlike God. If we can overcome our fear (primarily of death, but of other things, too) and desire (for the fun, alluring and diverting things to be found on earth), then we would easily pass through the gate and return to Eden.

How do I know that the cherubs represent fear and desire? Because it is the message of overcoming for enlightenment, which is the twin of being born again. But also because that superior religion, Buddhism, TELLS US SO! [See “Mysticism and beyond: Buddhist phenomenology, part II”]

Buddhism, too, has its famous gate. It’s called the “gateless gate,” since, in reality, there is nothing barring one from passing through it, EXCEPT those ephemeral twins, FEAR and DESIRE. In the Buddhism theme, one of the guards has his mouth open and the other his mouth closed. But it truth there is nothing to stop you from entering the gate. Indeed, the whole point of your life is for you to pass through the gateless gate.

Many Buddhists, famously, sit in meditation. What does meditation accomplish? It stills the mind. What is the benefit of stilling the mind? It is a return to The One, to the Timeless Now, before God subdivided himself into all things on heaven and earth.
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Now, remember, in the Garden of Eden story, God has gone from THE ONE to THE MANY. At first God was ONE, then he became THE MANY. The Roman philosopher Plotinus tells us that our life has this path: Flee the Many, find the One; having found the One, embrace the Many as the One. This path, too, is the ground of The Perennial Philosophy. [You can read some about Plotinus relating to Homeless World Sacramento in a prior post to this blog: "Phobos and Thanatos"]
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So, here we are. You and me and Adam and Eve and everybody, possibly including the squirrel in the tree. We are outside of Eden, fending for ourselves in a dangerous world where there is strife, suffering and incredible injustice. Of course, we imagine a perfect world – a land of bliss. It must be somewhere. Metaphorically, it involves a return to Eden – a return to THE ONE.
- - - -

Now, about those trees. INSIDE the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were forbidden the fruit of ONE tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. OUTSIDE the Garden of Eden, there are TWO forbidden trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil AND the Tree of Immortality. Don’t you see!? THE TWO TREES, inside the Garden, ARE ONE AND THE SAME TREE!!! [Inside Eden, before God divided Himself, the trees are one. Outside Eden, in our world of duality, the single tree is seen as two.]

The Garden of Eden tale is telling us that THE WAY BACK INTO THE GARDEN IS THE SAME WAY OUT. But first you must overcome fear and desire. And then, you may eat, again, of the fruit of the tree! MORE knowledge is the return to THE ONE. MORE knowledge is the route to immortality. And what is this knowledge? It is the knowledge of Good and Evil. And what comprises knowledge of Good and Evil? Wisdom and Compassion. [BTW: It is NOT that wisdom and compassion ARE good and evil; they are THE KNOWLEDGE of Good and Evil.] Once you fully have wisdom and compassion, wisdom & compassion become ONE thing [the TWO become One]: Agape – unalloyed, unconditional, unbounded love.

Once you are ONE, again [like Adam briefly was], YOU WILL KNOW GOD [and knowing God is, of course, the knowledge of good and evil] and once you know God, you will love everyone unconditionally, as he does, thus EMBRACING THE MANY AS THE ONE. And THAT is the whole point of your life, dear friends [I think]. The Buddha said at enlightenment, "I am one with all things."
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So, the Garden represents Heaven. But when you embrace the many, you leave heaven and return to the earth with all its messiness. The Kingdom of Heaven, you see, is here. The Kingdom of Heaven is within. The Kingdom is on earth as it is in heaven. Hallowed be thy name.

Here is something I believe, that I've posted before -- though my believing it or not doesn't make any difference. What I believe is that consciousness is all One Thing and that we are all in the Game of Life, a "cosmic game of checkers," together. Here, then, a snippet from a Ken Wilber interview known as "A Ticket to Athens" which explains things:

Spirit is not good versus evil, or pleasure versus pain, or light versus dark, or life versus death, or whole versus part, or holistic versus analytic. Spirit is the great Player that gives rise to all those opposites equally -- “I the Lord make the Light to fall on the good and the bad alike; I the Lord do all these things” -- and the mystics the world over agree. Spirit is not the good half of the opposites, but the ground of all the opposites, and our “salvation,” as it were, is not to find the good half of the dualism but to find the Source of both halves of the dualism, for that is what we are in truth. We are both sides in the great Game of Life, because we -- you and I, in the deepest recesses of our very Self -- have created both of these opposites in order to have a grand game of cosmic checkers.

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Note: This post is an embellishment of some of Joseph Campbell's ideas in his book "Thou Art That." To Joe: A tip of the hat. My source material is found on ~pg 49-52 which can be seen via Google Books.

On Love

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What is love? Few of us will be tempted to consult a dictionary on the subject. We know that we want those we love to be happy. We feel compassion for their suffering. When love is really effective — that is, really felt, rather than merely imagined — we cannot help sharing in the joy of those we love, and in their anguish as well. The disposition of love entails the loss, at least to some degree, of our utter self-absorption — and this is surely one of the clues as to why this state of mind is so pleasurable. — Sam Harris in The End of Faith

The above is a quote from one of our current-day fiery atheist writers. Impressive sentiment, and all the more so, so far as I am concerned, because in his definition of love, which comes dropped pretty much out of the blue in his book, Harris's instinct is to focus on giving/feeling love, not on the receipt of it. {Note, though, that Harris means to poke a stick at theists when he writes of love being "felt [i.e., directed toward people], rather than merely imagined [i.e., directed toward Jesus/God]."}

Speaking about love is difficult for the preachers who give sermons at the Union Gospel Mission. Certainly, they will tell the constantly-shifting congregants that God loves them or Jesus loves them, but mighty felt love of other people (i.e., our neighbors, whom Jesus tells us includes even our enemies, far away) remains a topic unexplored. This seems odd to me since Paul did something kind of weird and very bold in his epistles, that appear as many of the books in the New Testament: He adapted the then rarely-used Koine Greek word agapē to represent the powerful, encompassing, expansive Christian idea of love extended to all. [The New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek, btw.] By finding and adapting a rare word, Paul raised the stakes, making the claim that this Christian love was something new and significant. [In his Sermon on the Mound, Jesus tells us, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. (Matthew 5:43:44) Other books in the New Testament, written later, adapted Paul's usage of agapē.

In his book Good and Evil, humanist philosopher Richard Taylor writes briefly of the revolutionary quality of this new love-thing that Jesus introduced and Paul eloquently embraced:

It is fairly common to find love treated as a virtue, particularly by moralists who are influenced by religion. It was considered by St. Paul to be the highest virtue, surpassing both faith and hope. [Taylor is referring to a short letter to the Corinthians by Paul, 1 Corinthians 13.] Whatever may have been the fortunes of other Christian teachings, this one at least has persisted. Even depisers of religion are apt to stay their criticism of this teaching, however severely they may wish to deal with the rest.

It was not generally conceived to be a virtue by the ancients, prior to the rise and spread of Christianity. Most ancient moralists did, to be sure, devote considerable attention to friendship, but this was thought of more as a blessing than as a virtue and it was never, I believe, represented as one of the cardinal virtues. They thought of love or friendship as among the great goods of life, belonging to the same category as health, learning, honor, and the like, and their thinking was directed to analyzing its different forms and discovering the means to its attainment. They rarely thought of it as a unique incentive to noble and vituous conduct generally, or as anything one should try to extend to all humankind.

Adapted from Wikipedia:

The Christian usage of the term agapē comes almost directly from the canonical Gospels' account of the teachings of Jesus. When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus said unto him, "Thou shalt love (agapao) the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love (agapao) thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40)

Though agapē is a powerful Christian thing [just as metta, the practice of universal loving-kindness, is powerful in Buddhism], the UGM preachers seem to have an aversion toward it.

Jimmy Roughton speaking before the Union Gospel Mission congregation.

Jimmy Roughton, whom I've previously praised and called my favorite mission preacher -- because of his showmanship and because his sermons have had a theme and arc that builds over the course of thirty minutes to make a point -- gave a sermon supposedly on Love recently, but then seven minutes in, abandoned the course of what he was saying, and went back to his old stuff to deliver hellfire-and-brimstone promides, use the reasoning of Pascal's wager, and mock atheists. [Very disappointing and sadly ironic. Roughton evokes the idea of love briefly, then winds his way toward mocking others.] In a comment on the Atheists, he said he couldn't understand why, with their view, they bother to write books attacking Christianity. The answer to that is easy: (1) Of course, they make money from their books; (2) they believe what they are writing; and (3) they believe they are doing good in the world by saving people from religion. Roughton should have the integrity to give the devil his due, and the same to atheists. Please understand: I am not an atheist, I'm pro-religion, and I fault the new atheist writers for their flatland thinking. [See Flatland described on the list of Wilber concepts here.]

Another recent preacher at the mission even cited lines in Matthew about separating the sheep from the goats to buttress his argument that we must believe in Jesus to save ourselves from hell, while ignoring the context of what Jesus was saying. Here are the lines the preacher quoted, from Matthew 25:

32: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left
41: Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels

The preacher strangely ignored the point Jesus was making that determined the separation of the sheep from the goats, which was this, from the intervening lines:

34: Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37: Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38: When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39: Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40: And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

A third preacher in the past week gave a sermon on Faith, using the first few lines of 1 Corinthians 13 to make his argument, but ignored the whole point of the epistle he was quoting, which was this, that came in the last line: "But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

Arrrrgh! Love deserves better treatment! It should be possible for one of the Christian preachers at the mission to tell the congregation how terrific loving someone else and embarking on the journey of loving everyone feels*! Paul writes, "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth."

I suppose that fire-and-brimstone makes for the most-straightforward sermon to save a mission congregant, and that "love" would seem to be a girly topic for a seemingly hardened, overwhelmingly-male mission audience populated by many tattooed felons, drug- and alcohol-addicts and glass-window breakers. But the audience at the mission is really pretty smart and savvy and wise in ways beyond being streetwise. Give love a chance, you preachers. When we are told in the Book of John that "God is love," that statement doesn't mean that God loves us. The full quote is "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." Thus, the imperative is to love.

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* Late note: As Richard E. Watts writes in his Mar92 article in the Journal of Individual Psychology, 'Biblical Agape as a Model of Social Interest,' "Agape is the highest form of love and is primarily volitional and self-giving rather than emotional and self-centered." Thus while agape can feel good, the love that comes is "consciously developed" for others, driven wholly by desire for others' welfare.