SERMON: GOOD GOD ! (2)

Kia Ora Tatou.

Today I am going to swim in the murky waters that some people would call heresy.

About six weeks ago I walked into the Naenae Library to collect a book I had reserved. And while there, as often happens, I looked at the shelf with the Books Recently Returned. And there was a book staring me in the face. So I had to take it out. It was called “Quantum Physics Made Me Do It”. I took it home and read it. By the end I don’t know that I knew any more than when I began. Most of it went over my head. I read it again. There was a similar result.

Quantum Physics talks about photons and electrons – photons are the smallest possible particles of light. Electrons are subatomic particles found in all atoms.

Apparently Photons can exist in two places at the same time. And because they are circular they can turn both clockwise and anti-clockwise at the same time. Do you see why my brain couldn’t cope?

However, to its credit, reading that book did give me a new way of thinking about God. It’s not mentioned in the book as such, but it did give me an idea. I’ll mention it in a minute or two.

Two weeks ago Doug Lendrum talked about, “What’s in a Name”.

When it comes to names for God there are scores and scores of them. Some are helpful and speak to our hearts and minds. Some do not. Many are found in the Bible. Words like God’s loving kindness and tender mercy. But others talk of God’s retribution and revenge. I find it helpful when I read the Bible to remember that the people who wrote it were living with a Hebrew concept of God. Which can be very different from our own.

Many concepts lead us to thinking of God in terms of a substance or a person – words like Supreme Being, Deity, Godhead, Celestial Being and more. We cannot avoid them. What else do we have? But they tend to turn the idea of God into a noun, whereas I prefer to think of God as verb – as activity, as doing, as godness.

Which is where I introduce the term that came to me through reading that book. God as divine consciousness.

What does it mean to be conscious? I suppose above all else it means “to be alive”.

I know there are discussions around the edges. When does a person come alive? When does a person cease to be alive? Is consciousness a function of the brain?  Does the brain make it happen? I don’t know that there are any agreed answers.

But for most of us the answer to “what is consciousness?” is “Being Alive”.

So let’s transfer that connection between Aliveness and Consciousness to God.

There is a time-worn philosophy called Pantheism – Pan – Greek for All, Theos – God. Pantheism – God is everything.

Back in 1963, in his groundbreaking book, Honest to God, Bishop John Robinson introduced me to the term, Panentheism. Not, God is everything, but God can be found, revealed in everything, in anything, in anyone.

I think of that famous American poet of nature and the outdoors, Mary Oliver.  We used one of her poems in the Contemporay Reading this morning.  “Where does the Temple begin, Where does it end?”

She writes, ”There are things you can’t reach. But you can reach out to them, and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God. And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier”.

Mary could glimpse God everywhere, in all things, alive, in and through.

As I was thinking about this reflection, sometimes in the middle of the night, I kept getting an image in my head. I don’t know whether it happens or not. I was walking along a sidewalk in New York on a hot and steamy day, when suddenly one of those metal covers in the pavement popped, forced up by the expansion of air underneath. The air above and the day below had come into contact – they had met.

Similarly, between our consciousness and the divine We meet. We are in touch.

Let me give you an example.

I left secondary school at 18 and became a cadet in the Department of Justice. I already knew I was on a path into the ministry. I started work with the intention of learning about “the world out there”, but knowing where I was heading. However, after two or three years I was seduced by the law, encouraged by a rather senior police officer. I struggled. Do I really want to be a minister or a lawyer? There was an intense struggle going on in my mind. It went on for months. I even changed my degree.  Until one morning, at a tea break, a group of us were talking about the police. One of us, out of the blue, said, “I’d rather make men than break men”. Apologies to the Police, because I know that’s not their intention. And it was back in the first half of the 1950s before inclusive language had been introduced. But all of a sudden, that was it! I knew where I was going and I never queried it again.

It was as if, at that moment, the lid had been lifted, there was breakthrough, the divine consciousness had spoken to my consciousness. And things had changed.

I suppose that is why I find Pentecost so important. I know that, in terms of the occasion, it doesn’t rank with Christmas and Easter. But why not? Surely Pentecost – which is now in its 7^th week – is about the livingness of God, the thought of God as Spirit, always there, the divine consciousness.

Let me give you a couple of examples close to home.

Those of us who live in the Hutt Valley are surrounded by hills. And when we look at them several things could come to mind. What beautiful bush!, those houses are where people live, thank goodness for those fire breaks – thoughts like that. But, at times, they could be a reminder of the Psalm, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence comes my help”. And then on a brilliant Wellington day with the blue sky radiant above the top of the hills we may feel, “I’m in the presence of God”.

Or even closer. If a stranger walked into this church and looked up at the front, what would they see? Some pieces of wood brought together with some exquisite craftsmanship? For some, perhaps, a reminder of their Celtic heritage. I know Nola’s family came from the Isle of Man and she used to love the intricacy of the Celtic patterns. Or, looking up there, a person could be immediately reminded of Jesus and the Easter story. Or, for another, it may penetrate even deeper. It may send out a message of the self-giving love at the heart of the divine – the divine consciousness.

Ten days ago I was driving to my daughter’s and listening to the radio on the way. It was the Radio NZ News. The reporter was talking about Rotorua. For years there have been issues of extreme homelessness and many, many people sleeping on the streets. And there is a group in Rotorua that has set up pods where those people can sleep safely, protected from the worst of the weather. I didn’t catch the name of the group.  I don’t know their motivation. Obviously compassion would be high. The thought of God may not have entered into it for them. Or it may have been prominent.  I don’t know.  But for me, listening, it was a God moment. The compassionate love of God was shining through in those people and their actions. Divine consciousness was invading my consciousness. It can happen at any time and often does when one sees loving care at work.

Well that’s some of my thoughts, evoked by reading a book I didn’t understand. But it did give to me a new way of thinking of God.

What about you?  In what ways do you think of God?

You may have noticed that the cover of this morning’s Order of Service contains an almost blank rectangle with only a question mark in it.

In a moment we are going to listen to a piece of music from Mozart, ‘Ave Verum’. It was sung beautifully in this church by the Resonance Choir just four weeks ago.

I invite you to spend time looking at that space on the cover, and thinking, “What would I like to write there that best speaks to my way of thinking of God?”

CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC

Audio of selected readings and reflections

Audio of the complete service