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Everything is Alive – Evolution Sunday

Sermon by Peter Terpenning

February 10, 2008
Matthew 22:34-40

            I want to start with a Taoist story I heard from my daughter Becca. A disciple asked the master, “What exactly is the true self”. The Sage replied, “Ultimately, the true self is the Tao and the Tao is you”. This confused the student and he asked for explanation so the teacher sent him to a nearby river to bring back some water. He did this and the teacher looked at the water in the bowl and said, “Didn’t I tell you to get the water from the river, this can’t be it?” “But it is, Master. I collected the water by dipping the bowl in the river.” The teacher said, “I know the river well and fish swim in it, numerous animals come to it to drink and children from the village swim and play there, but I see none of those things in this bowl.” “Master”, said the student, “Such a small amount of water could not contain these things”. “O, I see”, said the teacher, “Go return your bowl to the river”. The student did so with puzzlement and returned to the teacher. “Is the water back in the river?” asked the Sage. The student nodded. “Good, now that small amount of water is back touching the fish and animals and children, in fact, everything that the river is now applies to the water in the bowl”. “Think of the river as the Tao and the water in the bowl as your true self. The water in the bowl seemed very different from the river; it is easy to see how someone could be led to believe that they are totally separate and not the same. The river is far greater than the bowl, as the Tao is from the individual”. “But the river is the source of the water, just as the Tao is the source of our true selves….when you poured the water back into the river you saw that the separation was only temporary.” So it is with our selves, our innermost nature comes from and ultimately returns to the Tao. “We and the Tao are one.
            This story illustrates how we come from and are ultimately one with God. However, I believe that in the Western world we have gone astray when we think that we are the only parts of creation that are one with God. Ultimately, all things are part of that river and return to the river. And therefore, we are ultimately one with everything. In the movie, Little Big Man, Grandfather, the chief, tells Little Big Man that “the Human Beings (name for the Cheyenne) believe that everything is alive, not only man and animals, but also water, earth, stone and also the things from them...” Thomas Keating, the Catholic monk who has written so much about Centering Prayer said something very similar in his book The Human Condition: “God is existence. In everything that exists, God is present. The greatest reality is God’s presence.” My point today is to say that I think our purpose in life is to discover this God who is in everything, in all existence, in water, in animals and in humans. To discover our true selves as one with God and how God is present in all things.
            An odd thing happened in the Enlightenment. The scientific method developed and with it science and people began to separate science from religion. Science seemed to disprove much of what religion and a literal reading of religious scriptures revealed. Taken literally, the book of Genesis describes the way God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. People mistakenly thought that had to believe either science or religion, and as the science of evolution developed, many thought they had to accept one or the other. Many modern, somewhat educated, people, including myself, grew up thinking that science is the true and therefore religion is only true when it does not contradict science. We trust ultimately in science, in medicine, in the scientific method and assume that spirituality and religion are mostly false. Yet some have clung to a notion of God, as long as that God does not conflict with truth as revealed in science. Some theologians have called this, “The God of the gaps”. Gaps in science and learning are filled in with God, and that is the only place God is revealed.
            Thomas Keating and many religious teachers today are teaching a different idea: that God is truth, God is the Ultimate Reality of life, the word Tao (or Way) actually describes this Ultimate Concern or Encompassing Spirit much better than the historically and culturally loaded term, God. God as truth or Ultimate Reality is revealed in all life. And science and the science of Evolution become not contradictory to the study of God, but one of the ways that God as Truth is revealed or uncovered. As we learn about the way the world evolved, we are learning about the way God works. As we learn about human beings, psychologically, sociologically and culturally, we are learning about God. In fact, all life and study and science become a way of learning more about the way God works. No longer do we need to leave our brains outside the doors of the church, but just the opposite, we take our souls and spirits with us into every part of our lives, politics, education, sociology, psychiatry, medicine and assuredly, science.
            Jesus was asked by the Pharisees and Sadducees and Lawyers some questions meant to trap him and get him in trouble. One of them was: “What is the greatest commandment?” Well, the Rabbis of the time had identified 613 commandments or rules to live by and they hoped Jesus would get caught up and confused. But he answers with The Shema that we said at the call to worship; “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and might and love your neighbor as yourself”. What does it mean to love God and neighbor? For Jesus this was not sentimental, romantic love. Rather, it was a response to God’s love for us, which for Jesus revealed in his life as “steadfast love, unmotivated, unmanipulated, unconditional and unlimited”. So our live in return for God and neighbor is to be the same, steadfast, tough, concrete and active.  For Jesus the love of God and the love of neighbor are bound together.
            The question for me is whether love of God includes love of all that God creates, which for me, is all existence. If so, then love for God and neighbor includes profound care and compassion for all that is, including all life and all people, even our enemies. The water in the river contains all that is part of or touches the river. Care for the river includes care of all life that uses or relies on the river. Love of God means love for all that is contained in God. Let us rejoice in all human knowledge, science and faith, for they all play a part in discovering the nature of God and how we are to live our lives in harmony with this Ultimate Reality which many of us choose to identify as God.