Sermon for Sunday - June 8, 2014: Searching For God?

Try to write.  Try?  Master Yoda was correct, "Do or do not, there is no try."  This I evidence here by not trying, and the words pour forth.

Try to search for God.  Search?  There are a lot of people not seeing the forest for the trees.  In trying to search for a God that is everywhere and all things, every avenue is examined.  Upon examination many of these avenues are taken in the search for a deity and rarely the appropriate one.  I recommend stopping the search and considering acceptance.  Do or do not, there is no try.  You either believe in God, or you do not.  If not, then stop wasting your time searching.  If so, then accept that God is already with you… and always has been.  The rest is minutia and will be revealed in time.  We have so very much time; this life and in those that follow.  God will be revealed to each of us in a manner that each will understand and in a time when we are ready to understand it.

 

So, which religion is right?  If God reveals to each in accordance with their own ability to comprehend then it really doesn't matter who is right unless you choose to ignore God and follow a religion like lemmings to the sea.  What God gives to each can be similar to the blind men and the elephant.  One of them feels the leg and comprehends it to be a tree while another feels the trunk and comprehends it to be a snake, and so on.  To each there is a different truth, and yet they all miss the whole.  Only upon feeling the entire elephant might one of them understand the whole.  God is a very large elephant.

Search for God?  Why?  If a person feels the need to search for God I would ask them why they feel the need.  It is vastly more important that we open our minds to understanding ourselves.  Understanding God will benefit us nothing as God will continue to exist whether we understand or not.  Doesn't it seem a tad egotistical to think we could ever find, comprehend, or even understand God?  Instead, try understanding who you are and, more importantly, why you are.  Understanding your place in the universe is so much easier as a first step to just comprehending there is a God, but comprehending is not the same as understanding.  We comprehend the actions of God and still do not understand the divine reasoning behind them.  And yet, each Sunday, priests, rabbis, and imams would cultivate the belief that they understand better than others.  Who would God consider the blasphemer, the so called “vessel” of God on Earth, or the empty vessel that is the common man ready to be filled with the true spirit which is known only to each person and to God?  Consider one rule virtually all religions force their parishioners to break, from Matthew 6:5 we read:

"And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites.  For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men."

I see a basic humbleness here.  I guess I view a spiritual guide in a different way.  It is a trait of the new pope that I like as we seem to see eye to eye on  it.

I view it this way:  Teach me that I may teach others.  Bless me that I may ask the blessings of others.  A humble man learns from the smallest of God’s creatures and asks blessings from the most humble of men.  I offer that one should not kiss my ring, though I am pope.  Rather allow me to wash your humble feet and gently kiss them as you relate for me the details of your own journey so I may learn.  Are we not all equal in the eyes of God?  The high and mighty have nothing but farther to fall, yet a humble “king” can sit a throne for eons remembered for all time by the faithful.

Have faith and do not worry so much about the finding and understanding.  Comprehension begets faith and faith is enough, for now.  The rest will be revealed to you in due time.

Blessings upon us all this fine Sunday, and thank all of those that  held me in their prayers for my safe journey to Mississippi.  I arrived in one piece, none the worse for the hundred plus degree weather along the entire trip.  Another test?  I wonder.

As always this is just my humble opinion that I offer as food for thought.  I could very well be wrong, and I hope you consider your own opinion.  Feel free to share it here, or with others.