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In her book Traveling Mercies, writer Anne Lamott recalls her own mixed images of God "Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Easter and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus. Lamott's words ring true for many of us here today. The God of our grandparents could not withstand the twentieth century, evolution, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, Watergate. All these experiences dug into traditional ideas of the all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, authoritarian God.

In order to survive the twentieth century, God had to change. There are religions, of course, that continue with the traditional God of our grandparents, and many of them are quite popular. However, within the twentieth century the most mainstream Judeo-Christian religions have altered their image of God. We've seen the introduction of gender inclusive language in worship services and prayer books, as well as softened interpretations of formerly rigid theological concepts like predestination and salvation. Even our ideas of hell have mellowed.

Some of us no longer believe in, or aren't sure about God. The popularity of atheism (a disbelief in God) and agnosticism (uncertainty about God) have greatly increased in the 20th century. I'll never forget the atheist who said to me in all honesty, without a trace of rancor "I don't care about God. He's your God. You explain him if you need to." Atheism is a valid, and often misunderstood, ethical, and sometimes spiritual, orientation that we will explore in a service later in the year.

But for 90% of Americans, God exists. So why does God exist or matter, particularly now? Why bother to re-assemble the bits of rags and ribbon? And is it any good, or just a useless, watered-down version of God?

For those who believe, God still answers basic, yet vital, existential questions about the meaning of our life: There was a time we did not exist and there will be a time in the future when we do not exist. We need to know "Do I have a relationship to the universe that is significant beyond my own existence?" Even more "Do I have a relationship to the life that is here with me now, and will I still have this relationship when I am dead?" "Am I connected to anything? Am I together with something, or am I alone?"

This is what Dorothee Solle means by the "great X at the heart of the world". We want to know "Do I matter? Will I matter when I am dead?" Belief in God answers "Yes, you matter, and will matter after you die."

As for the validity of the new images of God, God may be divinely inspired, but God has always been subject to human interpretation, for both good and bad. Our modern interpretations are as valid as those of our ancestors. We need only remind ourselves that in the course of 2,000 years the image of Jesus was somehow transformed from a Palestinian Jew (which he was), to a blonde, Nordic man (which he wasn't). In Ireland I saw monastic art of redheaded Jesus. So it is no surprise that during the Race Relations Day pulpit exchange two years ago, I preached at a church in front of a large mural of a black Jesus. Humans have always changed the God, to express their lives, their needs, their culture, their society.

So how did we get from our grandparent's God to the images of God we know today? When Jesus died almost two thousand years ago, his followers were heavily influenced by Greek thought. The Romans might have physically conquered Palestine, but Greek philosophy ruled the intellectual/religious world, particularly the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Both Plato and Aristotle emphasized dualism, the separation elements; of light and dark, good and bad, heaven and earth, mind and body. Separate, not joined in a whole. Separate.

Does this sound familiar? It should, because this Greek philosophy is the backbone traditional Christianity. This is the reason orthodox Christians know God as separate from humans; good, powerful, in the heavens, of the spirit. And then on the other hand humans (who we are told are created in the image of God) are bad, powerless, on the earth, and subject to the "base" impulses of the body.

In her essay "The End of Theism", Dorothee Solle advocates for the end of this Greek Christian idea of God. She explains

And this is why some of us are so angry with God. We have seen in history, in our churches, in our families, that power can be more important to religion, than justice and love. The very reason I became an agnostic in my early adulthood was because I could not reconcile the mass suffering of the crusades to the Holy Land and the Salem witch trials with the faith of Christianity. How could a faith who says it believes in a loving God organize and support such mass suffering? I had to agree with the Russian writer Bakunin who said "If God did exist, we would have to abolish Him." If God created and supported these injustices, I had to abolish him. If God created and supported the religion that created these injustices, I had to abolish it as well. This God and this church betrayed us all.

Well, who is this God? This is the same Greek version of God, all-knowing, all-powerful, ever-present. This is the transcendent, judgmental God, the God with the long white beard and a robe, who lives in the heavens and sends down thunderbolts of displeasure. This is the God of authoritarian religion. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm characterizes authoritarian religion with three structural characteristics

1) A God who controls fate and does not permit free will

2) A God who is not accountable

3) The people are powerless and insignificant yet their obedience is demanded.

This was the God of my childhood. This was the God of my grandparents. I do not believe in this God anymore.

I told you I am a theist. I am more accurately speaking, but not entirely, a panentheist, not a pantheist (who believes that God is all and everywhere), but a panentheist (someone who believes that God is part of all yet still beyond what is known). In my image God is both transcendent (beyond us, never wholly known), and immanent (a divine spark within all living things). The Rev. Forrest Church, Minister of All Souls in New York City, refers to God as a presence that is "greater than all yet present in each". This is my image of God.

The words of writer Annie Lamott resonate with me, "Again and again I tell God I need help, and God says "Well, isn't that fabulous? Because I need help too. So you go get that old woman over there some water, and I'll figure out what we're going to do about your stuff." My God is deeply involved in relation, not always resolution or peace, but always, always experience and relation.

In his mystical, landmark book I and Thou, Jewish theologian Martin Buber explains relationship with God

How much more empowering is this image than the omnipotent God. How much more comforting than the unaccountable authoritarian God. "God needs you-for that which is the meaning of your life." You matter.

Martin Buber is a pivotal figure in twentieth century theology. I and Thou was published in Germany shortly after WWI, and predates the development of feminist theology. Like later feminist theologians, Buber emphasizes relationship with God, and knowing God through relationship. God comes much closer to us in the twentieth century.

The introduction of feminist theology in the 1960's and 1970's was a breakthrough. After two thousand years there was serious discussion about the gender of God. Could God be female, Goddess or She with a capital 'S'? Instead of Lord, other phrases came into usage "Creator", "Redeemer", "Sustainer". Could God not be personified at all, but rather pure energy? For some people this was a diluted, emasculated God, for others it meant they could return to church.

With the change in name, was a remarkable change in image. Our images of women are much more gentle and healing than those of men. If God is imagined as a woman, or if even a part of God is imagined as female, God becomes more caring, more immanent. And, conversely, women become more powerful. It is no coincidence that women were able to enter the ministry at the same time as the success of feminist theology. Religion is political too.

Musician Bobby McFerrin set a beautiful rendition of the 23rd Psalm to music and dedicated it to his mother. It contains almost all female imagery. It begins

The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all I need

She makes me lie down in green meadows

Beside the still waters, She will lead."

She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs,

She leads me in a path of good things,

And fills my heart with songs.

An extraordinary sacred piece of music, strengthened by female imagery.

Five years ago I worked as a hospital chaplain in a Clinical Pastoral Education program at Massachusetts General Hospital. My second week there I visited a woman being treated for cancer. She was about fifty, very interesting, kind, elegant, and a person of great faith in God. I remembered these things because I was new, nervous, young, awkward, developing my theology, and doubtful that I could help anyone at all. I'm not sure what happened in our first interview. I entered the room to pastor to her and couldn't do much of anything. Instead, she was patient and kind, and pastored to me. She gave me confidence and her faith gave me great comfort and inspiration. Meeting her was a turning point in my ministry.

Seven weeks later she was readmitted and I went to visit her. Her cancer was aggressive, she had surgery but it hadn't gone well. She was in extreme pain and she was dying. I was devastated by her transformation. She was sick and frail, alternately pale and flushed and very clammy. I felt helpless.

We talked for a while and she told me that the pain was so bad that she was losing her faith. Everything was slipping away from her, even the God she had trusted. She was losing hope. At the end of our visit I sang her Bobby McFerrin's version of the 23rd Psalm. As I sang her face calmed and she stopped shaking. When I finished she asked me to sing it again so that she could record it and listen to it when she needed it. She died soon after.

I can't tell you what it meant to me to give comfort to someone who had comforted me. She was the face of God to me the first day I walked into her room nervous and scared. And I became the voice of God to her in a time of pain and crisis. This is the I-Thou relationship of which Martin Buber speaks "You need God in order to be, and God needs you-for that which is the meaning of your life." This woman and I, we were channels of God to one another.

I could have read her the 23rd Psalm, but to hear it sung with female imagery, was what met her spiritual needs, what gave her comfort and hope. When I minister to people at their death I work with the faith that has sustained them throughout their lives, whatever that may be, so that they can die with dignity and integrity. Death is challenging, and so is pain. We need a variety of images that speak to our needs. If any image ushers someone out of this world with dignity and integrity, humanity has been well-served.

I have also seen new images of God impacted by and then impact on the environmental movement. Theologian Sallie McFague asks "What if we saw the earth as part of the body of God . . . as the visible reality of the invisible God? What if indeed, how much more sacred would we understand our earth to be. Earth as the body of God gives a whole new meaning to litter. It is only in the last few years that a 7th purpose was added to Unitarian Universalism "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part". This purpose clearly comes from the influence of modern theology and environmentalism.

A great turning point in modern theology is the essay God is Black, by James H. Cone. Written in 1970, it was Cone's attempt to reconcile Christianity with justice and his experience as a black man. God is Black boldly champions justice and love over power. Unlike so many other Christian essays that portray suffering as an abstract notion, located somewhere far away, unimportant to issues of faith, unnecessary to the rest of us, Cone insists that human suffering takes center stage on all issues of God and faith. Cone proclaims

He goes further

Cone refuses to accept that power is more important than justice and love. In his introduction written twenty years later he explains

Sometimes I think that the most famous theologians, men like Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, almost killed God and Christianity. In the Aquinas age of classical theology, theology became a logical proof test, divorced from human experience and need. I can barely read it.

Who cares about the essence of the Holy Ghost and the proper formulation of the Trinity when people are subject to what should be known as ungodly and inhumane? The real importance of Cone's essay is that uses his formidable intellect and all the powers of his education in classical theology, and then he demands our attention on human suffering. Cone insists that God remain in our daily lives, particularly in our greatest humiliation and pain. The day I read "God is Black" I knew I could trust God again. Cone's God is one of true love and justice.

Perhaps no event has so upset twentieth century theology as the Holocaust. Although genocide had happened earlier in the century, this event, so obvious in its religious persecution and murder, has forced the issue of theodicy, the justification of God in the face of evil. In the reading from this morning Cone mentioned Richard Rubenstein who determined that after Auschwitz God must be dead. Camus said if God is all powerful and permits suffering, God is a murderer. Both Rubenstein and Camus are in dialogue with our older images of God, God the all powerful who is not accountable and must be obeyed. I myself felt that in order to believe in God I had to morally resolve the issue of suffering. I read with great interest Cone's finally analysis which recognizes both God's power and human suffering. Cone explains,

"God's omnipotence is the power to let blacks stand out from whiteness and to be."

As much as I admire Cone, this explanation is not enough for me. That's all this great God is going to give? The power to stand out from whiteness and oppression? This is not enough justice.

In seminary I took a whole class on theodicy. The speaker who swayed me the most was a Jewish man who came to speak about the Holocaust. He used the story from (I believe it's Elie Weisel) that a group of concentration camp prisoners were forced outside to watch the hanging of one of their friends. As they stood helpless in the cold one man whispered "Where is God". A man behind him replied "He is up there with him on the rope." Our speaker finished by saying, "God suffers with us."

My God is not all-powerful. I know this is not enough for some people. Some people can only believe in an all-powerful God. Others don't believe God can be so human as to suffer. But I can only believe in a God who witnesses and hurts with me during my greatest pain, otherwise there is no justice and not enough love. Annie Lamott writes "God isn't there to take away our suffering or our pain but to fill it with his or her presence"

I wish God had the power to make all of us act and live for good. But I just don't believe it because our world includes both good and evil, suffering and joy. My image of God is accountable, and an all-powerful, accountable God would not let more blacks in America sit on death row than whites. An all-powerful, accountable God would not let the world stand aside in this decade while Rwanda, Congo, Uganda, and Burundi create a genocide comparable to the Holocaust. God is powerful, but not all-powerful. As I see it, the only murderers are humans, you and I. The choices for good and evil, suffering and salvation, are in our hands, in this lifetime, in this world. God calls us to goodness, but God can not keep us from evil. Only we have the power to choose.

After the service there will be a post-service discussion at 11:45 for anyone who wants to share their image of God. My word is not the last word. It is but one word. If you have any thoughts or feelings, I encourage you to stay.

Some people don't need God, and for others God is the power of life, the origin and goal of all things. We will do many things in our lives. Most of us will work, some of us will choose a partner, some will make a family. But all of us will need to ask and answer "Do I have a relationship to the universe that is significant beyond my own existence?" "Do I matter?" For many of us, the answer to the X, the mysterious connection of life is God.

In a variety of images and languages [humans] attempt to speak of the original power of life, of the origin and goal of all things. The religions are concerned with this great X at the heart of the world that has many different names, bears many different faces and is named in a great variety of languages. They all really say nothing but 'Without this X you are not complete, you are only half there, you lack any connection with the mystery of life. Without this X there is no blessing in what you do, you find no peace, gain no certainty. Without X you are a replaceable cog in the mega-machine' . . . The religions respond to this negative experience and say, 'God needs you.'

It is difficult to talk about divine providence when men and women are dying and children are being tortured. Richard Rubenstein pointed out the danger of this concept in his excellent book After Auschwitz. Whether or not we agree with his conclusions about the death of God, we can appreciate his analysis, based as it is on his identificiaton with an oppressed people. Like black theology, Rubenstein refuses to affirm any view of God which contributed to the oppression of the Jewish people . . . Rubenstein was not the first to recognize the difficulty of reconciling human suffering and divine participation in history . . . the writer Job recognized this problem . . . Albert Camus and the existentialists have dealt with it also. In the thinking of Camus, If God is omnipotent (all powerful) and permits human suffering, then God is a murderer . . . Traditional Christian theology somehow fails to take this problem seriously . . . black theology cannot accept any view of God that even indirectly places divine approval on human suffering . . . God cannot be the God of blacks and will their suffering.

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