"That Good Old Summertime"
Or
"Gimme That Old Time Religion"
A Sermon by Rev. Charles Blustein Ortman
August 29, 2010
READINGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN
Our ancient reading this morning is from the first verses of
the first chapter of the book of Genesis:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface
of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
God saw that the light was good, and she separated the light from
the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness
she called "night." And there was evening, and there was
morning-the first day.
Our modern reading is from The Power of Myth, interviews of
Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers:
Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their
religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half
contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people
who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors
as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists
because they think religious metaphors are lies.
SERMON:
Pour me some lemonade
Or just pass that pitcher please.
Seems like lately I've been lost
In some cloudy memories.
The Mississippi River keeps on
Rolling through my mind.
Soft white clouds on clear blue skies,
I'm sure there was a time.
Was there a time?
I wonder if when God created the world, she had in mind idle summer
days, with soft clouds on blue skies and lazy rolling rivers. I
wonder if she anticipated a bunch of neighborhood kids, down in
the ravine, building a tree house out of old scraps of wood. I wonder
if she thought of newlyweds casually exploring their new psychic
and spiritual terrain, while sitting under the shade of a massive
oak, entwined in each others company , while wrapped in the salubrious
summer air: sweet and scented and still. If she did think of those
things, back when she was putting things together, I'm sure that
when she completed them, she must have thought, "Wow! This
is really good!"
I want to go back with you for a moment into that good old summertime.
Can you think back to an idyllic one of your own, when cares were
things you could pick up and put back down at will? When the weather
was warm and bright and gentle and it held you close like a warm
towel after a cool bath? When the best way to recognize the cumulous
formations of pirate ships and turtles and dinosaurs was to lie
flat on your back and watch them drift through your sky-bound panorama?
When the best smell you could imagine was the pine forest that you
just happened to be tromping through at that very moment? When the
best way to appreciate a river or a lake was to hold a stick in
your hands, one that was attached to a string that was attached
to a hook, which you did not really care, one way or the other,
if it would ever attached to a fish?
Maybe you've been having a summer like that this year. I'm guessing
for most of us though, summer memories like these are the products
of events from long ago. Maybe they happened way back in that good
old summertime. My further guess is that if we actually had an opportunity
to go back, if we could somehow objectively review those idyllic
summer experiences, they would probably look a lot like this very
summer that we are living now. There's a poem by an unknown poet
that I often use in memorial services. It suggests that time declares
the good and forgets the rest and in that way time proves immortality.
I'm guessing that for many of us, that good old summertime is some
kind of composite, incorporating myriad experiences that might be
drawn from quite a collection of memories over quite a number of
years. I'm also guessing that in real time those experiences were
sandwiched in with other experiences - like doing dishes, mowing
lawns, cleaning out basements or a host of other chores that weren't
quite as pleasant as our more idealistic summer memories. I suspect
those more favored memories were often interwoven with summer colds
or the measles, or maybe the death of a relative, or some of the
gazillion other true life events that just aren't nearly so romantic
as that good old summertime.
Do any of these other down-to-earth realities make our more halcyon
episodes any less real? I don't think so. I sure hope not. I need
the Mississippi River rolling through my mind. I need the soft white
clouds on clear blue skies. My spirit needs them. My soul needs
them.
I can face a lot of dry dog days and daunting disheartening experiences,
if I can hold on to images that are sustaining for me, even in their
very formation. Perhaps there was a certain innocence or naiveté
involved in their creation, but that not withstanding, the good
old summertime provides a metaphor for the good life, for just rewards
and for indulgences that are granted for no other reason than for
being in the right place at the right time.
I've been thinking about ideas of God a lot lately. Last week in
the Question Box sermon, someone asked if I believed that humankind
was really created in the image of God. My answer was that I feel
the opposite is true - God was created in the image of humankind.
I'm guessing there's a fair amount of agreement with that sentiment
in this room, but I think the question begs a larger question and
calls for a larger answer.
From the beginnings of time, our forebears have created gods that
have been adamant parental figures, vengeful and jealous monarchs,
loving and forgiving brethren and always they were creator of the
universe - omnipotent in power, indefatigable in strength, and the
answer to all unanswerable questions. Gods were created to answer
questions of cause, and origin, questions of ultimate destination.
Some societies have held fast to monotheistic ideas of the almighty.
Other cultures have spread out the divine workload over a polytheistic
pantheon of greater and lesser deities. I think ours is more of
the latter, the polytheistic approach. I suspect this has its basis
in the shattering of the atom, but it likely began even before that.
The greatest shattering of all - the big bang - purports to explain
our origins. The shattering of the atom itself, as in the Manhattan
Project, represents power beyond belief and even beyond accountability.
The dollar is the benefactor of all earthly gifts, comforts and
privilege. Whiteness is purity and the Goddess Nature is an all-loving
earth mother. The list goes on, but the point is that maybe we have
traded in our old time religious ideas of - I am the Lord they God
and thou shalt not have strange gods before me - maybe we've traded
that god in for a more recent model of several gods so strange we
don't even recognize them for the godliness we've attributed to
them, even though we do indeed lavish devotion upon them.
Gimme that old time religion.
Gimme that old time religion.
Gimme that old time religion.
It's good enough for me.
So I've been intrigued for some time not so much by persons I have
witnessed taking comfort and solace from a faith that's based in
that old time religion, but more by folks like you and me, folks
who have shared with me that they wish they could have a faith in
God similar to the faith that they witnessed in their parents' or
grandparents' lives. If only they could believe as their elders
had, they could better face the issues of their lives - the challenges
and the losses and the pain - with an unwavering faith in a greater
purpose within a cosmic scheme that would eventually bring one to
the possibility of the gates of Heaven.
I'm thinking that old time religion sounds a lot like that good
old summertime, soft white clouds included. Just as I don't think
anyone's life has ever been an ongoing, uninterrupted series of
good old summertime experiences, I don't believe I have ever met
a person of faith whose faith was so simple that it somehow managed
to help them avoid the trials, tribulations, pitfalls and pain that
are part and parcel of the human experience. If that old time religion
did anything for anyone, I suspect it was to give them a metaphor
of value, upon which and through which they were able to focus,
while they navigated the more perilous waters of their life's journey.
Occasionally, I must confess, I do hear people claim, in the midst
of considerable pain, that it is all a part of God's plan and so
it has to be left in God's hands. The truth of it is though, most
often when I hear such claims being made, it's not the ones who
are in pain who make them. It's someone else, someone who is giving
advice to the afflicted. Of course they are doing so in an effort
to bring comfort, no doubt. I think of the line by the late singer/songwriter
Steve Goodman, "It ain't hard to get along with somebody else's
troubles…" The truth is this being human is hard stuff,
no matter the focus - or the face - of your faith.
A good many of us here in this faith community are here because,
for one reason or another, we have been disavowed of the metaphors
of that old time religion. That doesn't mean that we don't have
the same spiritual and religious needs as those who do find comfort
there. It means that our experience and our thinking have rendered
those other metaphors impotent for us, instead of omnipotent. It
means that we need to find new symbols and metaphors that can help
us to achieve the kind of focus we will need to navigate the same
spiritual terrain as those for whom the other metaphors do still
work. That doesn't mean we need to come up with a whole new language,
though. Some of the old language is quite serviceable. Sometimes
we just need to give the old language new and relevant meaning for
our lives. It's not easy being a liberal religionist; the demands
are great.
Joseph Campbell once quipped to Bill Moyers, "If you can see
your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not
your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's
why it's your path."
We don't get to use metaphors that are not ours or that are no
longer ours. But that doesn't mean we don't need metaphors or that
we can't use them. We do need them and we must use them. We can
find them and must find them within our own experiences. Whether
they are experiences of that good old summertime, or whatever they
might be.
The metaphors need to speak to us of goodness, of being a part
of something larger than ourselves, of being connected, of being
cared for and about. As sure as suffering is a part of the human
experience, so, eventually, is death. In preparing for death we
need to find a way to talk about it. Metaphors are such a way.
We can face a lot of dry, dog days of summer and daunting disheartening
experiences, if we can hold on to the images that sustain us. Perhaps
there is a certain innocence or naiveté involved in their
creation. But that not withstanding, the good metaphor for the good
life can include just rewards and indulgences that are granted for
no other reason than for being in the right place at the right time.
And I suspect it's always the right place and the right time.
None of us have ever been in this moment before. We've never arrived
at any moment having been there before. And so we are left to pay
attention… to the moment… to ourselves… to those
in the moment with us… to our earth. And we need to somehow
connect each experience of the now, to the mysteries which we cannot
understand through words that point us in the direction of understanding.
And then we need to be kind… to ourselves and to one another.
We come together here in religious community, not so much to articulate
a vision of the cosmos that may or may not be acceptable to all
who are here. But we come to create a web work of connections, a
microcosm of our world, in which we engage in the intentional work
of growing our souls, so that we might be large enough, strong enough
to do the work of the world we are called to do. Our shared metaphor
here is one of community in which we work to accept all those who
are here and who may yet come to be here.
It seems that the summertime ought to provide time to contemplate
such thoughts. It ought to be a time in which we have the opportunity
to find, recognize, explore and express our metaphors - so that
they can provide us the words we might use in prayerful expression
of our heart's yearning and a vision for the articulation of our
aspirations. It ought to be a time in which we build faith in the
Spirit of Life in which we have our being. And it ought to be a
time for observing the drifting of clouds.
Winter will be here soon enough. (And I do want you to think of
winter as a metaphor, too!) Winter will be here soon enough and
we will need to rely on what we will have stored away during this
summer season of growing. And so my wish to you is… may the
dear Lord bless and keep you in that good old summertime.
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