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Let me put it yet more plainly. The God this age is losing is a God
it never really had. Let me put it plainer still. Most of those who
think themselves religious are really atheists. They do not yield
themselves to God as a reality; they do not affirm life as it comes
to them, as it makes demands upon them. They merely console their
hearts with a comforting notion. They think they believe in God. But
what they truly believe in is their own prosperity, deified; their
own happiness, their own advantage. Yes, and the due reward of their
own virtue. This is completely proved by the fact that as soon as
their prosperity is shrunk, as soon as their happiness is
diminished, as soon as their own advantage is imperiled, as soon as
someone says that virtue is its own reward, they feel that God is
doing them an injustice. They did not want a God; they wanted a
celestial henchman. They wanted a supernatural servitor to do their
bidding. They wanted a mother-image, a father-image, to come to life
within their childish needs, and by indulging them in every way, to
keep them forever childish.
As every good psychologist knows, this kind of God-idea is formed on
childhood conditioning. That is why so many people ask for a
childish religion, or, if they cannot get it, want no religion at
all. It is partly why this age contains so few really mature people;
spiritual adults. Instead, it is full of bright , sophisticated
children. Children of twenty and thirty and forty; even of seventy
and eighty. They don't want to grow up; they want God to grow down.
They don't want soul; they want guardian angels--nursemaids with
wings. And so, when the nursemaid is suddenly not there any more,
and they cannot put their heads beneath the bedclothes and imagine
that she isn't very far away; when they find out that there isn't
any nursemaid--they say that god has let me down. Or that religion
has nothing to give....Or that there is no God. Yes, they say there
is no God. But what they mean is that there is no celestial
henchman, no servitor, no nursemaid. That is why I say they are
atheists--really. No one can believe in God who is afraid of pain.
Or loneliness. Or the demand that conscience be followed no matter
what the cost. Just as the birth of the body comes through travail,
so does the birth of the soul.
And I will add this--the other side of the paradox--that many who
call themselves atheists trust themselves to God with their whole
lives. it is not a matter of what people say about themselves: it is
a matter of what they do with themselves. Jesus put is very clearly:
"Many shall say to me, Lord, Lord," he said. But his reply would be,
"I never knew you." And this he also said: "By their fruits ye shall
know them."
For God is what the soul affirms when life is accepted--all of it;
the pain of it; the complications; the tortured hour of decision;
yes, and the tragedy and greatness of a time like this. When the
soul says, I will live in this time, live in it and for it and
beyond it; live out its truth at any cost, live for its justice
waiting to be done, live for its beauty trampled underfoot; live for
its tenderness, its compassion, its love, which multitudes are
doubting and other multitudes have cast away; when the soul says, I
accept the life that is given me, the joy of it and the pain of it;
I accept it and affirm it, and I will do what is given me to do;
that is belief in God.
It is not necessary to know in advance the entire outcome. It is
only necessary to be able to say with Abraham Lincoln, "The Almighty
has his own purposes." And to pray: O God of whom I know so little,
I will speak this truth that I know is truth. I will stand for this
justice that I know is just. I will love this beauty that as yet is
only a dream. I will do today what is given me to do, whether the
world applauds or derides it; and tomorrow I will do what tomorrow
requires. Here am I, send me.
It is only necessary to be able to say; I cannot foretell the
future; I do not know by what means faith communicates itself. Any
more than the dedicated have ever known it; even Jesus on the cross.
But it does. Everything within me tells me that nothing freely given
was ever wasted. I am not God; I am a man. But what a man has to
give I give....That is all that is necessary.
Then we can say with the psalmist--after he had lost the shallowness
of his earlier religion; after he had affirmed the inward truth of
his own conscience, the inner reality of his own soul--"Judge me, O
God, and plead my cause....For thou art the God of my strength....O
send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me."
So that when someone asks, "Where, now, is thy God?" So that when
someone asks, "Where, now, is thy God?" So that when someone asks,
"Where, now, is thy God?" we can answer, God is where he always was:
in the struggle. Not on some altar, awaiting the incense that the
shallow-hearted bring; but in the struggle! In the pain in our
hearts, in the slowly growing clearness of our minds! In the
sharpening edge of conscience! In the welling up of courage! In the
purpose that we cannot forsake and never shall. In all that was
lovely once and worthy of devotion, that lives through the hour of
present eclipse to shine more brightly in a future sky....If you
want to know where God is, follow the path that faces you with
challenge, and where your feet shall tread, the very earth will be
warm from his footfall.
Prayer: O God, with many words we say so little. Give us to speak
sometimes heart to heart. Amen.
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