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GOD OF MANY NAMES
Rev. John T. Crestwell, Jr.
January 28, 2006

Some say around 1700 BCE (Before the Common Era), nearly 4000 years ago, in what is now modern day Iran, there was an ancient religion called Zoroastrianism.  It was named for the prophet Zoroaster who was said to have been a wandering hermit for years before a message came to him that he was to be a reformer of the various religions of his region.  There were many religions and all of them were polytheistic—people worshipped many gods.  Zoroaster’s vision told him that his god Ahura-Mazda (I’m not talking about a car)…  Ahura-Mazda (Lord of Wisdom) was the supreme god of the cosmos.   There were other minor deities but Zoroaster’s god told him he was above them all.  Through a series of rhetorical questions, Ahura-Mazda asked Zoroaster, "Who established the course of the sun and stars? ...  Who feeds and waters the plants? ...  What builder created light and darkness?  How do dawn, noon and night exist?" (Yasna 44,4-6).

Zoroaster would later struggle with a god of light and darkness and so he split them into two.  Ahura-Mazda transformed into the supreme god of light and Ahriman (who later becomes the Devil in Judaism and Christianity) is the god of darkness.  The message from his god explained that there was a tension at the heart of the universe between good and evil—truth and lies.  Ahura-Mazda gave Zoroaster many teachings to share as well as power to heal and perform miracles.  Those closet to him, disbelieved his story but those in neighboring towns believed and were converted to what would become Zoroastrianism.   And through many wars with other tribes, many would be converted.  Zoroaster would die sometime later but his faith would grow, at its peak, to over 2-million in Iran and other places…

Sometime later, it is said that around 1500BCE, a Semitic man named Abraham heard a voice and it said: "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis 12:1-3, NIV). 

Abraham at a ripe old age died but the promise of his god did not go unfulfilled; it went to his son Isaac who passed the promise on to his son Jacob who passed it on to Joseph who was related to Moses, a Hebrew who was raised as an Egyptian prince. We all know that story…  But Moses like Zoroaster and Abraham, he too heard a voice.   As he fled, confused and disheveled for killing an Egyptian, he found his call when a voice spoke to him and said: “I have observed the misery of MY people who are in Egypt...and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and up to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”   Moses would later declare to his people, “Yahweh is OUR god, Yahweh alone!”

The promise made to Abraham down to Moses would be realized through Joshua.  Now Joshua’s god had a message that was straightforward— “…utterly destroy the Canaanites, inhabit their land, which is your promised land.  This is the land of milk and honey.” And, in several passages it i explicit, they must obey Yahweh’s laws and if they do, their enemies will “fall before the sword” (LE 26: 7-8).  And as the story goes their enemies do indeed fall before the sword.  The promise of Abraham’s god is fulfilled in the days of Joshua.

Joshua’s name means “savior” and many Christians argue that Jesus, whose name also means “savior” is the New Testament’s version of Joshua, who will usher in the new heavens and new earth—some Christians soon…

Fast forward to about 610 CE (Common Era) and meet a 40 year old man wondering what the purpose of life is…  He’s Saudi Arabian.  Sometime in his fortieth year, he began to have revelations…  They became so vivid that he had out of body experiences.  In one particular instance, in what is known as the Night Journey, he felt an Angel, he later named Gabriel, came to him and took him from his home in Mecca to the holy city of Jerusalem, and then from their to the actual throne of his god.  There the message was given to him that his god Allah was not a tribal deity with three fertility goddesses as had been the case for hundreds of years... Oh no…  His god was the god of all the worlds--the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the god of Jesus.  And the message came to him: “Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One…  And you, Muhammad, are my messenger.”    And Muhammad is told to submit—to surrender his all to Allah and no other god.                    

Now, in this time there were pilgrimages to Mecca where a meteorite had fallen many years ago, modern day scientists have proven this…  But in that time, many traveled to see this wonder, this rock from the sky.  They didn’t know what it was.  They thought it was a message from the gods.  This site over the years would become sacred and many religious cults would make, as I said, pilgrimages to see the mysterious rock.  Eventually many locals figured ways to profit from this spectacle.  Business began to grow around this event and this outraged Muhammad.  For him Mecca was holy ground!   Allah confirmed this in one of the revelations to Muhammad, telling him to destroy all of the false gods in Mecca and to purify the land.  It would take Muhammad some time.  He would begin by successfully raiding the caravans coming in and out of Mecca.  Many would come to fear his soldiers.  This incited the locals to want to fight it out.  By 624 CE they got their inevitable battle—Meccan citizens versus Muslim soldiers.   Lives were lost in this battle but Muhammad prevailed.  Those who chose to worship Allah as the one God, could stay in Mecca, but the city was cleansed of its false gods.  A box or cube called the Kabah was placed around the meteorite to protect it many years later…  

Islam would continue its push long after Muhammad died.  It spread into the West but ran into a bulwark in Christianity that had been around for 600+ years already.  And so, Islam headed east and south into Africa where its message of surrender found success.  It flourishes as a religion with nearly 2-billion converts today.   

I shared with you three stories—Zoroaster, the ancient Israelites, and Muhammad.  What are you thinking right now?  You have to be wondering why I told all theses stories.  Or maybe you wonder which story is authentic.  Which god is real?  Whose vision was a true revelation from a divine being?   Or, perhaps you are thinking all of the players in these stories have lost their mind!  Or you are wondering how you ever believed in these ancient tales now that you have more information?

I want to tell you what I’m thinking morning…  I am wondering why we continue to promulgate these myths in our culture when they do not edify the human condition.  As I see it, each of the players in the stories had vague understandings of reality.  They believed their god was right and their experience was the ultimate divine revelation.  This is a narrow worldview but we have to understand these stories in their proper context of time, place and culture.  These stories come from the oral tradition, an age when, for years, folk told grand tales to make a point—to pass on their culture’s traditions…  You know, I just don’t think it is possible to keep a 4,000 or 2000 or 1000 or 100 year-old-story totally accurate without a bit of hyperbole.  I could tell a story in this church right now and by the time it went through about 100 folk it would sound so different I might not recognize it!   So I know if my story goes through millions of people it will be vastly altered!

But even so, our world has inherited its way of being, our religious psychology from all of these myths… The stories of Zoroaster and his teachings have impacted Judaism and Christianity and Islam.  The stories in the Hebrew Bible have had vast and immeasurable influence on Western civilization; and Islam impacted science greatly in the West and it’s religious influence in the East is unmatched; so all of these stories are tied to the very essence—to the functioning processes of our civilization.  And that is the part that scares me!

We are caught in a matrix that Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith says may very well destroy us!  Harris believes our stories could bring us to the brink of nuclear war and the potential end of the human race…  When you look at them—they have exclusive language like “OUR GOD”, “THE CHOSEN OF GOD”, or “GOD’S ENEMIES!”  Listen to these words from the Quran 4:74-78:

“Let those who would exchange the life of this world for the hereafter, fight for the cause of God; whoever fights for the cause of God, whether he dies or triumphs, we shall richly reward him…  The true believers fight for the cause of God, but the infidels fight for the devil.  Fight then against the friends of Satan…  Say: ‘Trifling are the pleasures of this life.  The hereafter is better for those who would keep from evil…’”.

Many believe this literally.  They would stake their life on its authenticity.  But Harris feels the solution is “The end of faith”—the creation of a secular society; a humanistic world.    But as I said, it’s not that simple when the stories are so tied to our religious, social and political lives.  How then do we get to the point where our enlightenment doesn’t lead to another’s Dark Age?  That’s the billion-dollar question today!   Dr. King said it well, “We have a choice today between non-violence and non-existence.”   (repeat).  We are at a crossroad today.

Have you ever driven in your car and counted the number of churches on your way to Davies?  Try it on your way home.  As you go by, do you ever wonder how there are so many differing faiths, each having an exclusive claim about something.  It’s enough to make you cynical!   The lesson for us is we must be cognizant—raise our level of consciousness to the ever evolving name of God.  I call, what some call God, IT; the Tao (the way), or the Creative Sustaining Force.  I keep the name as neutral as I can, as I am, more and more, a Deist with Agnostic and Taoist tendencies…  But Zoroaster called his god Ahura Mazda, The Israelites called it Yahweh, Muslims call it Allah, Hindus call it Divine Reality; Native Americans call it The Great Spirit; Emerson called it the Over Soul; Atheists call it Life and Agnostics, many of us here, just don’t say anything…

There are many names spoken and unspoken that help us describe those epiphanies we experience —all those sacred and not-so-sacred moments when we realize the miracle and mystery of existence.  

But somehow we’ve got to see the individual nature of it all.  Belief is individualistic and that is why we have a principle to remind us that each has “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”  It is an individual search.   Over time, some may be seduced to believe our faith, Unitarian Universalism is the way, truth and life, but it is only OUR WAY, OUR TRUTH, and OUR LIFE.  We should share our belief with others but we have to know what we are doing is subjective and tribal.

I don’t want to spoil anyone’s day but for me, the God of many names is the god we build in our own image.  There is one universe—one cosmos (how majestic it is!), but there are many gods on earth.  Did you hear what I just said? (Repeat)… And we each have our own version of IT. Our god’s powers come from our creative personalities; their words from our vocabulary; their commandments from our idea of what life should be.  Sometimes our gods mesh real well with other peoples often times not.  Either way these gods are as alive as they were with Zoroaster.   They are active in our midst—active in our sphere of influence.  Our sheer belief in our god gives us power because we are all connected to the stars—to that divine substance in the universe.  And there is power in belief!  But even with all of that said, there has to be somecorporate good that comes from this private opium.   The good comes, I think, when our god speaks to us and calls us to the higher aims of serving humanity.  For me, that means feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and to be a peacemaker and to speak up for the rights of the marginalized and oppressed.  When our gods ask us to love more and care more, and forgive and bless instead of curse—this is when our gods do the most good for the human race. This is when people manifest their greatness.  If you want to keep the old stories, that’s fine with me.  But the poetry must not be mistaken as prose—the literal must turn metaphorical, and the stories must be modernized and our gods must call us to a higher humanity! 

If there is to be hope for our nation and world, that hope will be that we will introspectively look at our god and ask it to evolve from tribal to multicultural, from particular to universal, from homogeneous to heterogeneous.  And for me, that would be a god worth serving; that would be a god I could believe in; that would be a god worthy of praise!  But this will not happen until we make it happen in our minds, until we wake up and realize how much pain our narrow visions of God have caused the world!  As Sam Harris said, poignantly, as I close, “We are bound to one another.  We are the final judges of what is good, just as we remain the final judges of what is logical…  The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature—reason, honesty, and love.  The only demons we must fear are those that lurk inside every human mind—ignorance, hatred, greed, which is surely the devil’s masterpiece.”        Amen.

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