Today's Sermon, If You Can Call It That:
There are people who believe in God.
Some believe Muhammad is God's prophet.
Some believe Jesus is the son of God.
Others think he was just a prophet.
Others still say he was just a man.
And some believe none of it
no gods, no devils, just flesh and time.
And when that time runs out, so do we.
Some of us never believed until we did.
Some of us believed until we couldn’t anymore.
There are people who think religion is a toxin,
and others who think, without it, we’d all be lost.
So let me share a little secret with you.
Every one of those people is wrong.
And
Every one of them is right.
There are no absolutes, not even in God
whatever name you use.
There are always exceptions,
always corners we can’t see,
always mysteries that build or break our faith.
Me? I believe we are all gods.
Maybe not omnipotent, but gods nonetheless.
And yeah, I’m probably wrong.
But let me ask you:
Does it hurt you that I think I’m a god?
That you might be one too?
Does it harm your world that Mrs. Smith
says her rosary every day
and holds Mary in divine reverence?
That Tom, the guy with grease under his nails,
thinks God is just a bedtime story?
Does your life unravel
if your neighbor prays five times a day on a mat?
Or if he prays to a porcelain god after six beers on a Friday?
I’ll tell you what does matter.
Tom saw his neighbor carrying groceries in the rain
and offered a ride, didn’t care who he prayed to.
Mrs. Smith gave five bucks to the man on the offramp
and skipped lunch to do it.
And that neighbor with the prayer mat?
He paid off someone’s Christmas layaway
and never said a word about it
and he doesn’t even celebrate Christmas.
I don’t care who you pray to.
I don’t care if you pray.
Whether your god is Yahweh,
a bowl of righteous noodles,
an alien sky-father,
or no one at all
I won’t judge you for that.
But I will judge you.
I’ll judge you by your works.
By whether you hold the door for someone
even if you’re in a hurry.
By whether you give a dime to someone
who clearly needs it more.
By whether you share a dumb joke
just to make someone laugh.
Your faith is not who you are.
What you do is who you are.
If you wave your Bible in the air
and scream that people need to pray more
while walking past someone who’s starving
your god doesn’t matter to me.
If you face the southeast to pray
but don’t share a smile with the child across from you on the bus
your god doesn’t matter to me.
And if you don’t believe in any god
but still let the door slam
in the face of the person behind you
your lack of faith doesn’t impress me.
We all have the power to shape the world,
even in small, quiet ways.
To make it warmer, kinder, better
or colder and meaner.
If you choose kindness,
if you choose others
you, my friend,
are a god to me.
Maybe just a little one.
But if you choose to make the world smaller,
sadder, crueler…
I never knew you.
Be kind to each other, my fellow gods.
Pray to whomever, or don’t.
But don’t let your faith, or your absence of it,
make someone else feel small.
You’re better than that.
And I?
I believe in you.