Knowledge and Belief
Order of Service - Script
for Sunday:
November 20, 2022
Knowledge and Belief
What we know and what we believe are two different realities. We can be truly thankful for both, and for the ability to distinguish between them.
NIUU, Jeanie Donaldson, Pastor Fred
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Prelude - Jeanie Donaldson
Welcome and Announcements:
Sanctuary of the Soul
To those of you who are visitors here for the first time, thank you again for being with us.
If you are lonely, here you will find a warm companionship.
Here, in this sanctuary of hope, you can find a new seat at the table of life, and feast yourself on love and fellowship, and you will not hunger for the touch of a human hand or an embrace of your searching spirit.
If you are afraid or if you have been abused, if you ache with fatigue, here, you will find rest. You will be comforted, your spiritual wounds will be dressed and your courage will be returned to you. You will be led beside the still waters, and your soul will be restored.
If you seek to understand, here you will be encouraged in your search. Wonderful pathways will be lit unto you, and wherever your journeys take you, you will know that you can always come home again to this place, made sacred by our love for you.
This is a sanctuary of the soul. There are no boundaries in this cathedral of hope.
The collective wisdom of all humankind and our painful but glorious history are open to you here. Your heart and your mind need never struggle with one another in a Unitarian Universalist congregation. We have no fear of science; we have no fear of knowledge here.
If someday you decide to join us, you may feel what I have felt, in the words of author Dorothy Leigh Sayers:*
"All my life I have been wandering in the dark—but now I have found your heart(s)—and am satisfied."
"And what do all the great words come to in the end, but that?—I love you—I am at rest with you—I have come home."
Come into this circle of love and compassion,
Come into this community where we can dream and
Believe in those dreams—
Welcome to North Idaho Unitarian Universalists where we accept, we support, we transform: Ourselves, Our Community. Our world.
Lighting the Chalice:
If You Have Knowledge
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it."
Opening Words:
Water! Earth! Air! Fire!
By Peter S. Raible
Water! Earth! Air! Fire!
Water: nurturer of life, sustainer of growth, basic to every living thing;
Earth: where every seedling takes root; the ground of our being, our home and point of outlook;
Air: in every breath we acknowledge the atmosphere wherein we live; the elixir of our existence;
Fire: thwarter of cold, light against the darkness, symbol of the burning human spirit.
Water! Earth! Air! Fire!
These signify the larger unity of all life and the glory of creation wherein our spirits are embraced.
Hymn #68: Come, Ye Thankful People
1 - Come, ye thankful people, come, raise a song of harvest home:
Fruit and crops are gathered in, safe before the storms begin;
God, our Maker, will provide for our needs to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise a song of harvest home.
2 - All the world is but a field, given for a fruitful yield;
Wheat and tares together sown, here for joy or sorrow grown:
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
God of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.
Covenant:
Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law
This is our great covenant:
To dwell together in peace,
To seek truth in love,
And to help one another.
Greeting each other (Those present in person can leave our seats for this, if we wish.)
Joys and Concerns (with lighting of candles of caring)
Story:
A False Story of Discovery
By Myke Johnson
Every October and November in the United States, we find ourselves in a season of false and misleading stories about European settlers and Native Americans. First there’s the story that Columbus discovered America in 1492. Then there’s the story about the Pilgrims and the Indians at the first Thanksgiving. It is astonishing, after all the work done by Native activists and their allies, that these stories keep returning unchanged year after year. Perhaps many people are willing to acknowledge, if pressed, that when Columbus supposedly “discovered” America, it was already full of people. But that “discovery” has a more sinister history that’s not often talked about.
Prior to 1492, European church leaders and monarchs had collaborated in a stunning series of proclamations, which became known as the Doctrine of Discovery. In 1452, a papal bull declared that the king of Portugal had the right to conquer any Muslim and pagan peoples and enslave them. A few years later, a second letter declared that all the Christian kings of Europe had the right to take the lands and possessions of any non-Christian people, and keep them in perpetuity. If the pagan inhabitants could be converted to the Christian faith they might be spared, but otherwise they could be enslaved or killed. The Doctrine of Discovery was also later claimed by England in 1496, authorizing English explorers to seize any lands not already discovered by other Christian nations.
The Doctrine of Discovery became the legal basis for the “discoveries” of Columbus and others, and for the resulting attempts to conquer and colonize the western hemisphere, unleashing genocide on its peoples. It was also the legal basis for the slave trade. Its influence did not remain in that distant past — it’s still a source of oppression to this day. It became the basis of U.S. Indian Law, beginning in 1823, when Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that “Christian people” who had “discovered” the lands of “heathens” had assumed the right of “dominion,” and thus had “diminished” the Indians’ rights to complete sovereignty as independent nations. He claimed Indians had merely a right of occupancy in their lands. This decision has never been overturned, and is still cited on a regular basis in Federal court.
Responding to the requests of Indigenous peoples, several religious denominations have passed resolutions to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery — including Unitarian Universalists, in 2012. These resolutions are a first step toward reckoning with this history of stolen lands and stolen children.
(This reading is excerpted from Rev. Myke Johnson's essay, "Stolen Lands, Stolen Children," published in her book Finding Our Way Home .)
Meditation:
All That We Do Not Know
Day by day, month by month, year by year we are confronted with all that we do not know, that we do not understand, that we do not grasp.
Sometimes we are humbled by this knowledge and say: God, it is too wonderful for me to comprehend but I know this universe is more grand and more beautiful than I ever could have imagined and I give thanks for the blessing of being here and seeing, hearing, experiencing, and sensing all that is so wonderful around and in me.
Sometimes we are saddened by this knowledge and say: O merciful spirit, we need to have the burden of hurt and suffering removed from us. Grant us the courage, the wisdom and fortitude to bear the pain of living. Send us those who will carry our burdens for a short while and send us those who will comfort us with their healing words and thoughts.
Sometimes we are angered by this knowledge and say: In the name of justice and compassion—if it be in our power—give us the strength and ability to right the wrongs, for we do not nor does any person in the world deserve this.
Sometimes we are made joyous by this knowledge and we say: Spirit of life who blesses our world, we rejoice and cheer for our glorious life.
Sermon:
Among our nearest neighboring churches is Anthem Church that meets at Lakes Middle School, 915 N. 15th Street.
Their church office is also nearby, at 623 E. Wallace Avenue.
Anthem Church is Quaker, also known as the Society of Friends.
The Society of Friends has an interesting approach to the concept of religious ideas and doctrines.
They call them “notions.”
I have long admired that concept.
For everyone who knows me well, that will be no surprise at all.
After all, I’ve mentioned this concept of notions before. (smile)
We all have experiences that we could label transcendent.
We all seem to get into trouble when we begin to describe those experiences, especially if we begin to think or speak of our own experience as normative.
One of the great American theologians was Charles Schulz, author of the Peanuts comics.
The best expression of his theology (imho) was Snoopy.
One time Snoopy was portrayed as typing as while he wrote.
He was asked, “What are you writing?”
“A book on theology,” he answered.
“Have you thought of a title?” he was asked.
“I have the perfect title,” he answered:
“Has it ever occurred to you that you may be wrong?”
The statement is helpful, not only when we think of theology and religion, but also any time we consider our own ability to admit that we could be wrong in our opinions.
Knowledge and belief are both important in our lives, and it’s even more important for us to distinguish between them.
We can be grateful for what we know.
We can be grateful for what we believe.
Even more, we can be grateful for the ability to tell those two aspects of our thinking apart.
Maybe the most important attitude toward our knowledge and beliefs is, as Snoopy wisely pointed out, is to have minds open enough to recognize the need to change what we think we know as well as the things we believe.
Gratitude for our own inner lives of thought, feeling, believing (or not) and understanding (or not) can be a part of the celebrations of thankfulness we will share this season.
We especially need the ability to distinguish between truth and illusion these days.
That’s why I’m emphasizing the distinction between knowing (knowledge) and believing (belief) in this sermon.
There are many ideas floating around in our society today.
Some of them are based on verifiable truth.
Some are based on deliberate falsehoods.
Probably many more are based on confusion about aspects of our lives.
Sometimes the confusion has been deliberately caused by others, sometimes by ourselves.
In either case it can be done for fun or profit.
A case in point is the Russian oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
We know some things.
For example, Prigozhin (Putin’s chef by nickname) wrote that Russia is meddling, has meddled, and will meddle again in U.S. elections.
What we believe about the things he is saying is another matter.
After all, his claim of Russian meddling is itself yet another attempt to meddle!
How much and what kind of meddling has happened (is happening, and will happen) is the open question, and people believe different things according to our own preconceived notions. (There’s that wonderful word, “notion,” again!)
In so many situations in our lives, not only in this critical international relationship, it’s important to know the difference between the things we know are true and the things we believe are true.
For us as UU’s there are only a few things that we truly know are true, and we are deeply aware of this reality.
We know that we are together in this world.
Exactly what this world means and where it is headed are matters that sometimes we have a clue about and sometimes we have no clue.
We can give thanks for the mysteries we have to work on, whether we have any clues about them or not.
Giving thanks for such challenges can make them seem more bearable.
Hence the importance of our harvest festival, our national day of Thanksgiving this week, turning our focus on what we have and what we know instead of concentrating too much attention or anxiety on what we lack and what we do not know.
Our UU faith can fit beautifully into the Thanksgiving holiday.
All that we are able to share together we can also affirm without claiming or proclaiming any universal transcendent meaning for any of it.
Our faith focuses on the things for which we can provide evidence, even in the world of Spirit, Breath.
As UU’s we often pride ourselves that ours is a fact based faith.
Sometimes the pride is justified; sometimes not so much.
The key difference is generally a matter of evidence.
Beyond the evidence there are many beliefs, but very little knowledge.
That’s why my thoughts keep coming back to a statement (which I’ve cited before) from my good friend, UU minister Marlene Walker, “The opposite of faith is belief.”
When our believing is frozen into belief, it can become more of a problem than a help to us.
Knowledge is not the opposite of belief, but we can easily confuse the things we believe with the things we know.
That’s where many religions get into trouble, claiming their own doctrines, their own notions, as though those were known truths.
Confusing knowledge with belief has been the source of many wars and rumors of wars.
If only we can focus on the evidence for the things we believe as distinct from the things we actually know.
An example of the importance of evidence has been seen in the last week in the war in Ukraine.
A Russian made missile struck inside Poland near the border with Ukraine, and two Polish citizens were killed.
NATO leaders claim there is evidence that it was fired by Ukrainian forces as a part of anti-aircraft action.
Volodimir Zelensky, President of Ukraine, claims that it could not have been fired by Ukrainian forces.
There are conflicting interests among the allies, and those have been prevailing in the absence of sufficient available evidence.
We don’t know what happened, and so people’s beliefs are colored by their interests.
NATO leaders do not want and cannot afford expansion of the war into their territory.
Many Ukrainians want the support for their war effort that would come with such an expansion.
As a result, we may never know what really happened, but the contradictory beliefs may serve everyone in preventing more serious danger for everyone.
It’s no wonder that the Quakers have long tried to sustain pacifism as part of their faith, since they recognize beliefs as notions.
We can take to heart our own UU faith, with its principles and its lack of doctrines as a gift for which we are thankful.
We have ideas that provide a peaceful heart and a hope filled life, even in troubled times like ours.
Amen
So let it be
Blessed be
Congregational Response
Offering Information
Charity of the Month:
Local Food Banks
Local food banks offer weekly assistance with perishable items. Depending on availability, households may receive bread, deli items, salads, dairy products, pastries, and fresh produce to help stretch food resources on a regular basis.
Please write the name of the food bank to which you wish to donate on your check written to NIUU.
Donations To our Charity of the Month, NIUU pledges and regular church offerings can be mailed to NIUU at:
North Idaho Unitarian Universalists
PO Box 221
Coeur d'Alene, ID 83816
Extinguishing the Chalice :
Growing out of Our Comfort
We extinguish this chalice today but we are illuminated by a faith that allows us to sit and think. In this quiet time, we can reflect in solitude, meditating on Love, and growing out of our comfort. Though we experience discomfort, we are excited to give birth to a new, just world.
Closing words:
Cherish Your Doubts
Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the servant of truth.
Question your convictions, for beliefs too tightly held strangle the mind and its natural wisdom.
Suspect all certitudes, for the world whirls on—nothing abides.
Yet in our inner rooms full of doubt, inquiry and suspicion, let a corner be reserved for trust.
For without trust there is no space for communities to gather or for friendships to be forged.Indeed, this is the small corner where we connect—and reconnect—with each other.
Closing Circle
posted by pastorfred at 5:35 PM
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