Science and Religion: The Miracle of Life

a sermon by Reverend Lynn Thomas Strauss

Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, January 7, 2007

Chalice Lighting

from the Indigenous people of Norway, Sweden & Denmark

“Everything in nature is alive and sacred. Our life and our power flow through us from beyond the sun and stars, from beneath the rocks and waters, and from everything in between.

We are forever bound to these things. We need each other to survive and to grow. Our spirituality is not an organized religion. Instead it is a deep understanding of all our relations and a life that reflects our gratitude and honoring of these connections.” We light our chalice this morning in gratitude for all that is alive and sacred.

First Reading

Job Chapter 12:7-8

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.”

Second Reading

from Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

“Nothing is too wonderful to be true.”

It is January 7, 2007 and the temperature in the mid-Atlantic states is 67, 68, 69 degrees Fahrenheit. We are worried that the flowering trees will bloom too soon. We are worried that colds and flu will worsen without a cold snap to counter bugs and viruses. We are worried, finally, about the polar ice cap.

We are feeling strangely out of sync. We have just celebrated Christmas and New Years and we are going about without coats.

In approaching the subject of science and religion, I have found it impossible to ignore my immediate experience of and the scientific and spiritual implications of global warming.

In approaching the subject of science and religion, I have found it impossible to sit quietly at my computer.

There’s a Hasidic story of a prophetic rabbi know for his storytelling.

One morning on his way to the temple, the Baal Shem Tov saw that the air was so thick and foul that prayers could not ascend to heaven. In the synagogue he called his devoted disciples and commanded them to pray. Each one recited the holiest prayer he knew. The Rabbi rebuked them. “No. No! That is not enough. I said pray!” He called the most devout disciple and shouted, “Pray!”

He too recited the most powerful prayers, but the Rabbi did not relent until, humiliated and humbled, the man could not remember a single word of prayer. Ashamed, he began to weep until his heart burst. Then he began to sing words that had never before been heard. The Rabbi ran outside. The sky had cleared and the sun shone on the earth.

The man whispered, “Rabbi, why did you do that to me?” The Baal Shem Tov, he of the Holy Name, answered, “when the bond between heaven and earth is broken, known prayers will not mend it. Only words spoken from a broken heart can repair it.”

To speak of religion and science is to speak of the bond between heaven and earth…the bond between human beings and the animals and the sea and cosmos. And so we speak from a broken heart. And also from a resolve to repair that which we have broken.

Science and religion share the responsibility historically of severing that bond. For both posited a separation between the physical and the spiritual. Both feared what they could not understand and so focused on one manifestation only.

In science the “Cartesian split” of the scientific revolution, separated mind from body and spirit and hypothesized a clocklike, mechanical world. “I think, therefore, I am”. Science was focused on one kind of knowing.

In Western religion, spirit was separated from body…and the body deemed unholy and sinful. And Genesis was mis-understood to give man dominion over nature and the animals. Thus humanity was split off from, not only from heaven, by its base nature, but also from earth, by its self-imposed separation from other life. Religion was focused on one kind of Knowing.

And so earth-centered spirituality was lost for a time, and humanity suffered isolation from our mother, the Earth. And so, our hearts were broken. And ordinary prayers lost their power.

But we approach a moment of great hope. Our denial of environmental degradation, our wishful thinking about the dangers of global warming is coming to an end. Our children and grandchildren suspect what we have always known intuitively.

That we are dependent on nature. That we must heal the breech between heaven and earth. That we belong to the order of the stars and the creative forces of biology. I believe that science and religion are ready, at last, to work together to save the planet…to heal the broken places.

We have always known in our deepest ways of knowing that we carry within ourselves something that is waiting for the right moment to burst out and repair the particular separation that we are experiencing…nature is still alive in us, and that is why we feel we are in exile…and that is why we are coming to a place of hope.

We return again and again to the wisdom of earth centered, spirit-centered understandings. Both science and religion take us there…to the knowledge that we are part of the larger web of life. As Joy Harjo tells us…the animals, the sun, the moon, the water…all are our relatives. Not separate, merely different, different in necessary and significant ways.

Harjo has written a piece in the NPR collection "this I believe".

It is called “Talking with the sun.” She writes; I believe in the sun. In the tangle of human failures of fear, greed, and forgetfulness, the sun gives me clarity. When explorers first encountered my people, they called us heathens, sun worshippers. They didn’t understand that the sun is a relative and illuminates our path on this earth.”

We all live each day seeking a balance between body and spirit. Seeking to close the separation we feel from the life around us. We search for our place in the universe. Believing that we can be healed, if only we find the right therapy. Sometimes we follow the path of science, striving to understand the complex mysteries of biology and astronomy. Sometimes we follow the path of religion and spirituality, striving to meditation to hear the inner wisdom.

So I found it hard to sit at my computer. I hadn’t written a word of my sermon yet…but still, yesterday, early in the day, I went to my favorite wooded park. Trying to ignore the ugly new housing developments on my route, I noticed the clouds changing from gray to white, from dense to fluffy. I drove just a short way into the park, and just as I expected three young deer crossed my path.

Now I know we have too many deer in this area…but imagine how desperate they are to survive with housing developments encroaching on all sides. And notice how exciting it still is, to see wild animals. We thrill to see the occasional fox, the hawks, even the squirrels.

As soon as I opened my car door, I was serenaded with birdsong. Catbirds, bluebirds, and small songbirds I didn’t recognize.

The geese were noisy, of course, and they flew in ragged groups back and forth over the lake. I assumed they were confused by the warm weather.

I sat on a damp log with the sun on my face, and I enjoyed doing nothing for a moment. I tried to clear my mind. It felt good to be alone. A memory of well-being came flooding in. I used to spend a lot of time outdoors. I used to feel a part of the trees I climbed, of the waves I listened to, of the sun that browned my skin, of the wind that numbed my fingers.

I have found myself missing winter. Missing cold and snow. I am aware of the loss. I have reading books about ice and glaciers. I have been wanting to travel to Alaska or Denmark.

We human beings have nature encoded in our genes. Our ancestors survived in nature, not separated from it. We have a longing to be a part of the wild again. We know we belong with the animals and with the trees and with the rivers. Even though we know the dangers, even though we have lost some survival skills.

Nature is not kind or benign…that is part of our history too. That is part of the reason for both religion and science…to give meaning to the random destructiveness of nature…to make sense of pain and death. To find the order in the universe and use it for beneficial purposes of healing and wholeness for man and nature.

Science and religion have much in common:
Both are concerned with creation, the origins of life on earth
Both use a method of naming, counting, describing, categorizing
Both are concerned with change, selection, transformation, survival
Both understand the power of relationship, communities, interdependence.
Both hold hope in renewal, re-birth, cycles and seasons.

And both seek to understand our place, the human place in the universe. E.O. Wilson, writing in a new book, “The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth” suggests that religion provides the spiritual energy for the work of meaning and healing, and science provides the methods, the means.

Both science and religion are needed to inspire, to ask questions, to point to the wonder and awe that is life.

This morning, I offer a message of awakening. I ask you to be aware of your animal nature and to consider your animal relatives and your relatives of sun and water and earth… remember and act upon the longing to be outdoors under the stars…I ask you to acknowledge every day our interdependence with life.

Thomas Berry, cultural historian and scholar of world religions, writes of the connection between the natural world and the inner world of human consciousness.

He says, “the outer world is necessary for the inner world; they’re not two worlds but a single world with two aspects; the outer and the inner. If we don’t have certain outer experiences, we don’t have certain inner experiences, or at least we don’t have them in a profound way. We need the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers, and the mountains and the trees, the flowers, the birds, the fish in the sea, to evoke a world of mystery, to evoke the sacred. It gives us a sense of awe. This is a response to the cosmic liturgy. Humans become religious by joining the religion of the universe.

Apart from the symphony of the universe our souls shrivel and our imagination is dulled. Our sense of the divine reflects the world around us. The experience of the grandeur and beauty of the outer world is totally necessary. Berry goes on, the diversity of nature is crucial. Each living thing has a role in the universe, and its identity gives it value. Only if one thing is different from another can each give something to the other. If things were the same, nothing could pass between them through which each would gain in its presence to the other.

The whole universe together participates in and manifests the divine more than any single being. Each living thing brings something to the whole of life. Birds are the best at flying. Fish are the best at swimming. And the gift of human beings is to enable the universe to reflect upon itself…and to enjoy and celebrate life. This kind of reflection on the universe is an important responsibility…it is the way in which we reverence life and also express our gratitude – which will lead us to honor and preserve life to the best of our abilities.

So in the spirit of reflecting on life with gratitude and joy… I have brought a bit of nature here with me today. I thought it would be cool to release butterflies or doves…or caterpillars perhaps…but I couldn’t figure out how to do it simply…so instead I’m going to pass baskets of miracles…fruits and vegetables…the bounty of brother sun and sister water. One form of the energy of life upon which we depend.

Take one or share one with your neighbor and give thanks, and in the silence let your appreciation deepen…and consider how plants and fruits and sun and rain sacrifice themselves for you.

And consider how you might sacrifice more for them…so that heaven and earth will not be broken…but the unity of life restored.

Life is a miracle. Nothing is too wonderful to be true. It is all energy. Experiencing life in all its forms…as miracle is where, I think, science and religion are truly one. Both require awe and wonder and an interest in mystery. To the scientist, it may seem that all they study can be known. To the religious person, it may seem that all they study is unknowable. To me it seems that everywhere I turn whether to science or nature or religion or spirituality there is some truth, some meaning, some part of healing to be brought forward.

Science can seem a lot like poetry. Ritual can have a powerful healing effect. Brian Swimme tells a story/ a myth of the sun and a small child. The sun transforms energy , no poetry here, just fact. From a great distance the sun offers its energy. The sun converts itself as photosynthesis, it has been doing this for four million years. And every child has been feasting on the sun’s sacrifice of energy…on the plants made for her…Joy Harjo wrote her piece about talking to the sun, on the day she lifted her fourth granddaughter to meet her relative, the sun. Each child becomes the energy of the sun and we adults should organize things so that their faces shines with the same radiant joy as the sun.

We have arrived at a sacred moment. A moment to greet our relatives and to care and sacrifice for them, as they have cared and sacrificed for us.

Amen/Blessed Be