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In this Sunday’s sermon we will look at Jesus’ statement, “those who seek to save their souls will lose them.” The saying flies in the face of those traditional Christian theologies that claim our business is saving souls. Obviously Jesus didn’t see things quite that way. I was in a hurry when I put this list of world scripture readings together. I would like to add a Jewish and non-theist quote as well. I hope they will widen our mental contexts to hear what Jesus is saying. As always, he’s not talking about religion. He’s talking about life. I thought some of you might enjoy reading the various scriptures.

Christian   Matthew 6:24-25 (Inclusive Bible)

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, they must deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save their life will lose it;  but whoever loses their life for My sake will find it.  For what will it profit those who gain the whole world and lose their soul?  Or what will someone give in exchange for their soul?

Buddism   Diamon Sutra 

Subhuti, what do you think?  Does a holy one say internally, ‘I have obtained Perfective Enlightenment?’  Subhuti replied, “No, World-honored One… If a holy one of Perfective Enlightenment said, ‘Such am I, he or she would necessarily partake of the idea of an ego-identity, a personality, a being, a separated individuality.”

Hinduism   Srimad Bhagavatam

Shun all pride and jealousy.  Give up all idea of “me” and “mine”… As long as there is consciousness of diversity and not of unity in the Self, people ignorantly think of themselves as separate beings, as the “doer” of actions and the “experiencer” of effects.  They remain subject to birth and death, know happiness and misery, are bound by their own deeds, good or bad.

Albert Schweitzer

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.

Taoism   Tao Te Ching

One who tiptoes cannot stand;

One who strides cannot walk.

One who shows himself/herself is not conspicuous;

One who considers himself/herself right is not illustrious;

One who brags will have no merit;

One who boasts will not endure.

From the point of view of the Way, these are like “excessive food and useless excrescences”

Which all creatures detest.

One who has the Way does not abide in them.

I don’t watch television, but when I see repeats of television shows on youtube I am more and more convinced that our nation is becoming completely desensitized to the pain of others. “Stealing candy from a baby” used to be a term for despicable villainy, but for the last three Halloweens, Jimmy Kimmel has asked parents to lie to their children saying that they ate their children’s candy during the night. The “punchline” of the joke is then to watch the children cry. In addition to whatever issues might come up for children hearing that their parents betrayed their trust, they will also have to deal with a viral video where their parents made them the butt of a joke in front of the whole nation.

If you haven’t seen it, watch the video and see what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK-oQfFToVg

Just as there are special and general theories of relativity, I think there are two types of revelation. Special revelation would be something like the Christian Bible, the Jewish Torah or the Quran of Islam. Such revelation speaks to a particular people at a particular time. So the first thing to notice about the Letter to the Romans is that it is to the Romans. We are overhearing a conversation addressed to someone else and must adjust the message accordingly. Such revelation is typically more personal and communal. It gives us a sense of identity and history. It is inappropriate to apply special revelation to those outside the context of our own group and version of history.

General revelation is the sense of being addressed by nature. It is a sense that we belong to the whole of things. General revelation is something almost everyone experiences at one time or another under a starry sky or on a desolate beach. General revelation yields no history or dogma, just a sense of that all things are tied together in one invisible web.

Special revelation is personal and therefore rather arbitrary. If we lost all the world’s scriptures and had to start from scratch, our reconstructed versions  of special revelation would probably be very different. General revelation is intrinsic to nature and to our own human nature. If we lost every book on biology, geology and physics, we would eventually reconstitute the same truths.

Special revelation is what happens when we feel addressed by our favorite scripture, general revelation is what happens when we feel addressed by a leaf. Special revelation is gives us a songline in time, general revelation gives us our home in space.

One modern method of propaganda is to cast political struggles as debates between extremists on the left and right.  The underlying assumption is that both sides are lost in a partisan struggle with the truth being somewhere in the middle. So, if modern journalists were to cover a story about the Jewish Holocaust they might interview one Jew, one Nazi and let the reader decide what is “fair and balanced.” What would be missing from that analysis would be the discrepancy of power. That method of reporting would present both truth claims equally, but it would miss the primary reality that only one side was murdering the other.

When a topic like gay marriage is presented as a discussion on the news both sides can appear equally sane or crazy, but only one side in interfering in the life of the other. Only one side is saying the other shouldn’t be getting married. The two sides are not doing the same thing. When pro-choice and pro-life pundits speak on air, both sides can appear equally sane or crazy, but pro-choice people are not telling pro-life people that they have to get abortions. The two sides are not doing the same thing. When climate change scientists are presented equally with climate change deniers from the oil and gas industry, they are leaving out the fact that only one side of the struggle represents the scientific consensus.

Paul Krugman calls this form of propaganda “the cult of balance.”

“If one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read ‘Views Differ on Shape of Planet.’”

Looking back at history it is all too clear that the struggle for human rights is not a debate between extremists on the left and right. The answer to “the slavery question” was not discovered by comfortable moderates, but by radical abolitionists. The answer to whether women should vote was not found by comfortable moderates but by radical suffragettes. It is the same with any struggle for justice, the answer is not found by utilitarian compromises but by discerning radical and universal principles of human rights.

When we speak of  saints, sages, mahatmas and peacemakers, we are usually referring to the great friends of humankind- the citizens of the whole. But to be such is not easy, nor is it popular. To be citizens of the whole means to place our patriotism within the context of universal human rights, our idea of personal happiness within the context of the common good, and our religion (or lack thereof) in the context of universal compassion and reverence.

“A US-led trade deal is currently being negotiated that could increase the price of prescription drugs, weaken financial regulations and even allow partner countries to challenge American laws. But few know its substance. The pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is deliberately shrouded in secrecy, a trade deal powerful people, including President Obama, don’t want you to know about. More than 130 members of Congress have asked the White House for greater transparency about the negotiations and were essentially told to go fly a kite. While most of us are in the dark about the contents of the deal, which Obama aims to seal by year end, corporate lobbyists are in the know about what it contains.

…”Instead, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “This really is a deal that’s being negotiated by corporations for corporations and any benefit it provides to the bulk of the population of this country will be purely incidental.” Yves Smith, an investment banking expert who runs the Naked Capitalism blog adds: “There would be no reason to keep it so secret if it was in the interest of the public.”

http://truth-out.org/news/item/19830-bill-moyers-yves-smith-and-dean-baker-on-secrets-in-trade

Last week $5 billion was cut from federal food stamp programs. Republican law makers are proposing an additional $40 billion be cut. To get a sense of perspective consider the following:

According to Thom Hartmann, last year the average American making $50,000 paid $36 in taxes to provide food stamps and an additional $6 for other safety net programs.

At the same time the same family would pay:

$870 in taxes to provide corporate tax subsidies.

$696 for Business Incentives at the State, County, and City Levels

$722 for Interest Rate Subsidies for Banks

 $1,231 for Revenue Losses from Corporate Tax Havens

“Overall, American families are paying an annual $6,000 subsidy to corporations that have doubled their profits and cut their taxes in half in ten years while cutting 2.9 million jobs in the U.S. and adding almost as many jobs overseas.” -Paul Buchheit

If you want to see where Buchheit gets his numbers, follow the links:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/23

Thom Hartmann is not quite as clear:

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19844-food-stamps-are-affordable-corporate-welfare-is-not

I learned from Buddha that religion is about awareness, not belief.

I learned from Lao Tzu that religion is about the ordinary not the miraculous.

I learned from Isaiah that religion is about justice not personal righteousness.

I learned from Jesus that religion is about forgiveness not morality.

I learned from Austin Atheist Madelyn Murray O’Hare that love for humankind does not require theological justification.

I learned from Freud that plumbing the depths of our being requires symbols.

I learned from Helen Keller that love means radical politics.

I learned from Einstein that intelligence is written into what seems empty space.

I learned from Van Gogh that ritual cannot replace creativity.

I learned from St. Paul that rules can never replace responsibility.

In other words, I have derived my heresies from the best of sources.