Congregational Church of Pinehurst
United Church of Christ
September 28, 2014
ORD26A
1 Kings 19:9-13
Psalm 139:1-12
Acts17:22-28a
A Reverent Humming
Om……Omain…….Amen……Ahmeen(chanting)
Many of the world’s great religions,
Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam
say and chant and sing these words that many believe
havecommon linguistic roots.
And there is a humming sound to these particular words
thatseems to lend a mysterious, ethereal quality
to their use.
In Hinduism it is even suggested that this humming sound
is the sound of the vital Energy that gives the earth life.
The very sound of God.
I have two female friends, Judy and Carmen,
who you may know as well from their work in our community.
Years ago,they wanted to solemnize
the loving, committed relationship that they shared
in the presence of friends.
This was decades before same-gender marriage
was legal anywhere in the United States,
much less in NC,
where it still remainsunjustly illegal.
So as they told friends and family about this covenant relationship
that they desired to lovingly enter,
they frequently got the question,
“Since it’s not a legal marriage,
what will you call it?”
On one such occasion one of them,
and they can’t remember which,
scratched her chin and replied, “Hmmmmmm.”
And that’s where they got the idea to call the ceremony
a “Hmmmming”, a “Hummmming”, a “Humming”.
And that’s what was on the invitation.
You’re invited to celebrate Carmen and Judy’s Humming.
And that’s what was on the invitation that Greg and I received
a couple of years ago,
to celebrate the 25th anniversary
of Carmen and Judy’s Humming.
And what a delightful celebration it was!
And personally, as I’ve thought about it since then,
I wish that’s what we called
all covenant marriage relationships in the church.
It would distinguish those relationships from the legal ones
designated by the government.
And more importantly,
it seems to more accurately capture
the very nature of this intimate relationship
between two loving people.
It is an acknowledgement of the vital, humming energy of love
that has come to vibrate between two people---
an energy that you can almost feel and hear,
like the humming of the energy of electricity
across a telephone wire.
Which brings me, believe it or not, to Jane Fonda.
Yes, you heard me, Jane Fonda.
Several years ago in an interview Fonda gave
to Rolling Stone magazine the interviewer said to her:
Your most recent---and perhaps most dramatic---
transformation is your becoming a Christian. Even
withyour flair for controversy, that’s pretty explosive.
The reporter’s statement seemed to imply an underlying question.
Why would any modern, thinking person become a Christian?
Much less a person
as seemingly free from cultural convention
as Jane Fonda.
In her response,
Fonda spoke of being drawn to faith because
“I could feel reverence humming in me.”
I could feel reverence humming in me.*
The power of Fonda’s response for me
is that it speaks to an awareness that is deeper and beyond
so much of the God-talk that happens in the church
and in our larger so-called “Christian” culture.
It seems to me that so many people who have left the church,
or are teetering on the edge of doing so,
make that decision based on a rejection,
not of God, but of a certain concept of God.
Many folks these days, myself included,
can no longer embrace the theistic God
who lives isolated in the sky,
is described as exclusively male,
and who, peering down from his heavenly throne,
decidesfrom time to time to intervene,
here and there,
in the lives of mere mortals.
This God also tends to be judgmental,
demanding perfection or right belief or both
from his constituents,
and enforces his demands
through a system of reward and punishment,
culminating in an eternity in heaven or hell.
This deity also has a tribal quality about him,
preferring one group of humanity to another.
When we glibly say “God Bless America”,
or implicitly require our presidents
toalways end their speeches with such a phrase
lest he or she be considered unpatriotic,
we can be sure that a tribal God has snuck into the room.
It’s no wonder then,
that many people have come to reject this God
to whom we can pray to find us a parking space,
or to become wealthy.
A God who loves our tribe,
but punishes other tribes
with AIDS or typhoons
for their disobedience.
Many of us have come to the conclusion that
to believe in this God requires us to ignore science,
and critical thinking,
and cultural conditioning,
not to mention our own experience.
And even worse,
to believe in this God requires us to set aside
our own best loving instincts.
Even Jesus, who on our best days we understand
as God’s deepest love embodied in human flesh,
oftengets turned into an instrument of punishment
for those who do not believe.
So it’s no wonder that many of us are asking the question,
“Is this really God, or is this our idea of God?”----
our version of a powerful person “writ large”.
Is there a way to embrace the felt sense
that there is MORE to life
than meets the eye,
without that MORE
being a tribal God of rewards and punishments,
who is more concerned about a future judgment
than a present love?
And that is when I return to a reverent humming.
It may not be the understanding of God
that has been most embraced in Christian history,
but it is one that has consistently been there nevertheless.
And our ancient sacred stories
attempt to speak of that sense of a loving MORE.
When the prophet Elijah was literally running for his life,
taking refuge in a mountain cave,
he experienced a divine visitation---
not in the shock and awe of a violent wind,
or a fear-inducing earthquake,
but rather in the sound of silence,
in which the reverent humming stood a chance to be heard.
The Psalmist speaks eloquently of an eternal Spirit
embedded in the fabric of the universe
from whose presence it is impossible to flee.
A Spirit Presence found in the day and the night,
the heights of heaven and the depths of underworld,
and to the ends of the earth.
A Spirit Presence that is at our beginnings within the womb,
at all the endings we encounter on this journey,
as we areheld by this effusive Energy of Life
through it all.
And in the stories of the early church,
as told in the book of Acts,
we are given a sermon from the Apostle Paul
in which he describes God
as that One “in which we live and move and have our being”.
These ever-Present images of God
sound very different to me from the tribal sky God images
that have pervaded so much of our understanding.
It is an intimate image of God
as the Holy indwelling of life and love
deep within every single human being,
regardless of whether or not they are in our tribe.
It is an image of God
infused within the very fabric of all creation---
a God who does not have to be called upon to intervene,
but rather who is always there,
as close as our breathing,
moving the energies of love and life and healing forward.
And so perhaps our relationship with this God
is not so much a relationship of asking this God to do things,
for us and for others,
as it is a relationship in which we seek to align ourselves
with the movement of God’s life-giving energy
already at work in our lives
andin the life of the world.
And if this reverent humming---this God presence---
is native to us all,
then we can no longer put people into categories
of those on the inside and those on the outside,
or those who have something to offer the world,
and those who do not---
those who are the givers and those who are the takers.
For I believe it is precisely this radical notion
of the pervasive presence of God
that Jesus gave his life for.
It was his insistence on eating
with so-called outcasts and sinners
thateventually got him killed.
It was his rejection of a distant tribal God
and his embrace of an intimate loving God
that sealed his fate---
a God that he felt and heard humming
in his time alone in prayer,
and humming in every single person he met,
and humming in the works of love and justice
toward the “kindom come”.
What might the world be like if we did less talking toGod,
anddid more listening for the reverent humming---
listening for the reverent humming
that sings within you and within me,
and within the life of all creation.
All glory be to the Divine Hummer!
Aaaaammmmmeeeeennnnn! (chant with resonance)
Rev. Brent A. Bissette
*Taken from What We Talk About When We Talk About God
by Rob Bell, HarperOne, 2013, pp. 9-10. Bell has an entire
chapter devoted to God as a reverent humming, which has
inspired what I have written here.
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