Sermon Library
“Rorschach Religion”
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
September 27, 2009
Service Theme: Pentecost XVII – 2009
Source: 1st Corinthians 13
Rorschach Religion
1st Corinthians 13
By Gregg Anderson
Charlie Brown
There is a Peanuts cartoon about clouds which I think could be called classic. Perhaps some of you may recall. Lucy, Linus and Charlie Brown are lying on the grass looking up at the sky and clouds. Lucy begins, “Aren’t the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day and watch them drift by. If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the clouds’ formations. What do you think you see, Linus?” Linus reponds, “Well, those clouds to me look like the map of the British Honduras on the Carribbean.” Linus continues, “That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Easkins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of St. Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side.” Lucy says, “Uh huh. That’s very good Linus. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?” Charlie says, “Well . . . I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but . . . I changed my mind.”
Rorschach Test
I have come up with an unusual title for the message this morning. It is a phrase I have been thinking about for quite awhile actually – Rorschach Religion. Rorschach was a Psychiatrist who developed a controversial and semi subjective inkblot test to diagnose certain psychological tendencies or even disorders. Various, random and abstract forms are shown to patients and they respond as to what they might imagine the shapes could be. Based on their answers a Psychiatrist is supposed to gain insight into the mind of the patient. It is controversial because of its un-measurable subjectivity.
There is an old joke about the Psychiatrist administering the test to a patient. He shows him a random inkblot and the patient said it looks like a naked woman on the beach. The doctor shows him another different inkblot and the patient said it looks like a naked woman sitting in a park. A third is shown and the man said that it looked like a naked woman in a forest. The doctor said, “hmm, it seems you are obsessed with naked women.” “Me?” exclaims the patient, “You’re the one showing me all the pictures.”
There is a purpose in telling that joke. The patient was so convinced of his own personal projections within the inkblot test that he admonished the doctor for showing him such pictures. There was no doubt in his mind as to what he saw and he believed it whole heartedly. He was not able to distinguish his imaginative projections from the reality that the inkblots were, indeed, random shapes and forms. What he imagined from the inkblots was okay, but it was still imagination, undoubtedly creative within the thoughts and process of his own mind. Imagination is not bad and is in fact good, but it needs to be consciously distinguished from actual reality.
The Pope In a Flame
On April 2, 2005 some people of the city of Katowice, Southern Poland were remembering Pope John Paul II and the second anniversary of his death in his home town. An evening bonfire concluded the remembrance. A photographer by the name of Gregorz Lukasik was photographing the occasion. He took a few pictures of the bonfire. After he returned home to look at the pictures he noticed that the flame of the bonfire had taken on the figure of Pope John Paul II similar to another picture taken of him during 2001. People became convinced that the flames had indeed formed the image of Pope John Paul II. The local bishop commented that John Paul had made many pilgrimages during his life and he was still making them in death. It is this picture and article that I have saved and wrote above the picture, “Rorschach Religion.”
Projections
We as people seem to have a natural tendency to make our own projections on many things and many people. We might even appreciate a certain work of art based on some personal projection we project on the art work. We can make judgments on other people based on our own projection of how we believe all humans should be. All of a sudden I thought about Rex Harrison singing “Why Can’t Women Be More Like Men?” in My Fair Lady. I guess we all have inclinations to make projections but it is important to know when we are and be fully conscious of our preconceptions. Projections and reality need to always be distinguished.
Judge Not
Jesus said “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7: 1 – 5)
Religious Projections
My primary purpose this morning is to point out the problem of religious projections. Religious Projections could have been my title, but I thought Rorschach Religion was more creative. At least, that was my projection. Religious views and perspectives can be very personal and intense. Many wars have been fought over a difference of religious projections and they still are happening. It becomes particularly intense when one person or group believes their religious projection is the only projection. Actually, they usually do not realize that their belief is a projection – they believe it is the one and only absolute.
My purpose this morning is to become more aware of religious projections within us and around us. I am particularly concerned with our first religious projection which is our projection of God. Our perspectives and understandings of God are primarily projections of God. I suspect that this statement could be provocative. But when we really think about it, it is our reality. Human beings have been imagining what God is like since the beginning of humanity.
In the first chapter of Genesis we read, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” I believe this. Some people have said that we are really not created in the image of God, but we have created God in our own image. I think we have imagined God from our human perspective, but not created God. I believe God is. I also believe that because we think of God – God is. Descarte said, “I think therefore I am.” I would add because we innately think of God – God is. I believe there is Wisdom (with a capital “W”) behind creation and we call this creator God.
Thomas Aquinas has written five proofs of the existence of God. The fifth one is classically referred to as the “Teleological Argument.” It states, “The created world could not have acted on its own to achieve its end, therefore an intelligence must have been behind its creation, ‘as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer.’ Whatever acts for an end must be directed by an intelligent being. So the world must have an intelligent designer. This is God.” Thomas Aquinas has stated his own projections of God, but he admits that it is hypothesis and speaks much of the mystery of God. God exists, but we can only comprehend a glimmer of this God. And perhaps the glimmer is enough for now.
In a Mirror Dimly
The Apostle Paul has stated this clearly in 1st Corinthians 13. He writes, “For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” As we imagine what God is like, it can behoove us to remember these words from Paul. We really can only know in part until another day, space and time. It is a humbling thought, but the Bible constantly reminds us to humble ourselves before God – at all times.
The Bible
And speaking of the Bible – projections exist within it as well. Okay, that’s another provocative statement. The authority of the scriptures has always been another great debate. Throughout history people have made decisions as to what scriptures are divinely inspired, so to speak, and which are not or even heresy. There is a full spectrum of opinion about the authorship of the Bible from being the absolute inerrant literal word of God to a human historical critical perception or projection of God and events. And there are various degrees of such interpretation between these two poles of the spectrum with many people right in the middle. The middle is to believe that the Bible was after all written by human hands, but by people who were divinely inspired. What it means to be divinely inspired is also open to various interpretations.
For many centuries we have been conditioned to believe that the Bible is the Word of God. We read throughout parts of the Torah, “And God Said.” Moses received the ten commandments on the mountain top directly from God. In many other parts of the Torah and Hebrew testaments, it is clear that the texts are not directly from God, but are specifically noted as written by the prophet or author himself. Some people believe that God has chosen special people to talk to directly at a certain time in history, but most people believe that the Bible is written by people who have special perceptions of God, but their own perceptions nevertheless. It was most typical for the writers to simply insert “and God said” to create authority behind their writing or perspectives or projections. There are some evangelists today who seem to the same thing.
Marcus Borg states that the Bible is, indeed, a very human product and thus very susceptible to human projections, but it remains sacred in status and function. It is sacred in a way in which people have created sacredness. God has not spoken directly, but people have had a very deep and spiritual sense of the sacred within them and around them. Borg sees much of the scriptures as prose, poetry and metaphor, but quickly adds that it is in the poetry that a greater truth emerges far more than a literal documentation. Metaphor creates a truth far beyond the literal and physical. The Bible is not about literal facts, but spiritual truths. And again those two perspectives need to be distinguished.
Storyteller’s Creed
With the help of Rev. Robert Fulghum of the “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” fame I discovered in his introduction to this book “The Storyteller’s Creed.” I would suggest its application to the Bible, if not parts of the Bible with the hope that the likes of Thomas Troeger, Marcus Borg and Robert Fulghum would find the comparison at least interesting.
The Storytellers Creed: “I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
1st John
The Elder, as he calls himself, in the Epistle of First John clearly writes, “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4: 7 – 12) I conclude by simply repeating the last line.
“No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” Amen.
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
Aspen Chapel
0077 Meadowood Drive
Aspen, Colorado 81611
http://www.aspenchapel.org