All Paths Lead To God In The End

When I was in seminary, one of my classmates was from New Orleans and she always asserted that Jesus was Cajun because

1. He liked to serve fish to his friends.

2. He could make his own wine.

3. He loved to be on the water water.

(Selected members of the congregation get up as if to give another opinion, and speak their part – Lastly a woman stands, approaches the microphone or front of the sanctuary indignantly, and declares why Jesus was a woman)
(Man)
My Cajun friend had 3 good arguments that Jesus was a Cajun:
1. He liked to serve fish to his friends.
2. He could make his own wine.
3. He loved to be on the water.
(Man)
My Black friend says that Jesus was Black because:
1. He called everyone "brother."
2. He liked Gospel.
3. He couldn't get a fair trial.
(Man)
My Italian friend gave 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian:
1. He talked with his hands.
2. He used olive oil.
3. He had wine with every meal.
(Man)
My California friend says clearly Jesus was a Californian:
1. He had long hair and a beard.
2. He walked around barefoot all the time.
3. He started a new religion.
(Woman)
I think that Jesus had to be a woman:
1. He fed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was no food.
2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it.
3. And, even when he was dead, he had to get up because there was more work to do.

Thank you everybody for helping me to tell that joke, and thank you __________ for throwing a little uncertainty into everybody as you approached the mic.

We have many ideas about Jesus… such as He is our way-shower, and teacher (Unity’s view), or that he is special, unique, and set apart as different from the people.

We also have many religions: Christianity – Judaism – Islam - Taoism – Hinduism – Buddhism –Confucianism – the primal religions (Aborigines).  Though some have one God, some have multiple gods and another has no God... they all have their own perspective in how to attain the experience of what we call God.

We also have multiple ideas about God: vengeful, angry, jealous, punishing, and loving.

Which idea about God is right?

Which idea about Jesus is right? Some will say that he is our personal savior and the one and only way to experience the Presence of God.

I’d like to read to you the first paragraph of a letter I received last week.

“Dear Unity Church of Anderson,

I've done some research & learned that people who go to a Unity Church believe that, no matter what a person believes religiously, nothing bad will happen to them after they die. I've read that, while most members don't believe in reincarnation, some do believe in it. Those who do believe in it believe that each life is a time of preparation for the next life & eventual perfection. I'm a Christian &, in my understanding of the Bible, a person has to believe that Jesus... is Christ to have eternal life after this one ends. They have to believe that asking Him to be your Lord & Savior is the only... way a person can receive it. In the Bible we're also told that a person only has this 1... chance to do that. Every person who doesn't choose to do it will go to the place... with blazing fire & never...

get out of it. If you accept Christ, believing what I've said, & Unity ends up being correct, the result will still be positive. If you continue to practice Unity & Christianity ends up being correct, the result will be more negative than you can even imagine.”

Which way is right? Is there but one right way and if we don’t take that path we’ll burn in Hell for eternity?  Would a Loving God treat His children that way?

I believe that when we go beyond words, go beyond semantics, opinions, ideologies, the need to be right, the need to save… when we go beyond interpretation, we all share the same dream: to know God fully; to "think" as God, to "see" as God, to "feel" as God, the "hear and speak" as God.

To do the best we can at living a life through the lens of pure Love … if we would sit and feel for it… is the experience that our very cells are longing for and crying out for.  

The question that I believe all seekers carry with them is, “How do I find God? What is the one right way to the experience of God?”

I can’t tell you that because I am not the last word for you on your life, you are. 

The one right way for you to travel to the deeply personal and intimate experience of God is the path you take, because, I believe that all paths lead to God in the end.  I can’t tell you what your path is, although I can suggest and encourage you, but in the end you will decide your path, your way… by the decisions you make each and every day.  I can walk with you and support you in your choices (even though I may not agree with them)… but in the end you choose to consciously join with God.

Not only am I not the last word for you on your life, you’re not the last word for someone else on their life, they are.

Caveat: this doesn’t mean if we live at home under the protective umbrella of our parents’ love, care, guidance, and support that we can say to them, “The minister at Unity says you’re not the boss of me…I can do what I want.” :o)

I’m talking about in the spiritual realm of things.  I suggest that you make a decision and have that experience, then you can determine if that brings you closer to, or farther away from, the conscious experience of the presence of God

We don’t need to tell anyone what to believe. That’s why, in Unity... why I always say, “I invite you to…..”  I am not the last word for you on your life, you are. 

But… do you silently believe that you know the right way and think that everybody should 'be Unity… or follow A Course In Miracles’?  When we think that way we are the same as the hard line “one-way’ers.”  We’re just softer about it. 

We’re not the last word for anyone on their life, they are.

All paths lead to God in the end.  Some just take longer because we allow ourselves to be distracted with shame, anger, guilt, fear, judgment, perceptions of superiority, perceptions of inferiority, ideas of insufficiency or inability, addiction to reliving the pain and suffering of the past, and on and on and on.
All paths lead to God in the end and I believe there will come one beautiful day when we awaken to find that we all have shared the same dream…the dream to know God deeply, fully, passionately; to switch our primary identification from our personality to the indwelling Christ…to our divinity.

          We are wrapped up in our personality and our “doing” as our identification rather our in spiritual identification as fully loved, holy, whole, child of God… swap the order of human being to Being, human.

We all want that new identity but the fact of the matter is we come up against our limitations all the time and we stop

A line from A Course In Miracles is  “Our job is not to be without limitations but to overcome them.”

Our job is to escape from our every idea of limitation.

It’s so very do-able. Let’s close our time this morning leaving the doing behind for the moment and just be with this song.
(Play Front Range’s “One Beautiful Day”)
We began today's talk with silliness and fun and ended on a more serious note. God is a God of Love and Joy.  Let's take doing what we need to do to join with God seriously and  have fun with it!

Bless everything,

Rev. Brad 

Click Your Browser's Back Button To Return To The Monday Message