Selected Sermons from Jim Burklo

Jim Burklo, speaking at Foundry Methodist Church, Washington, DC, 9-3-06

Evolution Sunday

2-10-08

Jim Burklo, Sausalito Presbyterian Church

Several years ago I experienced a sacred moment that reminded me of why I feel so privileged to be a pastor, why I’m still so thankful that I made this career choice 28 years ago. A couple I married a long time ago finally decided to get pregnant, and when the baby was born, he had multiple and very serious defects. His entire alimentary tract was in the wrong place. His internal organs were in the wrong places. Roberta and I rushed to Stanford Children’s Hospital to be with the family. We got an explanation from the doctors about what was happening. The parents were, of course, in a state of shock and devastation. It was decided to do a baptism for the little boy in the ICU, surrounded by all the best equipment medical science could provide. Machines, monitors, whirring and clicking in the background – a nurse appeared in the middle of this high-tech environment and gave us a beautiful scallop shell to use to hold the water for baptism. There was something about the way the nurse anticipated the need, something about the way she presented the shell to us – suddenly we were transported to a dimension far beyond the gleaming, state-of-the-art world of Stanford Children’s Hospital. Suddenly we went beyond any considerations of statistical risks for this or that elaborate medical procedure, far beyond any Latin names for categorized medical conditions. Instantly we knew we were in the kingdom of God on earth, the land of the soul, the realm of the heart.

Today, Evolution Sunday is being celebrated in progressive Christian churches around America . It’s the Sunday nearest the birthday of Charles Darwin. It is a Sunday to celebrate the compatibility of solid science and soulful religion. A day to celebrate the fact that in our church and plenty of others around America , you don’t have to park your brain outside when you come inside to worship. You can be a full-strength Christian without having to believe dogma that contradicts the discoveries of evolution in particular and science in general. And you can be a full-strength scientist without having to believe that life is mechanical and meaningless. Indeed, it can be said that religion, at its best, is evidence of evolution. It is a positive, adaptive response to the environment around us. Just because religion is a human invention, not something that dropped from the sky as people once believed, that doesn’t make it any less remarkable. When I step back and think about it, it is awe-inspiring to consider that the process of natural selection, over hundreds of millions of years, would lead to something as sublime as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. That millions of years of natural biological forces, red in tooth and claw, would result in a man standing on a hill and telling people that it is time to love one’s enemies. It is staggering to consider that a seemingly mindless natural process could lead to such a high level of consciousness. And even more staggering to consider that we are capable of evolving into yet higher forms of awareness. That we could transcend our raw impulses of self-preservation, and grow toward compassionate communion with all beings, body and soul. We’re capable of using science to understand the structure of the world, while at the same time experiencing this world through our hearts as the kingdom of heaven.

There’s no need to believe in a supernatural God who capriciously breaks the laws of nature, in order to be filled with holy awe and wonder. All it takes is careful contemplation of the marvels that emerge from the processes of nature. No need to believe in supernatural miracles when our very physical existence is such a marvel. This week I took a hike to Alamere Falls on Point Reyes . I was with a group of friends, and when we got to the falls, on a perfect clear day, there were others sitting near the water. One couple was in a loving embrace, sitting next to the upper falls. Another fellow was sitting still, upright, meditating right next to the precipice where the clear water drops over a steep cliff, right into the ocean. My friends and I sat up on a rock above the gorgeous sight of that crystal-clear water tumbling down before going over the cliff, and we got quiet, too, and just gazed reverently. There was no sermon, no choir, but we were definitely in a holy sanctuary where God, spelled Nature, was communing directly with our hearts.

The process that Darwin discovered isn’t Godless at all. Not if we understand God to be the experience of the holy that all humans share. Evolution led us to God. Evolution led us to the development of our consciousness – a consciousness that includes a natural propensity for reverence and for finding and making meaning in the world around us. We evolved to build beautiful churches like this one. We evolved to make beautiful music like our choir sings. And we evolved to gather in humility in church and pay attention to the ways we want to evolve even further.

Because we have evolved to a point where we have become active, conscious participants in evolution. Evolution doesn’t just happen to us or around us anymore. In the relatively short span of a few tens of millennia, we have developed the ability to develop and change ourselves and the world around us intentionally. The book of Genesis is very ancient and hardly represents the latest science. But it reveals a very deep insight about the evolution of our consciousness. It suggests that life developed in stages, one animal kingdom at a time, with humans coming last. Pretty much the same order that evolutionary biology suggests, as well. And it says that God gave us the tasks of subduing the earth and naming the animals. The book of Genesis suggests that human beings are little less than God. We have been granted near-God-like powers. Genesis says we were made in God’s image. Change the word God to Nature – which I believe to be one and the same – and Genesis can be read to suggest that human beings have evolved to a point where we can consciously, intentionally direct the processes of nature and of evolution – our own development and that of other beings around us.

So, how shall we evolve, you and I?

I’d like to evolve into a more forgiving, understanding, patient, non-judgmental being. I’m getting a great test right now, as I finish up my time here as your pastor, to see if I can do it. What I’m discovering is that I need a lot of help to evolve in the way I want. I need a community next to me and behind me. Right now I’m getting a lot of support for my evolution happening among people in this church, and I’m very grateful for it! I think it is hard to evolve on my own.

I want this church to evolve into higher consciousness. I hope this community opens up and shares its many differences directly, in a spirit of genuine curiosity and inquiry, asking deep questions and avoiding easy answers. I hope that my time among you has in some way contributed to the growth of this church toward higher consciousness. I hope that my leaving will contribute to this evolution, as well.

How do we want to evolve? Until fairly recently we received our bodies through natural selection without intentionally designing them. But now we rapidly are gaining the ability to intentionally direct the development of the human race, as we tinker with genetic engineering. A visit to Stanford Children’s Hospital reveals something of this future. But it is not only our physical appearance and functioning that we are beginning to control. We also have enough consciousness to direct our spiritual and emotional and mental development, if only we will put the same effort into it that we pour into curing birth defects and eliminating facial wrinkles!

I’m fascinated by the world wide web, as I believe it is a sign of evolution of our consciousness toward a sort of global mind. Huge numbers of human beings are now able, through computer technology, to communicate and learn things and share information and ideas together with great speed and fluidity. A global mind might be emerging out of billions of individual minds, as we link our minds together with ever-quicker and more powerful electronics. This web-based mind seems to have just happened, without anybody intending the consequences of it. But now that we have it, now that this global mind might be emerging, which direction do we want to go with it? To become a global mind preoccupied with action video games and online gambling, or to become an ennobled, compassionate, caring global mind that binds humankind together in a way never before imagined? To do the kind of group-think that leads to tyranny and war? Or to become the global mind of Christ that St. Paul talked about in his letters – (Philippians 2) “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant...” A global mind that imagines its way to harmony, peace, kindness, taking personal and corporate responsibility for the well being of the planet and its beings.

I believe that the Christian church is a sign, a reminder, a pointer toward the direction we want our evolutionary process to take. The elements of communion, the bread and wine, are road signs aiming us at common union, the joining of souls together into a greater body which we call the Christ but other religions call by other names. The biblical idea of the body and mind of Christ suggests the way we want to go as the human race…. Toward selflessness, toward out-of-ego experiences like love and service and true creativity. Beyond competition, toward cooperation.

I pray that I will evolve, that you will evolve, and that this church will evolve consciously, intentionally, toward this global Christ mind. As the Psalmist put this yearning for evolution into higher consciousness, so many years ago, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” (Ps 19) Amen!