Rev. Nancy D. Dean

October 10, 1999

A World of Many Deities: Gods and Goddesses of Humanity

This is Bring a Friend Sunday and we welcome you who were invited to be part of our Mill Creek service. I have to caution you that to get a good picture of a Unitarian congregation you would need to attend at least a month of Sundays (see, there is a legitimate use for that expression), but we are very happy you decided to be here this morning.

I begin with a little story:

One day in an elementary school art class the first grade children were being allowed to draw pictures of anything they wanted. A visitor was walking around the room with the teacher and paused by one little boy, asking, "What’s that you’re drawing there?"

"God," replied the boy.

The puzzled visitor commented, "But no one knows what God looks like." Unconcerned, the child, who was coloring industriously, looked up and said, "Well, they will when I finish this picture."

To some extent, a fairly large extent, the reason I decided to go into ministry had to do with a lifelong fascination with God. I learned about God from my devoutly Christian mother who was frustrated that I felt compelled to question everything I learned. I craved to know more about how people came to believe the things they do, and ultimately that craving led me to study religion at Harvard, and my favorite class of all was the World Religions class with the well-known religion scholar Prof. Diana Eck. I remain fascinated by the subject to this day.

Maybe some of you remember the PBS series in the late 1980s with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell of Sarah Lawrence University, who became the most famous scholar of world religions, because of that program based on his book, The Power of Myth.

In his studies of world religions over his long career, Campbell discovered powerful and often repeated ideas that imbue all the religious traditions of the world. He found that the stories we call myths were at one time, or are still, a part of all religions and represent attempts to answer pretty much the same fundamental questions. What makes these myths powerful is that they are so basic to all human questing. And if we look at the religions around the world we, too, will find a plethora, a wealth of deities, gods and goddesses and spirits who have been and still are part of serious religious expressions.

It helps to remember that the only thing that separates a myth from a mainline religion today is time.

These myths are humanity’s earliest attempts to explain how the world came into existence, why there are people and all other manner of life, why bad and sad and glad things happen, why people act the way they do. We are still trying to answer those questions, and while there are some pretty good answers these days, we know that not everyone accepts them. We are still having in this relatively well-educated country–and even with all our media and science–raging debates about whether evolution or the Genesis creation story got us all here today. (I sent an article to the religion editor dealing with this debate, but it wound up in the Letters to the Editor in the Community News this week.)

We are living in a world that is still filled with mythological stories, with gods and goddesses, and we are still seeking those basic answers to the same basic questions. How did we get here? Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? Is this all there is? (And one of my favorites: Why do they keep saying every year since I was a kid in the fifties, that Tide detergent is new and improved?)

Myth is most often nowadays used to mean a story that is not true, but in the study of world religions the term means something else entirely. Myth means both old and part of serious religious beliefs or expression, however incorrect the details may seem to us. Myth is about the metaphors of the spiritual seeking of all peoples, including our own.

Myths were first developed out of the simple stories that conveyed on the metaphorical level what people of a given time believed to be true. For instance, the ancient Greeks believed the gods lived at the heights of Mount Olympus, just as many people today believe God is in Heaven.

As a people evolved, so did their stories, and out of the storytelling that is innate in human beings, stories grew about hero-figures, or creatures with superhuman powers. Legends developed as well, such as the story of Paul Bunyan. A legend is usually based in some historical fact. Undoubtedly there was a man of unusual size and strength in the great north woods, and as the stories about him were told and retold, the legend developed. Like the proverbial fish stories, with the fish getting longer with each recounting of the fishing expedition.

Most myths and legends are about the struggles of humanity to survive and get along, and to deal with the problems of evil. So, most of the gods and goddesses are seen as divine figures who helped in the grappling with these problems, or caused the problems.

As Joseph Campbell understood, these myths, and the gods and goddesses of the myths, often bear striking similarities. And the closer cultures are in proximity, the more the religious stories and practices are alike. As the English writer on world myths, John Bailey wrote:

The story of God becoming angry with the evil in the world and sending a flood to wipe out [humankind] occurs in the traditions of the Greeks, the Sumerians, the Jews, the Hindus, and the Chinese. In other ways, however, the stories differ sharply from each other. The Creation stories, for example, usually include the geographical features of their country of origin: the Scandinavian story of Odin is set among ice and rocks, whereas the Australian story of the rainbow snake tells of a hot, dry land where water was scarce.

 

What strikes me most is that all cultures have developed these religious beliefs and stories that support them, so at least we can say there is some impulse in human beings toward making meaning, and what we generally call spirituality and religion.

And all religions that are known come to some understanding of "ultimate reality" usually defined in the western world as God; such deities are a fixture of human myth making as well.

As we look back through the veils of mythology, and with the aid of modern archeology, there is a lot to learn about the deities of the world. Deities always possess powers that we humans wish we had, or powers we wish we had more control over.

It is well established in this archeological record that the earliest deities were some variant of the Mother Earth goddess. Around the globe in the most ancient sites of human society these usually small clay goddesses, with their large bellies and breasts—often with no head or feet, just torso emphasizing the fruitful parts—are found at hearths, making them house goddesses as well as tribal or cultural deities. It makes sense if we consider that to these primitive ancestors of ours, childbirth was probably the most miraculous thing they saw, then the birth of plants, the birth of the sun each day, the moon and stars at night, as it may have seemed to them. The sense that the earth itself was a great mother. Even today, Catholics celebrate and honor the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus (goddess in that she is immaculate).

When the followers of Moses came to the land of Canaan they set about destroying the sites of the goddess Astarte, or Asherah, which dominated the land. They then established Yahweh as the only god. So, up until the time of the great pharaohs and the establishment of Israel some 5000 years ago, multiple deities reigned around the world.

I mention the pharaohs first, because there is good evidence that Ankhaten introduced the first concept of monotheism to Egypt, which was Ra, the sun god. A stele found in Egypt makes a mention of Israel as a slave group–there were many such groups–and religion scholars generally agree that a figure like Moses, or Moses, did in fact carry the concept of monotheism to the area of Canaan, now known as Israel.

For far longer that the world has had monotheism, though, the world was filled with gods and goddesses and spirits who were credited with every aspect of human concern. What is often hard for us to remember in these times is that these myths lived in a great oral tradition, handed down by word of mouth for hundreds or even thousands of years before they were ever written down. They were pre-science, before people began to think of using any scientific method. Still, as Bailey suggests, they tell us much about the way of life of early humanity, about human hopes and fears, and the answers human beings gave to the question of the meaning of life.

I have tried to contain the multitude of deities into a few main groupings, the first dealing with creation myths, the second with good and evil, and the third dealing with society through heroes and prophets.

In the creation myths, most have some spirit force or creature that exists. In Polynesia it was believed that Narreau the Elder sat alone in darkness, needing no sustenance; but over a long time, Narreau began to transform until he became two. The elder Narreau disappears into the mist and the younger Narreau sets about separating the earth from the sky and light from darkness; then all the creatures emerge into the earth by his magical powers. His final act was to plant a tree which bore the fruit of human beings. Then setting the universe in motion, Narreau the younger fades into the mist of the first sunrise, leaving some little bits of his spirit in the world.

The Australian aborigines see creation as beginning with a supreme spirit who creates a great rainbow snake out of which he pulls all the elements of the world.

Nyame, the sky god of a western African tribe, lived alone in space. One day he took a basket and filled it with plants and animals and all manner of birds and insects, then made a trapdoor and climbed down. The basket is the earth–the trapdoor and holes are the moon and stars. At this time there were spirit people living inside Nyame, and they climbed to look out his eyes and fell down through the trapdoor and landed on earth.

In Egypt, before the world, was only Nun the god of water and his son Ra, the god of creation who only had to think a thing and it happened. So he thought, "I will be sunrise, the blazing sun at noon, and last the sunset, and as soon as he thought it, the first day was created and time was born.

One of my favorites is from the Huron Indians of the St. Lawrence valley who told that in the beginning there was only water and the water animals until one day a divine woman fell from a tear in the sky. The animals of the water all made a pillow for her to sit on, but soon realized something had to be done. There was rumor of a dry land, so toad went under the water and searched and searched, and almost died from staying down so long, but he found the piece of earth in the mouth of turtle. The woman took it and put it around on the turtle’s shell, and that was the start of the earth, which always rests on the back of a turtle. Soon after, she gave birth to twin boys, one good and one evil. She died and from her body all the plants filled the world.

In Scandinavia, the story is that before time all was a black void. There were two banks; on one was fire and heat, on the other cold and ice. These invaded each other, mingling in their warring, and from the hissing and blistering came two beings, Ymir, first of the giants, and Audumla the cow. The baby giant found the cow and suckled, and as he grew new giants sprang from the soles of his feet. All these giants wanted to rule, but Odin and his brothers defeated all the others. Odin sees two logs and breathes life into them, and they become the first man and woman.

And on and on. There are as many creations and creators as there are have been peoples of the earth.

Then the myths deal with the problems of good and evil. For the Judeo-Christian traditions there is the story of the Garden of Eden and the forbidden fruit of the tree of life, also the story of Noah.

The main theme of all these stories, though, it that the creator god becomes angry with humankind for failing to obey and the gods or goddesses will destroy most of humanity. There is strong evidence in the geological record of a time of world wide flooding, perhaps caused by a natural cycle of global warming, or created because an asteroid hit the earth. Whatever the reason, there seems to be a real flood underlying these world wide flood stories that are part of the creator teaching creation a lesson in good behavior. Of course, not all the stories use a flood, but other natural disasters seem to be the basis of the lesson the creators teach.

There is the story of Krishna and the serpent in India, the Six Seeds in Greece, also from Greece the story of Prometheus; Utnapishtime and the Flood in Sumeria; The Yellow Emperor and the Great Flood in China, and so on.

The last category is Heroes and Prophets, those humans the gods and goddesses use to do their work, to be their spokespersons, as it were.

David and Goliath from Hebrew scriptures; Beowulf from Scandinavia and England; St. George and the Dragon of Turkey and England; the Quest for the Holy Grail; the Night Journey of Muhammad from Arabia; Rama and Sita from India; Gilgamesh from Sumeria. In the Rama and Sita story, Vishnu, who is the supreme god of the universe, takes the form of a prince called Rama in the great Hindu epic the Ramayana. To win his bride,Sita, Rama must defeat the demons Marich and Subahu.

In all these stories of heroes and prophets, the morals and ethics of the people are crucial to the stories and the way the people will live. Most amazing is that the fundamental moral code of the world is pretty much the same. So in spite of a great difference in how the peoples of the world came to understand how we will live and how the rules of social conduct will be used, the morality is pretty consistent across peoples and times.

That is to say, there was a time when slavery was an accepted practice around the world with very few exceptions, and the myths supported these practices, even those of our Judeo-Christian traditions. But as people have continued to evolve as social beings, we have come to accept that there are better ways, and so religious traditions have changed along the way. As we still see, though, such change is not easy, and takes a long time.

So many of the religious traditions and practices of today will one day fade into that mist of myth, but we will through the stories continue to be a world of many deities. We can only hope that the gods and goddesses and spirits of humanity will move us to do better and kinder things for each other and for the world.

It is ours to doubt and ours to try to reason why. It is also ours to love the old stories, while we see their weaknesses, too.

And however you and I come to understand the nature of the "ultimate reality" or God of creation, it must be founded on the Principles we hold dear.

A few years ago—1994, I believe—women pilots in the United States military services were granted, by their "brethren in command," the approval to fly military combat missions. This comes after more than fifty years of women’s distinguished service to this country. We all should be grateful for the privilege bestowed on these women who have been training to do this work, and now can finally fulfill their goals. But I hope you are in sympathy with my wish that, in the future, perhaps women might decide for themselves what they are capable of accomplishing; perhaps some day all the doors of service will be opened as the sisters see fit to walk through them.

I use the terms brethren and sisters because these arose in Jesus' ministry to point to an equality he felt that all of us could have in the eyes of God. The terms were revived in the second American religious awakening of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the time Universalism was growing in popularity. The idea of universal salvation was radical for that time, but even more so because Universalism was also a religion of equality, and Universalism gave this country its first women ministers. These women were devoted to their belief that God was too good to damn all humanity.

Cynthia Grant Tucker, in a history documenting women in ministry on the frontier, called Prophetic Sisterhood, has detailed the great work of liberal women ministers in this country. Cynthia Grant Tucker, a Memphis State University professor, spoke at our celebration of the 200th anniversary of Universalism at General Assembly in June 1994.

These women ministers led the movement faithfully throughout New England and to the west. But, not surprisingly, most of them found resistance all along the way, not so much from the people in general, but from authority figures who clearly felt threatened by a change in the status quo.

My sermon today is about a virtually unknown woman minister who was determined to keep her faith, but even more concerned to keep her self-respect. She understood, viscerally, that she had to be stubborn to keep both.

In Ernest Cassara's book, Universalism in America, he included a document written by one Nathaniel Stacy, a Universalist minister who, as a circuit rider, traveled what was then frontier America in New York, Pennsylvania, and eventually west into Michigan. In Stacy's memoirs, published in 1850, he tells of a meeting that occurred in 1811 of the Universalist Association, which included nine men, and to Stacy's surprised amusement, a woman. This woman, Maria, so spelled but, pronounced Muh-rye'-ah Cook, was about age thirty he tells us, and she had been holding meetings, that is religious services, in the Bradford county, Pennsylvania district. Stacy remarks that some of the "brethren and friends" were clearly uncomfortable with a woman preaching. They cited the apostle Paul, and his admonishment against women speaking in church. But, as Stacy seems to enjoy pointing out, there were those who disagreed and reminded the concerned "brethren" that Paul had praised the efforts of women in the work of the church and so Paul must have approved of women preaching under "suitable circumstances."

Stacy admits in his journal to finding a woman preaching a great curiosity, as evidently many others did also. Fortunately, it seems the people who favored her preaching at the convocation were in the majority and won the day. So they asked her to give them a sermon, which she was most happy to do, and, Rev. Stacy remarks:

"…there was not a sermon delivered with more eloquence, and with more correctness of diction, or pathos, or one listened to with more devout attention; nor was there another delivered during the session so highly applauded by the whole congregation, as the one she delivered."

Maria Cook was clearly a big hit with the 1811 crowd that gathered for the sixth session of the Universalist Association. (Meeting this month for 210-11th session.) Stacy goes on to report that the "brethren" were so impressed—even edified— by her preaching that they gave her a "letter of fellowship...as a preacher of the gospel." (That is more or less what I received from the UUA.) Maria, however, did not seem to be duly impressed, and destroyed the letter a few weeks later when one of the gathered nine ministers, Mr. Paul Dean, (I hope not an ancestor) treated her most "unkindly," which probably meant without due respect, for she told Rev. Stacy that the event, some undetailed meeting, caused her to believe the letter was not a sincere offer of fellowship.

Letter or no letter, she went right on preaching and for a while her services were better attended than those of other ministers, and Stacy says, not without feeling, that her services even received more in the collection plate. She was clearly a success. Now a successful woman was rarity enough, and if what I glean from Rev. Stacy's account is accurate, a successful woman minister was unknown to that area before Maria Cook— this might help to explain what happened to her by the next year.

Apparently the group of "brethren" and associates who disliked the idea of a woman preaching didn't fade away, rather they grew stronger and more vocal in their opposition to Maria Cook's preaching. We are told that she became the victim of "vituperations and uncharitable remarks" to the degree that she felt forced to defend herself by "long arguments in vindication of her right to preach." She had been put on the defensive.

After about a year on her circuit in New York, she found herself back in Bradford County, Pennsylvania only to be given a cool reception this time. Still, she had many friends in the area so she preached a little, and stayed with some of those friends. Stacy tells us that someone who disagreed with Universalism in general, and who may have also sought to gain some favor with the traditional Christian population of the area, filed a false complaint against her on the grounds of vagrancy. This was patently not true, for Stacy says she had a brother with whom she could always stay. Even though they were not happy about her chosen path, and even thought she was mentally disturbed for wanting to be a minister, she was always welcome to stay with them. This notwithstanding, the tradition of the circuit riding preacher was well established, and she had been recognized as legitimately preaching in this tradition. The purpose then was clearly malicious, and directly related to her as a woman, for the tone of Stacy's account leaves us no doubt that a man would never have suffered such an indignity.

The writ of vagrancy was issued and the constable was detailed to deliver the summons to Maria. The constable had no difficulty in finding her at the home of her friends where she was in residence. The friends at once admonished the constable to go back to the court, and be assured she had a home with them and would in no way ever be a charge on the town, which was the ostensible worry with the charge of vagrancy. The constable stood firm saying that he had received a "letter of authority" and would take her to in to the magistrate. The scene that followed is hilarious in the telling to us now, but we can be certain that Maria Cook, even if she saw humor in the situation, did not think the charges were funny, nor her ongoing need to justify her ministry.

When the constable asked Maria to get in the wagon, she simply refused; listen to the conversation Stacy relates:

"Well," said he (the constable), "will you take a seat in the wagon?"

She replied, "No."

"Well, (he said) how will you go?"

She answered, "I will not go at all."

"But the law requires me to carry you there."

"Well," she said, "I have nothing to do with the law; and, if you have, you must do your duty."

The constable was flummoxed! How would he get her there if she would not get in the wagon? Remember, this is a time when touching a person of the opposite sex was not done casually. Still, the constable was left with only one option, so he picked her up and set her in the wagon. Then, when they arrived at the jail, he was obliged to lift her down again and carry her into the magistrate's office, where the magistrate had no better luck. After telling Maria Cook that he had received a complaint and was forced to act upon it, the magistrate told her that he would have to ask her some questions about her living accommodations. Again, here is a bit of the conversation:

Magistrate: Miss Cook, I have been obliged … to ask you a few questions.

Miss C: You can ask me … but I feel under no obligation to answer you, nor shall I answer any of your

questions.

Mag: But the law requires it, madam …

Miss C: You can do as you please. I have seen demons in the seat of justice before now . . . .

Maria Cook had learned, long before Gandhi, the idea of peaceful resistance. The justice was unable to get her to answer, so he wrote a contempt of court citation and gave it to her. Having read it, she replied to the magistrate: "You have worded it right, sir, for you and all your proceedings are perfectly contemptible, in my view."

Consequently, unfortunate Maria Cook, minister, a woman who had done nothing more than preach what she believed, was sent—that is carried, literally—off to prison.

But take heart, for Maria Cook had as her mission to preach her belief in the gospel of God's complete and universal salvation, and the prison had plenty of willing ears.

Rev. Stacy, who had kept in touch with Maria, tells us that she soon found favor with the keeper of the "prison-house" and his family. They welcomed her to take meals with them and gave her free run of the prison, where, as Rev. Stacy writes, "she remained, perfectly contented and happy for several weeks…"

In the end, Maria won the day, for after several weeks, the magistrate, no doubt suffering from a guilty conscience for having sent an innocent woman to prison, sent word that the jailer should "get rid of her the easiest way" possible.

What happened after Maria Cook was released from prison is pure speculation, for that is all of the story given to us, but somehow I am confident that Maria went right on preaching as long as she could find a willing ear, for she certainly had the spirit and she had the conviction of her soul not to wait for her God-given right to preach to be bestowed on her by the brethren.

What I hope this story can teach us today, is that women should not have to wait for permission to do what their hearts and minds tell them they can do. The idea that gender should dictate occupation is certainly antiquated, yet this notion is still prevalent in our culture as you heard at the beginning.

Though the majority of us Unitarian Universalists have come to realize the foolishness of these ideas, we may forget that a struggle still goes on for equality for women. The story of Maria Cook is a reminder of the loss to our society when any group is prevented from exercising their innate potential. Further, it is gross arrogance for one privileged group to dictate who can pursue any occupation or goal.

There simply is no legitimate reason for women to be prevented from pursuing any career goals that they so desire. I am very glad that women pilots can now to fulfill their goals, but I remain galled by the fact that they had to wait for permission from a group of men. This makes no sense to me. Women are competent, intelligent, and strong, and they are capable of deciding their own fates. If women want to be on the battle-front, they should. If women want to plow the soil and raise crops, they should—and have. If women want to work at home, they should. The point is, it should be a woman's decision.

We should not have to ask permission as if we were children who needed guidance. This diminishes us as people who should have an equal opportunity to try. We may sometimes fail, but we may also succeed as do the men. Then we will know that women can be pilots as well as the men, women can be farmers as well as the men, women can even be ministers as well as the men. But, my friends, to change anything, we sometimes have to be stubborn. Stubborn is a spiritual value; a part of the path to our best and deepest religious feeling. The world is most wonderful when all the goodness that is possible is allowed to grow and bloom. Way to go, Maria! Your latter day sister, is most grateful for your relentless faith.