The Gods Must Be Lazy

May 31, 1987
St. Petersburg, FL

September 20, 1987
Location Unspecified (possibly Clearwater, FL)

The Gods Must Be Lazy

Opening words: from LET'S ABOLISH WAR – source of quotation unknown

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved, and always will solve, the problems of the human race.”

If you saw that distinctive movie, “The Gods Must be Crazy,” you will recognize that my title is a pun on that cinema classic.

I must also say that I am not going to ring the changes on some of the TV evangelist high-rollers whose prayers emphasize “mail money now” rather than praying for the wisdom and common-sense for which they stand in great need. If God is the god of their faith, he must be lazy to allow them to indulge their financial shenanigans and other irresponsible doings. But as their god is not a deity in which I hold any belief, I need not make such a judgment.

Rather, I would like you to reflect on an old legend which neither passes the test of exact history nor is an example of accurate reporting. But the old story may contain seed-starters of insight which could be helpful to us. The old story in 1st Samuel of the downfall of a Philistine God and the heap of trouble that followed involvement with the Hebrews’ god (Yahveh) is just such a stimulus for thought. The stories of antiquity do not tell us how to orbit space station or find a cure for AIDS or give U.S. senators an accurate insight into the character of Robert Bork, but these old legends and myths can prod us to seek wisdom as we attempt to define human purpose and to act on the human scene with what courage we can muster.

This is the story of a God who was deported by his enemies and rejected by his worshipers. A review of the legend leads to the conclusion that religious practices are troublesome experiences – both in ways that we need not be troubled and in ways we need to be troubled. The gods must be lazy – or, perhaps – we are lazy.

Nearly three thousand years ago, just before the time of Saul, the first king, when Samuel was the prophet-leader of the children of Israel, the Philistines and Israelites were pursuing their frequent vocation – war. In the first battle of that particular campaign, the Philistines routed the Israelites. Taking counsel in the camp, the Israelites mourned the defeat and sought ways to recoup. Remembering that the Ark of God was in Shiloh, they sent for it so that its presence could be the magic to reverse the trend and whup the Philistines.

The Ark was a sacred chest of acacia wood which was the symbol of the presence of Yahveh, God. The Ark was ornamented with the cherubim, winged lions with human heads. Inside the chest there may have been sacred volcanic stones from the Mt. Sinai region – for Yahveh was once a mountain god of thunder and volcanic incandescence. There are those who believe that the broken tablets of the law (the 10 Commandments) were inside the Ark, but this is probably a later refinement or belief. As you all know, in Jewish synagogues and temples, the scrolls or Torah are stored inside a symbolic Ark.

Before settling on the land, the Hebrews were wanderers. The sanctuary was not an established temple, but a tent. They moulded no idols or images but transported the Ark of the Covenant as they roamed.

There is no record or what happened to the original Ark after the destruction of Solomon's temple. But in the days or Samuel, the Ark was a powerful victory totem for the people of the Covenant. An ancient tradition is that there was a ritual song surrounding the moving of the Ark (Numbers 10/35):

“Arise, O Lord, that thy foes may be scattered,
that those who hate thee may flee before thee.”

When the Ark was to be put down, these words were sung:
“Halt, O Lord and bless the clans of Israel.”

So the beaten Israelites sent to Shiloh for the Ark, confident that it would be the difference between defeat and victory. When the Ark arrived, the Israelites raised such a glad shout that the enemy camp or the Philistines wondered. Although fearful of the threat of the strange god whose reputation was disturbing, the Philistines decided to fight their best anyway.

The battle ensued and Israel received a terrible defeat. Their god must have been lazy or without enough power or enough motive. More disastrous still, the Ark of the Covenant, the Shekinah, the presence of God, was captured by the Philistines. When the bad news reached Israelite villages, there was great sorrow, “the glory is gone from Israel.”

Then the story took fantastic turns with ironic consequences. The Philistines proudly placed the captured Ark in the temple of their chief god, Dagon.

Dagon was the grain god, the vegetation deity, and he may also have been a fish god. Anyway, when the Ark was placed in the temple of Dagon, strange events happened. On the first morning, early worshipers found that the image of Dagon had been overturned and was prone before the Ark of the Covenant. The people replaced the image of Dagon on the pedestal. The following morning, however, disaster was intensified. Not only was Dagon knocked over again, but also the head and hands of the image were severed.

Then, bubonic plague broke out among the Philistines.

This sequence of disaster convinced the Philistines that possession of the Ark of the Covenant was the cause of their troubles. Or, their own god, Dagon, was lazy. Getting rid of the Ark was not easy for there was a panic in the villages. Finally, it was carried to an Israelite village, where, interestingly enough, the Israelites paid no attention to the Ark for twenty years. Seemingly also, the God of the Ark paid no attention to them. The god must have [been] lazy, or the people were.

This old legend of the God who was too much trouble to keep can stir provocative thoughts that are not limited by time, place, or old legends. Religion will give trouble in any age if one confuses the symbol with that which transcends the symbol. Both the Philistines and Israelites mistakenly identified a material object with an immaterial spirituality or morality. When the Philistines found the image of Dagon knocked over and mutilated, they believed their god had been defeated and humiliated. Dagon, god of grain and vegetation should have been revered not because he was a powerful war god but because he represented to his worshipers the mysterious process of nature’s growth which provided food in season. The Philistines overlooked the reality that destroying an image does not wipe out the living process which caused grain and fruit to grow and ripen for the sustenance of their people.

The Israelites made a similar mistake. Because the Ark of the Covenant was captured, they mourned that “the glory was gone from Israel.” The development of monotheism which made Hebrew religion such a primary and distinctive theme in our Western religious and cultural history did not depend upon a sacred chest, but upon a moral idea that the Creator was eternal, just, universal and able to maintain moral relations with his people.

The Philistines won a battle not because of the magical image of Dagon, but because of the resolution and courage with which they maintained their ways. “Woe to us,”they cried, “this has never happened to us before. Who can rescue us from the power of these mighty gods? These are the Gods that struck the Egyptians with all manner of plague and pestilence. But courage, Philistines. Be men that you may not be slaves to the Hebrews as they have been slaves to you.” This determination had more effect on the results than either an image of brass or a box of stones.

This speaks to our times, too. One of our more troubling mistakes is worshiping the image rather than respecting the ideas it represents. In this bi-centennial year of the Constitution we celebrate the covenant of our nation – and so we should. But the document which united the states into a federal republic is an idol like Dagon unless we respect and follow the political principles which gave the Constitution its birth and continuity – justice, freedom, self-determination. The great principles sound hollow when we claim these for ourselves but resist recognizing the same claims of others. I’m referring to our nation’s sorry record in Central America, Nicaragua in particular. We wanted and achieved self-determination for ourselves after a successful revolution. We deny that Nicaragua has the right to the same process. Is this “standing tall” (as the phrase goes) among the nations? Furthermore, many feel more deeply about the ritual salute to the flag than they are moved by the meaning and application of the Bill of Rights. And, when this happens, it is idolatry.

Barbara Tuchman, in her superior historical study, THE MARCH OF FOLLY (from Troy to Vietnam), wrote a disturbing account how governments pursue policies that are in opposition to facts, experience, and common-sense. David Halberstam in THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST studied in detail our actions in the Vietnam War and pointed out how brilliant men acted woodenheadedly and against our and their own best interests. The gods must be lazy or uncaring or unreal to permit such nonsense. More accurately, of course, we are responsible for human actions, human wisdom on this planet. If we act without common sense, ignore experience, and refuse to learn, then no deity is going to intervene to save us from our own follies.

Gandhi once, when asked about Western Civilization, replied that he thought it would be a very good idea.

The same observation can be made about religion. Unfortunately, the ideas and symbols become more important and invested with more emotion than the ideas the symbols represent. I have known of churches where it was more important for the preacher to place his sermon notes on a large open Bible than it was that the sermon attempt to deal thoughtfully with alternatives of belief about human nature and human destiny. I have known churches where a picture, sometimes an aesthetically atrocious representation of Jesus, seemed more important than the moral convictions of minister or members. This is idolatry.

Baptistry, book, cross, candle, bread, wine – these are symbols. The symbol depends on the idea,not the idea upon the symbol. When there can be no worship or assurance without the presence of the symbol, then this is idolatry. Better a worship room bare of symbols than the mind barren of transcending ideas and noble ideals.

This is the enduring truth of the second of the later version of the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20 4/6) “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image nor any likeness or anything that is in heaven above or the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thy self unto them, nor serve them.” (The last two clauses are the operative ones.)

Then, consider this: the Philistines deported the symbol of a religion that troubled them. The Israelites then put that Ark in storage for twenty years. It is a trivial matter to us that the actions out of which the legends arose were primitive in the treatment of the causes of bubonic plague or broken images. (Although they had a clue to the plague in the attention paid to the images of mice or rats). But do we wrestle sufficiently with a troublesome religion? Troublesome because the values and principles urge us to act in ways that we are reluctant to do. Perhaps we are self-satisfied or timid or too much at ease. Socrates called himself the gadfly of the Athenians. He troubled them with searching questions about the easy assumptions they cherished. Socrates annoyed them by stinging their complacent beliefs with sane questions and observations framed with intellectual honesty.

We, too, live in a world where we need to be troubled. The sophistication of science and technology is applied to weapons which, if used, will kill us all. It’s as simple as that. But the complexities, conflicts, and fears in human societies may cause plagues more terrible for our times than the Philistines experienced in theirs. The revelations of Iranscam or Contragate or whatever name one gives to that miserable scandal illustrates that for some high-ranking people, the U.S. Constitution is a document to evade while putting on a show of celebrating in this its Bicentennial year.

So, we may well be troubled because out of painful encounters with authentic difficulties that maturity may be achieved. Someone on the tube the other night quoted Ben Franklin as the source of “no pain; no gain.” I'm doubtful that’s the source, but it is a true dimension of the human condition. Religion can be a painful, troublesome thing because history points rather clearly that human problems are solved, if they are to be solved at all, by human principles and human action. There is little consolation in complaining that the gods must be lazy or entreating them with prayers to intercede in difficulties to which they might otherwise be inattentive.

This points to an additional difficulty that the Philistines of old also experienced. One has to know what one’s religion is and what it prompts one to do. The idol, the image, the symbol are not enough. Only the ideas and values that the symbols represent will provide the basis for decisions on vital matters. Mythology can spur the imagination, legends can suggest, history can guide, symbols can illuminate, but only the over-arching ideas and consequent actions can be measures of integrity, if one attempts loyally to live life fully.

As a Unitarian Universalist I believe many of these superior ideas are contained in our principles. (Although we for sure are not the only ones to hold them). Primarily that the search for truth never ends. Events, discoveries, fresh perspectives prescribe that a religion of inquiry coheres with the nature of all human and cosmic experience – change. Then a basic value is the worth of all persons.

One thing more suggested by the encounter between the gods – Dagon of the Philistines and Yahveh of the Israelites. The temple in Ashdod wasn't big enough for two gods. They weren’t lazy about their turf. Dagon had to be knocked down if Yahveh was there.

But our Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantee that our land is large enough for all gods. Freedom of religion is the law or our land. Yet, when I have occasionally tuned in on the hot-shot TV evangelists, that guaranteed tolerance is more and more grudgingly given. “My way is the only way,” is what I’m hearing. More and more public schools are under fire to include sectarian religious propositions in the teaching. Censorship is a virtue apparently, if books, teaching ideas have an odor of “secular humanism. This is a great Satan, seemingly, even though none of the angry critics seem to have a clear or useful definition of what “secular humanism” is. Let me suggest that if one looks in the unabridged dictionary, one will fine that one of the definitions of “secular” is “free from ecclesiastical control.” If that's what “secular” is, I’m all for it; and so should every citizen who believes in the separation of church and state.

Religious differences will not be reconciled. The variety of religious exhortations and teachings place unlike emphases and differing answers to the perennial questions – Who am I? What must I do? Where am I going? For many of us, because the search goes on, anyone’s easy answers just won’t do. Because pluralism in religion is guaranteed by the Constitution, Yahveh cannot destroy Dagon; Dagon cannot destroy Yahveh; - except by persuasion. Perhaps the gods are lazy to leave it up to us to search for religious fulfillment. But if there are gods, I believe they are not lazy but wise to leave our important decisions and moral growth to ourselves.

Somewhere I noted that one of the plot outlines constructed by F. Scott Fitzgerald involved the story of a family whose members were scattered all over the world. Then they inherited a large house under the condition that in order to receive the inheritance, they had to live in the house together.

A parable for our times? We have inherited our home-planet, Earth. In spite of differences of religion, nation, culture, economic, and governmental systems, we must live in our house together, or destroy it and ourselves.