Rev. Joseph Boyd

Galileo was in desperate need of comfort in 1610. His theory that the earth revolved around the sun, decentering the earth as center of the universe, reached religious authorities. The religious authorities began an inquisition to determine if he was a heretic. The root of the word heretic in ecclesiastical Greek is “to choose.” To be a heretic is to make a choice. It’s to make a choice about one’s understanding of the world, including one’s understanding of truth and goodness. A heretic is someone who makes a choice about love. According to this definition, we have welcomed 17 new heretics into our community. We have welcomed each individual who has made a brave and life-giving choice.

Choices have consequences, and many of these consequences seem unfair and don’t make much sense especially in retrospect. To most modern people, Galileo’s inquisition and eventual death is seen as an act of ignorance and barbarity that many have sadly come to define as the primary characteristics of organized religion. They are not wrong. They have sadly many historical accounts on their side.

One of those accounts is the life and death of Hypatia who pre-dates Galileo by over a thousand years. Hypatia was a brilliant philosopher and mathematician. She is considered by our standards to be a genius, someone whose knowledge and understanding spanned many subjects. She communicated complex mathematical truths in ways that future generations could understand. She was a pagan herself, and she remained tolerant of Christians and those of different beliefs than her. She was not granted the same tolerance. She was eventually martyred.

There is a long track record of martyrs and those who have died at the hands of organized religion. For all these martyrs, there are billions of people who have experienced a more common form of death, a death of their spirit. I have heard far too many stories of people who were either forced to leave their religious community or who chose to, in order to protect themselves from harm. I have heard far too many stories of women and men who have been shunned due to their gender expression or sexual orientation. I have heard far too many stories who felt that to be in church was to put themselves in harm’s way.

From our modern perspective, Galileo deserved to be congratulated, rewarded, not punished for his great discovery. He deserved to be able to have a religion and a scientific breakthrough coexist together. He deserved to be encouraged in his discovery, not persecuted. From our standpoint, scientific discovery can open to door to revelation. If Galileo were alive today, we would offer him accolades for his inquiry and gifted mind. We would ask him to come as a guest in this church and offer a lecture, or help us delve into the profundity of the universe. We would welcome Galileo with open arms. If only he knew this in 1610. If only he knew the billions of people following his death who would be grateful for his heresy.

Today we are faced with a different predicament, but it is directly related to Galileo’s. It’s a predicament that Galileo did not resolve. It’s a predicament that no scientist or religious leader has definitively answered. We are left to choose, to decide, to become a heretic about one important matter. We are left to choose our rightful place in the universe. We are left to choose whether to comfort or to persecute. We are left to choose which truth we find to be most convincing.

Galileo’s predicament has continued to play out in each of our lives. We are left to wonder still if the world revolves around us, or perhaps does it revolve around something else, something that is warmer, and puts off a greater glow. We are left to wonder if we should settle with our comfortable way of seeing the world, even when it makes us deeply uncomfortable, or risk a new discovery.

The discoveries that await us begin on this day. The discoveries that will both challenge and enlighten us will more often than not begin with challenge first. The discoveries that really matter will challenge what we thought our place in the world was, and expand it to include a life we’ve never before considered. It will take our breath away with its brilliance, if we let it. It will bowl us over and leave us with no authority to grasp onto, leaving us with the ungraspable authority of this moment.

Fortunate for you and for me, we don’t need to have a mind like Hypatia or Galileo in order to uncover earth shattering truths. You don’t need to be a trained scientist or mathematician, though I would recommend making friends with them along the way.

No, you don’t need to be exceptionally brilliant in order to discover brilliance. You don’t need a degree in astronomy in order to feel the warmth on your skin on a beautiful May afternoon. But you will need to choose. You will need to choose whether you will live a life of discovery stoked by curiosity or a life of half learned truths that you come to accept as your own.

As I said earlier, Galileo could have used some comfort in 1610. Discovery is not an easy path. It is tempting to surrender curiosity because of the fear of judgement. It is tempting to let others make the discoveries first, and hear about them second hand.

At this church we don’t take this approach. We don’t feed you truth second hand. We invite you to join us in discovering truth together. We invite you to feel and experience brilliance for yourself, not just hear about it. The greatest discoveries are not those found in the sky. The greatest discoveries are not found in mathematical equations and theorems. There are great discoveries there, but not the greatest. The greatest discovery is the warmth of comfort in a time of despair. The greatest discovery is the warmth of validation in a time of doubt and loneliness. These are things we can all discover regardless of who we are.

For our 17 new members, I am telling you with absolute confidence, you can discover this here for yourself. You are in a community of individuals who have all made a brave choice. You belong to a community of individuals who have discovered that the light of truth is found in the warmth of community and in the fire of commitment. You are in a group of individuals who each hold this light in their spirit, and when we come together, have a chance at brilliance.

In short, you belong to a group of heretics. You belong in the same line as Hypatia and Galileo, and yes Jesus of Nazareth, and Mohammed, and Siddhartha Buddha. You belong to a line of seekers, many of whom faced calamity in their discoveries. I wish we could all go back in time, and tell all these seekers what we know now, of how much they mean to us. I would love to see the look on each of their faces as we tell them: How could anyone ever tell you are anything less than beautiful. To see their expression, as we communicate how deeply they’re connected to our soul.

We will face predicaments in our lives. We will face situations that will test our convictions and our character, and leave us with a feeling of doubt, maybe even helplessness. In this church we honor that doubt for what it truly is – the seed of discovery. Your doubts about you who you may be, and what your rightful place is in the world, can finally take root here. It will take root not in answers we will prescribe you, but in a warm embrace of comfort and care, that in time will show you who you truly are – brilliant.

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