The Spark of Possibility

Sermon: April 26, 2026 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito

I don’t believe in the story of Adam and Eve. I believe in science and evolution. However, I understand that there has always been a need for the Biblical story of Creation. Long ago, when evolution wasn’t a readily understandable concept, humans naturally wondered where they had come from. Besides the Biblical origin story being an entertaining and clever answer to their questions, it also served a much more important purpose. It gave an explanation for why humans are different than all other species: We live in a constant state of possibility. 

To recap the story for those of you who may not know the details: God created the heaven and the earth, proclaimed “Let there be light” and then there was the sky, dry ground, vegetation, the sun and stars, animals, and finally humans. He created Adam out of the dust on the ground and then Eve by using one of Adam’s ribs. He placed the two in the garden of Eden, which offered everything they would need to survive as well as two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told the pair never to eat off of the second tree, which he strategically placed in the center of the garden. 

Now believe it or not, it’s only here where the story starts to bother me. Why would the God of love that I learned about in the New Testament, set the first humans up for failure in this way, unless the tree was not actually a test of loyalty and obedience, but rather an educational invitation, a physical manifestation of possibility?

Back to the story: The cunning serpent who also lived in the garden referenced the fruit on that second tree and said to Eve, “You will not certainly die. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” How the serpent came to know this about the tree, we can discuss another day. Regardless, the serpent called out God for his “lie” and Eve ate the fruit from the tree and gave some of it to Adam and both of their eyes were opened. God was quite upset (or he acted quite upset) and cursed the serpent as well as Eve, which is why childbearing is so painful and why husbands are supposed to rule over their wives. (ahem) Adam didn’t come out unscathed though, he was punished with having to work the soil all the days of his life and God cursed the soil so it was full of thorns and thistles. He then cast Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden, so they could never eat from the Tree of Life and would live mortal lives. The ending of this story provided a good explanation of why life can be so hard sometimes. 

So for hundreds if not thousands of years, this is how Judeo-Christians believed the universe and earth came to be, with all its plants, animals, and humans. However, the logistics of God’s creation isn’t what interests me about the story. I’m much more interested in how this story reflects the human race’s perception of itself 2500 years ago, how even then there was the knowledge that something makes us different than the rest of the species on earth. Now, we might talk about that as sentience or the ability to critically think and I hope that we are entering a time in which we understand that all creatures fall somewhere on a spectrum of sentience, that it’s not that certain animals are either sentient or they’re not, but that we have unique levels of awareness that were borne out of evolutionary patterns and needs. Regardless, we find ourselves far to one side of the sentient spectrum, and early philosophers wanted an explanation. Having none, they put it in the hands of the divine, and said that we each have a spark of that divine within us and that is what makes us different. 

I’d like to take you back in the story to the moment just after Eve and the serpent spoke. 

Imagine the garden of Eden, lush and beautiful with flowering plants and trees that gift the essence of immortal life within each perfect fruit. Imagine being Eve, standing and looking at the tree in the middle of the garden and the fruit she has been told never to eat. What if she takes a bite? Will it kill her? Or will she gain wisdom she didn’t know existed? What possibilities hang in the air at that very moment? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDUzYiJR-LZ2M&v=UzYiJR-LZ2M

The people who wrote this story long ago, created a God that placed a tree of possibility in the middle of the garden where it could not be missed because they knew this about human nature: We are inquisitive, curious creatures with something inside us, a divine spark some might say, that fuels our desire to learn, grow, and gain wisdom. This inherent quality is present regardless of whether we want it or not, it burns quietly within each of us, offering a sense of possibility that is eternally lit and waiting to light a flame of action.

Ellen Langer is a professor of Psychology at Harvard. She talks about what she calls the “psychology of possibility.” She says that to maintain a healthy mindset, we must first “begin with the assumption that we do not know what we can do or become.” If the one thing we know is that we don’t know much for certain, then we can begin to conceptualize possibilities from a place of wonder and curiosity. If we approach life from a perspective of certainty, we leave little room for possibility and tend to think only about why things won’t work. Langer recommends beginning with thinking of how you’d like things to ultimately be, not where you are right now. If you begin with the end desire, pathways there can become clearer because our minds are open to think of options we hadn’t entertained before.

Recently I was working with a lighting designer on a theatrical production and the director asked if it was possible to achieve a certain lighting effect during a scene. The designer said, “Would you like my answer to start with ‘No, because’ or ‘Yes, if’?” Regardless of the director’s choice, the designer would still be delivering the same information, but one answer was a closed door and the other was open with possibility. Mindset matters when welcoming possibility into our daily lives. One can go a lot further when one asks “How can we achieve this?” instead of “Can we achieve this?” We need to stop accepting what we already think we know and move toward searching for what’s possible.

Professor Langer goes on to explain the importance of living in a world of dreamers and optimists. She says, “There are many cynics out there who are entrenched in their beliefs and hold dear to their view of the world as fixed and predictable. There are also people who, while not cynical, are still mindlessly accepting of these views. A new approach to psychology and to our lives is needed because the naysayers—those who demand empirical evidence—are winning. It is they who have determined what is possible and what’s achievable, to our collective detriment.”

In order for the human race to not just survive, but to prosper, continue evolving, and possibly heal this world, we have to continue thinking outside the box and lean into possibility. It’s when possibility itches the tips of your finger, when you believe you may actually be able to influence an outcome in a positive way that things begin to shift. Knowing that possibility lies within you is the starting point for making change.

Of course, there are times when darkness seems to overcome our inner light and we struggle to see possibility in the dimness. It’s those times when we can rely on a spiritual community such as this, and the collective flame of those here, to reignite the spark within us, or at least help illuminate us in the darkness. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDh9jdNzVVcNI&v=h9jdNzVVcNI

All it takes is the spark inside one person who sees that the fruit of possibility is hanging on the tree right in the middle of our garden for change to take place… And it could very well be the divine, or the universe that places the fruit right in front of us, then waits and watches as we mold our ever evolving reality into its future manifestation. It’s time to rekindle the enchantment of the human race by asking: How essential is the divine to us? How often do we recognize it in ourselves and others? How essential is the concept of possibility? Could humans be the divine embodiment of possibility? What could that mean for our future? 

I invite you to close your eyes and think of one possibility that is floating around your personal world. Maybe you’ve been thinking about starting a garden. Maybe you want to go through your clothes and make a donation. Maybe you want to repaint your kitchen a fresh new color. Maybe you want to give the old friend you haven’t seen in a while a call and invite them out to lunch… What about here at the fellowship? What kind of possibilities are waiting for you here? Maybe you want to attend the Buddhist meditation group you’ve never tried. Maybe you’ve been wanting to cook food for Fill-A-Belly. Maybe you’ve thought about coming to the Brewhouse to share a story or song. There are so many possibilities waiting for you, hanging on the tree, but first you have to recognize that the spark inside of you, that spark of creation, is actually the spark of human possibility, and it’s yours to access wherever you are, whenever you need it.

What flame will you kindle with your spark?

OTHER READINGS FOR REFLECTION:

Physicist Paul C.W. Davies:

"Each person who understands themself as a spark of the divine, with some small part of the divine power interwoven into the process of the creation of the universe, will be encouraged to participate in the process of plumbing the potentialities of, and shaping the form of, the unfolding quantum reality that it is his or her birthright to help create."

from The Ego Tunnel

by Thomas Metzinger

"Political economist and sociologist Max Weber famously spoke of the “disenchantment of the world,” as rationalization and science led Europe and America into modern industrial society, pushing back religion and all “magical” theories about reality. Now we are witnessing the disenchantment of the self.

One of the many dangers in this process is that if we remove the magic from our image of ourselves, we may also remove it from our image of others. We could become disenchanted with one another. Our image of Homo sapiens underlies our everyday practice and culture; it shapes the way we treat one another as well as how we subjectively experience Ourselves.

In Western societies, the Judeo-Christian image of humankind—whether you are a believer or not—has secured a minimal moral consensus in everyday life. It has been a major factor in social cohesion. Now that the neurosciences have irrevocably dissolved the Judeo-Christian image of a human being as containing an immortal spark of the divine, we are beginning to realize that they have not substituted anything that could hold society together and provide a common ground for shared moral intuitions and values. An anthropological and ethical vacuum may well follow on the heels of neuroscientific findings.

This is a dangerous situation.