SUMMER SERMON THEME

“We don’t think our way into a new kind of living; we live our way into a new kind of thinking.”
-- Richard Rohr, priest, author, and spiritual director

In the current lectionary series of Gospel readings we find Jesus urging his disciples and the crowds to consider a new way of living and thinking. A few people understood and accepted his invitation to a deeper life, but most were too blinded by the religious and cultural mindset of their day to hear his message. If we think of these interactions as acts of compassion and as object-lessons for his audience, rather than as scolding, we see them as invitations for the people to live and think in new ways.

Click on the title to read the sermon

June 13: A “sinful” woman anoints Jesus’ feet.

June 20: Jesus heals a mentally ill man.

June 27: Jesus cautions against “putting your hand to the plow and looking back.”

July 4: "What Happens to People of Faith"

July 11: “Who is my neighbor?”

July 18: Jesus visits Mary and Martha

July 25: The Model Prayer

Aug 1: Foolish man tears down barns and builds bigger ones.

Aug 8: Trust God and live expectantly.

Aug 15: I have come to bring fire and division, not peace.

Aug 22: A Sabbath healing lesson

Aug 29: Guests at a wedding banquet

July 18: Jesus visits Mary and Martha

Today we find Jesus in the home of Mary and Martha. Two weeks ago we read about his sending out helpers to tell people that faith in God is crucial. Last week we read about his declaring that faith is lived out by loving one’s neighbors, even neighbors who are strangers. And now, in the home of Mary and Martha, Jesus tells people how to receive the resources they need to live out their faith by loving their neighbors.

There is a logical progression in this sequence of stories: why one should have faith, how faith should affect the way one lives, and how one gets the tools necessary to live in a faithful manner.

As Jesus enters the home of Martha and Mary, both sisters strive to make him feel welcome. Martha gets busy in the kitchen, doing the things necessary to feed him and the group he brought along. Hospitality was a high priority in Jesus’ day, and this was not just any visitor. Mary, on the other hand, welcomes Jesus by sitting down to listen to his stories and catch up on the latest news. She wants to hear about his travels, and she wants to know more about things that are important to him.

We can appreciate Martha’s frustrations. She is in the kitchen trying to put together a meal for a group of people who are doing nothing to help. In her frame of reference, hospitality is expressed by providing for the needs of the guests: food, drink, a place to rest from their travels, perhaps a pitcher of water and a bowl so they can was their face, hands, and feet.

Mary, on the other hand, is fascinated with Jesus. Every time she runs into him, he seems more interesting. His mind seems to keep growing, and he always has something wise to say.

Martha found Mary’s sitting down offensive. There was much to do -- not much time to get it done -- and Mary was not helping. But she was also offended because Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, in the place reserved for disciples --- male disciples. To Martha, Mary seemed not only lazy, but also presumptuous. “Who does she think she is, anyway?”

Jesus does not give the sort of reply Martha expected. Instead of encouraging Mary to go help her sister, Jesus tells her that Mary has made a good decision by sitting at his feet.

Martha is puzzled by Jesus’ reply. She thinks to herself, “If I had taken a seat like Mary did when Jesus arrived, who would have fixed dinner?”

What are we to make of Jesus’ reply to Martha, “Mary has chosen the better part which will not be taken away from her”?

Remember the summary of the preceding stories? Jesus sends people out to preach the good news. Then he demonstrates what a life influenced by the good news would look like. And now, he is telling Martha and Mary where they get the resources they need to live the life of good news. Mary found the resources she needed at the feet of Jesus.

I suspect that Mary had heard enough from Jesus (and about Jesus) in the past to know he was on to something. She knew that he understood the spiritual life in ways most people do not. And she knew there was great value in the spiritual life -- not as an escape from the world, but as a resource for living more effectively right where she was.

Mary made some important discoveries that can be helpful to us in our life of faith.

1) Mary assumed the role of a pupil, a student. She was deliberate and intentional in her pursuit of the spiritual resources she needed. She was not casual about the pursuit of spiritual knowledge. She made it her goal to learn more about the life of faith Jesus described. She had been impressed with him and his wisdom since the first time she met him. She had heard her brother Lazarus talk about how helpful he was to others. She wanted to learn more about him and his values.

When she listened to his stories they made her think differently about what’s really important. And when he answered her questions, she was often surprised at how well he understood what she needed to know.

2) Mary was drawn to a personal relationship with Jesus. She understood that faith was more than having a particular set of orthodox ideas. She valued the friendship of Jesus, and he valued hers. There was something special about him. At this point in time no one was speculating whether or not he was divine or human – those ideas developed much later. However, it was clear to Mary that Jesus knew more about God than anyone she had ever met. It felt like the more she learned about Jesus, the more she understood about God. That seemed odd, but it seemed true.

3) Mary discovered that faith development happens best in community. Jesus had a crowd with him, eager to hear him teach and see him do amazing things. Their motives were mixed: some just wanted to be around a celebrity. Others hoped to gain some magic that would make their lives easier.

And others agreed with Mary: Jesus is on to something, something important. There is wisdom here: they were often surprised when his stories did not go the way they expected. They were often surprised when Jesus healed a sick person. They were often surprised when Jesus engaged in debate with scholars. And they were often surprise when Jesus reached out to people considered unclean and unworthy.

When they were surprised they would ask Jesus to explain what he had done. And they would sit around the fire at night discussing with each other what they had seen and heard; at times things became more clear for them, and they gained new wisdom. At other times, they came away feeling more confused, not less.

Mary was full of questions about important things. She enjoyed the company of Jesus and she knew that being with him added to her growth fed her desire for growth in wisdom and compassion. She discovered that sitting at the feet of Jesus would not get dinner fixed, but it would get her fed.

Before we leave this series of lessons from the Gospel of Luke, let me summarize the sequence one more time: Jesus sent out the apostles two by two to share the message of God’s love. He reminded them that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love one’s neighbor. He gave them an example of how to love the neighbor and who the neighbor is. And now he helps Mary, Martha, and their friends discover the spiritual resources they need for loving God, their neighbors, and themselves.

The church at its best does the same thing. It reaches out in a variety of ways to those in need. And it takes seriously the need for spiritual formation, for spiritual resources. It takes seriously the need to remain students or pupils in the spiritual life, and the need for community, if we are to follow the example of Jesus.

Like Mary we have to be intentional about knowing more. Wisdom comes to us only when we are willing to seek it, and when we are willing to pay attention. In our busy world, both of those are hard: making time to seek wisdom, and making time to pay attention. Like Mary we are sure to discover that it’s worth the effort.

Amen.

Proper 11 – C - 2010

July 11: “Who is my neighbor?”

During World War II John Bertram Phillips served as rector of Church of the Good Shepherd in London. Phillips is famous for two things. During the many hours he spent in bomb shelters, he paraphrased the New Testament into contemporary English. This modern paraphrase provided readers an alternative to the Elizabethan English of the King James Translation 300 years earlier.

Phillips’ second contribution was a small book published in 1952, also intended to help modern people in their life of faith. The book, entitled Your God is Too Small, is still in print today. In this famous book Phillips challenges his readers to relinquish the narrow and rigid views of God they have acquired. He urges them to open their minds to a much larger vision of God. Like many people today, Phillips’ contemporaries were faced with two options regarding their understanding of God: let their view of God grow and change or abandon the idea of God altogether. The God rejected by many of Phillips’ peers was a God much too small and much too easy to dismiss.

As I have re-read the Gospel lessons in the lectionary for this summer, I keep finding Jesus saying the very same thing to his audiences: your God is too small. In fact, I think that is the central message of Jesus’ entire ministry: your God is too small. Over and over he said to people from all walks of life: what you have learned about God is important, your worship of God is important, your obedience to God’s commandments is vital; BUT, your view of God is entirely too small.

And he went on to say that your understanding of how to be a faithful believer in God is also much too small. You have come to see faithfulness to mean following certain customs, observing certain practices, and following religious law. These religious behaviors are indeed ways to honor God, ways to be faithful to God. But if this is as far as you go, your religion is much too small.

These challenges were hard for people to hear, especially the religious people; so Jesus told stories to help people understand his message. The story we hear today is one of his most famous stories.

A lawyer, a religious scholar, asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. As he often did, Jesus answers his question with a question: what does the law tell you to do? The lawyer replied that he is to love God with his whole being and to love his neighbor as himself.

When Jesus told him he was correct, the man pressed for more clarity. “But what does it mean to love my neighbor? Who is my neighbor?”

Again, Jesus answers his question with a question --- but before the question, he tells a story. In this story, a Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Along the way he is mugged, robbed, and left to die alongside the road.

Soon, a priest comes along. As a religious man he had every reason to stop and help, but he looked away and kept on going. Soon, a Levite came along. As a religious man he had every reason to stop and help, but he looked the other way and kept on going.

Jesus’ audience, and Luke’s audience, may have been disappointed to hear that these religious folks looked the other way and kept on going.

Then a Samaritan came along. His people had been rejected and despised by the Jews for decades; he had every reason to look the other way and keep on going, but instead he stopped. He spent a lot of time helping the man; and he provided lodging and food so the stranger could recover from his injuries.

Jesus’ audience, and Luke’s audience, may have been disappointed to hear that this Samaritan fellow stopped to help.

After the story, Jesus got around to answering the lawyer’s question with a question: which of these 3 people acted like a neighbor toward the injured man? The lawyer replied, “the one who showed him mercy.”

That is the point of the story: what it means to be a faithful believer in God is much bigger than believing a certain set of ideas. Being a faithful believer in God extends beyond religious customs and religious practices. These observances are important reminders, but if they don’t get folks moving, they are not worth much.

Jesus challenged the lawyer and others to put their faith into action. To enlarge their view of God. To enlarge their view of what it meant to be faithful to God. To encounter people in need and to consider these people their neighbors.

To take chances; to take risks; to get out of their familiar and comfortable places. Richard Rohr, theologian and spiritual director writes, “if your picture of Jesus doesn’t make you at least a bit uncomfortable – if your picture of Jesus isn’t at least a little bit threatening -- you probably have some growing up to do spiritually.”

That was the message of Jesus to the lawyer: keep growing. Your God is too small. If your God is too small, your life will be too small. You will miss the abundance of a deeper spiritual life. And you will fail to see that people along the road, hurting and needing help are, indeed, your neighbors.

July 4: "What Happens to People of Faith"

A few summers ago some of our young people and their sponsors went on a pilgrimage to the Grand Canyon and the Navajo Nation. We listened with great interest as 2 Navajo couples talked about their religious customs and their understanding of the spirit world. We were intrigued to discover that many Navajo legends and myths are quite similar to those stories we find in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.

One of the major themes in many of the Navajo legends, like our own religious stories, is a distinct contrast between those who know about the world of spirit and those who do not.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we find several contrasts between those who have faith and those who don’t. Throughout most of this letter Paul has warned his readers against the Judaizers or the circumcision party as they are sometimes called. The Judaizers were trying to persuade the new Christians in Galatia that they had made a mistake by abandoning the law of Moses.

Paul urges his readers to believe that their relationship with God is established by virtue of their faith in Christ – not by observing the Jewish laws and customs. Paul was reared in this Jewish tradition and has great regard for it; but he also recognized how many people were relying on the security of adherence to the law rather than on faith in God.

To believe, says Paul, that your relationship with God is based on circumcision, dietary laws, animal sacrifices, and Sabbath observance is to retreat from the new beginning you have made by following Jesus.

Then Paul goes on to contrast people of faith with people outside the believing community. He does not suggest that people with faith are BETTER than those without: that’s the very battle he is fighting with the Judaizers who think their way is better than the Galatian Christians.

Rather, Paul says that people of faith are guided by a new set of principles that are quite different from the values of society at large. This is the apostle Paul who wrote in another letter: “Do not be conformed to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

Paul believed that embracing spiritual wisdom, knowing that we are loved and accepted by God, begins to make us new people. Over time, says Paul, the newness grows and grows until we become new people, people with a bigger vision and deeper understanding than we had before.

The apostle Paul recognized that some of the Jewish leaders had reduced the spiritual power of God to a set of creeds, formulas, and rituals – they had lost sight of the powerful resources to which these practices pointed.

I’m sure Paul would be disappointed to see that many in the Christian church have done the exact same thing – substituting belief in certain formulas for faith in God.

The apostle Paul is warning these early Christians about the temptation to reduce faith in God to a set of orthodox beliefs alone. Such beliefs are important, but they are not an end in themselves. They are a means to an end. These beliefs are alive and growing, like a plant, not frozen like flowers and trees in a painting.

Here are some of the contrasts Paul makes between people of faith, people whose spirituality is alive and influential in their lives versus those whose faith has become petrified into dogma – or those who have not discovered their own spiritual resources at all.

1. Those who have faith are aware of their own transgressions. People of genuine faith recognize that we have sinned and fallen short of God’s hope for us. In his letter to the Galatians Paul says that those of authentic faith take their own transgressions seriously. We are often tempted to project our own shortcomings onto other people and reject those qualities in them rather than facing them in ourselves.

That is one of the reasons we have an extended period of silence prior to our corporate confession on Sunday. The silence provides us the opportunity to take a brief inventory or ourselves in order to have in mind the specific things for which we are confessing. This process allows us to accept responsibility before God for our transgressions. Otherwise, the confession is merely a familiar part of the weekly liturgy – with generic references at best.

Facing our transgressions is not an excursion into guilt. Recognizing and facing our transgressions is an invitation to learn something helpful about ourselves, to move forward with greater clarity and freedom.

2. Those whose spiritual life is vibrant have an accurate picture of themselves. Many people spend lots of energy looking down on those who have less and resenting those who have more. Paul suggests in this letter that those with deep spiritual roots do not need to compare themselves to others --- the only thing that matters, says Paul, is the new creation taking place within us. If, says Paul, we attend to that inner process, we will be at peace with the externals.

Paul is challenging people to be guided by the certainty that God loves us all – to place at the heart of our pursuits those things that matter: justice, respect for others, generosity, faith. If we don’t, says Paul, we will be caught up in the trap of basing our self worth on externals that are artificial and can never satisfy.

3. Paul concludes his words of encouragement with a universal reminder: we reap what we sow; we harvest what we plant.

Paul is reminding his readers that the map they follow will determine their destination. If they follow the map of greed, competition, and domination over other people, that’s where they will end up. If they follow the map of mercy and kindness, that is where they will end up. If we follow the map of humility and openness, that is where we will end up. If we cling to those things that make us feel secure and comfortable, that is where we will remain – in the same place we have always been.

If, however, we love God, and if we love our neighbor as ourselves, we are rooted in those values that are eternal. If we love God, love our neighbor, and love ourselves, we have indeed experienced the New Being: the old is passing away and we are becoming a new creation. Then, says Paul, it becomes our task to live out the faith that has taken seed in us:

Let us not grow weary in doing what is right; so whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially our brothers and sisters in the community of faith.

And in the collect for today we pray,

O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Proper 9 (2010)
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June 27: Jesus cautions against “putting your hand to the plow and looking back.”

The church has always had trouble with Jesus – we struggle with the same dilemma the early church faced: We have been quick to worship him, to applaud him, to stand in awe of him; but we have been slow to follow him. We have admired his character and some of his teachings, we have called him “Lord, Lord,” but we have had great difficulty with some of the things he said.

We struggle to carry our Sunday morality into the rest of the week. Love our neighbor as ourselves, unless, of course, he is a different race, religion, or political persuasion. Be fair and honest, above board, except in politics or business that serves our own interests. After all it is not our fault that others are not quite as shrewd or well-connected as we are.

This is the dilemma faced by the disciples and the would-be followers in today’s Gospel reading. Some have been with Jesus quite some time now. Some of them saw him transfigured with Moses and Elijah, all of them heard him say they should handle rejection by moving on to the next city to tell his story to others. But this scene in Samaria makes us wonder if they have paying attention at all.

This scene from Luke’s Gospel marks a dramatic turning point in the ministry of Jesus. According to Luke “he set his face toward Jerusalem.” This is an ancient phrase associated with the prophets as they responded to God’s call. By using this phrase Luke assures his readers that Jesus is responding to something far bigger than himself. He is headed to Jerusalem where prophets die, to Jerusalem where the temple stands as a profound symbol of God’s presence among the people.

Luke devotes more than 1/3 of his Gospel to this travel narrative as Jesus and the disciples head toward Jerusalem where Jesus will be arrested and executed. It is more of a theological journal than an actual travel log. Luke does not tell us where many of these events happened, they were just on the way to Jerusalem. When locations are mentioned, they are not in any sort of logical sequence. Luke’s point is the interaction between Jesus and the people.

In this final trip to Jerusalem we see once again some of the things about Jesus that are remarkable – some of the things we would do well to emulate if we are going to follow him and his teachings.

We see a remarkable commitment to his sense of call. He is headed to Jerusalem; he cannot be dissuaded from going. He intends to be there by Passover week, regardless of the cost. He has a sense of what is right for him, and this clarity guides all he does.

We see his remarkable patience. He has spent hours and hours teaching and demonstrating respect for other people, compassion and tolerance. And here in Samaria the disciples who are most familiar with him and his values want to bring down lightning and fire on those who don’t agree with them. Like many of us, they take it personally when someone disagrees with them. They get angry when someone does not believe or behave the way they expect them to.

If I had a magic wand I could use to change things in the world, that is where I would use it: to help people discover that no one is obligated to behave or believe the way we want them to. A great many of the world’s problems would disappear if we could really grasp this principle. People who disagree with us are not bad, they just see things differently. We know we are not obligated to behave the way they want us to; but we have trouble granting them the same respect.

Along with his patience, we see Jesus’ remarkable empathy. He understood people and was able to accept them where they were. To the scholarly religious man Nicodemus he said one thing; to the rich young ruler he said something different; to the Samaritan woman at the well he said something different; to Zaccheus the tax collector, he said something different. He was not being a chameleon, he was not changing his message to fit the situation. But he was addressing each of these people where they needed to hear his message. The same with the outcast and publicans and sinners. He showed them respect and compassion, things they rarely saw from other people, including their own neighbors and families.

One day, a few years before the Civil War in our own country Soren Kierkegaard was sitting in an outdoor café in Copenhagen. He was smoking a cigar and writing in his journal. Reading this particular passage from the journal you can just see the light bulb go on for him. He was quite frustrated with the Danish church of his day. He felt it expected very little of its members, that it had lost sight of the genuine gospel Jesus taught. It had sold out to its culture and was committed to making things easier and less demanding for its people.

The light goes on and Kierkegaard writes that his calling has become clear; his vocation, his mission from now on is to urge the church to make things harder. To help religious people see that genuine faith calls them to a lifestyle of compassion and sacrifice. To help people see that following Jesus was different from admiring him. To help people see that religion is not a feel good elixir; to help religious people see that discipleship is costly.

That is what Jesus was telling the people who thought they wanted to follow him to Jerusalem and be part of the action. Are your sure you want to do that? It is going to be uncomfortable and costly.

Every time I read this passage I think of those forms you have to sign prior to surgery. The informed consent forms that spell out the risks of your procedure. Jesus is working on informed consent here: if you go with me, it means a commitment to something bigger than yourselves. It means risk, it means danger, it is not politically correct. Make sure you want to go, because if you do, a time may come when it is too late to back out.

Even though we do not face the danger and risks of the early disciples, the question is the same: do we really want to follow Jesus or do we just want to applaud and admire him? Following him is what discipleship is about. Much too often, applauding and admiring him is what church is about.

^6th Sunday after Pentecost, 2010
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June 20: Jesus heals a mentally ill man.

There is an old saying about public speaking – you have probably heard it. I tried to find its origin, but no one knows who said it first. It goes like this, “When speaking to a group, tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you have told them.”

This is exactly what all the Gospel writers do. Early in each gospel the author tells his audience what he is going to tell them about Jesus. Then he spends lots of time telling what he said he would tell. And then he concludes his story by reminding the audience what they have been told.

Early in his Gospel Luke tells us where he is going with the Jesus story. We hear Jesus say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free.” TO BRING GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR, TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND; AND TO SET THE OPPRESSED FREE.

Luke tells his audience, “that’s where I am going with this story: I am going to talk about Jesus bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and setting the oppressed free. Get ready, get set, here I go:”

And that is where today’s story begins. As always in Luke’s Gospel, we hear a story with many layers of meaning. It begins with the remark that Jesus got out of the boat at the territory of the Gerasenes which is opposite Galilee . According to Luke, Jesus had just calmed a storm on the lake, and now he is on the opposite side of the lake, where he finds a storm on shore. He enters a Gentile territory which is, in fact, quite the opposite of Galilee. The region is known for its pig farming, and believe it or not, some of the people even ate pig. Here in the Gentile region, Luke’s audience finds Jesus demonstrating God’s love and power. In the background we can hear Luke saying to his audience, “are you all listening? Do you see where Jesus is? He went to this Gentile province on purpose. His mission there was just like his mission in Galilee and Judea and Samaria: he cared about these strangers, these foreigners; he wanted them to know about God’s love. Don’t miss the point.”

Meanwhile, back at the lake. Luke tells his audience about the very first person Jesus meets when he comes ashore: a man who is about as poor, unclean, and hopeless as anyone could be. He is possessed by so many evil spirits that he doesn’t even know his name. He will not keep his clothes on. He lives in the cemetery with the dead and unclean. He has little or no control over his impulses. He shouts and scares people. He is kept in chains and under guard, but often breaks the chains and wanders about. Everyone knows about him, and everyone avoids him at all cost.

Jesus, however, does the opposite. Instead of ignoring the man and trying to avoid him, Jesus is drawn to him. Granted, the man was pretty assertive when he approached Jesus in a loud voice. But unlike others who turned their back and hurried off, Jesus engaged the man and wanted to hear his story. We can almost hear Luke in the background saying to his audience, “Are you all listening? Do you see what happens when you treat people with respect? Do you see what happens when you listen to someone’s story rather than brushing him off because he isn’t your kind of people? Don’t miss the point.”

Meanwhile, back at the lake: Jesus calls the evil spirits to leave the man. They beg him “please don’t send us to the abyss,” to the place evil spirits are confined. Scholars are puzzled by the point of Jesus’ negotiaing with the voices, but for whatever reason he agrees to send them into a herd of pigs instead of back to the abyss. It is equally odd that the demon-possessed pigs run off the cliff into the water. In the demonology stories of the ancient Middle East, evil spirits could not survive in water, so maybe somewhere in the history of this story is the idea that Jesus tricked the evil spirits to get themselves drowned in the lake.

Whatever else it means, the story seems to say that Jesus’ goodness made evil uncomfortable. The story tells those who heard it that Jesus conveyed God’s loving power to those around him, that Jesus helped people in need, regardless of who they were. When he reached out to them in compassion, something amazing happened. This man who was profoundly divided and disturbed, naked and bound in chains is now in his right mind, clothed, calm and at peace.

You can almost hear Luke in the background saying to his audience, “Are you all paying attention? Do you see what God’s love can do? Do you see what it means to follow Jesus? It means to love the unlovely, to reach out to the untouchable, to proclaim good news to the poor and release to those who are captive.”

Meanwhile, back at the lake. The men who owned the pigs watched them run off into the lake, and they were terrified. They ran to town and told everyone they saw. They told about the deranged man who was now in his right mind; they told about the pigs running off the cliff. People hurried out to see what was going on. They were amazed at the change in the man who had been disturbed for so long; they were frightened by what happened to the pigs, and they urged Jesus to get back on his boat and leave. You can almost hear Luke in the background, saying to his audience, “Are you all paying attention? Once again Jesus did a good thing and got in trouble. Making people happy isn’t his goal; doing good is his goal. Doing the right thing doesn’t always please the crowd – especially those who have it easy and don’t want things to change.”

Meanwhile, back at the lake for one final point. The man who was healed did something interesting and understandable: he sat down and listened to Jesus. He wanted to know more about this person who could overpower evil. He wanted to know more about this man who treated him with respect. He wanted to know the man who listened to him even when he made no sense. He was overwhelmed by all that happened, and he wanted to follow Jesus as a new disciple.

But Jesus had a better idea. He urged the man to live out his life right there in his own community. If the man went around telling people about Jesus and about God’s love, that would be great. That is what Jesus urged him to do. But even if he said nothing, he would be a daily reminder to everyone who knew him: a man who was profoundly disturbed for years was now healthy and well because of God’s love and mercy. A man the entire city thought was possessed by evil was now filled with goodness. He was going about helping others in need, just as Jesus had reached out to him. Can’t you hear Luke in the background, saying to his audience, “Are you all getting this? This is how the good news of Jesus travels: one person tells another. One person whose life has been changed, one person who is overwhelmed with gratitude, says to another, ‘you won’t believe what happened to me.’ This is how Jesus would have us live, helping others. Those whose lives have been changed by the good news tell and help others. And those who are changed by what they hear demonstrate their gratitude by helping others. If you will do that, says Luke. If you will do that, says Jesus, you will become part of God’s mission: bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and helping set the oppressed free.”

I don’t think Luke had modern generations in mind when he wrote his Gospel. I think he wrote it for his generation, and would be surprised to learn it is still in print. But if he knew, I bet he would be in the background saying to us, “I hope you all are paying attention. I hope you all understand what is happening in these stories. If you do, they can become your stories, too. Accepting the good news of God’s love will enrich your life. The good news of God’s love will help you with things that hinder your life. Accepting God’s love will give you eyes to see things you have never noticed before. And above all, accepting God’s love will set you free, free indeed.”

May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the love and knowledge of God, and of God’s Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who gave new life to all who had faith in him. Who gives new life, even today, to those who have faith in him. Amen.

Proper 6: June 13, 2010 A “sinful” woman anoints Jesus’ feet.

In the Gospels Jesus always runs into trouble when he tells people their sins are forgiven. No sacrifice, no offering, no confession, no penance, no penalty, no requirements of any kind. Often, he doesn’t ask them to believe anything in particular, just to accept the fact: they are forgiven. At times it was difficult for people to accept, but it was offered freely as a gift – no strings attached.

Throughout his ministry Jesus was on a mission to tell and show people what he knew about God: that God loves and welcomes everyone: male, female; slave, free; Jew, Gentile; rich, poor; people in power and people who had no power at all.

To the outsiders and outcasts this was wonderful news. All day, every day they were treated as worthless rejects. Born the wrong gender, born the wrong nationality, or born to the wrong family – they were considered inferior people. No wonder they listened so carefully to Jesus. He respected them and showed them God’s love in ways no one else ever had.

To the insiders, the religious people with power and prestige, this news about forgiveness was not so welcome. In fact, some considered it heresy. What good is it to be special in God’s eye if everyone else is too?

The gospel story we just heard tells about one of those occasions when Jesus declared sins forgiven. This particular story is actually several stories rolled into one, something Luke does a lot in his gospel. Luke would have been a great television writer: he weaves several smaller stories into one larger story. The larger story teaches an important lesson, but each of the subplots has its own message to convey. I would like to walk through this story with you to look at some of the subplots and the larger story. There is no summary at the end, so you may want to keep up as we go.

The story begins at the Jerusalem Country Club. Well, actually it is not really a country club; it’s a really nice private home: the home of a prestigious and well-to-do religious leader. All the right people were there, the shakers and movers of Jerusalem. The owner of the home, a Pharisee, had invited Jesus as a dinner guest. The evening would give the host and his buddies a chance to check out this man Jesus who was attracting such interest in the city.

It is not clear who the anonymous woman is, or why she was there. Maybe she was well known to the shakers and movers of the community. Or maybe she just walked in and folks were too shocked to ask her to leave. Or maybe it was a set-up, to see how Jesus would react to someone way out of bounds.

Whoever she was, she was overcome with emotion being near Jesus. Perhaps she had followed him with the crowds and this was her first chance to be close to him. Perhaps he had healed someone she loved, and this behavior was an act of gratitude. Or perhaps he was just that compelling that she was overcome by being close to him.

For whatever reason, she sits behind him as he eats. It was customary in those days to eat reclining. During the meal she washes his feet and anoints them with expensive oil.

This scene bothers the host and his other guests. The woman is breaking a number of strict taboos by being so intimate with a man, especially in public, and especially a religious teacher. If Jesus were really a prophet, they say, he would not tolerate this at all. This is not something a religious teacher would allow.

Jesus hears their comments and he replies by telling a parable about forgiveness. They seem to get the point of his story, but then he really gets their attention when he tells the woman that her sins are forgiven. It is one thing to dilly dally with a sinful woman in front of the whole dinner party, but it is something altogether different to declare her sins are forgiven. That’s REALLY out of line.

Only God can forgive sins, and only when certain conditions are met. You are not God, they say, and the woman has done nothing to gain forgiveness.

This woman is Jesus’ sort of person. She knows how badly she needs forgiveness, and she is profoundly grateful to hear the good news that she is, indeed, forgiven. She knows how much it means to be forgiven; she knows how much it means to have someone finally treat you with respect.

She is grateful to have someone as noble as Jesus go to bat for her, to stand up for her as a worthwhile person in front of all these important people who looked down on her every day.

The bigger story ends with another sub-story that conveys a powerful message. Soon after the dinner event Jesus went from town to town, telling people the same good news he told the dinner guests and the woman who washed his feet: God loves you and sees you as a person of worth. God loves you and wants you to love others.

Luke says Jesus had a number of helpers on this mission: He mentions three women in particular: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna. He says there were many other helpers, both men and women. Remember what he said about these three women? They had been cured of infirmities and evil spirits. Jesus had reached out to them in a time of need. He had shown mercy and respect, extending God’s forgiveness and healing power to them.

Like the woman at the dinner party, they were overcome with gratitude. They knew first-hand what it meant to be touched by God’s love and goodness. They wanted others to hear their story. They wanted others to be transformed by forgiveness and faith just as they had been. Just as the sinful woman at dinner had given expensive oil to anoint the feet of Jesus, these women were investing their own personal funds to help sustain the ministry of Jesus and his other followers.

SO, let’s put ourselves in Luke’s original audience. What do we hear in the 1^st century, a generation after Jesus is gone?

We hear that Jesus practiced what he preached. He said that all are equal in God’s sight. All are equal, both women and men. These missionary women and men that Luke mentions devoted themselves to ministry for one primary reason: gratitude. Gratitude that their lives had been changed. Gratitude that inspired them to share their experience with others.

Their encounter with Jesus healed them and set them free. Their illnesses were healed, and their images of themselves were profoundly changed. They came to know they were people of dignity and worth because they were created in the image of God. They knew themselves to be holy people: holy, not because of anything they had done, but holy because God declared it so. Holy because they belonged to God and they came to believe that remarkable news.

At dinner Jesus did not scold or put down the religious leaders. He did not point out the flaws in their beliefs and practice. He invited them to enlarge their vision, to use their hearts along with their heads. He wanted them to see how they had mistaken faithfulness to the law as faithfulness to God.

He is not saying “throw out your old religion and take on a new one. He is not saying “forget Moses and follow me.” He is saying that one who has come to know God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s acceptance has a new life, a bigger life. A life of gratitude and generosity. A life of service to others.

This is a story about Jesus helping respectable and devout people see they had it backward. They assumed right living would lead to forgiveness. They were striving to be faithful in order to make sure God would accept them.

Jesus leans over and says to them, “I believe you have it backward. You believe proper living leads to forgiveness. It’s actually the other way around: forgiveness leads to proper living.”

Sermon Series: April 25 – May 23
Reflections on the Spiritual Journey

Click on the title to read the sermon

April 25 - What is the spiritual journey about?

May 2 - Is the spiritual journey optional?

May 9 - Is the spiritual journey beneficial?

May 16 - Is the spiritual journey risky?

May 23 (Pentecost) - Is the spiritual journey the same for everyone?

May 30 (Trinity) - Does the spiritual journey have a destination?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Does the spiritual journey have a destination?

I want to tell you about a cartoon I saw years ago. The scene is a pasture with a fence around the perimeter. The pasture has been subdivided by a cross fences into 4 equal plots. In each of the 4 smaller plots a cow is grazing. However, none of the cows are grazing in their own plots; all four of them have their heads sticking through the fence so they can graze from their neighbor’s patch of grass.

Isn’t that the human story in a nutshell? Looking for something other than what we have, looking for something to make life better for us. This interest in greener pastures has something to do with the spiritual longing that stirs in each of us. This longing gets diverted a thousand ways into shortcuts that become dead ends. The dead ends often provide some benefits, that is what makes them so compelling. But the benefit is never a spiritual connection - - it’s a poor substitute that leaves us empty.

At its core the urge for more and different is driven by our sense of incompleteness: driven by our desire to feel complete, to feel grounded, safe, and secure; to feel connected with something bigger than ourselves; to be more sure about the meaning and purpose of our lives.

This longing for connection with something greater, this desire to know God and God’s ways, sends us on a journey. A journey that will never end. A journey on which every discovery paves the way for a new discovery, which then paves the way for another new discovery. A journey in which struggle leads to wisdom and a greater sense of balance, disrupted by struggle that leads to new wisdom and a new sense of balance, disrupted by a new struggle that leads to another new sense of balance.

Some of the New Testament writers talk about heaven as a place where all the struggle is over, a place of perfect peace, a place where we can finally settle down and never have to face change again. Don’t tell anyone, but I hope they are wrong. It sounds pretty appealing, but I think it would get old in a hurry. I suspect that after we die we enter a new plateau filled with new learning and new discoveries. Obviously I am speculating; who knows, maybe we play harps all day and eat BBQ every meal.

Regardless of what happens when we die, this life is a journey, a journey driven by our need for more, driven by our belief that the grass is greener across the fence. Can you imagine what would happen to the world economy if we all woke up one morning and decided the grass is not greener in the other pasture? That we have enough? We would still need a new refrigerator from time to time, some new shoes when the old ones wore out, a new car from time to time.

But what if we paused long enough to analyze our obsession with more and better. What if we discovered that getting more and more is like eating cotton candy – it tastes good for the moment, but it does nothing for our real hunger. And, if we keep eating it long enough, it will make us sick.

What if we realized we have been sold a bill of goods, that we have been seduced: that we have tried to satisfy our spiritual longing with things that can never provide what we really seek. What if we discovered that what we really want is serenity, meaning and purpose in life, a connection with the One who is greater than we are. . . a re-connection with the One who lives within us and longs to set us free?

From the very first moments of life we are leaning, we are reaching, striving for something out there…something beyond ourselves: our mother when we are hungry, one of our parents when we are afraid, a teacher when we need knowledge, a career that will provide the things we need, a loved one whose companionship will enhance both of our lives.

This reaching and striving for something beyond us marks the beginning of the spiritual journey, although it takes a while for us to recognize the journey as a spiritual one. For some people this recognition happens quite late or never at all.

The journey is not a straight line. At times we feel lost, like we are traveling in circles. Some lessons on the journey are much harder to learn than others. Along the way we learn some things that everyone needs to learn, some universal truths that we could put in a manual to receive along with our birth certificate. But we also learn some things that are uniquely vital for our own personal life.

At times these lessons come in painful and disruptive form. At other times we feel like we have been set free from a great and terrible burden. There will be peaks and valleys, confusion and clarity, fear and courage, sorrow and joy.

In modern western society we have trouble with this journey. We have come to believe the illusion that our task in life is to travel a straight line into a future that is better than our past. On this journey we worship three gods. Their names are BIGGER, FASTER, AND MORE.

In recent months we have seen the cost of selling our souls to BIGGER, FASTER, AND MORE. When shareholder profit is the ultimate measure, we get things like the financial crisis and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Both were preventable, but the allure of big money in a hurry became more important than anything else.

If we recognize the journey of life as a spiritual pilgrimage, we notice things along the way that we would never see otherwise. As I said, this journey is not a straight line. It is more like a spiral. It is often two steps forward and one step back. And in this process we discover ourselves drawn away from some things and drawn toward others.

Remember Star Wars? The force be with you. Well, the force that sets us on this journey exceeds our ability to grasp. It pulls us toward itself, which pulls us away from familiarity and certainty into a place of mystery and uncertainty.

This pull is necessary for several reasons: ©we are being addressed and pulled by something far greater than we could ever grasp – Ann Ulanov sys it this way: “The living encounter with mystery destroys all our descriptions of it.”; © being pulled out of the familiar and customary is necessary to liberate us from the illusion that we are in charge, to show the ego that it has reached the limits of its ability to control things and give direction; to invite and foster dependency on God and God’s wisdom rather than our own. ¯ Spiritual enlightenment, spiritual transformation cannot happen without this shift from the arrogant focus on “what I am doing” to the question “what is happening to me?”

We live in a world where there is more meaning than we can comprehend, far more meaning than our ego and rational mind can grasp. The ego helps us master the world, but then it gets in our way as we strive to learn more about the deeper meaning of life.

If we continue on the spiritual journey we discover that the process of maturing and gaining wisdom requires deliberate and intentional collaboration on our part. We are in the presence of mystery that is greater than we can grasp, and droplets of this wisdom come to us as we are able to see and hear them. But in order for this to happen we have to make looking and listening our task.

Recognizing the spiritual core of life provides a crystallization point, a place where understanding ourselves and learning about God come together. We relinquish those things that hinder this journey and open ourselves to the One who redeems and transforms us.

The cohesive center must be recognized, accepted, and allowed to grow – and we must take personal responsibility for it. It becomes a guide, a guide we didn’t know we had. I think that is what is important about prayer: in prayer we are opening ourselves to the mystery of God; we are making ourselves available to wisdom far greater than our own. We are relinquishing our illusions of grandeur and we are kneeling before the One who has given us life; the One who has offered us a life of spiritual abundance if we choose to receive it.

Taking this journey requires a good deal of courage. It often take us one direction when all our friends are going another way. We learn as we go, and some times we travel in the dark. Theologian Richard Rohr is right: we don’t think ourselves into a new way of living; we live our way into a new way of thinking.

I would like to conclude this sermon and this series with three questions proposed by Joan Chittister. Regarding the spiritual journey, she asks:

“What are we willing to cut off in our lives to be really spiritual people?

“What will we sacrifice to be more of what we really want to be?

“What are we willing to add to our lives in order to become everything else we were meant to be?”

The journey never ends. The grass is not really greener on the other side of the fence. But if we pay attention to the longing for a deeper life, we may discover that the deeper life is closer than we thought. We may discover a connection with God’s peace that takes us where none of the substitutes ever could. We may discover that indeed, God’s peace does pass all understanding. That God’s peace is worth more than all the substitutes we could ever acquire.

May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of God’s anointed One Jesus Christ our Lord. And may the blessing of God almighty, our creator, our redeemer, and the one who sustains us, be with you this day and remain with you forever. Amen.

TRINITY SUNDAY: 2010

Is the Spiritual Journey the Same for Everyone?

You know how it is: people find out you are having surgery on your knee and everyone you know wants to tell you about their knee surgery: what it was like for them and what it is going to be like for you.

And if announce that you are pregnant, people come out of the woodwork to tell you pregnancy and childbirth stories. Even people you don’t know want to tell you far more than you really want to hear.

After knee surgery or the baby is born you remember some of the stories you heard. Some things did happen the way you were told. Other things you heard, however, didn’t happen at all. And you had some experiences no one mentioned.

The same is true about the spiritual journey: your journey will have many things in common with everyone else. However, each of us will have unique and personal experiences that are quite different from the stories other people tell.

Pentecost Sunday is a great time for us to consider this issue. The NT literature tells us that people from many different backgrounds and languages heard exactly the message they needed to hear; they heard it in a highly personal way. At the same time, the message they all heard was the same: early church kerygma, the early church summary of the gospel: we preach Christ and him crucified; dead, buried, raised to new life.

Regardless of our tradition or our culture, all journeys of spiritual formation have a lot in common: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, New Age: people from all these traditions tell similar stories about the spiritual path. And, modern descriptions of the journey sound a great deal like the writings of ancient mystics many centuries ago in far away places.

Let’s look first at some of the things common to spiritual pilgrims everywhere. Whether we deliberately seek to enrich our spiritual life, or whether we find ourselves on the spiritual path against our will, or even if we don’t recognize the path as a spiritual journey, there are some things we can count on.

At some point along the way people realize something is different. Things are not as they were earlier. For some this change is gradual and subtle, and for others the awakening is rude and harsh, like they have fallen through a trap door.

Needless to say, this change is unsettling. People feel confused, lost, out of sorts, out of balance, uncertain, uncomfortable. Things that used to work well and feel good no longer provide the same benefit. For some it feels like all the mirrors have disappeared: the things that used to help validate their view of themselves no longer work. Some say they are unhappy with everything and everyone in their life, that they feel lost and confused, like a trapeze artist who has let go of one trapeze --- and the other trapeze is nowhere in sight. No wonder people refer to this period as a wilderness.

In the wilderness we have two choices, see it through or try to go back. Trying to go back is tempting, but it is also deadly. The ego has reached the limit of its ability to carry us, and trying to go back is like trying to ride a horse that is too weary to carry us any longer. If we continue through the wilderness we eventually discover that it is rich with learning opportunities. Some of the things we learn are common to all people. But we also discover things that are given for our own unique benefit.

It is hard to learn much when you feel like a scared rabbit or when you feel like you are in free fall. But in those occasional moments of relief you begin to see that you will make it; things will be different, that different is not all bad. You begin evaluating where you have been and who you have been. How did your childhood experiences serve you well and how have they created obstacles for you? How authentic have you been with yourself and with others? Who are you apart from your history and your accomplishments?

Some people call this learning period illumination. One learns more about oneself and more about God, more about what really matters and what needs to be left behind. How to trust God and to trust yourself. To accept God’s forgiveness and to forgive yourself.

This journey is not a straight line. It meanders here and there, and illumination does not mean clear vision and smooth sailing from this point on. But coming through the wilderness changes us. If we try to go back we turn into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife. If we turn back and try to rebuild those things that are slipping away from us we lose ourselves in the process.

The whole purpose of the journey is for the ego to learn to trust God and to be open to the deeper dimensions of life. Going backward is an act of fear, and going forward is an act of faith. Going back is paralysis, going forward is liberation.

What about the unique dimensions of the spiritual journey? What makes the journey unique for each of us?

First of all, the spirit of God meets us where we are, at our points of greatest need. It is a great mystery that life nudges and awakens us to places we need to grow, shines the light in places we are stuck, gives us opportunities to work on things that hinder our growth.

The spirit helps us understand ourselves better. This knowledge helps us grow in the places we need help the most: greed, fear, envy, anger, distrust, guilt, prejudice. Life doesn’t sort these things out or change us, but it hands us a puzzle and says, “Here, figure this out; it will help you. It will change you and make you a wiser person.”

The things we need to learn about ourselves help us discover more about God. Somehow knowing ourselves more clearly fosters learning about God; the more we know about ourselves the more resources we have for discovering God. And the more we are willing to trust God, the more we learn about ourselves.

The spirit helps provide a perspective on life experiences up to now: how have childhood experiences and environment helped us? How have they hindered us?

Connection with the unique self, the authentic self, is different because each person is different. Recognition of this deep inner self helps connect us with resources that are uniquely ours.

Some people suggest that the life of faith involves squeezing yourself into a particular shape. You have seen those suits of armor that knights (middle ages and Renaissance). For years I thought being a Christian meant I had to figure out how to squeeze myself into something like that – that there was preformed shape we had to be if we are going to people of faith. Then someone helped me see that God does not want us to be someone else, God wants us to be who we are, the person we were intended to be.

My childhood was different from yours. My young adult life was different from yours. My personality is different from yours. Because of these differences our spiritual journeys will not always be the same. The ancient rabbis used to tell their students: when you are face to face with God, God will not ask you why you failed to be Moses. God will ask you why you failed to be yourself.

That is what the spirit of God helps us do: know ourselves as a unique person, and reconnect with the core self that has been with us from our beginning.

Today we celebrate the beginning of the spiritual journey for Henry and Fisher. It is our task to help them on this journey. Some things we can’t do; they will just have to learn them for themselves. But some things we must do: we must tell them about God’s love, and our loving them will make the idea of God’s love easier to believe and accept. We must tell them our stories, stories about the things we have learned and the struggles that brought us the wisdom we have gained.

A Prayer for those about to be baptized or to renew their baptismal covenant

O God, you prepared your disciples for the coming of the

Spirit through the teaching of your Son Jesus Christ: Make

the hearts and minds of your servants ready to receive the

blessing of the Holy Spirit, that they may be filled with the

strength of his presence; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Pentecost 2010

Turbulence on the Spiritual Journey

In the great literature of the world the theme of journey is a common motif -- in the

literature of every language and every culture: oral traditions, written literature, and the cave drawings of ancient people who had no written language.

The myth of journey is a useful metaphor for the process of human development and maturation. As we travel through life we encounter new ideas that add to our knowledge. We have new experiences that foster maturity and help us form a sense of identity.

For the past few weeks we have used the metaphor of journey to think about spiritual formation. Two weeks from today we will conclude this series and you can rest from all this traveling. With this metaphor of journey we are in good company. Those who know the process of spiritual formation best often talk about the process as a journey: climbing up a mountain, going down to deeper places in great castle, traveling from one land to another.

Those who know this journey well offer us their wisdom: wisdom gained from their own experience, from their teachers, and from the people they have guided over the years. All the great teachers agree: the journey is a mixture of joy and sadness, a mixture of peace and pain, a mixture of courage and caution, a mixture of clarity and confusion, a mixture of smooth travel and periods of turbulence.

Traveling the spiritual path leads to wisdom and enrichment that we can find no other way: we discover hope, clarity, and joy. But along the way we encounter turbulence; and we are tempted to drag our heels or retreat from this journey that offers liberation and new life.

Today I would like to talk about some of the turbulence inherent in the spiritual journey, some of the things that can get in our way.

The temptations to resist or retreat from the journey fall into two categories: Attachments and Aversions: things we like and things we don’t. things that make us feel good and things that make us uncomfortable. things we want to cling to and things we want to run from.

First, let’s look at the attachments that interfere with the spiritual journey. One attachment standing in our way is our love of comfort. Physical and material comfort, to be sure, but emotional comfort as well. Having a comfortable home, nice transportation, attractive furnishings, attractive clothes, financial security – all of these things are important and meaningful.

Becoming more committed to the spiritual journey does not mean turning your back on nice things. However, becoming more mindful of our spiritual nature may change our attitude about the value of those things.

Someone has said that Americans work too many hours so they can afford too many things they don’t really need or want in order to impress people they don’t really like.

At times the person we are striving to impress is ourselves. The bigger our bank account, the better we feel. The more comfortable our life, the more safe and insulated we feel. Jesus said that poor people find it easier to trust God because they know how vulnerable they are. They are not attached to things that give them a sense of security, and they are not inflated by the things they have accomplished.

We never ask ourselves the question “how much is enough?” because we know the answer: no amount is ever enough when we try to satisfy spiritual longings with substitutes that l never work. That is one of the marks of addiction: repeatedly doing things over and over that never accomplish what you hope they will.

Moving on: The longing for emotional comfort can impede spiritual growth in a number of ways: we love stability, we love equilibrium. We don’t want things to change, even if they are not serving us well. We don’t want our relationships to change; we don’t want our view of the world to change; we don’t want our beliefs to change. At some level we know we can’t grow if we don’t change, but given the choice we are tempted to choose familiarity over growth.

I remember some awful medicine I had to take a few times as a child. My parents would say, “this will make you feel better; it will help you get well.” I remember thinking to myself, “I think I’d rather stay sick.” That’s how we are about growth: we want growth, we just don’t want change. We want to get better, we want to get well – we just don’t want to take the medicine.

We resist change in many of the things that matter to us, including our image of God. Richard Rohr, a Jesuit spiritual director, makes the interesting observation: “Our last experience of God is often the greatest obstacle to the next experience of God.”

We all want to get things figured out and settled once and for all. New information, new experience can be disruptive, especially if the new calls the old into question.

We are attached to other things that get in our way: sedatives of one kind or another that keep us numb, or distractions that keep us from thinking about things we need to see. Just look how big the entertainment business is: t.v., movies, sports, music. When a corporate CEO gets a $10 million dollar bonus we are outraged, and should be. When a movie star or athlete gets a $20 million dollar bonus we just shake our heads and wish we had been a better baseball player.

Some folks are caught in the more dangerous sedatives: alcohol or drugs. For others the sedative is more subtle: chronic busyness, pursuit of the idyllic relationship, perpetual anger, competition, being # 1, absorption in whatever is fun for me.

The desire to feel good and avoid feeling bad is not wrong; it is a God-given impulse; it is part of being human and it’s been useful in our survival. The problem occurs when we become compulsively attached to things that get us nowhere, when we try to sooth ourselves with something shallow to avoid the deeper issues we need to see.

The energy behind most addictions in the beginning is a spiritual pursuit. People are looking for calm in the middle of a storm, escape from turmoil, a respite from things that seem to big to manage, a longing to feel good rather than feeling scared and vulnerable.

Which leads me to the second set of factors causing us to neglect the spiritual journey: our aversions -- the things we would like to avoid.

I have already alluded to one principal aversion: discomfort. We are uncomfortable being uncomfortable. Discomfort shows up in a variety of ways. It’s most familiar form is fear. We are afraid of uncertainty – we would rather be certain, even if we are wrong. We are uncomfortable when our sense of balance is disturbed.

We are unsure how we feel about the spiritual life. We wonder if it might be like a black hole: if you get too close it will suck you in, so don’t get too close. Some people who are really serious about their faith seem a bit scary. Maybe that is what happens if you get too close to the black hole.

Some of our fear of the spiritual is based on stereotypes of what it means to be a spiritually-minded person. We have never overcome the dualism of the Greek culture that affected the New Testament writers. For them the world was divided into flesh and spirit; spiritual and secular. This dualism has done us a great disservice. In the Hebrew scripture we don’t see this split, and all of life is viewed as sacred.

So it is helpful to remember that becoming spiritual doesn’t mean you go around with a halo above your head; it doesn’t mean you begin to talk like St. Paul. Being spiritual means you take your life and the lives of other people more seriously. Being spiritual means you are open to growth and change. Being spiritual means you are willing to learn new things. Being spiritual means that you know your life somehow connected with God who is far more than we could ever imagine.

We are uncomfortable taking a close look at ourselves, especially at the most helpful things -- those things we don’t like or don’t understand. We cannot grow in faith unless we also grow in knowledge and acceptance of ourselves. Emotional and spiritual growth is not like taking care of a garden. We don’t grow by pulling bad habits and sinful choices out of our lives like weeds.

We grow by looking at those things and learning what they have to teach us. Where do they come from? How do they serve us well, and how do they hold us back? Is there a better option?

We are uncomfortable when our illusions are threatened, especially the illusion of power and self-reliance. It always seems odd to me that we want to believe we are responsible, self-reliant, in charge, autonomous, as my son use to say, “the boss of me”; but when something goes wrong we want to blame someone else or some set of circumstances beyond our control. When we are successful we want to take the credit; when we are not successful we want to give others the blame.

We are uncomfortable with mystery

We are uncomfortable with trust

We are uncomfortable letting go and following where life takes us

And, we are deathly afraid of being average

Maybe that is the spiritual journey in a nutshell: discovering that we are average. Someone has said, the entire message of the Bible can be summarized in one sentence, “I am God, and you are not.”

When I was a therapist I noticed something over and over that was hard to remember until I saw it again: most of the people I worked with were afraid of the very things they needed the most. Then I began looking around and discovered it’s true for everyone, myself included.

Throughout the gospels the thing we hear Jesus say most often to his disciples is “Do not be afraid.” He understood people’s fears. He knew what they were attached to and afraid to let go. He knew what they tried to avoid and were reluctant to face.

In the scripture lesson for today from the Gospel of John we hear Jesus praying for his disciples. As their journeys are about to begin, he prays that they will remain connected with one another and remain connected with the deep resources of their spiritual center. As they set out on their respective travels, he knew that those connections, with each other and with God, would make all the difference in the world.

Amen.

7^th of Easter - 2010

May 9 - Is the spiritual journey beneficial?

As I said last week, life invites us to participate in the spiritual journey, whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not. We can ignore or resist this natural process of personal evolution. We can change our mind along the way at any point in our life, and we may change our mind more than once. Over and over mystery knocks on the door and asks if we are ready to go – if we want to know more about life, if we want to live at a deeper level.

Last week we read about Simon Peter’s vision to take the Gospel message to Cornelius, a Roman soldier. Peter was the cornerstone of the congregation in Jerusalem; what a shock it must have been for this devout Jewish Christian to be sent to a Gentile and to a Roman soldier. Today we hear about Paul’s call to Macedonia, a much greater cultural reach than any of his other missionary trips had been.

Both of these early leaders of the Christian movement were guided by impulses they did not seek; by insights they did not expect to have; by a calling that came as a surprise. They both decided to collaborate with this sense of call, to listen to the urge they did not fully understand and to collaborate with the mystery stirring them in new ways.

If you and I decide to collaborate on the spiritual journey, we, too discover new wisdom and new dimensions of life we have not noticed before. There is much to be gained by collaborating with the process of spiritual formation.

The process, this journey calls us, nurtures us, enlarges us, and connects us in vital ways: with our selves, with God, and with others.

The spiritual journey calls us:

· to devote ourselves to something bigger than our own ego

· to live an examined life: to pay attention to those thoughts and feelings in our conscious awareness, and to be open to unconscious stirrings as they present themselves to us; to discover that being open and receptive to the unconscious is equivalent to prayer

· to pay attention to all of our experiences: taking time to analyze, to reflect, and to learn, rather than rushing from one experience to another without reflection

· to be still and quiet with some regularity. The spiritual journey involves waiting and patience. Insights that seem sudden have been germinating beneath the surface for a long time before we see them. It is helpful to get out of the fast lane from time to time and reconnect with life at a slower pace. As the Reverend Mike Graves writes, “As of today they do not make a modem slow enough to process spiritual contemplation.”

· to recognize the mysterious link between knowledge of ourselves and knowledge of God

· to discover the mysterious parallel between the way we experience ourselves and the way we experience God. If we don’t take ourselves seriously we lose access to the One who is at the center of life.

· to recognize that some of our discomfort and dis-ease are messengers pointing us toward a bigger way to live; to see that some of our symptoms are calling us to a wider, deeper, and fuller life.

· to notice that a mess often provides the entry point into the process of spiritual formation. Crises often help us see the limitations of our conscious thinking and point to the need for enlarging the way we see ourselves, God, and life.

The spiritual journey nurtures us, by inviting us:

· to discover that the spirit exists in its own right and is not under our control. This spiritual power knows what we were meant to be and works with us to help us regain our authentic nature.

· to discover that the journey is profoundly personal: we feel drawn to something bigger and wiser than ourselves, a mystery who knows us better than we know ourselves and wants to communicate with us.

· to engage in open communication with a spiritual presence that has been in conversation with us all along: we become conscious of a presence that seems to have been conscious in us forever. We realize that something in us pulls us toward ourselves.

· to collaborate with the mysterious presence that takes a hand in our lives, the mysterious presence that urges us to accept responsibility for our own spiritual formation. In the space between the mysterious other and us, the mysterious core of our authentic self has an opportunity to unfold.

· to see that vital faith is always changing, always in process. Vital faith constantly renews itself as a living relationship with the living God. Faith and images of God that are not evolving are likely to become stale and stagnant, to lose their meaning, energy, and vitality. Then they become idols and obstacles to our faith, or they become obsolete artifacts.

· to pay attention to all our images of God: the traditional images we have received, and the new images that emerge for us. The old images may become the door for something new to enter or emerge; and, the interaction between the old and new images is rich with creativity and new discoveries.

The spiritual journey enlarges us:

· by directing us toward a new kind of thinking and awareness where we learn to ask different questions. For example, “toward what meaning is this experience directing me?” Or as Ann Ulanov often writes, “What is the Self engineering?”

· by heightening our ability to symbolize and to be touched by symbols.

· by inviting us to move from an inadequate image of God (all images of God are inadequate) into the unknown. In this realm, knowing is transformed into not knowing

· by enabling us to live with less clarity

· by helping us relinquish the images of God we have in our heads and discover the images of God we find in our hearts

· by causing us to discover the limits of our rational and intellectual ability to consider the divine; and to discover the necessity of imagination.

The spiritual journey connects us (with our deeper selves, with the divine spirit, and with one another):

· by helping us recognize that dependence on one another is not bad, but is an essential part of life and of spiritual formation.

· by giving us an opportunity to reveal ourselves to one another, and showing us the importance of creating a setting where this is possible.

· by helping us gradually shift from worrying about how I can be safe and secure, how I can protect myself from reality, to the point of wondering “how much lightning can I stand?” How much reality can I receive? When we discover the empowering and life-giving benefits of self-knowledge and openness to the spiritual dimension, our life is energized and enriched by learning things that might have been puzzling or troubling in the past.

· by teaching us that when we serve something in concert with the soul we are energized and experience a sense of harmony; and when we serve anything contrary to the soul we suffer, either consciously or unconsciously.

Material for this outline comes from a critical study of the scripture lessons appointed for today, and from the writings of Ann Belford Ulanov, James Hollis, Robert Johnson, Parker Palmer, and other writers. Unfortunately, the notes have been distilled and redacted too many times over too many years to give proper credit in most cases.

May 2 - Is the spiritual journey optional?

Last week I began talking about the spiritual journey. Today we are going to look at the question “Is the spiritual journey optional?” For those of you who have to leave early, the answer is NO. The spiritual journey is not optional. But don’t leave yet: there’s a lot more to the story.

No, the spiritual journey is not optional; however, it IS optional whether or not we choose to participate in the journey. In other words, we are on a spiritual journey, whether we want to be or not; whether we like it or not. BUT, we have 2 choices: we can collaborate with this process and see where it takes us, or we can say “no thanks, this is not for me.”

I don’t think I have ever met a person who did not want more meaning in his or her life. I think most people have a sense of incompleteness, a hope that the future might be better than the present, a sense that life is a journey of discovery and expansion. Most of us invest ourselves in endeavors that we believe are important, that we believe will make our lives better. The longing for security, the longing for clarity of purpose, the longing for meaning is a spiritual quest, whether we call it that or not.

All of us have are created with a yearning, an empty spot in our hearts. In the 1700’s Voltaire called this empty spot a “God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person.” We have a desire to understand more, to belong more, to connect with a power greater than ourselves.

If we are confused about what our greater power is, we may seek security through fame and fortune, or through success at a particular pursuit. If awareness that we are missing the mark begins to seep in, we may fill our lives with distractions to keep us from facing the questions that lurk just beneath the surface.

Whether we try to avoid our discomfort with distractions or sooth our angst with the pursuit of success and prestige, these efforts don’t really help.

At its core this yearning for security, clarity, and connection is a spiritual quest, an effort to fill this empty spot, to soothe the discomfort that bubbles beneath the surface.

Regardless of how high we climb in the world or how hard we work to surround ourselves with distractions, at some point we receive a nudge, an invitation to broaden our picture of life: An invitation to recognize that life is a spiritual journey. We are invited to look at life with eyes of faith.

The invitation to recognize the spiritual dimension of our life’s journey comes in a variety of ways. For some people this invitation comes early in life; for some it happens in their final hours; and for many the light gets brightest in their middle years.

Those who sense this dimension of life early seem to have an innate aptitude for raising spiritual questions. Just as some people can draw, paint, dance, run fast, jump high, some people have a natural inclination toward mystery and the spirit. Brain scientists have discovered the spot in the brain that is active when a person is engaged in prayer or meditation, and can create a contemplative state in a patient by stimulating that portion of the brain with a probe. Perhaps, for some people this part of the brain is more active or more available than it is for other folks.

For other people the invitation comes as part of the developmental process. They have reached their goals, they have accomplished what they hoped to accomplish. But these attainments are not as satisfying as they thought they would be, or as satisfying as they used to be. CEO’s who give up their jobs and move to the woods are not just running from something: they are running toward something. They hope that the change of scenery, the change of pace will give them the opportunity to discern things they have been too busy to notice.

For other people the invitation comes as a powerful and stirring experience that brings their lives into greater focus. In these cases usually something stirs to the surface that was waiting for an opportunity to come to light. It may be stirred by a conversation with a kindred spirit; it may be activated by a book, a play or a movie. Or perhaps a piece of music or a poem where someone else’s words say what you need to hear.

Other people find the invitation when flat on their back, overwhelmed by the circumstances of their life. They may have suffered an overwhelming loss: a death; abandonment; financial devastation that was not their fault. Or they may be buried beneath a mess they have created and cannot fix: Infidelity, dishonesty, addiction, betrayal, or sheer exhaustion from working too hard for too long.

At some point most of us will notice the deeper life calling us. The invitation to a deeper life may be gradual or sudden; it may be subtle or like a blow to the stomach: striving to help us see that the way we are headed isn’t the best way for us, even if it is comfortable, familiar, and has many rewards.

When we life hands us this invitation to take a deeper look, we have several options for responding. We can ignore the invitation and hope it will go away; we can distract ourselves in one of a million ways; we can just keep doing what we are doing but try harder – if it isn’t working now, doubling our effort will only wear us out and make things worse; we can pursue some other security or good feelings – maybe if we acquire enough fame and influence we can believe in ourselves. Maybe if enough people know us, envy us, or fear us – maybe that will sooth this discomfort that gnaws at us.

Or we can try to rationalize our way out of this dilemma: I don’t want to go down this road, I might get carried away. A little faith is a good thing, but I have all I need. Too much faith might complicate my life.

Carl Jung made an important discovery in his clinical work, something I saw many times when I was working as a therapist every day. Once the invitation has come, once the light has gone on, going back is very costly. Once the shell has cracked and we have begun to see a deeper life, a more effective way to live, we cannot put the eggshell back together. If we choose to try, we become weary, discouraged, depressed, and maybe even physically ill.

If we become curious about our uneasiness and discomfort, we may decide to take these feelings seriously and see where they lead. I doubt you will have to become a missionary. I doubt you will decide to sell all you own and give the money to people in need. You probably will not give up your job or do something radically different.

HOWEVER, you might just become a missionary of some sort, right here in your neighborhood; or you might decide to be more generous with what you have; or you might decide that you have been wearing the wrong shoes for many years and find some shoes that fit. That’s why it takes faith to pay attention. That’s why we have to relinquish the fantasy of control and see where life takes us.

I had a wonderful dream a few months ago about this very matter. In the dream I was going from one location to another, but not sure where I was headed. I was traveling in a heavily wooded and hilly area along a foot trail. I was traveling on a sort of surfboard or a skateboard with no wheels. There was no motor, no steering device, no sound. As the board took me along a trail through the woods, I could influence the direction a little by leaning one way or the other, I could accelerate by leaning forward, or slow it down by leaning back, but the board was self-propelled. I didn’t know where it was going, but the board knew. At first I was anxious and worried that I would smash into a tree or fall off a cliff. But when I realized the board would keep me safe, I relaxed and the ride was spellbinding. Up and down, around trees and rocks.

I awakened feeling peaceful and at ease, feeling like the dream was important: it was a reminder that none of us have as much control as we think we do, a reminder that relinquishing the fantasy of control is liberating. Frightening at first, but in the long run, it serves us well. It helps us get where we need to be rather than where our fears drive us to go.

It’s time to stop. Here is a quick summary. Is the spiritual journey optional? NO. Life is a spiritual journey from beginning to end and beyond. We don’t get a choice about this journey; it is part of who we are. Teilhard de Chardin said it beautifully: “we are not physical beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience.”

We DO get a choice about taking the spiritual dimension of our life seriously. We DO get a choice about cooperating with our own growth and development. We may cooperate with this discovery of our deeper dimensions and see what we can learn. OR, we can ignore these impulses. OR we can resist them when they nudge us. OR we may try to outrun the feeling that we are not as grounded as we would like to be.

In the scripture lesson for today from the Book of Acts, we heard about Peter’s dream urging him to go places he had not intended to go, to do things he was unprepared to do, to see the world in a different way. Like each of us, he had a choice: go to Joppa or not.

Like Peter, we have a choice. If we decline the invitation to a deeper and more meaningful life, we will not get in trouble. We will not get our wrist slapped. We will not be punished. God will not consider us a bad person.

BUT, we may run ourselves into the ground. We may spend a lot of time and energy acquiring things that make us feel good about ourselves and make us feel like we are better than others. And when all is said and done, we may find ourselves like Peggy Lee sang years ago, “Is this all there is?”

If we decline the invitation, we will miss the opportunity to be guided by something bigger than ourselves. We will miss the opportunity to discover a richness and depth of life that happens only for those who are awake, only for those who pay attention to the spiritual dimension of life.

St. Augustine once wrote, “O God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Augustine was wrong about a lot of things, but about this part of life he was absolutely right: Indeed, our hearts are restless, and they remain restless until we become serious about our connection with God, our connection with our deeper selves, our connection with other people, and our connection with the world in which we live. Amen

April 25 - What is the spiritual journey about?

The sermon today is the first sermon in a series about the spiritual life.

You have probably noticed from your handout that today’s sermon may be more of a lecture than a sermon. I doubt we will get through all the points on your leaflet, so please take it home and read it over again when you have more time.

Before we get to your list, I want to remind you of two stories from scripture and tell you a story from my own experience.

The first story is actually a composite of several miracle stories from the life of Jesus. You will remember that the people Jesus healed were usually overwhelmed with gratitude. This spiritual teacher touched their lives and prompted them to begin a new spiritual journey.

The second story from scripture is found in Matthew’s gospel. It is the story about the rich young man on the threshold of a spiritual awakening. Something stirred him to a new level of awareness; he was ready to take a spiritual journey and came to Jesus for help.

When Jesus told him how to begin the journey he abandoned the idea and went away sad. Jesus told him to get rid of all the things he was putting in the place of God, and he was not able to do so. He was curious about the spiritual journey, but not ready to take the leap.

My story begins about 25 years ago during the most painful upheaval and turmoil I have ever known. At the time I felt I was coming unraveled. I was overwhelmed and paralyzed, not sure what to do. Since I knew the value of psychotherapy I sought out the help of someone who was highly recommended. She turned out to be a God-send, but I wasn’t sure at first.

She listened carefully during that first hour as I told her how bad I felt and how overwhelmed I was. She said “this crisis is probably the most important thing that will ever happen in your life; out of this intense agony you will find wisdom that will serve you well from now on. The journey will be rough, but it will be worth it.” She suggested that some day I would come to see this dilemma as a blessing.

I wanted a second opinion. I suspected this crisis was somehow spiritual at its core, so I decided to see a spiritual director as well as the therapist. She listened quietly as I told her of my suffering and confusion. Then she said something that sounded familiar: this crisis was indeed spiritual at its core, and some day I would be thankful for what was happening now. This wilderness, she suggested, was the first step on a spiritual journey that would some day be a blessing.

When I got home from my meeting with the spiritual director I decided I needed a third opinion. I had great respect for my major professor in graduate school and I knew he understood a lot about the kind of things I was facing. I called him and he agreed to hear my story. When I was finished he said: I know you feel like this is going to do you in, but this agony is a great blessing. “And, by the way,” he said, “you have found a therapist and a spiritual director who are also blessings as well. Let them help you on this spiritual journey that has started without your consent.”

Some Thoughts about

the Spiritual Journey

1. The spiritual journey is the invitation to a deeper life, to a larger life, to a more meaningful and authentic life. It is an invitation to be more deeply grounded in our relationship to ourself, to God, and to others.

2. The spiritual journey is an invitation to become conscious, to accept responsibility for the rest of our life story, and to risk the largeness of life to which we are called: a summons to move from a provisional life to authentic adulthood.

3. Thomas Keating: “The spiritual journey is a gradual process of enlarging our emotional, mental, and physical relationship with the divine reality that is in us, but not ordinarily accessible to our emotions or rationalizations.”

4. God is present at all times, but is inaccessible as long as we look solely to our preconceived ideas and/or rely solely on what our senses and feelings tell us.

5. Richard Niebuhr: “Pilgrims are persons in motion, passing through territories not their own, seeking completion or clarity.”

6. Impetus for deepening one’s spiritual journey is often awakened by some sort of peak experience: gratitude, joy, new insight, painful crisis.

7. Richard Rohr: “Faith always invites us to a new place we are not quite familiar with.”

8. The spiritual journey helps us see what we need to add to our lives in order to become what we are meant to be, AND what we need to eliminate from our lives to become what we are meant to be.

9. The spiritual journey is more about following than leading; more about listening than giving orders.

10. On the spiritual journey we discover that we are not as much in charge of our lives as we thought we were. We discover that there is great wisdom in letting go of the illusion of control and following where life leads us.

11. On the spiritual journey we learn that the human ego must surrender to something more powerful than itself. Discovering our deeper dimensions may be frightening at first, but the value of such discoveries is immeasurable.

12. The spiritual journey brings into clear perspective the close connection between knowing ourselves and knowing God. To know our souls, our deeper selves, is vital: this self-knowledge helps us identify those idols that distract us from God, as well as those icons that serve as windows to the divine.

13. The spiritual journey is ever-growing, urging us to face risk and change. As our faith grows, some of our icons may become idols: clinging to them will get in the way of knowing God.

14. The spiritual journey invites us to become attentive to the neglected aspects of ourselves, the neglected aspects of our personality.

15. The spiritual journey is a movement toward simplicity. As we embrace simplicity we discover generosity.

16. James Hollis: “The paradox is that only through relinquishing all that we have sought do we transcend the delusory guarantees of security and identity . . . Then, most strangely, surplus of existence floods our hearts.”

17. On the spiritual journey we discover the gap between what we think we believe and what we really believe: the discrepancy between what we claim to believe and what really orders our lives.

18. On the spiritual journey we discover that the purpose of life is not to maintain personal comfort – the purpose of life is to grow the soul.

19. Spiritual journey comes all mixed up with the regular things of daily life.

20. On the spiritual journey we discover that the ego cannot carry us all the way. Eventually we must encounter some sense of the larger, some sense of the greater identity that dwells within us and calls us forward.

21. The spiritual journey involves not letting our ego get in the way of what is emerging from the soul.

22. As we undergo spiritual transformation we discover how important it is to quit ignoring our own inner wisdom. Experiencing our own inner thoughts and feelings without judgment is part of developing spiritual maturity.

23. Dag Hammarskjold: “The more faithfully you listen to the voice within, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.”

24. The farther we go on our quest, the more spiritual power is available to us, and the more we become available to be used by spiritual power.

25. On the spiritual journey, struggle and challenge bring us to a new plateau where we discover new struggle and new challenge, leading us to a new plateau where we discover new struggle and new challenge.

26. The spiritual journey is filled with surprises. Surprisingly, these surprises serve us well.

27. Much spiritual seeking is driven by the desire to manifest our unique individual gifts in the world. We all want to create and contribute in a way that gives satisfaction.

28. The spiritual journey helps us see that much of what we are seeking on the outside is actually residing within us.

29. On the spiritual journey we discover that something seeks us, something pulls us toward itself. We discover that the unseen world is real and influential. We discover that something remarkable, something divine, wants to reside in us.

30. The spiritual journey is never made alone. It is made in the communion of the saints and in the company of our community of faith.

Material for this outline comes from a critical study of the scripture lessons appointed for today, and from the writings of Ann Belford Ulanov, James Hollis, Robert Johnson, Parker Palmer, Gerald May, and other writers. Unfortunately, the notes have been distilled and redacted too many times over too many years to give proper credit in most cases

Sermon Series: Things That Really Matter

Here is an outline of the sermon series that will conclude the last Sunday of Lent. The idea for this series (and some of the sermon titles) came from a wonderful book What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life, written by Jungian analyst James Hollis.

Click on the title to read the sermon

January 10: It really matters that our lives not be governed by fear.

January 17: It really matters that we learn to tolerate ambiguity.

January 24: It really matters that we feed our soul.

January 31: Canceled due to snow.

February 7: The Importance of Living Large and Risking Growth over Security

February 14: Guest speaker: Nelson Stover

February 21: Vacation: Guest priest

February 28: Vacation: Guest priest

March 7: It really matters that we live more fully in the shadow of mortality.

March 14: It really matters that we engage spiritual crises.

Some of you are familiar with a wonderful children’s book written by Dick Gackenbach in 1977. The name of the book is Harry and the Terrible Whatzit. The entire story is told by Harry himself, a young boy who is afraid of the frightening cellar in his home. As the story begins, Harry tell us “I knew there was something terrible down in the cellar. I just knew because the cellar was dark and damp and it smelled.”

Harry avoided the cellar at all costs, and he tried to persuade his mother to avoid it as well. But she would not listen. He tried to warn her, “Don’t go down there,” I told my mother. “Why?” she asked. “There is something terrible down there. But she went anyway.” Terrified, Harry waited at the top of the stairs. He waited and waited and waited, and his mother did not come back. He yelled for her, but there was no reply.

Finally, he could stand it no longer. Carefully he went down the cellar stairs, staring into the darkness hoping to see his mother. She was nowhere to be found. And then he saw it, the very thing he feared: a huge, ugly, terrible, two-headed Whatzit standing on top of the furnace.

With all the courage he could muster Harry marched over to the huge and ugly Whatzit and demanded to know what it had done with his mother. The terrible Whatzit replied that he had done nothing with Harry’s mother – and Harry noticed that the Whatzit became smaller while answering his question. Harry asked again, even more forcefully, and he whatiz plead ignorance and became even smaller. Harry demanded to know what had happened to his mother, and the Whatzit became a tiny creature about the size of a squirrel.

Then the Whatzit looked at Harry and said, “this is no fun. You are not afraid of me anymore. I will have to find a new place to live.” Harry replied, “You might try the house on the corner. The kid who lives there is a real scaredy cat.” Harry resumes looking for his mother and finds a door open to the back yard. He finds his mother outside talking with a neighbor, and that’s the story of Harry and the terrible Whatzit.

This is a wonderful story at many levels. Our kids loved to read it over and over, finding themselves and their own fears lived out by young Harry. As adults we see ourselves in Harry as well. All of us have fears, nothing to be ashamed of. To be human is to have fears. As the British philosopher Allan Watts wrote, “anyone who is not at least a little bit insecure is either not paying attention or is out of touch with reality.”

The issue is not whether we have fears; we all do. The issue is what we do those fears. If we ignore them, if we suppress them, if we fail to understand them, they will control our lives. If we are to live in the freedom of God’s grace, it is really important that our lives not be controlled by fear.

If our lives are governed by fear we will like Harry in the Whatzit story: we will live at one level and miss the depth and wisdom that comes from deep within us, that comes from the cellar, from our deepest places. If our lives are like Harry’s we will be driven by those fears. If we are like Harry, we will keep traveling in the same circles, trying to avoid or hide from things that evoke our fears.

In the process of growing up we learn pretty quickly what will serve us well and what will cost us. We repeat those things that please the big people, we avoid those things that are going to cause the big people stress, knowing that will cause us stress.

One day we arrive in adulthood and take those tendencies with us. In his very first professional article, Erik Erikson wrote, “every adult vows to never again face his/her childhood anxieties.” And so it is, we work really hard to avoid those things that made us uneasy as a child.

If we are fearful of being abandoned we do whatever is necessary to keep people nearby. Even if it means thinking, feeling, and doing what we think others want rather than paying attention to our own thoughts, feelings, and preferences.

If we are afraid others will swallow us up if we let them get too close, we work hard to avoid intimacy with others. We run from them or we try to control them. Either way, we shut ourselves off from authentic relationships to avoid the threat of being engulfed by others – whether or not being swallowed up is a real threat at all.

Karen Horney, a brilliant psychoanalyst and student of Sigmund Freud, believed that most people tend to handle their basic anxiety in one of three ways: either they move toward people and try to earn acceptance and approval; or, they move away from people and live in isolation; or they move against other people in order to dominate or control them.

Regardless of the strategy, the net result is the same: in our attempts to avoid what is frightening, we end up losing what we truly need. We eventually discover that these defensive strategies cause more problems than the problems they were designed to solve. In our efforts to protect ourselves, we have lost ourselves in the process. James Hollis says it this way, “what we have become is now our chief obstacle.”

In the epistle reading for today we see a great example of fear-driven living, even in the religious community. The earliest congregation of Jesus’ followers was in Jerusalem, a congregation made up of Jewish converts to the Jesus movement. Everything was going along pretty well, but suddenly they heard that lots of Samaritans, those dark-skinned people across the border had decided to follow Jesus, too.

Well, Jesus said to take the message to all the world, but did he mean Samaria, too? What happens if those people end up running the church? We like it the way things are. Will we have to associate with these people? Will they be true believes like we are, or will they want to distort the message to fit their own needs?

And before long they hear that the same thing is happening in Tarsus, a northern province made up entirely of Gentiles. What’s happening here? Things are getting out of control. We want to spread the good news, we want to take the message into all the world like Jesus said, but we are afraid of all these changes. We are afraid of all these people we don’t know. We are afraid of these people we don’t like.

Listen to some of the language we hear in the gospels and throughout scripture. Terms like being born again, being saved, being redeemed, being renewed, being transformed, the old self passes away and a new creature is born, resurrection, new life, eternal life, abundant life, repentance, conversion, turning around.

This faith vocabulary reminds us that security is not something we create. Security is something we trust. If we fail to look at our fears and learn from them, we will never make it to the cellar. If we avoid our fears and travel in the same circles, we are not likely to get very far.

If we are driven by fears we find ourselves repeating things that never worked and never will. We live in a tiny close when our psyche, our soul, is a great mansion just waiting to be discovered.

It is really important that our lives not be governed by fear. I invite all of us to take a look at the fears lurking in the cellar, sitting on the furnace. To learn from the fears that contaminate our lives; to get better acquainted with those fears that drive us to keep acquiring more than we could ever use; those fears that cause us to live out someone else’s plan for us rather than following our own inner voice; those fears that cause us to push away the very people we need; those fears that cut us off from the life-changing grace of God that could take us from fear to freedom.

As we think about how important it is that our lives not be governed by fear, I would like to conclude with two observations, one is mine and the other comes from the words of the prophet Isaiah that Judy read a few minutes ago,

First, please remember that our fears, not matter how uncomfortable they make us, are our friends. They invite us to learn things about ourselves we could never learn any other way. They can become doorways into a deeper life if we are willing to explore them and understand them. If we can avoid running from them or arranging our lives to avoid them.

The sermon today is the second in a series of sermons about things that really matter, things that are really important in our spiritual and emotional development. Last week I talked about the hazards of a fear-driven life: the dangers of living in a tiny mental and spiritual space, living in a rut that prevents us from experiencing life at a broader and deeper level.

Today I want to talk about the importance of learning to tolerate ambiguity. I think for the most part we are a pretty broad-minded group, with one or two exceptions. But no matter how broad-minded we are, we all have those places in our minds where things are nailed down and locked away – places where change is unwelcome and new ideas feel like heresy.

A few weeks ago someone told me about a new bumper sticker, and last week I saw it for myself. I’m sure it didn’t apply to me, but it does apply to lots of people. The bumper sticker reads, “Don’t believe everything you think.” Isn’t that great: “Don’t believe everything you think.”

It reminded me of two other bumper stickers I’m sure you have seen: “My mind is made up; don’t confuse me with the facts.” And “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.”

We have all known people who might have such a bumper sticker. People who have everything figured out. To know what is really true, all you have to do is ask them.

Unfortunately, the Christian church has often been guilty of a similar attitude. Scientific discoveries have often evoked knee-jerk reactions. At times believers have buried their heads in the sand to avoid facing new information. And at times those who discovered wonderful new things about God’s cosmos have been treated as villains instead of heroes.

New information that challenges old ideas is often a threat – often frightening. And when people are frightened they get angry. Maybe that is why fundamentalists are always grumpy. They have to deny so much truth in order to maintain the worldview they are trying so hard to protect and preserve.

Before we are too hard on the fundamentalists, it’s helpful to remember that there is a bit of a fundamentalist in all of us. Whether we consider ourselves conservative, moderate, or liberal, we all think we are pretty smart, that our opinion is closer to the truth than the opinions of others. And those who disagree with us seem misguided at best.

In the epistle lesson for today from Corinthians we read about a congregation where some members considered others misguided. They were at odds with each other over spiritual gifts. They sound like children on the playground, “My gift is better than yours.” “No, mine is better than yours.” “No it’s not, let’s ask Paul.” So they write Paul or send word by a mutual friend, and he gives them this beautiful answer: “all gifts are important; none is more important than the others. All are necessary. Treat each other with respect. You need each other.”

Although tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty is harder for some of us than for others, being able to do so would serve all of us well. It would serve us well in several areas.

First of all, when we are able to tolerate ambiguity, when we don’t feel like we have and need to defend the one true way, we discover that empathy is possible. We gradually develop the ability to understand the feelings of other people, even if they are different from our own. We develop the capacity to understand the other persons’ ideas and point of view, even if we disagree.

When empathy is present, people begin to connect in deeper ways. “Let me tell you how I feel; you tell me how you feel; and let’s see where that takes us.” Often, when people are willing to understand each other’s point of view, problems fade and collaboration begins. When I was a full-time therapist I used to advise couples to be careful of quick compromise. Compromise for the sake of compromise, compromise just to settle things down, is rarely helpful for any length of time. If people understand each other’s feelings, compromise and collaboration often happen naturally, and are likely to last.

If we are able to tolerate ambiguity, the seeds of forgiveness may begin to germinate. Forgiveness is never easy. For forgiveness to begin we have to take our own feelings seriously, and we must try to understand the other person’s point of view. When their actions hurt us, were they being malicious, were they going out of their way to hurt us; or were they merely standing up for their beliefs like we stand up for our own.

The fact that we disagree on something important doesn’t mean we can’t have a relationship. The fact that we disagree on something important, doesn’t mean one of us is right and the other is wrong.

If we don’t understand our own feelings we are likely to behave in ways that surprise us. I’m sure you have noticed in the newspaper and on the internet how many clergy, counselors, and teachers have crossed ethical boundaries with people who trusted them. Many times these things happen because people are unaware of their own needs, their own vulnerabilities. They ignore their own needs or suppress them because they don’t like having the needs or feelings. And then those needs sneak up on them and create problems.

Paying attention to how we feel, even if we don’t like how we feel, can provide wonderful information for emotional and spiritual growth. Failing to pay attention to our feelings will often lead into the very trouble we are trying to avoid.

Without realizing we are doing it, most of us have an adversarial relationship with some of our feelings and thoughts. We are critical of ourselves for things we think and feel but don’t understand. It is helpful to remember that our thoughts and feelings are as much a part of us as fingers and toes. To ignore thoughts and feelings, even if they are confusing or unwelcome, is to reject a wonderful resource for wisdom. And, it is also a recipe for disaster.

Rather than kicking ourselves for thoughts and feelings we don’t like, it is more helpful to be curious about those thoughts and feelings: to see what we can learn from them. To scratch our head and wonder “what that is about.” “What can I learn from this feeling or this thought that I need to know. Often we discover things of great value, and we discover things that reduce our risk of danger rather than increase it.

Socrates, Carl Jung, and many other students of human behavior came to the same conclusion: the unexamined life is a shallow life filled with danger.

If we are able to tolerate ambiguity, if we are able to tolerate the anxiety of not having everything figured out and nailed down, there is wisdom everywhere, especially inside. If, however, ambiguity is too frightening, the door to wisdom slams shut. And when it does, we are a prisoner. And once again, fear has us in jail.

Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Sometimes, knowing the truth means understanding that we don’t know the truth completely. Sometimes knowing the truth means we discover we are wrong. If we can live with that possibility, we may discover more wisdom than our fears ever thought was possible.

**The title of this sermon comes from the book What Really Matters: Living a More Considered Life, written by James Hollis.
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[The sermon begins with a story (used with permission, and altered to assure the individual’s privacy) about an individual whose life was turned around and transformed by paying attention to inner wisdom she had ignored or resisted. She went from the edge of disaster to a happy and meaningful life, deepened her personal faith, and has continued to learn important things about herself and about her relationship with God over the ensuing years.]

. . . This particular dream was so startling that it woke her up literally and spiritually; it began her journey to new life, to new birth.

In this dream she discovered wisdom from her soul, from the depths of her psyche…such life-giving and life-saving wisdom that she went from being lost to finding herself, to the edge of a cliff to a place of new life.

The dream helped her see she was going the wrong way, that she was allowing the desires of other people to outweigh her own, that she was trying to make herself into someone she did not know or like. And the cost was enormous. The longer she traveled on the wrong road, the greater the cost would become.

She woke up just in time. She quit neglecting her soul. She began tending to her soul. Over the next couple of years, watching her blossom into her authentic self was a spiritual experience for both of us. She went from academic probation to graduating with honors. She engaged her family in meaningful conversations about their multiple losses and what those losses meant to each of them. She ended a destructive relationship. She quit drinking. She made new friends who shared her values. Several years later I got a letter from her: she was married to a wonderful man who shared her values and encouraged her to be herself; she had children, and she loved the work she had been trained to do.

This woman’s journey to new life began when she decided to pay attention to her soul, to her unique inner self that she had ignored for much of her life. Her journey began when she realized that taking herself seriously was more important than pleasing others. That accepting and respecting herself would cause others to like and respect her, not the other way around.

She knew what Jesus meant when he asked “what does it profit a person to gain the whole world if she loses her soul in the process?”

I believe it really matters that we tend to our souls. It really matters that we know ourselves; it really matters that we take our soul, our psyche, our self seriously. If we do not pay attention to our inner life, we will be like the woman in the dream: ignoring our own needs, ending up places we did not intend to go, and running the risk of a disastrous crash if we don’t wake up in time.

After the Buddha’s enlightenment he taught that the spiritual person is one who is awake, one who is paying attention. And so it is: the person who pays attention is the person for whom a deeper life is possible. The person who pays attention is the person to whom wisdom is available. The person who pays attention is the person who knows something about serenity and inner peace.

Ann Ulanov is a psychologist and ordained minister who teaches at Union Seminary in New York. In her many books she often raises the question, “what is the self engineering, what is the soul trying to accomplish in this situation?” What a great question to ask ourselves when things seem out of kilter, when we feel like something is stirring but don’t quite know what it is. When we find ourselves in a pickle or in a quandary of one sort or another.

Ulanov writes that the deeper self is not God, but it is the part of ourselves that knows the most about God, it is the place we connect with God. This stirring of the self does not always occur in terms we think of as religious or spiritual.

Unfortunately, we have limited our understanding of spiritual and religious to a pretty narrow slice of the pie. We have a set of ideas and a vocabulary to describe this dimension, and we have trouble thinking of things outside this arena as spiritual.

However, many of our deeply spiritual experiences do not fit that set of ideas or concepts we consider religious.

The young woman’s dream I mentioned earlier was a profoundly spiritual experience. It was the beginning of her journey to wellness, to wholeness, to salvation. What could possibly be more spiritual than gaining one’s life back?

Nothing in life is more important than tending to our soul, tending to and listening to the deeper wisdom that seeks to guide us and direct us if we will let it.

We get some clues about this inner journey from each of our scripture lessons for today. In the passage from Nehemiah we read about a religious gathering following the exile. The people had returned, but there was no king, there was no structure to help them organize their life together. The focus in this reading is on each person taking responsibility for his or her own spiritual formation. The message was presented, the people heard and understood, and each person was responsible for what he or she did with the wisdom they found.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we are reminded again that each person is unique, each person is valuable, each person’s journey is unique – even though we are bound together in many ways like a body with many parts. If the foot spends its energy trying to be an ear or an eye, it fails. It fails because it is trying to be something it is not. And it fails because it is not being what it truly is.

And in the Gospel reading we hear that Jesus was filled with the power of the Spirit; he was recognized far and wide as a person of authority and wisdom, even though his ministry had just begun. He goes into the synagogue, reads from the prophet Isaiah, and announces that he is here to do what he is called to do. The people were amazed at his clarity, his wisdom, his sense of authority. Such clarity, wisdom, and authority come only from paying attention to the deeper dimensions of our soul. Such clarity, wisdom, and authority come from knowing ourselves, from being who we are intended to be rather than trying to be someone we are not.

Tending to our soul takes considerable time. It can’t be done on the run. Although the soul may stick out a foot and trip us or create some sort of symptom that urges us to pay attention, we are more likely to gain access to this deeper wisdom if we make time for it. We can’t call it up from the depth, but we can make time to hear when it when it beckons to us.

Tending to our souls takes considerable courage. It takes courage to see things we don’t want to see, to hear things we don’t want to hear, to relinquish the persona we have developed to help us get along in the world.

When I look back over my journal from time to time I am always frustrated at how often I have learned the same lesson. How often I have found energy, vitality, and clarity by discovering something important. But somehow the wisdom gets buried under the normal routine and its influence is lost. A few months later, I learn the same lesson all over again, write it down in the journal, and draw energy from it for a while. On and on it goes. It happens to all of us.

It takes courage to pursue endeavors and values other people will not understand. You may have seen on the internet this week a story about a young professional baseball player. He is has exceptional talent as a ballplayer and was sure to be quite wealthy and famous in the next few years. He has quit playing baseball and entered seminary to become a Catholic priest. Some people are ready to make him a saint, and others are describing him as absolutely stupid. Why not get rich and famous, then you can help lots of people? You will have more influence if your name is a household word. You can go to seminary when you are too old to play baseball. Grab the golden ring while you can.

I don’t think this man’s choice for priesthood over baseball makes him a saint, and I don’t think it means he is foolish. It means he is being true to himself. He is taking the road that is right for him, even if the world is yelling. “No, no, dummy, take the other road. What’s wrong with you?”

I’m out of time so I will stop. Let me conclude by reminding you of one of the most famous stories in the teachings of Jesus. It is found in Luke 15, the story of the prodigal son. It’s a story that sounds much like the experience of the young woman I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon.

After the son had taken his inheritance early and launched out on his own he hit the wall. Life in the fast lane was not all he thought it would be. He got a job feeding pigs. After a while Luke says “he came to himself.” He woke up. His soul, his self got through to him and he began his journey to a deeper life.

The sermon begins with the story of an elderly man who, on his deathbed, came to an important realization – a deeper awareness of something he knew but was reluctant to admit all his life.

For a long time after his death I couldn’t account for the impetus behind this confession, although it was obvious that he was taking some sort of inventory in his final hours. Later I realized that the impetus came from his soul: as death grew nearer, the veil between life on the surface and the life of the soul grew thinner and thinner. As death approaches people often see things they have ignored before.

Lying in that thin place he told me about one of the greatest regrets of his life: “I have been wrong all my life about black people. They are just like you and I: Good people and bad people in every race. If I could live my life over I would not discriminate against people because of their race.”

Then he said, “I just wish I had figured this out sooner. Now it’s too late to do anything about it.” He stared at me and clearly wanted some sort of response, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I could not brush off his remark, and I couldn’t let him off the hook – he would have seen the dishonesty in that. So I said the only thing I could think of that had any integrity.

You know, lots of people die without ever figuring that out. I think it is great that you are still thinking and still growing, even though you are weak and tired.

I tell you this story because it is a good example of something that happens to most of us. Each of us knows something important about ourselves, something that could be really helpful if we had the courage to listen; but we have trouble taking that knowledge seriously. Often this insight is just below the surface, nudging us for recognition from time to time. At times this wisdom seems embarrassing. At times it is painful. At times we fear that this knowledge would make a drastic change in our lives if we were willing to hear it.

So rather than become larger and wiser, we shrink back like a turtle pulling in its limbs and head. We hide out and wait for the wisdom to go away. And it usually does go away. All we have to do is distract ourselves with something that makes us feel better, and poof, it is gone . . . at least for awhile.

Eventually, this wisdom bugs us enough that we have to take a closer look. And when we take a closer look we discover the invitation to move into a larger life. It takes courage to let our inner wisdom loose, to let this inner wisdom guide us and take us new places.

It seems easier to hang back and wait for the impulse to pass. You know, that is one definition of sin: shrinking back, failing to live at our deepest level, settling for a shallow life.

Here are some signs of living in the shallows. Before sharing the list, let me mention one thing: we never escape the shallow end altogether: even when we cross the threshold into a deeper life, our old patterns continue to plague us.

Moving to a deeper level of living is not like moving upstairs to the second floor and locking the door behind us. We will always move back and forth from a deeper and more mature life to the shallow place where smallness holds us back.

There is a needy and dependent part in all of us; it will never go away. It doesn’t help to deny this part of ourselves, and we can’t out run it. This small self goes with us, no matter how fast we run or how much we grow.

We all live small at times. There is nothing to gain by kicking ourselves when this happens. Smallness is an invitation to growth and change, but we are always tempted to stay where we are rather than risk moving to a new place where we don’t know our way around.

When we choose security over growth, we outrage the soul, and the soul then causes us misery, symptoms of one sort or another. Do you remember the t.v. commercial for a particular brand of margarine that tastes so much like butter that mother nature couldn’t tell the difference. When mother nature discovered she had been fooled she sent a bolt of lightening and clap of thunder. “It’s not nice to fool mother nature.”

Well, it’s not nice to antagonize the soul. It’s not wise to ignore things we need to hear, things we need to see. It is always costly to turn around and go back rather than to move forward. Going back is choosing death over life, choosing spiritual smallness over spiritual largeness.

We cling to familiar patterns and thinking, even when the old pattern serves us poorly

We ignore things that make us uneasy, either by dismissing them or distracting ourselves

We hold grudges and dwell on the past, especially things that were hurtful or disappointing.

When a problem arises we blame others and avoid looking at our part in the situation.

We think our opinion is the enlightened one, and those who disagree with us are just not quite as sharp as we are.

We project our shortcomings onto other people and criticize those other people rather than seeing them as a mirror that can teach us something about ourselves.

We have difficulty knowing where we stand or what we believe: at times because we have not given these things much thought, and at other times because we are afraid of being wrong. I remember the story about a woman who came to her priest with a question. “My neighbor is Jewish and was telling me what ‘they’ believe about life after death. What do we believe?” The priest tried to help her see the distinction between grappling with such tough questions for vs. taking someone else’s opinion without much thought, but discovered that she really did want him to tell her what to believe.

We expect others to take care of us. We expect others to do what we think they should do, to believe what we think they should believe, and we often expect them to read our mind so we don’t even have to tell them what we want.

We expect the world to adapt to our desires rather than figuring out how to live in a world where we don’t always get our way. We are often grumpy and angry because life doesn’t take our entitlements as seriously as we do.

We take disappointment and disagreement as a personal affront or insult rather than a difference of opinion.

We blame our moods on other people or on the weather rather than exploring those moods to see what we might learn.

Here are some ideas about moving from smallness to largeness. Each of these strategies requires the willingness to risk, the willingness to take a closer look at ourselves and the courage to pay closer attention to our own spiritual formation.

Stepping into largeness involves knowing ourselves and behaving in ways that support who we genuinely are rather than supporting what we were told to be.

When faced with an opportunity, ask ourselves the question: Does this path, this choice, make me larger or smaller?

Pay attention: pay attention to our moods, pay attention to symptoms, pay attention to feelings we enjoy and feelings that make us uneasy; to people we admire and those we want to avoid.

Stepping into largeness involves claiming our personal authority that resides within, the personal authority that emerges when we are true to ourselves.

We are afraid of our largeness. We are afraid of the immense possibilities within us.

The prophet Isaiah was afraid of his largeness until he was overcome and by the vision of a new vocation. The apostle Paul was afraid of his largeness until he was blinded by the vision of a new life. Simon Peter was paralyzed by his own sense of smallness and the sinfulness of shrinking back until he heard the voice of Jesus urging him forward to a new life.

Let me close with a paraphrase from Jesus found in the 4^th Gospel: I have come that you might have life, that you might have a more abundant spiritual life, that you might recognize the importance of living life at a deeper level. Amen.

Today I would like to continue the sermon series “Things that really matter.” The series will conclude next week with the importance of engaging spiritual crises. Today I want to talk about the importance of embracing our mortality – the importance of living more mindfully of our mortality.

As I was preparing this sermon I became aware how many of you know a great deal about mortality. Some of you have faced life threatening illness on more than one occasion. You know what it is like to be mindful of mortality. Many of you have lost a spouse, a child, or a grandchild. You know what it is like to be mindful of mortality. And many others have lost one or both parents. When the generation ahead of us is gone, awareness of our own mortality is a bit closer to home.

Although we realize how quickly life passes and how vulnerable we are, mortality is not something most of us think about on a conscious level every day. It’s not something you hear people discuss at dinner party. In fact, the subject makes us anxious and we would rather avoid the topic.

James Hollis, whose book served as the impetus for these sermons, writes, “The greatest affront to the human ego is its perishability, its mortality.” “The greatest affront to the human ego is its perishability.” We need the ego to help us acquire skills, to learn things, to form an identity. But the ego begins to think it is in charge, that it really is the captain of its own fate. And then mortality appears on the horizon and the ego is insulted. It had planned to live forever and feels cheated to discover that it will not.

It seems to me that we have two basic options when it comes to considering our mortality. We can think of death as the grim reaper who intrudes in our life and robs us, who cuts short something that was to have lasted much longer. In this concept life is good, death is bad. This is what Woody Allen had in mind when he said, “I am not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Or, we can think of mortality as part of life. Life is full of chapters, each with its own loss, and death is merely a part of life. In this concept, life is good, and death is part of the good life. This does not minimize our pain when we lose someone. It is not a glib resignation. It is not an attempt to speak with ease about something really difficult. Rather seeing death as part of life is a mature recognition that we are not entitled to live forever; that the world did quite fine before we got here, and will do quite fine when we are gone.

This is the attitude of the great philosopher Socrates as Plato described his final hours before death. Plato wrote that Socrates saw death as one of two things: either it is the Big Sleep, in which case he could use the rest; or it is an afterlife where he will enjoy talking with the philosophers who have gone before him.

Socrates is drawn to the journey toward death, says Plato, because the reflective soul is always summoned to mystery: always summoned to the enlargement that comes from respecting mystery, considering mystery, and submitting to mystery.

Every sequence of development in our lives is accompanied by a loss of some kind, a price to be paid for the next step of the journey. There was a loss when we left the womb and entered the bright and cold delivery room. There was a loss when we went off to kindergarten. There was loss when we were disappointed by someone we trusted. Life is filled with losses at every stage, but we grow by losing. There must always be a death in order for something new to begin.

As people of faith, this is our ultimate belief about life and death – that death of the body brings one part of our life to an end, and serves as the beginning of something new. The familiar is always hard to relinquish, even if it has not served us well; and the idea of relinquishing the life we know for something we do not know is understandably hard and makes us anxious.

But those who come to see this death event as a natural transition not to be feared, find wisdom and joy. The earlier we learn these lessons, the more they enhance our life.

When we are able to engage the mystery demanded by our mortality, we find that our goals change.

In this encounter with mystery we discover our soul. Our soul invites us to live fully even if we will not live forever.

³ If we fail to engage this mystery we fool ourselves by distractions. We fool ourselves by shallow pursuits, we fool ourselves by immature choices.

On our journey, we are always called to the next stage. And the next stage always has a task.

These tasks, these callings, pull us out of our comfort zone. These tasks call us to discover the forgotten and neglected parts of ourselves, and to integrate them into our lives.

Ultimately, the task for each of us is to discover what wants to come into the world through us.

³ In the reading from Exodus we hear Moses discovering what wants to come into the world through him. We hear him called to a new stage in his journey. The lesson begins with him already outside his comfort zone. He was beyond the wilderness, a place where he could learn things that would never occur to him in the green, green grass of home.

Moses felt drawn to Mt. Horeb: there was a tacit awareness that he needed to go there, that something important was pulling him there. He was not on a religious pilgrimage, he was tending sheep; but in the middle of this daily routine he felt called aside to something new and compelling. He felt called to higher ground.

When Moses arrived on the mountain, the plain dirt, and rocks, and bushes became a holy place. The place became holy because he recognized that God was with him. This presence of God was not new; but it felt new because Moses was paying attention in a new way.

When Moses paid attention in this new way, he discovered things that radically changed his life. He was called to a new stage. He was called to leave the familiar pastures of home and to head for the palace of pharaoh in Egypt.

And finally we hear Moses saying that he really doesn’t want to go to Egypt. He has been there, and that didn’t work out well. He is not sure he wants to go back. And then Moses receives a great gift: he receives the assurance that God will be with him there in this new place, this new endeavor. He does not have to cling to the old and familiar after all. God will be with him in the new place. God will be with him in this uncertain place. God will be with him in this journey that seems daunting.

And so it was. As I said earlier: we have two choices in this matter of mortality: we can run from it, deny it, distract ourselves from it, fear it, and consider it an enemy. In which case we waste a great deal of energy on pursuits that matter very little. OR, we can embrace mortality as a natural part of life, as a place where God will meet us. A place that will be safe and welcoming when the time comes.

I think Socrates was right and Woody Allen is wrong. If we embrace the mysteries of life, including our own mortality, we live more wisely and more fully. But if we consider mortality an unfair nuisance to be feared, we have lost a great deal of our life already.

The sermon today is the final installment in a series of sermons about things that really matter. I want to give credit one more time to Dr. James Hollis, a Jungian analyst who lives and works in Houston. His book What Matters Most provided the impetus for these sermons. I can’t blame him for the content of the sermons, but his book prompted me to develop this series of sermons.

I have changed the title of today’s sermon. When I planned the series several months ago the title for today’s sermon was going to be: it’s really important that we engage spiritual crises. The NEW title is it’s really important that we engage spiritual upheaval.

I want to talk about upheaval rather than crisis because spiritual upheaval includes both of the ways spiritual distress appears: either as a gradual and quiet unrest or as the trauma we experience in a sudden crisis.

Whether spiritual unrest or upheaval comes gradually or suddenly, our task is the same: to sit with it, to take it seriously and to look for wisdom that will serve us well in the future. As I have said throughout this series of sermons, these difficult moments in life are always lessons waiting to be learned. Because they make us uncomfortable, most of us would never volunteer or stand in line for the opportunity to suffer just so we could become a wiser person.

But even if we don’t volunteer or stand in line, life offers us hardship over and over. In our eagerness to make ourselves feel better, we are tempted to ignore or turn our back on the wisdom upheaval presents us. When that happens we miss a remarkable opportunity hidden in our hardship if we were willing to take a closer look.

Let’s take a few minutes to look at both types of spiritual upheaval to see what we might learn about them. The particular wisdom found in our spiritual upheaval is unique to our individual journey. It is wisdom offered directly to us, specifically for the unique circumstances of our life. But the dynamics inviting us to new wisdom are something we all have in common.

First, the spiritual upheaval that is developmental, that comes on gradually and quietly. We all know this one, to some degree or another. We notice it most when we are still and quiet, so we work really hard to stay busy and surround ourselves with noise. At times it keeps us awake at night. It feels like something is missing, or something is not quite right. Getting a new car helps for a while. Or a new job. Or a new relationship. Or a new toy of some sort.

But the distraction of something new is temporary, and the discomfort persists. If we ignore it long enough the symptoms may become exaggerated to get our attention. I will never forget a woman who sat in my office years ago, knowing she needed to end an abusive relationship that was hurting her severely. She cancelled an appointment because she had a doctor’s appointment for the same hour, and came to her appointment the next week on crutches with her heels bandaged.

It seems that her feet had been bothering lately, especially her heels, and the pain was getting worse. The doctor could not figure out what was wrong, so he bandaged both feet and put her on crutches for a few weeks to see if that would help. Later in the conversation she made the comment, “I know I need to leave before I get really hurt. I don’t know why I keep dragging my feet.” She got really quiet. We both looked down at her bandaged feet and broke out laughing.

The spiritual upheaval that is a quiet unrest usually warns us that we are dragging our feet. It is not always a warning that we need to make dramatic changes, but a reminder that we need to pay more attention to this discomfort. What is its source? What is it inviting us to see? To do? To understand?

Am I out of touch with my own feelings? Am I living out someone else’s plan for me and not my own? Am I devoting my time and energy to things that matter? Am I using my energy to avoid things I don’t want to see?

This unrest invites us to pay more careful attention to our deeper wisdom. If we ignore this wisdom long enough, the stakes can become high and the outcome can be dramatic. But if we pay attention along the way, the inner wisdom helps us keep our balance and find our path.

The spiritual task is to pay attention to our unrest, to our discomfort. What is keeping me awake trying to get my attention? What are those dream images that keep occurring over and over? Perhaps I should write down my thoughts and engage them in a private dialogue. Perhaps I should talk with someone I trust to help me sort them out. Perhaps I should reflect on these symptoms in my prayers and see if I can gain some wisdom there.

Gaining wisdom – that is the ultimate invitation of spiritual and emotional unrest. Often we have outgrown a set of ideas or beliefs, but don’t know it. Or we have outgrown a coping strategy that helped us in the past but now causes more problems than it solves. Perhaps we are afraid of the very things that could help us most if we would just take a closer look – but taking a closer look involves courage and risk.

When we take a closer look we discover that the feelings we don’t like and don’t want to have are helpful. For example, temptation is much more dangerous if we ignore it than if we look at it and try to understand the motives behind it. What if we befriended these thoughts and feelings, and became curious about them rather than criticizing ourselves for thoughts and feelings we don’t like? Who knows what we might learn??

The spiritual upheaval that nags us to look and listen only becomes a crisis if we ignore it for a long time. But, the other type of spiritual upheaval is not so subtle. It is usually sudden and traumatic. It kicks us in the face with little or no warning.

The sudden death of a loved one; betrayal by someone you love; a life-threatening illness, financial devastation, or a public tragedy like 9/11 or a terrible natural disaster.

Two images come to mind when I think of the spiritual crisis that comes from a sudden trauma. One is the image of a tuning fork. Remember the tuning fork from elementary school science class? A piece of steel shaped like a block letter y. You hit it with a mallet and it vibrates forever. Throughout my years as a priest and therapist I have met many people who reminded me of a tuning fork. They had been hit by life really hard, and they were still vibrating when they got to my office. We wanted to make the vibrations stop, but we couldn’t. The vibrations slowed down and stopped when they were ready to stop, not according to anyone’s schedule or choice. When life hits us so hard we can’t quit shaking, we have a spiritual crisis. Many of us know what that is like.

The other image of a spiritual crisis is a cartoon picture. You have seen it, someone being run over by a steamroller, flattened like a pancake, wondering if our natural shape would ever return. Life is never the same again; we are never the same again. The loss is overwhelming and never goes away.

Over the years I have witnessed a wide range of reactions to life crises, and I have been surprised at my own reaction to upheaval on a couple of occasions. The variables affecting how a person will react to trauma are numerous and complex. None of us know how we will react when hardship hits. We don’t know how the world will look when shock and denial eventually fade away and the full weight of trauma sits on our chest.

In some cases I have seen people give up their faith and religion altogether in response to profound trauma. Like all of us they had a view of the world that felt pretty dependable until something unexpected overwhelmed their view of the world. Their worldview didn’t allow for uncertainty; it did not allow for bad things to happen to good people. And most of all it did not allow for bad things to happen to them. They felt cheated, betrayed, abandoned by God, and were through with the whole religious endeavor from that moment on.

I think it is really important to respect and not judge people who have come to this conclusion. When we are kicked in the head or run down by a steamroller, we do whatever is necessary to survive. And if God can no longer be in our life’s equation, I feel sure God understands, and so should we.

I have also known people whose religious and spiritual life became deeper as the result of a crisis. Their loss was just as great as those in the first group who gave up their faith. Their trauma was just as traumatic as those in the first group. But they came out at a different place. They seemed to understand that life is uncertain, that faith and the religious life do not protect us from hardship.

They know firsthand the sorrow too deep to imagine. They know about falling through the air and wondering if they will ever land on solid ground again. Or if they land so hard they will just shatter when they hit the ground.

These people were just as shocked and surprised by trauma as those in the first group. But the trauma did not clash with their view of the world and how it works. When these people could not fit their life crisis into their existing worldview, they did not give up on their worldview. They expanded their worldview.

From a spiritual viewpoint, that is the hope for all of us: to let spiritual upheaval expand our worldview. To engage spiritual upheaval in a way that enlarges us rather than diminishes us.

We may come out of upheaval with more faith. We may come out of upheaval less clear about our faith. We may come out of the upheaval with no faith at all. What is important is to come out of the upheaval a more authentic person.

If we come out of upheaval or crisis as a more authentic person, if we become larger and wiser people, whether we know it or not, we are spiritually enhanced: spiritually enhanced because acquiring greater wisdom and depth is what the spiritual life is all about.