God of many names and
expressions: teach us to see you
everywhere we look. Lead us to a life
that recognizes that you are in and around us and all of creation. Teach us to listen to the earth yearning for peace. Show us where we fit and what you call us to
do. Amen
I’d
like to ask you to participate in a little experiment with me. I promise that nothing strange or unexpected
will happen. I’d like to ask each of you
to close your eyes. Now, I would like to
ask you to find a comfortable way to sit in these somewhat uncomfortable
chairs. Now, I would like to ask you to
take a breath in and exhale; and, one more time, take a breath in and exhale. Now, I would like to ask you to imagine the
most beautiful place you have ever been or imagined. Take a moment or two to really explore your
surroundings. You may be at the beach,
or in the hills of Ireland, perhaps on top of a mountain, or in the depths of a
lush forest. Allow your feelings to rise
to the surface as you gaze about. … Now,
as much as you would like to stay in that beautiful place, I’m going to ask you
to return to this setting here in this beautiful building. And what were some of those feelings? Shout them out—you don’t have to explain—just
one word feelings……
I
love your words—all of them. And, there
are no wrong feelings, no right feelings—just feelings, yours to treasure and
to explore. The smallest word is the
largest feeling for me—awe. I am
awestruck, struck by the lightning flash of wonder when I am blessed to survey
the beauty of the world. But most of
all, I am rendered speechless by the impossibility of naming God in the midst
of the wonder. No matter how hard I try,
I can never take in all of the wonder that nature—this creative force of
precision and grace—lays at our feet, displays before yes, and pours light and
love throughout our human selves. God is
like that. We stumble over what to call
God as if we could ever presume to understand the force of life itself. We argue over gender—gender!—when we have not
even come close to acknowledging the power and energy that surges through every
aspect of this created world. We debate
timeframes and condemn those who believe differently from us, when all we
really need to do is say, “wow!” I think
‘wow’ is a very spiritual word, don’t you?
Recently, I had a revelation or epiphany of what we look like when we
try to fit God, the divine Good, the ever-present Source, into one of our
boxes. Boxes that look like words
because we fear admitting that we are at a loss when confronted with the
immensity of all there is. I’d like to
tell you a story and hope that I can tell it in a way that you can participate
in my experience in some small way. At
the end of my vacation, I spent just 48 hours in New York City with our friend,
Celia. She knew that most of all I
wanted to visit the 9-11 Memorial. From
the very beginning I was unsure of what that experience would be like, but I
knew that I must go. As we found our way
to the memorial I realized that we were walking down the very same street that
I had driven a truck full of supplies on a few days from the attack. I saw the Burger King that had provided a
place still able to cook even though it had been completely bombed out by the
blast of the buildings falling. As for
me, I saw nothing but the same firefighters, police, and rescue dogs that I had
seen some 12 years ago. Thousands of
people thronged the lines and streets, but I only saw the grime and dust and
smelled the acrid smell of human flesh wafting on the breeze. I pulled myself out of my replay of events
and we walked into the Memorial itself.
At the first reflecting pool/fountain in the footprint of Tower One, I
allowed myself to feel the immenseness of the scene and the memories. Hundreds of names were engraved on the
memorial. But, at first, I was focused
on the pool itself. In the center of the
pool, is a deep pit looking very much like the pit that the rescuers dug out of
the actual buildings. The water flowed
in, going beyond sight and then was forced back up through the first level
waterfalls only to return to the pit. I
stood mesmerized by the sight and tried to take it all in at once. I quickly realized that I could not. It hit me in an instant. “This is God”, I said to Celia, “and no
matter how hard I try or what angle I achieve, I cannot see it all at
once.” Of course, I did not mean just
the memorial itself, I meant the feelings, the lives lost, the heroism of those
early hours and afterwards, and all those alive and breathing people gazing at
the same scene I was seeing. This was
intensely freeing for me as I realized again that we are not called upon to understand
it all, we are called upon to acknowledge that we cannot.
This
is not a bad place to begin our look at Spirituality, Science, and Healing the
World—this beyond our grasp place.
Indeed, God, that is absolute love, was never intended to be within our
grasp. Where God, Love, and Spiritual
Enlightenment meet is in Mystery—the mystery of God, of Good; yes, of
Love. You might wonder why I have chosen
this discourse as our sermon series between now and Advent. You might wonder why I don’t leave it to the
experts—to those writers of that stack of books on my desk at home. I have chosen to invite you into a communal
learning experience—one that we can begin together regardless of our previous
or present convictions regarding the subject.
For I believe that as long as our intellectual energy and spiritual
insight is focused on defending our differences rather than embracing and
celebrating what we have to give to each other, we will continue on the path of
destruction and conflagration that, more than likely, will someday, result in
the end of at least our planet, if not the universe as a whole. I want us to stop throwing around the words
“radical inclusivity”; I want us to require ourselves to come to understand
what that means and the amount of putting aside comfortable beliefs that it
will require.
I
believe that we are called to treasure the saving of the whole of the universe
more than we treasure a long-held belief in a specific path to salvation. For if we do not, we will find ourselves
standing on the metaphorical street corners of this world spouting senseless
sayings to people who have already died to the possibility of rebirth or
regeneration. There will come a time,
when people will indeed realize that it is too late for us to value the oneness
of all creation, because that very creation will have been destroyed by fires
fueled by the energy of our unwillingness to open our hearts to the different,
the other, the unknowable.
The
time has come for us to enter into the mystery—to stand and say, “Teach me, O
Universe, what you have need for me to know.
Let me move from rhetoric to an explosion of understanding of the
interconnectedness of my redemption with the revolution of regeneration in the
world. Open my heart, show me where to
stand so that I may receive all that the universe has to bestow while I,
myself, get out of your way”. John
Phillip Newell, Celtic theologian, reminds us, “Just as Hebrew Scripture begins
with a description of the Wind of God hovering over the chaotic deep at the
beginning of time to bring forth creation in its oneness, that same Spirit is
hovering over the depths of the human soul today to bring forth a consciousness
of life’s oneness that we could never before have imagined.”
No
matter the author or title of the book I chose to study, one word found its way
into every discussion—“Awe”. In awe, we
open ourselves to a different kind of journey—a journey into the mystery that
is ever unkown and always present. We
cause ourselves to become present to the journey, aware of the mandate for
courage and change. Barbara Fiand,
author of “Awe-fillled Wonder: the Interface of Science and Spirituality” warns
us—“The new and unfamiliar can be terribly frightening, and fear can drive us
to violence”. Thank God we are not alone
in this journey. Surrounded by friends,
we chart our course together to align ourselves with those churches ready and
willing to do ground-breaking work—to love the universe more than we love our
narrow definitions of God and all that we consider holy. We join this great Peace March, rising from
the beginning of time against those who would limit the holiness and wholeness
of the universe. I invite you to revisit
your beautiful place from the beginning of the sermon. This time, as you close your eyes, and settle
your soul, I invite you to offer your own prayer... It is enough to chant with the ages, “I am in
awe, in awe, in awe.” ….. Amen and amen.
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