“Modern Prophet: Ancient Wisdom: Oriah” 8-17-14

God, over and over you invite us to enter the holiest of holy places—our hearts—complete when one with your spirit living within us.  Give us courage, God.  May we not back away from the truth of your invitation.  May we answer, ‘yes’ when you call.  Amen

          Now that I am older and finished with school and all those other things that determined what I needed to spend my time reading, one of the things I have noticed is that I am drawn to writers who are not afraid to ask us and themselves the hard questions.  As I read and meditate upon those difficult questions, I find, increasingly, that pondering upon these questions leads me back to the truths of Jesus’ teachings that I have carried with me since early childhood.  I am one of those persons who have no memory of not going to church.  From the country Disciples of Christ in Clear Creek, IN to the Methodist and then Baptist churches in Apopka, FL., in Sunday School and Wednesday night Bible Study, I learned a familiarity with the scriptures that surfaces more in my later years then it did in the middle ones.  But, it is not because I am spending more time necessarily studying the Bible.  It is because as I read these modern prophets, some explicitly Christian and some not, their questions continue to lead me to a new way of thinking of the life and teachings of Jesus.  And that is exciting!  So for the next several weeks, I plan to bring to you some of those modern prophets and speak to you of the questions those prophets bring to us.  From there we can springboard to a new and deeper understanding of the life and work of Jesus and go deeper in our journey to become more and more aligned from inside to out. 

          Oriah wrote the poem “The Invitation” one night after she returned home from a party.  She says on her webpage that the party reminded her of how superficial most of our relationships are and so she penned this poem in response. 

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are 
squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own, without moving to hide it
or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,

if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you 
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us
to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty every day.
And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know

or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire
with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

          As I have utilized this challenging poem in meditation, and have wondered what in Jesus’ words might be most similar, I am most drawn to Jesus’ surprise endings teaching which have come to be known as the Beatitudes.  If I dare myself to think in terms similar to Oriah’s, the Beatitudes might sound somewhat different, inviting us to look deeper into Jesus’ words.  Go with me, if you can, and picture a strong, kind, compassionate Jesus saying these words to the crowd:

          “Don’t tell me how God has forgotten you when you have nowhere to turn and no way to know the next step; I want to know how turning from self-reliance to reliance on God and the Divine Rule of Love has expanded your inner life.

          Don’t tell me how bereft you are when you think you have lost that which is more precious than anything else.  As you find your way back to God, tell me how you experience the embrace of the Divine in the realization of that which is truly the most treasured in your life—the Sacred itself.       

          Don’t tell me of all that you feel you need to have to be complete.  I want to know of the joy and pride when you find yourselves in complete contentment when you celebrate all that you are.

          It doesn’t really interest me that you are hungry for things outside of the Sacred.  Instead tell me of the banquet prepared for you when you place your reliance in God.

          Don’t tell me in your weariness how you cannot care anymore.  Tell me how being full of care for others brings you the most wonderful experience of being cared for ever.

          Don’t tell me how hard it is to see God at work in the world.  I want to know of your struggle to get your inside world—the world of spirit, heart, and mind—aligned with how you live your life.  Then tell me how you see God transforming the world.

          Don’t tell me how powerless you are to change things.  Instead, tell me how you work for peace.  When you devote your heart and time to peace, you’ll see exactly who God wants you to be.

          I don’t want to hear that you are feeling sorry for yourself when standing for justice makes people hate you.  That makes you rely on God even more.  Instead, tell me of the blessings that come when people lie about you.  Don’t you know that when you speak my truth, it is too threatening to them?  Be proud to join the long line of prophets and witnesses for truth who have always had to stand up to people’s mistrust of them.”      This brings a different look at very old wisdom.  Over and over again, we are invited to look on the positive side of each of these equations.  And, whether it is Oriah or Jesus saying the words, we know that it is the Sacred inside each of us who is whispering the invitation to become more. 

Now, I know a lot about invitations.  And I’m not talking about the kind where one of you generously invites me and Nan to lunch.  I’m talking about those end of service “Just As I Am” and “Have Thine Own Way, Lord” kind of invitations which sometimes seemed a little less than genuine.  If you did not come from a particular portion of the Protestant world who practiced this ritual, you have no idea of what I am speaking; but, if you did, you know that an invitation where no one was responding could add a good ten minutes onto any service just when you thought you were going to escape.  I am, of course, talking from a teenage perspective here; but, I often imagined that there were a good many adults also praying that someone, anyone, would just go forward. 

The invitation was, of course, to make Jesus your Lord and Savior and to enter a new life of forgiveness and relationship with God.  The only problem was, as many times as I went forward, I never could quite get clear about what that life was to look like; so, as I got older, I got braver about seeking and finding other ways to explore my relationship with the Divine—ways that affirmed my goodness as God’s creation and God’s child.  All of those other ways have been ways that have led me to refine my relationship with the Divine who does indeed live in me and is me.  This new way of thinking, therefore, has led me to rethinking and re-exploring much of what I learned as a teenager and young adult.

Few MCC Churches do those “Come forward and get saved” kinds of invitations—and, please, do not misunderstand, I am not suggesting that those invitations are not meaningful to many people.  Nevertheless, we know that an invitation exists which will call us far deeper, move us much farther forward in our search for wholeness, and stretch us to think, feel, and pray in different ways—calling us onto a path of courage and daring.  Won’t you accept this invitation this Sunday to commit yourselves to allow God and God working through this community to transform your life for good, and wholeness, and peace?  May it be so. Amen and Amen.  Namaste.