Open or Closed Circle?: It’s Up to Us 5-4-14

Creator of all life, help us know how to move beyond our insulated humanness and be willing to see what you would have us see.  Welcome us to your divine “safe space” where we are promised hope and joy.  Amen

            First, I want to thank all you who participated in our retreat yesterday.  What a holy, sacred time we had together—the first of many, I hope.  And, for those of you who could not or did not attend, I hope you will ask someone what it was like so that you might be inspired to attend next time.  It was the start of a journey for us in Open Circle and it is the journey that I feel called to speak about today.

            It is a personal journey as well as a communal one.  As your pastor, I spend many hours over the weeks in prayer for you and in discernment regarding where God is leading this church.  It is an awesome responsibility—a responsibility that comes close to getting the better of me some days; however, it is a responsibility that I take up both seriously and joyfully as God allows me to spend my time here with you.  It is not an easy responsibility, and my authenticity requires me to tell you that—to acknowledge that there is often pain, and a great deal of frustration included in this responsibility.

            Let me say to you as well (and I think those of you who have spent the effort to get to know me know this)—I do not think that I am the perfect pastor, not for this church or for any.  If I thought I was perfect, or even close to it, I would have stopped learning and changing years ago.  In other words, I would be useless to you and useless to God.  So, my journey into the will of God for this church has not been without doubts and conflicts.  Let me say this, I believe that every one of you who have struggled with my leadership in private or public have done so because of what you believe.  While some of the associated assumptions have been hurtful at times, I do not doubt for a moment that each of you was being true to your own beliefs, values, and fears.  All that being said, I am undertaking the giving of this sermon with the trust that, above all else, we love each other and want the best for each other as individuals and as a church.  Open Circle is my family and I believe it is also the family of many of you.  And so, we take this journey or choose not to take this journey together

            Let me tell you first why I believe that we are at a crossroads at Open Circle.  We want to have ministries that matter, we want to build a church, we want to make an impact on our community and world.  To do that, we must change.  I could quote statistics to you; you would be bored.  I could talk about the larger trends across the country regarding church growth; you rightly would be unimpressed.  However, I will tell you what I believe to be the truth regarding Open Circle.  Once the excitement of a new church wore off, our attendance has stayed roughly the same.  Let’s face it, people have short attention spans; and, if we do not offer something that will change their lives, we will not stay on their radar for longer than it takes to visit once or twice and then lose interest.  And, that’s just it, I believe that we do have something to offer that will change people’s lives—that is changing our lives—if we will only find the courage to look our fears and doubts in the eye and move into a deeper relationship with the Sacred—with God, the source of all love. 

            Now, of course, this is considerably easier said than done.   For all of us, your pastor included, this takes time, passion, and commitment.  It takes time because we are temporal beings—we exist in time.  We process before we change our thoughts or actions.  And, this is a good thing.  As we move and live and change and have our being in the God who is the ground of our being, we become more and more the people God calls u to be.  This week in another group I said that if I were limited to two words to describe “church”, those two words would be “safe space”.  We all long to be safe, but we do not all describe safety in the same way.  For some, safety may imply that no one will ever ask you to think in ways different than you already think.  This is not what God had in mind.  Listen to David in our Psalm today:  “God taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God.  More and more people are seeing this:  they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God”.  I ask you and I ask myself at exactly the same time, “When was the last time you abandoned yourself to God?”  And, if you did abandon yourself to God, where did God take you?  I believe that God yearns to take us deeply into sacred safe space, to teach us of the love that cannot be measured and grace that cannot be outrun.  Seeing this part of the journey as “safe” requires us to look at our fears and trust our dis-ease to God at the same time as we make ourselves available for the journey.

            Most of us grew up believing that there was one way to describe the Holy—that Otherness that we know is beyond us or bigger than us.  We learned formulae put in place by men centuries ago.  We learned about the Trinity, and heaven and, for some of us, hell.  We learned that there was a divine measurement of good and evil in place and that the day would come when we would be judged either worthy of heaven or deserving of hell.  Some of us took great solace in the fact that people who had hurt us would pay a heavy price throughout all eternity.  It was a comfort to have beliefs that could be nicely bound into books and re-packaged when social and artistic trends changed.  The rest of us may have grown up not thinking much about the Holy.  Perhaps our families weren’t religious or spiritual, or our parents thought that we should be free to make our own decisions when we were older.  This also felt safe, putting off any doubt-causing, headache-forming self-awareness until later.

            Back to Open Circle—I know that there is something that can be different about this place.  There is something that can set us apart and allow us to do God’s work in the world in new and exciting ways.  And that is a commitment to making Open Circle the “safest space” that we possibly can.  This means that we can have discussions and even disagreements without asking anyone to give up what is of value to them.  Allowing someone on this side of the room to believe one way while you believe another does not threaten your belief system at all if you endorse the idea of safe space.  You see, allowing one person to believe one thing while you believe another simply makes the world more interesting, more loving, and more God-like.  Someone asked me not to long ago, what Open Circle stood for.  While saying that while I could only respond with what Open Circle’s pastor stood for, I replied with every ounce of passion that is in me, “Open Circle stands as a place where all are accepted—no matter what”.  Now, I am here lovingly to tell you that, to a great extent, we have been saying this more than we mean it.  I mean—it sounds good, right?  Who wouldn’t want to go to a church where everyone is accepted?  Here’s the catch—in order to truly be such a faith community, we have to allow God to send us the everyone’s and not pick and choose as if the choice were ultimately ours.  And, that means we have to change.  And change is work, sometimes, hard work.  Now, I want to tell you in just a few sentences about some of the hard work that I have been doing as your pastor.  As we began to move beyond thinking about openness to really acting upon it, the initial resistance, at least by a few, was quite palpable.  I could taste it, see it; and, even read it.  I began to doubt that God was continuing to call me to be in this place.  I wandered in that wilderness almost alone.  But, there was a small group of you who met faithfully every Wednesday night—a place where “safe space” was beginning to grow—where people were opening themselves up to the hard questions.  Still, I agonized over the fear that was evident in some others of my brothers and sisters.  Nevertheless, I believe that this is God’s call to Open Circle and that, at least for the moment I am the person called to be your leader in this present journey.  And, I believe, that together we can overcome whatever needs to be overcome in God’s name.

            You may be asking yourself why you would bother to engage in any of these conversations that we will be having over the next weeks and months.  And, I’m going to give you an answer that you may not have expected.  It is not for the good of the church or the community.  It is for freedom—freedom in your own spiritual growth that comes from asking and living the difficult questions and being open to answers that may sound very different from those you learned as a child.  It is for freedom—freedom for God to reveal God’s self in ways that you didn’t see coming or expect to receive.  It is for freedom—freedom to open yourself up to the touch of people who are or believe differently from you.  It is for freedom—freedom to become closer to God than you ever thought possible—to live a live full of assurance—to face life’s questions with a calmness that comes from having already gone to a place of complexity and come away with the simplicity of grace.  And then, and then, this safe space for all will begin to be a reality so full of passion that others will find their longing leading them here to this place of love and acceptance—and, at long last, we will be ready to say, ‘welcome home!”  Amen and amen.

Easter 4-20-14

The Promise of Resurrection  4-20-14a

          When the women, distraught from losing their teacher and friend, discovered that Jesus was no longer in the tomb, their broken hearts had to relearn the ability to sing.  At first simply confused, that confusion turned to joy as they went running back to find the disciples and tell them of this glorious turn of events.  Did you ever wonder why they were so surprised?  Jesus had performed miracle after miracle, healed and raised from the dead, and had steadfastly told them that he was going to do exactly what he did.  And, yet, they were surprised, shocked even.  We know that the disciples did not often really understand what Jesus was saying to them or asking them.  They weren’t good listeners; but, surely, they had absorbed enough from Jesus to know that such a miracle was possible.  So, what happened?

          Here is our learning moment.  What happened is the same thing that happens to many of us when trials pull us into the undertow of despair or uncertainty takes over and erases our memories of prior miracles or experiences with God.  And, as our hearts are broken time and time again by experiences in the world, our belief that God is making the way plain grows more and more dim with each disappointment.  Just like us, I would think that the disciples experienced two primary feelings.  First, and very importantly, they experienced fear.  They were fearful that they were about to meet the same end as Jesus.  They were fearful that all that Jesus had told them was going to amount to not much; and, they were afraid that everything they had come to believe would be ignored and forgotten by the world after Jesus was gone.    Secondly, they experienced the feeling of betrayal.  There they were; they had given up everything to follow this man around the countryside and he was, well, dead.  What was the point of it all?  Perhaps he had not been the Messiah after all.  Can’t you just hear them talking—one might say, “You know, he never really acted like a Messiah, I should have seen through it sooner.”  Or another might say, “Perhaps it was all a show and we just got caught up in it.  I’m embarrassed that I’ve been so gullible.”  Or maybe, “What in the world are we going to do now?  We gave up our businesses, our boats and nets.  What are we supposed to do?”  Fear and betrayal are pretty strong emotions and are front and center in the disciples’ experience of these past few days.  We would be unrealistic to believe that these feelings would not get in the way of their believing that Jesus was, indeed, alive. 

          So, what does the Resurrection bring to us in those hours of confusion, fear and betrayal?  The promise of the Resurrection is transcendence on all levels.  Transcendence, used in many spiritual communities, means the overcoming of one set of circumstances by another set of circumstances or to rise above.  Sometimes to transcend means to triumph over.  Transcendent is one of the adjectives used to describe God; that the divine spirit is greater than all else.  And yet, the Resurrections gives to us that same promise of transcendence.  

          How is the gift of transcendence made manifest in the  Resurrection?  As an act that went far beyond what any human being could have imagined or expected, the Resurrection pulls us into a discussion in unknown worlds—a discussion that pushes us to think beyond our usual ability to think—we transcend our own expectations of ourselves and find ourselves pondering the resurrection of Christ and it’s meaning for us in this day and age.  Regardless of the outcome of our ponderings, our exploration has called us to think beyond our usual thinking and to evaluate the role that faith plays in our explanation of those things we say we believe or don’t believe.  Such an exploration as this helps us grow and mature in the way we think and respond about faith.  We begin, like adults in the faith, to look at questions free from earlier fear of violating old taboos of knowledge; and, we give ourselves permission to think and act for ourselves.  We transcend earlier interpretations; and though we may return to those interpretations, it is after we look at those beliefs from new-found eyes and ears.  We transcend what we have always been told and come to our own understanding and claim it for ourselves.  This is a crucial aspect of spiritual growth and the Resurrection gives us the opportunity to mature.

          Through the experiences of the disciples we are also shown that we can transcend despair and hopelessness when God or the Cosmos invites us to participate in a miracle or an unexpected outcome.  Not one of the disciples expected to ever see Jesus again—not one!  I find that amazing in light of all he taught them; but, it is true, not one!  Focused on their hopelessness and self-centered despair, it never occurred to them to simply wait for God to work the promised miracle.  What if we could transcend our own self-centered despair when things are going badly and wait for the promised miracle.  In fact, God has promised us that as we trust and learn to flow in sync with the rest of the creation, that things will work out along a path of divine grace.  Our only job is to stay faithful to the knowledge that the Universe and God, her creator, is guiding and protecting us when we open ourselves to that guidance.  So, though the resurrection, we can transcend the impatient, grabbing at life, and learn to trust God and ourselves.  The transcendence that we learn from the gloriously happy women is that similar joy awaits us when we wait for the miracle.  The promise of the resurrection is that all things are made new—the old is transcended, and we see and experience only the new.  And together, we experience and find joy.  Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed.  Alleluia and amen.   

“Were You There?—the Gift of Presence 4-13-14

God, it is so easy to get caught up in the cheers of the crowd.  It’s not so easy to stick around for the tears and agony.  Teach us the way to be soul friends to each other.  Show us how to be present for each other in the way you are present to us.  Amen

          As Sophia used to say, “Picture this:  Jerusalem, Passover week:  suddenly there is a parade.  We’re all running to see what is happening.  People are shouting, ‘'Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’.  They’re waving palms and throwing their coats on the ground.  We watch and wait; and, then, there he is.  He’s not much to look at, just a common man; but, there’s definitely something about him.  People are beside themselves.  The crowd is growing with hysteria.  I’m getting out of here while I can.”  We can all get caught up in this story.   Why, here in The Villages, there are parades for every imaginable holiday and people get pretty caught up in them no matter how silly they might seem to people who weren’t there. 

          People love parades.  And the folks in Jerusalem that day were no different.  I’ll bet even some of you, if you’re honest, felt a little rise in excitement as our own choir processed waving their palms and singing, “God has made me glad”.  We love to rejoice, it lifts our spirits, makes us feel good, brings us closer to each other as we celebrate together.  But, this week does not end at the parade.  And, we must travel on with Jesus after he dismounts from the donkey and walks—almost unnoticed—around Jerusalem.  There’s no real agreement about what Jesus did from the time of the parade to the time of the so-called ‘last supper’.  Each of the gospel writers tell different stories.  It would appear that he continued what he had been doing all along—teaching to whoever was present to listen.  Only this time, he did it in Jerusalem.  Jesus is upping the ante.  It may be that this is when he overturned the tables of the money-changers in the Temple.  He certainly continued to heal people and the crowds gathered.  It became impossible for the ‘powers that be’ to ignore what this man from Galilee was doing right under their noses.  The disciples also continued to be with Jesus, spending time with him and learning from him. 

          Before you know it, it is the eve of the Passover Meal.  Again, we can imagine a somewhat rowdy crowd of rough and tumble men and women, still completely unaware of what lies ahead.  They quiet during the supper when Jesus says those strange things about the bread and wine.  And then comes the prediction of the betrayal with the self-questioning.   Judas is sent to ‘do the deed’ and Peter is warned that he will, himself, betray Jesus during the trial that is to come.  They sing a song and go out. 

          Jesus takes the disciples with him to the Garden of Gethsemane.  All he asks is that they stay awake with him while he prays.  Not only do they not stay awake, they never realize the agony that Jesus now carries with him in prayer.  Three times, Jesus comes back to see if his friends are standing watch in prayer for him and three times he finds them sleeping soundly.  He bears his agony alone when even his best friends cannot stay awake after a good meal to be with him.  There is so much to focus on in the hours that follow; but, today, I want to focus on what Jesus was asking from his disciples—their presence with him during the sobbing, pleading, hard time.  I want to suggest that we might call that gift—the gift that Jesus failed to receive at his neediest point—the gift of presence.

          It’s a gift that we all can and do give; but, it’s not always easy.  Like many of you, I was an extremely lonely adolescent.  Nobody, and I mean nobody wanted to listen to me whine one more time “Nobody likes me.  I don’t fit in anywhere.”   When I was about fourteen, I happened on to a book by Taylor Caldwell called “The Listener”.  It wasn’t written for kids, so, I must have lifted it from my mother’s books.   I don’t remember the whole premise but I remember that a man, after his wife died, built a monument to her where he sat day after day.  Across the top of the monument it said, “The Man Who Listens”.  People could come in and talk to him though he sat behind a veil and was unknown to them.  The story follows several people whose lives were changed because of this listening presence.  People who were suicidal, bankrupt, broken-hearted, all these had their lives changed.  Somewhere, somehow, a lonely adolescent hung on to the hope that somewhere, someday, there would be someone who would listen to her pain.  And, of course, eventually there was, or I would not be here today.  When I hear of our LGBT young people dying at their own hands, all I can think of is that no one was there to listen.  That book, though I did not realize it until recently, played a huge role in my wanting to become a minister, to be a person who could be counted on to listen. 

          Why does the gift of presence seem so hard?  It would seem that Jesus did not ask much of his disciples—just “stay with me”.    Most of the time when people come to see me, all they want is for me to listen—really listen.  We are a multi-tasking, make everything better, rush to the next job world.  The gift of presence requires us to change every one of these orientations.  When our friends ask us to listen, I can guarantee you that they need our full attention; and, more than likely they are not asking us to fix whatever is going on for them.  Unless we have worked on increasing our sensitivity to the need of people to be listened to and our need to dispense answers, we will rush in with advice—we don’t do well with feeling unable to help.  Perhaps it is also because of our need to move on to our next task of the day or hour. 

          The gift of presence is pure love.  By giving the gift of presence, we are allowing the love of the Universe, indeed the love of God, to flow through us and flood the other person with peace.  The Celtic tradition speaks of “soul friends”, people to whom we can completely unburden our hearts and souls and know, without a doubt, that they will sit quietly and listen.  For many of us, it requires great discipline to remain completely focused on what this one person is saying.  But, the gift that you are giving to another is well worth the price of practice.  I find that the more I am able to sit in God’s presence quietly, the more I am able to sit with complete focus on another.  This single focus calls us to hear and experience pain, conflict, suffering.  But God—the very source of this love—will guide you in your growth. 

          This soul friend, this anam ċara provides the place where we can be completely understood.  To be understood is to be loved.  John O’Donohue, Celtic poet and priest, said, “to be understood is to be home”.  There is no greater feeling that to come ‘home’ and know that you are there—at home, at peace.  There is much sadness in this world, no matter what the advertisements say about living or retiring in Florida.  We don’t shovel snow like our northern friends, but we suffer the same losses and grief, the same disappointments and estrangements and the same need to be understood.  What an opportunity we have to give this free gift to others. 

          This is what Jesus needed from his friends on tis night of great suffering.  They failed him, perhaps because they were still completely unaware of what was happening, perhaps because they could not face the pain of seeing Jesus as he was that night.  No matter the cause, the lesson is that there is no need for us to ever fail those whom God has placed in our lives in the same way as the disciples failed Jesus.  When we provide for others this ‘coming home’ experience, when we know this profound desire to listen with full attention, we are standing on sacred ground.  This sacred ground is ours for the experiencing by our steadfast attention to being present to all who come into our presence.  This sacred ground, the same as when we come fully into the presence of God, is where we are ‘church’.  And ‘where we are church’ we are love.  May it be so.  Amen and amen. 

          

What Is the Good Life? 4-6-14

God, when we think upon what is good, we must, by necessity, begin with you and creation all around us. Help us appreciate this good life and lead us to live in ways that enable everyone else to live the good life as well. Amen

What do you think of when you think of the good life? Are there people who spring to mind? Is it about comfort, material blessings, living without guilt or regret, being famous in some way or another? We have many, many descriptions for the good life. I, in my ever-present, yet seldom acted upon, desire to simplify my life, love the Life is Good® line of t-shirts. They are simple, direct, and remind us that life is the good-est in the little things. The two brothers who created the clothing line just wanted to spread optimism. The fact that the shirts and gear are so popular says to me that most of us are attracted to optimism. The fact that other lines of clothing in a parody of the Life is Good® shirts were distributed (and I choose not to use the name of the shirts from the pulpit) also remind me that not everyone is quite so enthusiastic about being optimistic. Nevertheless, most of us long for the simplicity of optimism in our lives, particularly our spiritual lives. Today, I am the bearer of good news—Jesus says that eternal life is to know God and to know that God sent Jesus to model the good life to us. Pretty simple, right? If it is so simple, why then, do we have so many people telling us how to live such a life?

Many preachers, and I know that many of you know or knew some, focus on the ‘don’ts’. I, for one, and I know that I am joined by many of you, don’t do well with don’ts. I long to know that, “Yes, life is good and I am a part of all that goodness”. Paul, in our beautiful passage for today, gives as clear a description of the ‘good life’ as appears anywhere and it is mostly in do’s. Beginning with the nature of our spiritual lives—our relationship with ourselves—he says, “Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it”. Ah, we find we are back to the sermon from a couple of weeks ago, regarding living an authentic life—you remember, a life where the inner matches the outer. Paul calls us to this congruent life at the very beginning of his description of the so-called ‘good life’. Then he tells us where our focus should be: “Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good”. We hold on to the good (may I suggest that optimism as well as morality may be implied here?) and by holding on to the good, we plant ourselves firmly in the ‘good’ of all creation.

From there Paul begins to talk about our relationships in this present life (he will return to this theme again), “ Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle”. Most of us would identify the first half of Paul’s admonition regarding others to be the most important. One really cannot do one without the other, however. We have to be able and willing to put our friends first if we truly love deeply. Paul then turns to the question of the longevity of such a life. “ Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of Jesus, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder”. I love the line “keep yourselves fueled and aflame”; if ever there was an endorsement for spending time with God—refueling—this is it. Though Paul does not say as much, we know that prayer and meditation was crucial to Paul’s own spirituality. He spent many a hour preparing his heart for his work in spreading the good news.

He finishes with a list of do’s and don’ts—this is, after all, Paul writing, which give us simple guidelines for living the ‘good life’ in the context of a community. We might want to pay special attention:

1. Help needy Christians. Indeed, we strive to do this when we remember. It’s the remembering that can be hard.

2. Be inventive in hospitality. I take this to mean that we are to practice hospitality in ways that no one has thought of before—ways that are so inventive that people will have no way to expect or anticipate the hospitality.

3. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Ok, this one is a challenge—one that’s been on my spiritual growth radar for years. Always a struggle, but always worth the struggle.

4. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy. This is the easy part; except when you are not happy yourself—perhaps their laughter can help move you into laughter as well.

5. Share tears when they’re down. My child welfare workers used to ask me what they should do when a child was on the floor sobbing his or her heart out. My answer—get on the floor and wait.

6. Get along with each other. If it were only this easy. If you have siblings, you more than likely had a parent who asked, “Why can’t you just get along?” I never had a good answer, did you? I wonder what it would have looked like if I had been able to say, “Well, I don’t know. I’ll pray about it.” I’m thinking that might have put some light on the subject.

7. Don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. When we go out of our way to make friends with those whose worth is not acknowledged by others, we receive the greater blessing by far.

8. Don’t hit back. Imagine the number of wars that would never happen if we could just not hit back.

9. Discover beauty in everyone. Sorta like #7 and, yet, it expands it to encourage us to find and help the person find that inner beauty, that spark of the divine.

10. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. This must be important since Paul says this twice.

11. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.” Walk away, just walk away…leave it to God.

And finally, on the treatment of our enemies, “Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy
hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him
with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.” Clear and to the point, this needs no further explanation. It may, however, need motivation. I did not include this as #12 in the prior list, because it seems as if this reaches far beyond our community and into the world to all of those who oppose justice and truth. One heart a time, when we “get the best of evil by doing good”, we will change the world.

So, what does all of this mean for us, here on the Sunday before Palm Sunday? I believe that Paul’s description of the good life is a way for us to finish up our Lenten pilgrimage because we know the life to which we have been called. There is one very important aspect missing from our conversation. That is the why? Why do we choose to seek this ‘good life’? Who or what calls us into this strenuous re-examination of our inner selves at this Lenten time. Is it Jesus, himself, or the Holy Spirit? Perhaps, but perhaps it is the seeking of our own hearts—those hearts graced by the presence of the Sacred within—perhaps it is the wisdom of our inner spirits whispering—‘there is so much more”. Is this not what Lent is all about? We open ourselves to listen more carefully, respond more thoroughly and to ask more directly. We choose to spend more time in silence, in contemplation. We do not necessarily deprive ourselves of something we hold dear. We may find, however, in this pilgrimage to the good life that things that felt dear to us as the beginning of this journey are willingly left behind because we no longer need those things.

It is not too late to spend extra time alone with God this Lenten Season. Perhaps the nearness of Palm Sunday caught you napping. But this last week, the week before the final week of Jesus’ life plays out once again, you have the opportunity to ask the Truth and Beauty of the Universe, this God who we call ‘good’ where you fit. You have the opportunity to ask yourself, “Do I really want this good life?” You have more than enough time to open your hands and heart to the Sacred within and without yourself and allow the stillness of the Truth of God flood your hearts and minds with peace, beauty and joy. Amen and amen.

         

          

Do You Really Believe? 3-23-14

God, grant us the grace to know what you are saying to us today.  Grant us the courage to align our outer lives with our inner beliefs.  Amen

            Parker Palmer wrote a wonderful book called The Hidden Wholeness: the Journey toward an Undivided Life.  I read it probably 4 years ago; and, still its wisdom calls to me.  It altered the way I think about my own spirituality and the need to have my inner and outer lives in congruence.  As I have journeyed over the last four years, I am much more aware of when my inner spiritual life is at odds with what I am actually doing in the world.  And my heart is called back to wholeness.  Palmer writes “The divided life may be endemic, but wholeness is always a choice.  Once I have seen my dividedness, do I continue to live a contradiction—or do I try to bring my inner and outer worlds back into harmony?  Being whole is a self-evident good, so the answer would seem to be clear.  And yet, as we all know, it is not.”  

            All three of our readings today are calling us to this same wholeness.  Palmer writes that there is a “familiar pattern of evasion” of wholeness that many of us use when first we come to believe that our inner and outer lives are indeed divided against themselves.           First, though, we must wonder aloud about how we come to this knowledge that we are not living in the fullness of the wholeness that is possible.  Paul gives us an easy test:  “…if the way you live isn’t consistent with what you believe, then it’s wrong.”  As usual, I would opt for a kinder, gentler approach both with myself and with you.  I would and do ask myself and you three brief questions.

·        When you have the chance to be quiet, is your spirit at rest?  I find that when I am not living an ‘undivided life’ that I cannot really find a place where I am at rest.  Incidents keep jumping into my thoughts that point me to exactly where I am out of wholeness.  Everything, and I mean everything that I regard as failures in my life are examples of when my inner and outer lives have been out of whack.  Think about it for a minute.  Those so-called failures or disappointments can point us directly to where we are in ‘the journey toward an undivided life’.   Instead of seeing them as failures, I can rejoice that the evidence has been given to me and I can choose to live in ways that are consistent with what I believe about myself and the world.

·        Second, how judgmental are you?  It is my experience that the more we find fault with others, the more those others are mirroring what we are unhappy with in ourselves.  So, I would suggest that the next time those judgmental feelings start creeping in that you and I immediately look at the gift the other person has given to us by pointing out to us ways our lives are divided.

·        Finally, how much time do we spend alone with God?  When I wish to avoid the answer to a question, I find it quite effective to never go where I know the answer will be.  So, when I find myself avoiding time alone with God, I ask myself what it is that I do not want to know.  And, then, if I am brave, I go to where the answer lies.

Let’s say, just so the sermon has someplace to go, that God has shown you or me an area of our lives where our outer lives are inconsistent with our spiritual beliefs.  Palmer’s ‘familiar pattern of evasion’ helps us look at our usual response.  “First”, writes Palmer, “comes denial:  surely what I have seen about myself cannot be true!”  We know that the disciples of Jesus experienced this over and over again.  In fact, their denial often frustrated Jesus.  Their “say it isn’t so” often got in the way of their grasp of what Jesus was teaching them. 

In our passage today, Jesus is explaining why he used metaphors in his teaching and that the hour has come for plain speech.  The disciples basically say, “Well, it’s about time!”  They tell Jesus that they do understand what he is saying and that they believe he is from Abba God.  Jesus, who knows their hearts better than they know themselves, asks, “Do you really believe?”  He then tells them—gives them a hint of what not to do if they really believe—he tells them that they will scatter and he will face his worst test alone from human company.  So, when I feel a ‘not me, I would never do such a thing’ a little too loudly in my head, it is best if I stop, listen again and see if there isn’t more than a little truth in what I have just heard from God or others. 

Rev. Elder Nancy speaks to this far more eloquently than I have.  When it comes to aligning our spirits with God’s spirit, she says, “We are resigned to isolation and hurt; we are skeptical, tired in our spirits, and full of unfulfilled ideas and yearnings. But just scratch the surface, and we are open to liberation, miracles, healing -- and to eating, drinking, and connecting with the Holy One.”  And so I ask, are you open today to have your surface scratched?  Along with worship, isn’t that what ‘church’ is all about—a place where we can come to have our surfaces opened to reveal that precious place where we can connect with the Holy One?

Secondly, according to Palmer, “comes equivocation:  the inner voice speaks softly, and truth is a subtle, slippery thing, so how can I be sure of what my soul is saying?”  In my own spiritual life, I find that the Spirit of the Sacred will not give up.  It’s not a catch as catch can kind of relationship.  Paul tells us to cultivate our own relationship with God.  It is through this cultivation of quiet time and inner connection with the Sacred that is within us that we will come to trust.  Then we will recognize this equivocation for what it is—an excuse, pure and simple, to make it easier somehow to walk away from this undivided life to which we are called.

Then Palmer tells us, “next comes fear:  if I let that inner voice dictate the shape of my life, what price might I have to pay in a world that sometimes punishes authenticity?”  Many of you know that I do Facebook as another way of connecting with all of you and my friends from afar.  One of you asked a question on Facebook this week that, although I have thought about it before, this time I thought about it in the context of this sermon.  The question was something like this, “How often when someone asks you how you are, do they really want to know?”  Good question—stopped me in my tracks at least for a moment.  And the comments were mostly that no one believes that anyone does really want to know.  In such a simple way as this, authenticity is punished in our world.  People want to believe that everything is ok, with you and with them.  And, so, if all of a sudden, we start telling people how we really are, what life and God is like for us, people may well start crossing over to the other side of the proverbial street when they see us coming. 

Authenticity is punished in other, more serious ways as well.  Think of the whistleblower in a corrupt company.  That punishment used to be so swift and so punitive that laws were passed to protect the so-called “whistle-blower”.  What about the role of the whistle-blower in the faith community.  Do we make it safe for people to live their own authenticity when that authenticity lies crosswise from something the faith community may have done or is doing?

Rev. Elder Nancy speaks to this as well when she writes of Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well.  She notes, “Jesus' transgressive behavior in making a social and spiritual connection with this woman frightens and bewilders the disciples. He takes them to places and encounters they might avoid otherwise. Where is Jesus taking you -- taking us -- that might scandalize others?....”

Palmer has two more patterns:  cowardice and avarice.  By cowardice, Palmer is referring to our desire to stay with what we know rather than brave the world of the unknown.  The way of our current road is well-traveled and familiar.  If we vow to allow God to change our outer life to match our inner life, we may find ourselves on some unfamiliar roads.  Do we have the courage to see where those unfamiliar roads lead?  I believe we do.  By avarice, Parker is referring to those situations where we are rewarded in some way for living less than authentically.  That reward may be seen as significant enough in order for us to “stifle our soul”.  That’s a hard one for those of us who ‘live large’ in a world that calls for us to simplify so that others might have enough to survive. 

And, so, here we have it—are we ready to live undivided lives?  Are we ready to be an undivided faith community—where all that we say we believe is evident in what we do?  I believe that we are.  Not all faith communities and not all people choose the unknown road, but I believe that we will.  It is up to you and you and you and me.  We can do this together.  May it be so for all of us and for Open Circle.  Amen and amen.  

The Opposite of Down Is..... 3-9-14

 Holy God, it’s Lent again and we’re not quite sure how to approach it.  We know that we want to grow more in inner spirit and in showing your love to the world.  Help us stay grounded in you and centered in your heart.  Amen

 

                Welcome to Lent!  Not the desert, deprivation, giving up something you love Lent, but the “how can I best embody the love of God Lent?”  Not that that necessarily means we won’t give something up, like our beliefs that we cannot change the world, or even our lethargy about spending time with God, or anything else that gets in the way of showing God’s light in the world.  This Lent we will be looking at some simple questions to which we may believe we already know the answer.  I’ll be suggesting some different answers that might change the way we live our lives in the world.

                This week we look at the exchange between Peter and Jesus just before Jesus is taken off to be tried.  Jesus is trying to prepare the disciples for what is ahead.  Peter cannot let go of the physical presence of Jesus and promises to lay DOWN his life if Jesus will just take him with him.  Obviously, Peter did not know or understand what was ahead for this man he so much wanted to follow.  Jesus’ response, while some would say is unkind, unfortunately turned out to be true.  Peter’s betrayal which is really no more than many, if not most of us have done along the way, simply shows us that Peter, and we, do not know the meaning of laying our lives down in the manner to which Jesus calls us. 

                So, what is the opposite of down?  In the spiritual life, I believe that the opposite of down is IN.  Take a look at what Rev. Elder Darlene Gardner says about Adam and eating of the apple.  Eating the apple gave him insight inside.  Suddenly, he knew that he, in Rev. Elder Darlene’s words, “would be accountable to God for the impact that his actions would have on others”.  That’s inner work, my friends, and I would suggest that the spiritual practice of Lent, or returning, is all about the inner work of becoming accountable to God and to the world for all our actions.  So, we do not lay our lives down; we open them to receive the inner work of the spirit.

                All three of our readings give us guidance in the inner work that we will undertake during this Lenten period.  Paul tells us, “But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way!”  Rev. Elder Darlene writes, “His (and our) eyes were opened to the truth that our attitudes and actions are almost always the sole cause of human pain, suffering, oppression, and exclusion. We have to accept responsibility for this; we have to care. We can no longer close our eyes to what we can now see. We can no longer close our hearts to one another nor deny that the so-called ‘other’ is really just the other part of ‘we’."  And, finally Jesus says, “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” 

                These three passages perfectly lay out the nature of the inner work that we must undertake if we are to grow in spiritual understanding this Lenten period.  First, we learn to and delight in listening to God.  This gives us freedom to hear directly from the source.  And the result?—wholeness in every part of our lives.  How do we learn to listen directly to the source?  We stop talking—talking to others, talking to ourselves, and especially, talking to God.  We give God a chance to talk to us.  Now while I would not pretend to limit the ability of God’s nature to grant us epiphanies, or “aha” moments at any time, even in the midst of a crowd of people, I know for myself that I am more able to hear God when I minimize the distractions so prevalent in my life and in my head.  This eliminating of distractions is a deliberate act.  This is a drawing away from the busyness and business of the day or night and welcoming God’s spirit into our inner beings. 

                If you’ve been reading my blog, “Sanctuary of Leaves”, you know that I have been struggling some with my ability to listen.  Two mantras were given to me and I’m finding them quite useful.  The first mantra places every aspect of my life, outer and inner, in perspective.  “What is, is.”  This implies that I am lovingly accepting where I am in everything at this point.  Struggling to change some aspect of myself or becoming embroiled in some conflict with others, doesn’t matter—when I open my heart to the message of the Divine, what is at that moment is.  I can stop my struggle, set aside my distracting emotions, and just listen.

                The second mantra given to me was “I let it all go”.  Oh, no, you might be thinking.  There she goes about letting it all go.  Been there, done that, and it—whatever the “it” is—just comes flying back into my face before I can say “amen”.  Notice, I didn’t say that this was easy and it’s only a beginning.  But, it might, just might, be worth giving it a try.  When I use these as mantras before meditation, I say to myself “what is, is” on the inhale of breath and “I let it all go” on the exhale.  Focusing on my breath makes it easier to focus on the mantras as well.  Then, I am ready to listen.  It’s hard some days.  One day, I never moved past the mantras, never did get to the place where I felt I could listen, so I just kept repeating the mantras, knowing that God was doing inner work on me in spite of myself. 

                Rev. Elder Darlene tells us that once we have obtained inner knowledge from God, just as Adam did in the eating of that darn apple, we have a responsibility to practice our own spirituality and all of our lives in ways that do not hurt others.  This inner knowledge brings an accompanying accountability.  This welcoming and healing of others that lives in our own inner selves after we receive God’s insight, means that straightway we will be living a life of love.  Jesus expands this relationship between inner truth and outer actions even more.  Living this life of love is the only way that people will know that we are following the teachings of the Spirit of God through Jesus.  We cannot tell people that we love them, we must show them.  God does this first, we are not only told that we are loved, we are given this beautiful land in which to walk, an amazingly complex body in which to embody our insight, and continual communication from God to hold our spirits securely in the Sacred.

                So the opposite of down is not up, it is in.  During this Lenten time, if we can go inside more often than we usually do, we will be rewarded with hearing God.  And, if we are open, we can listen and make our own what God is saying.  Try it with me this week.  Find a quiet place or a place where no one can disturb you.  Shut the ever-present phone off.  Get into whatever position is comfortable for you.  Start with some breathing using the mantras if they appeal to you.  Inhale, “What is, is”.  Exhale, “I let it all go”.  Do this until you begin to feel some space being made in your heart and spirit to listen to God.  When you are ready, continue focusing on your breath and allow your heart to listen.  If your thoughts take you someplace else, come back to breathing with the mantras and focus. 

                You may wonder at the inclusion of such an exercise in a sermon.  I am becoming more and more convinced that many of us are hungry for practices that will bring us closer to God.  Meditation is one such practice.  Lent is a perfect time to introduce some new practices into your spiritual life.  This week we talked about meditation.  Next week we will encounter another spiritual practice that may or may not appeal to you.  Take what feels like it fits and leave the other here. 

Because we are not all the same and a practice that feels comfortable to some may not to you.  So, in addition to having new experiences, we are also practicing inclusivity as we become more comfortable with all kinds of spiritual practices.  This Lent, let us come together as a community and go “inside” to find the truth God has entrusted to our hearts.  In the spirit of openness and unity, we pray together, May it be so.  Amen and amen.

 

 

The Practice of Hospitality-Part 2 (Outer) 3-2-14

Spirit of Hope, lead us to question deeply and often if we are all you lead us to be.  Use us to welcome the most un-welcome and teach us to open our hearts and arms to save the world.  Amen

            For those of us who live and have always lived in privilege, choosing to understand what it is to be the outsider can be difficult indeed.  Every once in a while the Universe, with her unending sense of humor, teaches me in ways I didn’t expect.  On Friday, I went to Mt. Dora to a Native American Pow-Wow.  I used to travel to the top of Hunter Mountain in the Catskills of New York every couple of years to attend huge pow-wows and spend a full day shopping for sterling silver jewelry.  I was interested to see how this pow-wow differed from the ones I was used to in New York.  I went on Friday afternoon to hear a specific musician and was surprised to see it very sparsely attended.  What that meant is that most of the folks who were there were Native American and I was very, very, well, not.  I felt particularly out of place--different.  Now it helped that many, though not all, of the Native Americans were in some form of native dress or at least aspects of native dress.  I was impressed by the sense of welcome I felt.  Every performer made certain to translate their chants and to explain to those of us who did not share their traditions exactly what they were doing and to explain the beliefs behind the various chants and dances. 

 I wandered through the vendors (and, yes, some habits die hard and I allowed myself to purchase a memento of the afternoon).  As the show kicked into gear, I sat on a bleacher in the beautiful Florida sun under a cloudless sky and began to meditate to the sounds of a wonderful Cherokee flute player.  But, God wouldn’t let me rest on the issue of welcoming and hospitality and so I reflected about what it meant to feel so “different” from the majority of those walking around; yet, so welcome.  And, not surprisingly, I got to thinking about today’s sermon and what I really wanted to say.  I found myself asking if there was really anything new to say.  Though I didn’t count them, I figure this is at least the sixth sermon on hospitality that I have preached in the 4 years since Open Circle first became this circle.  And, yet, I continue to be asked about hospitality and inclusivity and what it means to us as a church.

            Just recently, during the Capital Campaign, I learned that there seems to be a measure of misunderstanding and concern about what is meant when we call ourselves a “radically inclusive faith community”.  What are we missing as a congregation?  What am I missing as your pastor?  And, I realize that, for the most part, those of you who are hearing this sermon are not the folks who seem to be concerned.  But, nevertheless, I think we need to take a second or third or tenth look at this thing called hospitality.  And, perhaps, these thoughts can be shared with those who are missing today.  Briefly, back to my meditative thoughts at the pow-wow—after a while, the singer I most wanted to hear, Joanne Shenandoah, took the stage.  She began talking about Mother Earth and the spirituality that we all share and that we all must share if we are going to save our Mother (Earth, that is).  She sang in words of the Iroquois Nation that I could not understand, but it did not matter.  The feelings of both despair and hope were captured in her voice.  Suddenly, I did not feel different at all.  She had helped me to remember that we all share the same mother.  Funny, she, a member of one of the many oppressed peoples, sought to help me remember our sameness.  With a radical inclusivity born of her understanding that we are all the same, she called me into her sacred circle of hope and passion.

            What is it, then, that keeps us from focusing in on the feeling of being human when we think about welcome, hospitality and inclusivity?  At its truest sense, being radically inclusive means nothing more than being truly human together as we are all human.  At one point, on Friday, when I was listening to one of the many Native American or First Nation musical groups sing, drum and chant, they announced that the next song was a “Trail of Tears” song.  The announcer asked us all to stand in memory of those people who were forced by the US Government to walk from the East Coast, including Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina to Oklahoma.  The announcer brought forward two facts that I must have forgotten along the way:  one—the reason why the Native Americans left their lands.  From our place of privilege we might ask, “Why didn’t they just refuse to move? Or just give up and die?”   Native Americans think in terms of seven generations from themselves.  They knew and understood well that, if they did not take the long walk to Oklahoma, that the US Government would wipe out their nations completely.  They did it for the seventh generation—so that, seven generations from then, there would be at least a small contingent of people to pass on the traditions and cultures of those Tribes.  We stood in honor of those brave souls; and, while I did not understand the words of the chant, I could not have missed the feelings if I had tried.  The pain, suffering, and loss came through without mistake.  It was not possible to stand in that hot, Florida sun, and not see, at least for a few seconds, the long winding trail of a people displaced from their land.  Secondly, I must have forgotten that history records that those who led the Native Americans did not follow a Western path to Oklahoma even though Oklahoma is clearly west of the East Coast.  They twisted and turned mostly so that many more of the people would die but also because the White Americans believed that it would be harder for the Native Americans to stay connected to their cultures if they took a circuitous route. 

            I do not, nor do they, remind you of these stories to inflict guilt.  I remind you of them so that you might remember.  For it is in the remembering that we become human.  Jesus cared about very few specific beliefs.  He cared most of all about love and justice and knowing who we are.  He cared about the pain of the Native Americans and he cared about the White European Americans of privilege because he knew that they were alienated from their true nature as children of God.  This is some of what makes Jesus a true “radical” in every sense of the word.  He taught us to care about oppressed and oppressor, healed and healer, listener and speaker.  In our scripture today, John the Baptizer is curious about Jesus.  He sends his disciples to find out if Jesus is “the one”, the messiah, the one they had been waiting for.  Jesus is cryptic in his answer.  He says, “This is what I am doing.  The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the displaced of the earth have God’s salvation hospitality extended to them”.  And then he says, “If this is what you are waiting for, then you are in luck.”  Now, with the benefit of history, we know that this is not what the Jewish people were waiting for.  They were waiting for a king; they got a man who knew that the true nature of love and justice is as radical as it gets.  They were waiting for a military conqueror; they got someone who did not call us to “Charge!”; he called us to “Remember!”—to remember that we are children of all there is—of the one God. 

            This is how we remember our humanity.  This is how we remember what we share, not what sets us apart.  And, once we remember, we cannot help but embrace this radical inclusivity.  To be radically inclusive is merely, and I mean merely, to remember that we are all the same—that any barriers we set up come from us and not from the unity of love we call “God”.   To be radical is to remember.  It is, oh, so easy to forget.  We are schooled in forgetting; we practice it diligently anytime we see the differences of class, race, and culture as more important than the similarities of humanity.   I think back on the words of Joanne Shenandoah on Friday afternoon.  She said something like this, “If we are to survive”—and she meant all of us, not just Native Americans—“we must act and think and be as one people committed to saving our planet, to loving justice, and to acting for peace”.    May we, in this circle, remember.  And in remembering, may we act; and in our acting, may we remember again.  Amen and amen.