Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

First Unitarian Church
Portland, Oregon

May 17, 1998

From the Tao Te Ching:

"There is a being, wonderful, perfect;

It existed before heaven and earth.

How quiet it is!

. . . .

It stands alone and it does not change.

. . . .

All life comes from it.

It wraps everything with its love as in a garment, and yet

it claims no honor, for it does not demand to be Lord.

I do not know its name, and so I call it Tao, the Way,

and I rejoice in its power."

Once upon a time—that is how stories start, you know—once upon a time, actually about 5 1/2 years ago when I first came to Portland to be your minister, a man visited our church, saw your minister in the splendor of her red robe, and decided that he would like to pursue a relationship with her. He told her that he would like to show her his home, for it told so much about his character. "OK," she said. And so they went to the man’s home, a modest but well-kept dwelling, and as soon as they stepped inside, he invited her into his bedroom. "A rather bold approach," she thought. But no! He went directly to the closet and flung open the door. "Well, there they are!" he said proudly. "What?" she asked. "My spiritual journals—all 43 of them!" And indeed there they were, lining the top of his closet—43 identical notebooks. She did not know what to say to the man. In her lifetime, she had been shown etchings, she had been driven in fancy cars, she had had men prepare sumptuous meals for her. She had never before been shown spiritual journals. She paused. She asked, "Your point?" I will not bore you with what the rest of the evening was like. I will not tell you about the life-size almost nude pin-up he had taped to his study door. I will certainly not mention the mirror he had hanging above his bed. Or that he revealed to me that he had been a famous monk in a former life. Let us just say that I did not consider this man to be a spiritually mature individual.

Perhaps we should think about the terms here. What do I mean by the ubiquitous term "spiritual"? And what is "maturity" in that realm? Spirituality is a term that is thrown around in settings as diverse as cocktail parties, New Age conferences, and Catholic retreat centers. So far as I can tell, there is no common definition that we can rely upon. When I use the term, I simply mean one’s relationship with the Other. With the Mystery. With the One Who’s Name I Cannot Know. For me, this is a dimension of life that is as real as the dinner on my plate. In fact, it is the heart, the origin, of the real. It is the beginning and the end for me.

Now as for maturity, I think we have to be especially careful about that term when we are in the realm of the Spirit. In the popular sense, we often use the word to mean that a person "grows up," or becomes an adult like other adults. I think of my own boys, now in their mid-twenties, neither of whom has a clear career direction. Self-righteously, I think how I was teaching high school English at the tender age of 21, and I think, "Why can’t they decide? Why can’t they just get a job?" All too often, we think of maturity as doing what the majority of others do, or doing what authority figures believe is right. But spiritual maturity often takes us in a direction that is counter to the way most others are going, counter to the way we ourselves ever believed we would be going.

Hear these words from writer C. P. Cavafy:

He who hopes to grow in spirit
will have to transcend obedience and respect.
He will hold to some laws
but he will mostly violate
both law and custom, and go beyond
the established, inadequate norm.
Sensual pleasures will have much to teach him.
He will not be afraid of the destructive act:
half the house will have to come down.
This way he will grow virtuously into wisdom.

Listen to the language. "He will mostly violate both law and custom." He will learn from "sensual pleasures." He will not be afraid to destroy: "half the house will have to come down." On the surface of things, this message seems the opposite of what we think of as maturity. But in fact the nature of the spiritual path is radical and surprising and transforming. It is often destructive of what is, for what is is often destructive of the Spirit. So don’t think of the spiritual path, please, as some sort of "feel good" la-la land. It has nothing to do with being hip, or following the fad of the moment. It has nothing to do with adherence to a plan. It has nothing to do with going on treks to faraway places, though sometimes such journeys can open us to the Spirit. It has everything to do with paying attention to the holiness within and following wherever that leads. Notice I said "wherever." "Wherever" is not an easy word. It is a word that Archbishop Romero knew about. And Gandhi. And Martin Luther King, Jr. It doesn’t always lead to an early death. But it can. It will always lead to the greatest fulfillment in the life of the individual. It will always lead to the deepest joy.

Let’s take a quick tour of the major religions of the world, to see what they have to say about spiritual fulfillment and how it is attained.

Primal religions, such as Native American, see all of life as sacrament, and they see themselves as part of the sacred womb of the earth. Nothing in the primal world separates them from the Holy.

In Buddhism, nirvana is the state in which the boundaries of the finite self disappear, and everything that restrains the boundless life, goes. "The dewdrop slips into the shining sea."

In Hinduism, one journeys in a predictable way first to sensory pleasures, then to social conquests of money and position, next to a dedication to one’s community, but even this cannot fill the void; the only good which can truly satisfy is the Eternal.

Confucianism explores what it means to be fully human. One finds meaning not through individual achievement, but through interactions with the whole and through one’s social role. The ego is transcended.

In Taoism, one’s greatest joy is to align one’s daily life to the Tao, or the flow of the unbounded sea of life. Wu wei is a holy simplicity in which egos and conscious efforts are given over to a power not their own.

Islam, more than any other world religion, details a way of life, spelling out directives. In moments of crisis or need, Muslims say, "There is no god but God," and that is the ultimate answer to all questions.

The Jews worship a God who is more personal, who cares about people, who has always been there for them, over the centuries. One’s purpose is to to give one’s self completely to that God.

In Christianity, Jesus personifies one whose ego has disappeared entirely into the will of God. The essence of the message is sacrificial love.

Notice what all these paths have in common: the subsuming of the individual ego into a greater reality. Over and over again, we see this same message: we belong not to ourselves, but to the Mystery that enfolds us.

As liberal religious people, we have some particular problems with spiritual development. First of all, humility is not our strong suit. No, thank you very much, we are self-reliant people, full of ego. Humility is a little too close to groveling, and we certainly don’t want to grovel. But religious experience starts and ends with thanksgiving, and thanksgiving rests unmistakably in humility. Both thanksgiving and humility are driven out by that granddaddy of all Unitarian Universalist sins, pride, the only unforgivable sin, because it separates us from God. Pride won’t let us forgive. Pride makes us self-righteous and condemning of others. Pride makes us do all the right things for all the wrong reasons. Go ahead and write 43 journals full. It won’t a bit of good.

Now let’s talk about the concept of sin for a moment. I know that’s a difficult word, and I’ve already spoken of it once today. But now think with me a moment here. Forget the snake in the apple tree. Forget the eternal condemnation of God. Sin in its original meaning is simply "missing the mark." That’s all. Missing the mark. And it is original, original sin, because we all do it, and we cannot avoid doing it. It is in fact the source of that positive tension between what we would be and what we are, what we would do and what we actually do. It is the thread that pulls us to God. "Man is the creature who wants to be God," Jean-Paul Sartre observed. Well, we’re not God! We are pulled to God by our very imperfections. When we get into the pride of our ego, we shut ourselves off from the possibility of knowing God. On the other hand, when we feel our woundedness, when we hurt, when we admit we have acted like a real jerk, then there is a crack in the armor. Jungian Marion Woodman says, "At the very point of the vulnerability is where the surrender takes place."

Surrender? That’s another word we Unitarian Universalists are not so comfortable with. We prefer to intellectualize ourselves out of our moral and spiritual distress. Who’s to say who’s right—isn’t "right" just an arbitrary notion? So moral discernment loosens ‘til it’s shaky. Or we can blame our difficulties on our genes or on our upbringing. There is that good old stand-by, our parents. We can always seek out yet another therapist and try to understand why we’re so screwed up—instead of forgiving our parents, and forgiving ourselves, and getting on with it. Getting on with loving, I mean.

And you know, the good news about this church is that so many of you are doing just that: getting on with the loving. I’ve seen the spiritual growth in so many of your lives, and I am deeply gratified. That is what we are about here. The Vision Implementation process—involving over 250 of you-- has been beautiful to watch. And I have watched, I’ve done very little.

I’ve seen the respect with which you address one another, how you handle conflict, the way you consider all points of view. Through these 18 months of intense effort, you have kept your eyes on the mission. Not what would please you as an individual. Not how your ego would be served. No, you’ve consistently asked, what is the mission of our church here in the community? I have seen humility and I have seen thanksgiving. And the result is something beautiful to behold. Yes, the plans are beautiful. But more than that, you people are beautiful to me, and I love you more every day.

When I think of spiritual maturity, I don’t think of a perfect record of daily meditation—though I believe it’s wise to have a spiritual practice. I want to know instead if there is a crack in the armor that will allow love in. I’m not so interested in the scripture you read or the mantras you recite—I want to know if you hurt when you see a hungry man looking for food in a dumpster. It’s not that I don’t value the prayers that you send nightly to the God of your choosing—but I want to know if your voice, your touch, your laughter, your walk, your wallet, your every way of being reflects love. Have you given yourself to Love? That’s what it’s about.

Today, standing here at the end of my sixth year with you, I consider myself fortunate. I believe I am in just the right place of service. I believe we have a healthy, vibrant church; we are a joyful, celebrating people. Your leaders are spiritually grounded, and they are growing spiritually through their work here. My hope and prayer is that we will be an ever stronger influence for justice in our community, that we and our children will continue to mature in our faith, and that we will become "rich, ripe, full, complete," mature, taking our proper place of leadership in this community and in the larger denomination. May we continue to follow the thread of the Spirit as it guides us on our way.

So be it. Amen.

Copyright © 2000, Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.