by Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given December 17, 2000

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning! Welcome to this time of worship, all you who seek to be made whole. Bring your questions, your needs, your fears, your longings. We are pilgrims on a journey, in community. Come, let us worship together.

When I was a little girl—a very little girl, a first-grader—I wanted just two things to make my life complete: a pony and a dog. That’s what I wanted for Christmas. And being a very religious child—at that time, a Roman Catholic—I prayed to the Virgin Mary, that my heart’s desire might be accomplished. Soon it became apparent to me from my parents’ response to my declared wishes that a pony was out of the question. We could not tether a pony to the oak tree in our front yard—and we needed the garage for the car. I accepted the logic of this argument. But a dog! We could have a dog, couldn’t we? Truthfully, my parents were not enthusiastic about a dog either, but my prayers to the Virgin continued unabated. Then one day my miracle happened. Cutting through an alley on my way to town on a cold December day, I found a dog. Her ribs were showing through her thin coat of hair, her tail was tucked between her legs, and she averted her deep brown eyes from my face. She was shaking from the cold. She had fleas. Only a child perhaps could see a miracle in this dog. I took her home with me and announced that my prayers had been answered. What could my parents say? I named her Poochie, and I loved her and she loved me for long years.

What am I to make of this experience now, as an adult? Did the Virgin Mary, with her special connections, act as my procurement agent? Who am I to say? I don’t know. I would probably interpret my finding Poochie as my heightened awareness of DOG in my life—the same phenomenon that exists when, for example, a woman wants to get pregnant and all of a sudden everywhere around her appear pregnant women. My eyes were opened to DOG.

Do people actually ever hear the voice of God? I mean people who are not delusional. Well, yes, I think so. But again, this kind of hearing is open to interpretation. James Carse, professor of religion at New York University, writes that he has never heard God speak, nor has he ever read what he knows God to have said. "What I have experienced, and experienced repeatedly," says Carse, "is the silence of God." For years, he says, he was distressed at this emptiness into which he flung his prayers. All he had as a student of religion was a few tired proofs for the existence of God, and he didn’t even believe those himself. He wanted a one-to-one, private communication from God. He went to the extreme of walking about on isolated country roads at night, demanding that God appear or speak.

Then a surprising thing happened. Coming into his dorm room very late one night, he threw himself fully clothed on the bed. Several hours later a powerful voice woke him out of a dreamless sleep. The voice spoke with such terrifying authority that he sprang up from his bed, totally focused. What had the voice said? It said RISE AND MAKE YOUR BED! Rise and make your bed? He looked around. His bed was made. He had never even pulled back the blankets. What could it mean? He decided that the mysterious message was not frivolous as it seemed, but some kind of code for something very deep. It was exactly the sort of proof he had longed for—but the more he thought about it, the less sure he was that it proved anything. He didn’t tell anyone, because he knew he would sound ridiculous. The more he thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. God told me to make up my bed?? Not really a strong basis for faith.

We can’t really demand of the Holy. We can’t ask direct questions. We find this same insight in Zen Buddhism. When the Zen master is asked a direct question about the path, he often will respond in some dramatic way. He may hit the student with a stick, or say something absurd, or just ignore the question completely. Now, looking back on his youthful quest theologically, Carse smiles to himself at his narcissistic demand that God speak directly to him. In a bit of whimsy, he says that he can visualize an angelic presence musing, "If that arrogant young man asks for one more divine revelation, let’s give him one." Carse sums up his experience this way: "All I wanted God to do was to provide me with just one indisputable theological item so I could avoid the embarrassment of standing there with nothing but a longing heart. God did not cooperate." That’s the gift of the silence. In standing there with nothing but a longing heart, we are transformed. The search is, in fact, the answer.

As part of my spiritual practice, I sometimes do written dialogues with God. It’s a very simple process. I write "Dialogue with God" and the date at the top of my paper. Then I begin with M for Marilyn and write whatever comes into my head—usually just a sentence or two. Then I write a B, for Beloved (my name for the Holy One), and I just listen and write down whatever comes to me. I do this form of practice especially when I feel confused or conflicted, to try to discern the truth, or a right path. What I have noticed is that some remarkable insights come this way. And they generally hold up over time. I think what is happening is that the veil between my conscious mind and my unconscious mind becomes thinner during this kind of meditation. But what I also notice is that I cannot ask direct questions. I cannot penetrate the mystery or find absolute answers. I simply open myself to new dimensions of knowing.

I smiled at James Carse’s story about the "voice of God" and wondered about my own experiences with such voices. Twice in my life have I heard a strong inner voice that suggested a direction for me. Both times I was struggling, and both times I was surprised at this inner command that emerged. Once was at a Gestalt workshop way back in the ‘70’s. During one session we were asked to use colored pencils and paper to express our feelings. While I was drawing, I heard a voice that said clearly KEEP YOUR SELF. To me this was a call to be inner directed and not to be pushed and pulled by other people’s agendas for me. As a young woman, this was a particularly important message. And the other time came when I was in seminary, reading Paul Tillich. Tillich is hard sledding, as theologians go, and our teacher required us to read all of Tillich’s work. I remember spending about an hour reading just ten pages. I was intent on mastering the material. All of a sudden while deep into the text I heard this voice say STOP TRYING SO HARD. The story of my life. Trying so hard. Overachieving. Justifying my existence. Why can’t I just accept that it’s OK for me to be in the world? That being loved is not something I can earn? I’m still working on this one. I’m better, but I’m not there yet.

So were these voices from God—or were they simply my own voice? Well, this is how I think it works. We reach out, we reach out from the depths of our hearts—that’s essential, from the depths of our hearts, from our deepest longing—and the very reaching itself, the reaching into the silence, is the encounter with the Divine. In this reaching we do not hear God’s voice, but we find our own voice. Or perhaps we could say, we touch the voice of the Divine within. We find the authentic voice that dispels the endless inner churning, the running, the rationalizing. Dame Julian of Norwich, a 14^th century English mystic, asked God why he created the world. The answer came back to her in ecstatic whispers: "You want to know your lord’s meaning in what I have done? Know it well, love was the meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What is revealed to you? Love. Why is it revealed to you? For love."

Let’s think about the nature of silence itself for a moment. We fall silent sometimes when we are in the presence of some greatly honored person. It could be the Pope—or it could be a basketball star. I remember standing in line at an airport restaurant in Utah, waiting for my usual once-a-year hot dog, when I turned and saw behind me a very, very, very tall young man. Someone approached him for an autograph. H-m-m-m. I began to realize that he must be somebody special. Thinking that my sons would like to know that I met a famous basketball player, I searched for a way to make contact. Finally I looked up at him and said maybe the stupidest thing I could have said. I said, "Do you play basketball?" "No," he said. "I do gymnastics." We fall into silence when we are in the presence of someone special, special for whatever reason. We are undone, and we cannot speak, except to blunder.

We fall into the silence of expectation. The well-known speaker or writer is introduced, we applaud, and then silence fills the hall. Or the curtain opens to signify the beginning of a play, and we cease our chatting, and see what magic will unfold. We are silent, alert, open to what we might receive.

We fall silent when we are moved, and language would disturb the profundity of the moment. I feel this way sometimes when I have been to a film that is particularly affecting. I watch the credits, as a way not only of honoring the creators of the film, but as a way of emotionally integrating the images. The postlude in our worship serves a similar purpose. Signe’s beautiful playing transitions us from the sanctuary, where we have come to experience the Holy, into the space outside the sanctuary. Following that transition, we applaud. When the choir sings, we don’t generally applaud, for with their beauty of voice and depth of meaning, they earn something more precious than applause—they earn our hushed silence. They take us deeper into the worship experience. Here again we have the silence of expectation. It is the silence that makes a sermon possible. It is the opening into which my words can fall.

Think for a moment about the essential power of listening. We cannot speak to ourselves, for to speak, we must have a listener. Unless someone offers me the gift of their listening, I cannot be and I cannot become. In this season of gift-giving, in fact, let us remember that the greatest gift we can give anyone is the gift of presence—to stop everything, to really be with, to listen. Those in our society who feel unheard will often resort to bizarre or violent behavior. We must be heard, we must break our isolation, or we will fall into madness of one kind or another.

So if, as Nell Nodding puts it, we "listen one another into being," perhaps we even listen God into being. We are creatures created for relationship, to one another and to the Holy. How then do we pray, if we must pray into the silence? Well, first of all just the willingness to pray helps us to deal with sklericardia—a theological term that simply means hardness of heart; an obdurate heart unwilling to make room for the Mystery. Our conversion is not just a one-time thing, but to use a phrase from the French writer Andre Louf, our conversion is an on-going "relaxation of the heart," or letting the heart be gentled and softened, to allow the Spirit of God to enter. Repentence is not chiefly a sense of regret, but is a turning around, a true conversion, a renunciation of our narrowness and willfulness and stubbornness—whatever keeps us from being open to God’s presence in our life. It is interesting that the New Testament word that we translate as "obey" actually means to "hyper-listen," or to listen intently.

Words from Psalm 95: "Oh, that today you would hearken to God’s voice. Harden not your hearts . . . ." We should be aware that the word, as in God’s word, is not informational, not something that we can safely receive and then put on the shelf, store away. Something just to make us feel good, feel comfortable. The word addresses us in all its aliveness—it challenges our assumptions, wakes us to see as we have never seen before. We are confronted with an abundance of life that we could not even imagine.

I believe that my coming sabbatical will be a time of birthing for me. For the next eight months, I will not be caught up in the pressures and the busyness of my role at the church. I sense that this will be a time of change, and I’m not at all sure where it will lead. What I am particularly wanting, though, is spiritual gifts: a greater capacity to love, peace in the storm, a growing compassion. What I know is that I can’t know what I will become. My part is to be open, to get quiet and still, and listen. I need to let go, and walk in faith.

Sometimes people who are searching come to me and ask, "How should I pray? What is the right way? Can you recommend some books that would put me on the right spiritual path?" And I always turn them back on themselves. "Where you have to begin is the wanting, the longing," I say. "And just trust what feels right for you. You will be led if you want to follow." In Romans 8:26 Paul tells us that the spirit works below the level of our consciousness. "The Spirit helps us in our weakness," he says, "for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Preoccupation with the quality of your prayer is in itself destructive to an authentic spirituality. It’s not about "getting it right." It’s about being present in all humility to the movement of the Spirit deep within.

Mary the mother of Jesus knew about this movement of the Spirit—how disconcerting and frightening it can be. There she was a young woman living in the little town of Nazareth, engaged to a man named Joseph. Her life was like any other, no more, no less. Then the angel swooped down. "And when she saw him," the scripture says, "she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be." Gabriel tells her she is to be the mother of God. She is terrified. She makes excuses. She says she doesn’t even have a husband. But in the end she says, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." Mary said yes to who she was called to be. And the whole world was turned upside down.

A word about timing as we follow along our path. God’s time is not our time. We pray for release. We pray for guidance. And yet we stay stuck. Sometimes for years. Then in God’s own manner, in God’s order, the answer comes. There are lots of long dry spells in between epiphanies, and so we must learn to surrender to the season we’re in. Sometimes I know I begin my morning meditation, and I look out the window to see the gold of the willow and the blue of the sky and to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the day, and my prayer sticks in my throat. I have to acknowledge that I’m not thankful, and I can’t be. And that’s of course where my heart may begin to soften and open, with honesty about where I’m at. Or it may not. I may just have to sit with it. I know that God is bigger than my moods, bigger than my frustrations and fears. It’s a wintry time, and that’s OK.

That’s the wonderful thing about Christmas. The silence of God is broken by the birth of the baby. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus came without any claim to divinity. He came sharing with us every fear, every shame. Sharing anger, disillusionment, false friends, and betrayal. Jesus did not speak as God, but came as a listener, came as one who was fully present to God. He did not speak for us, but came that we might find our voice, that we might speak out of the truest part of ourselves.

Most matters of the spirit are maddeningly paradoxical. In the world of the everyday we calculate our risks. We might take a gamble if we thought it would pay off. If it were a smart gamble. But with matters of the spirit, there is no gambling. As Carse points out, "The risk is itself the outcome. This is the paradox. . . . . The issue in faith is not, then, whether there is anyone beyond the door, but whether we can drop everything to knock on it. The door will most certainly open—but only to that person who risks everything without the least concern for gain."

The silence of God is not a rejection, not a pushing away of our entreaties. It is a space for us to enter, it is the medium for the life of the soul. This silence is a region we can learn to step into, in faith. You see, God answers our prayers through our very asking. Whenever we speak to anyone with an open heart, we receive that one into our heart, do we not? When we open ourselves to God, in that moment God enters our being. The word, the answers that we need, are already within us, waiting to be born.

We humans are forever wanting. From the moment we take our first breath and nuzzle for our mother’s breast. As a child, I wanted more than anything in the world a dog and a pony. So OK the pony turned out to be a bad idea—but don’t we all want something to love and to be loved by? A mangy, flea-ridden dog is not a bad start. But now I’ve become greedy. I want God to listen! Now here’s my Christmas list, God. Humility. Generosity. Peace of mind. Love. Love, and more love. I know, I know. In your good time. In your good time.

So be it. Amen.

PRAYER

Spirit of Life, we reach out in our pain and in our need. Help us to understand and to accept your silence. Let us give ourselves to this emptiness, that we might find our own true voice. Let us listen as we have never listened before, in this New Year. May we be patient with our questions, and may we walk always in faith. Amen.

BENEDICTION

I pray for your health and wholeness and happiness, as you pray for mine. May you walk in love and walk in peace until we meet again.

Copyright 2000, by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  All rights reserved.