by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given September 21, 2003

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

What comes to mind when you think of miracles?  Perhaps Moses parting the Red Sea so that the Israelites could escape the Egyptians or the story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead, stories from the Judeo-Christian tradition.  But you may not be so familiar with the miracles in other religious traditions—and all traditions have these stories.  The Prophet Muhammad miraculously comes forth with food and water in the desert, and blinds an opposing army with a handful of dust.  Krishna lifts a mountain and saves a village.  The Buddha rises in the air, divides his body into pieces, and then rejoins them.

How is it that miracles turn up in every culture, that they are universal? Perhaps that is because we long for them—all people everywhere long for something that can lift them out of the mundane and give their lives focus and meaning. We want to be awakened by some light that forces us out of our usual patterns, that challenges our complacency and brings new possibilities into our tired lives.

Miracles of course have been around for centuries—you will remember the fountain at Lourdes, France, where in 1858 a young girl named Bernadette was visited repeatedly by the Virgin and was declared a saint in 1933.  The fountain still flows there, and 5,000,000 people come for healing each year.  A whole tourist industry has been built up around this holy place.

Miracles are widely reported all over the world, including in this country—for example, there have been many sightings of crosses of light and weeping statues of the Madonna.  In Altadena, CA, some time ago, hundreds of people tramped through the home of Rev. P.G. Pierce to see the brilliant image of a cross shining through the bathroom window.  Pierce believes that the cross was a sign of Jesus’s return.  In reporting on this phenomenon, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner stated that “whether or not a miracle exists, it is clear that many people in Los Angeles want desperately to see and touch a fingerprint of the Creator . . . All but the most committed of atheists would like to have a sign, any sign.  Everyone wants to know that we are here for a reason, and that a higher entity stopped by to tell us so.”

Statues that weep blood—generally statues of the Virgin Mary—have become almost commonplace.  Scientists have come to check out some of them but cannot explain what they see; some of the tears have reportedly been tested in a lab and are indeed blood.  One result of the weeping statues is a great increase in attendance in these churches.  Thousands upon thousands of people flock to these sites.  Generally the interpretation of the weeping statue is that the Madonna is saddened, because the world has lost its way.  She is calling for us to repent.

These various visitations go from the awe inspiring to the truly ludicrous.  The most ludicrous that I have heard about is the cinnamon bun bearing a striking resemblance to Mother Teresa.  This bun was discovered in Nashville, TN, by Ryan Finney, an employee of the Bongo Java Coffeehouse.  “I was horrified,” said Finney, “because I almost ate this religious piece of dough.”  The bun—which became known as the NunBun—was stored in the coffeehouse freezer before it was purchased and then became the subject of a nine-minute documentary.  Immediately following the premiere of the video, the owner of Bongo Java formed a side business, selling T-shirts, bookmarks, and coffee mugs.  The NunBun was featured on Jay Leno and David Letterman.  Eventually Mother Teresa herself wrote the following letter to Bob Bernstein, the owner of Bongo Java:  “Dear Mr. Bernstein, I am writing to ask you to stop selling merchandise bearing my likeness. . .  My legal counsel . . . has written asking you to stop, and now I am personally asking you to stop.  I do know that you have not done anything out of ill-will, and so trust that you will understand and respect my wish.  Let us pray.  GOD BLESS YOU.  Mother Teresa.”

So—do you believe in miracles?  I don’t believe in the NunBun—which I saw on the internet and which incidentally looked more like Obewan-kenobe than Mother Teresa.  But I don’t know about these various visitations that so many people report.  I don’t believe we should try to limit how God works in the world, so though I am skeptical, I remain open.  The real question, it seems to me, is not “Are these miracles true?” but rather “What do they mean?”  It’s interesting to me that many of the visions are of female deities—the Virgin Mary here in this country, but in other cultures the Lady of Guadalupe, Tara, Kali, and the Black Madonna.  I believe there is a longing for more of a balance between male and female energy in the world, the male energy representing knowledge, the female energy representing wisdom; the male energy representing logic, the female intuition; the male energy representing individualism, the female relationality.  It is of little significance to me whether any of these visitations are “real” or not; however, it is of great significance that they point to the collective yearning of our civilization. 

The Hebrew word for miracle is nes, which also means “a sign.”  The purpose of the miracle is not necessarily deliverance from some condition, but is really about a change of consciousness.  The miracle opens us to new ways of seeing.   There are many stories in the Bible about Jesus’s healing.  Typically, after healing someone, Jesus would then say, “Don’t tell anybody.”  He did not want people to see him as another one of the magician/healers who were common in those days—Jesus came that people might be transformed spiritually.  The Scripture says, “I have come that you may have life, and that more abundantly.”  Instead of just dismissing those miracle stories, as rationalists are wont to do, we might ask ourselves, “What does it mean to be healed, spiritually speaking?  What angers or resentments am I harboring?  How am I keeping myself spiritually sick?”

There are things that happen in this world that we cannot explain rationally. Years ago when I was working as a counselor, a woman told me the following story.  She said she lived out in the country, and one day she had decided to drive into town on an errand, and had left her two children, who were around 9 and 11, there on the small farm.  But when she had driven for only 10 minutes or so, something said to her, “Go back home.”  She tried to disregard this voice because she had no reason on this bright sunny day to turn around and retrace her steps.  But the feeling kept nagging at her:  “Go back home.”  And so she did.  When she arrived at her house, she could not see her children anywhere.  She called and called, but they did not answer.  Then she thought to open the abandoned freezer that was sitting on the property, and she found the children alive and well inside.  They had crawled in there to play, not understanding the danger.  Had she not turned around and gone back home, she would have lost them.

Now how do you classify this experience—and others like it?  Even Unitarian Universalists have such experiences, and tell about them in hushed tones, lest someone overhear and think they are a little off.  Are such events miracles—that is, something which cannot be explained by the laws of nature?  Or are there spiritual laws of nature that we simply don’t understand as yet?  St. Augustine centuries ago said, “Miracles do not happen in contradiction of nature, but in contradiction of what we know about nature.”  Did I understand how this woman came to save her children?  No, I did not.  Did I believe this woman?  Yes, I did.  I confess my ignorance, and I also confess my belief.

I am not a mystic, and yet in my own life, I have experienced being led in inexplicable ways a time or two.  One of these occurred when I was trying to decide whether to go to seminary.

The time was the early ‘80s.  I had made the long journey from my home in Lexington, KY, to Berkeley, CA, had had my interview at Starr King School for the Ministry, and they had accepted me.  But should I go?  I returned to Kentucky feeling deeply torn.  Did I want to leave all I knew and loved and move to what I considered truly a foreign country?  A place where I could hear five different languages on the way to the library?  And a place that served coffee 10 different ways? 

About two weeks after the interview, I was sleeping comfortably in my bed, when I suddenly woke up.  The morning sky was still dark.  Something told me to put my clothes on and go out for a walk.  It wasn’t like I heard words, but I just had a sure feeling that that was what I must do.  Now all of this seemed very strange to me.  It is unusual for me to wake in the night, and I am definitely not a morning person.  And why would I walk out alone in the dark, living as we did near the center of the city?  But I obeyed.  I got up and put on my jeans and a jacket and went outside.  I walked to a nearby university called, interestingly enough, Transylvania, and there I saw a single tree on a vast expanse of grass.  I walked over to the tree.  The sun was just beginning to rise.  In the tree I saw a small brown bird.  I walked closer and the bird didn’t move.  I walked closer still, until I was right next to the bird, and the bird still didn’t move.  I stayed there a while with the bird and the tree and then turned and went back home and got out my old Remington Rand portable typewriter and typed out a letter of acceptance to Starr King.  Don’t ask me how I knew I should go.  I just knew.  It was years later before I realized that the bird is a traditional symbol, a sign, of the Spirit.

Now do I think that God was literally speaking to me through this experience?  I really couldn’t say.  I don’t want to interpret it at all.  I just want to say, “This was my experience.”  Kind of like the blind man that Jesus healed.  When people that the man had known for years quizzed him about the healing, he said, “All I know is that I was blind, and now I see.”  That’s all I know.  The way opened for me.  And kept opening and opening.

In reviewing the New Testament and reading about the miracles recounted there, I realized that the people who were healed really wanted healing.  There was Zacchaeus, a leading publican, “and he was rich,” the scripture says, a man of some dignity and position.  Jesus was passing through the town, and Zacchaeus, being a very short man, ran before the crowd and climbed up into a sycamore tree, he so wanted to see Jesus.  And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up, and he said, “Zacchaeus, come down; today I will stay in your home.”  And then there was the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years.  She pressed her way through the crowd around Jesus and touched his garment, and she said, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be whole.”  Jesus, feeling the power go out of him, looked around and said, “Who touched my clothes?”  The woman came in fear and trembling, but Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you whole.  Go in peace.”  These two seekers had to risk looking foolish, had to forget decorum, had to go after this Jesus at all costs, because their longing to be made whole was so great.  Do you want spiritual healing?  The question we all have to ask ourselves is, “How much?  How much, really, do we want to be healed?”

We can’t go on with things as usual and then hope that some weeping statue or some holy water or some great teacher is going to save us.  We have to prepare ourselves to receive.  We can begin by simply noticing everyday miracles.  Take a look at the stars on a clear night—what could be more awe-inspiring than the fact that the universe exists—that you and I exist?  What could be more amazing than the fact that you can cut your finger, and the flesh comes together and heals itself?  What could be more absolutely breathtaking than the simple statement of hope written by Anne Frank in her diary:  “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart”?  If we open our eyes, deepen our perception, we will see miracles all around us.  Albert Einstein put it this way:  “There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as if everything is.”

The way I see it, we are all in a lifelong process of healing, of becoming whole.  We learn the foolishness of the false ego when we come to the point that there’s nothing else to conquer and little more to want.  As our bodies age and begin creaking and cracking, we learn that we can no longer identify the true self with the body.  More and more, we partner with the Spirit.  Finally we learn to see ourselves as spirit, connected with all human spirits, connected with the animals and the plants and the sea and the fishes in the sea and all of the bounty of creation, and we know at last that we are one with the Great Mystery.  And that may be the greatest miracle of all.  So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

Holy Spirit, you appear to us in so many forms, some commonplace and others strange and different.  You surprise us, and you frighten us, and we confess that we give way to our fear all too often.  We give ourselves to plans and pleasures and fail to notice that your presence in our lives.  Forgive us when we turn away from the Holy and lose ourselves in the mundane.  Holy One, you give yourself in so much abundance—heal us in our blindness, that we might see and receive your good gifts.  Amen.

BENEDICTION

Go now, and receive the miracles that offer themselves to you.  Be not afraid.  Go in love and go in peace.  Amen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2003, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  All rights reserved.