by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

Good morning!

Come into this place of peace

And let its silence heal your spirit;

Come into this place of memory,

And let its history inspire you;

Come into this place of prophecy,

And let its vision change your heart.

Come, let us worship together.

There are a zillion jokes, of course, about Unitarian Universalists being seekers—that we have no truth to stand on, and that it’s only the search that’s all important to us.  You see a bumper stick that says “Question Authority” or “The Question is the Answer” and you may have a car belonging to a UU.

Anyway, it’s a good thing for us to laugh at ourselves, to not take ourselves too seriously, and so let’s begin this morning by doing that.  Here are a few vintage Unitarian Universalist jokes about seeking. 

“Why did the UU cross the road?”

“To support the chicken in its search for its own path.”

“What do you get when you cross a Unitarian Universalist with a Jehovah’s Witness?”

“Somebody who knocks on your door for apparent reason.”

And here’s one that I hadn’t heard.  It’s a little naughty, but I think you can handle it.  A UU walks into a fabric store and asks the clerk for 9 yards of material.  The clerk says, “What are you going to make?”  The UU says, “I’m making a nightgown for myself as a present for my husband.”  The clerk says, “But 9 yards is way too much material for a nightgown.”  The UU says, “I know, but my husband would rather seek than find.”

Okay, one more.  Some of you I know have heard this one, I know, but I have to say it’s one of my favorite.  “How many Unitarian Universalists does it take to change a light bulb?”  Answer: “We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb.  However, if in your own journey you have found that a light bulb works for you, that is fine.  You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship to your light bulb and present it next month at our annual light bulb Sunday service.  We will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to spiritual luminescence.”

Enough already.

I am a seeker.  Always have been, from my earliest days.  Many of you know that my religious journey has gone from the Catholic church, into which I was baptized and then confirmed, and then to the Southern Baptists, who baptized me again—this time not with that sissy sprinkling, but with a full-body, soaked-to-the-skin immersion, and finally to the Unitarian Universalists, who required only that I sign my name in a book. 

I was really thankful that I did not have to be re-baptized—my sins did not have to be washed away a third time, and I could bring my searching, incomplete, wounded, longing self to this church.  Yes, searching.  Now coming to Unitarian Universalism may seem easy, compared to becoming a Catholic or a Southern Baptist, but actually the theological demands are much greater.  When I signed that book, you see, I agreed to be responsible for finding my own truth, finding the truth that was compatible with my intellect and my experience; I agreed to be open to new truth and to changing my beliefs, if I felt led in a new direction; and I agreed to try to make my life congruent with my beliefs—that is, to live as best I could, a life of integrity.  In Unitarian Universalism, there is no set creed, or belief system.  We support one another in developing our own theologies; we are tolerant and accepting of many approaches to finding truth; but we recognize that ultimately, only the conscience of the individual—yes, guided by tradition, by history, by scripture, by wise teachers—but ultimately only the conscience can be the authentic guide to truth for any given person.

In all my fourteen years as your minister, I have never stated my theological position.  And I’m not going to start this morning.  I don’t want to make any kind of statement that would box me in.  Obviously, I have been heavily influenced by the Christian tradition—I have to say that Jesus is my man: he is the single most fascinating historical character to me, and if I could meet anyone from the past, it would be Jesus.  Unfortunately, the word “Christian” these days is almost synonymous with “narrow” in the popular culture, and that is a shame, for there are many Christians who are anything but narrow, and Jesus himself made a point of condemning those who narrowly followed rules and strictures instead of following the more encompassing law of love. 

My theological studies have taken me down many different roads, and I have benefited from all of these: liberation theology, from Central and South America, which teaches radical truths about poverty and justice; feminist theology, which taught me that the very language I use is full of assumptions that are untrue for women; Buddhism, which I find intellectually very satisfying and which helps me understand the dangers of the dualism of the West; Native American religions, which honor the earth and find sacred all living things; Sufism, that helps me delight in the sensual nature of God; and mystics of many faiths, who teach me that there is a holiness within that can connect with the Holiness that Is, if I can but humble myself and empty myself to receive.

If I had to say where I place myself theologically—and I think many of you are going to be surprised to hear me say this—I would say that I am an agnostic.  An agnostic, by definition, is one who says, “I do not know.  I cannot know.”  You see, when I begin to say, “I know,” then I find that I begin to be less open to the Mystery.  On the other hand, I do believe, which is different from knowing.  I believe that there is a spiritual dimension in the universe; I believe that, though I cannot understand that Great Mystery: in my finitude I cannot understand the infinite.  I believe that I must give myself completely to that which I cannot understand and cannot even name, that which has a thousand names.  We say Holy One, we say Beloved, we say Creator; we say God, Father, Mother; we say Allah, Yahweh, Atman; we say Great Spirit, we say Infinite Mystery.  We use all these names precisely because we do not and cannot know: all these names are metaphorical—they are comparisons with something that we do know.  We do know Mother, we do know Beloved, we do know Creator.  So we are saying that the Mystery is like something we are familiar with.

I remember when I was an intern minister at First Unitarian there in Dallas, Texas, studying with John Buehrens, who was later to become President of the Unitarian Universalist Association.  John had used the word “God” in his sermon one Sunday, and as we were greeting people after the service, one hard-core humanist tore into him.  “John,” he said, red in the face, “I just wish you would quit using that word in your sermons—I’m just so offended by it.”  And John just said, “George, you know, you’d be much less offended by my use of the word God if you realized that when I use that word, I have absolutely no idea what it means.”

I wonder at the certainties that some people arrive at.  Pat Robertson has just told us on National Television that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment for “dividing God’s land.”  Actually, I would agree with Jon Stewart of Comedy Central who said, “Was it divine retribution?  Or . . . you know, I’m going to have to go with stress and being way overweight.”  I think that vehement religious certainties are generally signs of insecurity, or fear.  When we’re anxious, we want certainty.  Certainty leads to a kind of rigidity, though, that makes idols of our supposed “truth,” and separates us from others—the unwashed, unbaptized unbelievers—and shuts us down, separates us from the Mystery itself.  As Unitarian Universalists, we are asked to bear the weight of doubt, for only doubt will leave us open to new revelation and spiritual growth.  Listen to the words of Jungian James Hollis.  He says, “Our doubt . . . is a form of radical trust, a trust that the world is richer than we know, so abundant that we can hardly bear it, and our growth requires a willingness to embrace the paradox that doubt is the key to its further riches.”  Doubt is a form of radical trust.

Hollis goes on to point out that doubting also threatens us, though, by “bringing us to our essential loneliness.”  We come to a place where we are not getting our validation from the outside, from any other person or any creed, and we are thrown back on ourselves.  We have to look within, to find what we really feel, and what we really think.  We have to risk being our very own selves.  You see, I think this is ultimately what Unitarian Universalism asks of us.  To take up this challenge requires persons of great courage, persons who have the self-respect that strengthens them through times of criticism, anxiety, and loneliness.  But those who take up this challenge will find that they are ultimately at home with themselves, at home in their own skin, and that is the only place that really assuages the loneliness that is endemic to the human condition.

Let’s talk for a few minutes about why this kind of openness, this not-knowing, not-believing, is so challenging.  It is a grown-up kind of faith, and requires a lot from us.

What are some of the pot-holes in the spiritual path?  (Do you remember the movie “Groundhog Day,” in which Bill Murray keeps repeating his day, and keeps making the same mistake, keeps falling in the same hole, over and over again?  Sometimes the spiritual path feels like that.)

First of all, there are the distractions, the diversions, the addictions.  These are the temptations of the ego, which seeks rest, peace, pleasure, release from conflict of any kind.  The soul, on the other hand, is a risk-taker.  The soul says growth is more important than ease, that fulfillment is not about zoning out, but comes by experiencing fully, deeply, all of our life.  The spiritual seeker will have to explore his shadow side, as well—ignoring that will keep a person on the surface of things.

Then there is the challenge of the larger cultural context in which we find ourselves.  We cannot help being informed by the assumptions and systems of the culture.  We adopt these internally, whether we want to or not.  Who can escape racism in a racist culture?  Who can escape personal greed when we are in a country that is the consummate consumer of the world’s resources?  Who can say he or she is not violent, in word or deed, or exploitative, or imperialistic?  I can’t.  Can you? 

You know, sometimes I hear people say, “I’m spiritual, but I don’t believe in organized religion.”  One good argument—perhaps the best argument—for the existence of the church today is to counter the assumptions of a secular culture whose bottom line is economic gain and not the well-being of the human spirit.  The church is not a business, is not government, is not even a non-profit.  The church assumes a covenantal relationship between its members and between its ministers and its members, and that covenant is grounded in respect and love and care for one another.  It is grounded in trust.  As we each seek our own way, we are held in that container of trust and care, and that community is called church.

Another way of being thrown off the path is to follow someone else’s path—to find a teacher or guru whom you admire, and to take your cues from that other person.  I like the title of the book If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him.  Yes, we can learn from wise teachers, but we must internalize the teaching, we must make it our own—we can’t just borrow it, for doing so would be failing to respect our uniqueness.  It would mean escaping from the only self we have—escaping from self-knowing, from self-forgiveness, from self-love, which is the ever, only path to truly loving others.

It’s difficult, I’m sorry to say, to become a true seeker without suffering and loss.  Oh, you can be an intellectual seeker in your callow youth—but it is when you realize that you can’t make deals with God that you begin seeking in earnest.  That’s what the Book of Job is about, I think.  Job was a good and righteous man.  And he loses his wife, his children, his servants, his lands, his sheep, his cattle, and even his health.  He is reduced to sitting on an ash heap, scraping his boils.  He cries out to God, “What is going on here?  What did I do to deserve this?”  And God answers out of the whirlwind, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth, where were you when I made the morning stars sing?”  In other words—Job, you don’t make the rules.  You have to surrender to what is.

Life is not about a growing perfection of character—it’s not about achieving ease and happiness.  It’s about noticing what’s on your plate, being present with it, and addressing it in a way that your soul is enlarged.  We live in a feel-good culture—but life is not something to smooth out, to work out, to fix.  It’s not about having a good lifestyle.  It’s engaging with passion what passes your way, and experiencing it with your whole being.  It’s loving what is yours to love and manifesting that divine energy in the world as only you can.

Sometimes we feel that we’re lost, or that we’ve lost something.  Maybe we wouldn’t have that feeling if we didn’t experience our separation from a larger something, a larger whole that we sense is there.  The truth is that we are all part of one another and we are all held in a larger love—all the time.  We are already there.  When for some reason we feel separated from that wholeness, we suffer and we long for that state of completeness of being, or what the ancients called enlightenment.  We can’t get there by being good.  We can’t get there by doing a deal with God.  We can’t get there by following the breadcrumbs down somebody else’s path.  Our longing for home, our spiritual home, our very homesickness, will guide us.  We journey together in community.  We follow the golden thread, our thread, our very specific thread, as it gently pulls us home.  So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

Great Mystery, we confess that we are pulled away from the path so often—we are distracted and bothered.  We have our troubles, our anxieties.  Help us to see the thread in our living that pulls us to you and to new life.  Give us the courage to live with our doubts, to see ourselves as we are, to forgive ourselves, to love ourselves.  May we continue to seek the Holy in the everyday; may we live lives large enough for our soul’s desire.  So be it.  Amen.

BENEDICTION
My prayer for you today is that you will surrender to whatever is seeking a fuller expression in your life.  Go in love, and go in peace. Amen.