by the Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given November 4, 2007

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning!

We have come together this day

To give thanks for our blessings,

To forgive ourselves and others,

To learn how we might grow in love and compassion

During our time here.

Come now and let us worship together.

Ideas for sermons come to me from all kinds of places, and this one came from an experience I had when traveling to visit relatives last Thanksgiving—this time to a new household and a relatively recent marriage.  I was tired and grouchy when I arrived from the airport and so soon went on to bed.  The next day was Thanksgiving, and I awoke with expectations.  There would be friendly visiting, board games, maybe a movie—and of course, familiar smells emanating from the kitchen.  You know, Thanksgiving dinner: turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce and sweet potato casserole and hot rolls, etc.  I could hardly wait!  But the lady of the house, not to be named, was not cooking—she was at the gym, working out.  It appears that she works out two or three hours every day, rain or shine, holiday or no—and she does not cook Thanksgiving dinners.  I discovered that she is heavily into—I would say, obsessed with—beauty and fitness.  When she came in from her workout, she was beaming, joyful.  She said, “I am full of love.  I’m just overflowing with love.”  And I was thinking, “Oh yeah?  Well, I’m not.” 

And in the very next moment, I thought, “I am full of love?  What the hell are you talking about?”  And then I think I said out loud, “What does love demand of us?”  Whoa!  I laid that one on her.  It was a sermon title being born, but it was also a question directed to her—and of course the catch is, ultimately to myself:  what does love demand of us?  When I asked this question, she looked at me as if I were from some foreign country—and I guess I was, in a way—blundering into her assumptions the way I did, and she said, “Huh?  What did you say?”  And then I found myself drowning in my own judgments, so I really didn’t have an answer, except that if we’re so full of love, shouldn’t we be concerned about global warming?  And if not that, then at least about my Thanksgiving dinner?

So what does love demand of us?  Not Thanksgiving dinners.  I think love demands three qualities:  honesty, presence, and compassion.  First of all honesty, because if we are not honest with ourselves and with others, we just have nowhere to go in any kind of relationship—it’s a baseline kind of thing.  And it’s not so easy to pull off.  Because the tendency is to want what we want and to rationalize our wants and our behaviors—we humans have an enormous capacity to do that. 

And then presence.  What do I mean by presence?  It sounds so simple, but in relationships it is a rare and beautiful quality:  it means being able to really make space for another—to listen fully, to allow for moments of silence, to take in a larger truth than you have yet known about this person, to be emotionally available in the moment.  Why do I say this is a rare quality—what makes it difficult?  It’s because most of us are not free enough of our own needs to really be with another.  And it’s because when an exchange with another brings up feelings of discomfort, the tendency is to change the subject—or tell a joke—instead of holding steady and bringing one’s presence to the occasion.

Third is compassion.  Compassion is not pity, not feeling sorry for another person—in fact, pity is a kind of demeaning thing.  No, compassion is attempting to get inside the experience of the other person, to witness and to understand their suffering.  Compassion literally means “to suffer with.”  And further it is to find ways to express our compassion, in order to nourish the other person, in body, mind, or spirit.  It is relatively easy to feel compassion for one who is ill or poor or oppressed.  Compassion becomes a more demanding spiritual discipline when it is given to someone who says and does things that are not easy to accept.  But this non-violent approach to another will put our own hearts more at ease, and there is a good chance that the suffering of the other will diminish, as well.

I think I should say something now about what love does not demand, because some confusion arises here.  First of all, love cannot demand from anyone that we do something that our integrity will not allow us to do, nor become something that we cannot become.  As I said, love does not demand that you cook a Thanksgiving dinner.  Oftentimes, love and control are in too close a partnership:  “if you loved me, you would . . . whatever.”  No one should be held hostage to another’s expectations.  On the other hand, if certain behaviors are painful to another, then that person needs to say, simply, “That hurts.  Please don’t do that.”  And then compassion can answer in kind.

Secondly, love cannot expect another person to “fix” a problem for us.  When someone shares a difficulty or personal problem with us, the response is to be present, to give what comfort we can, to give suggestions if they are asked for—and I emphasize if they are asked for—but mainly just to be present, just to hear, just to understand, just to let that person know that he or she is not alone in the world with their pain.  There are engineers in this world and there are artists.  When someone reveals personal pain to you, be an artist, not an engineer.

Well, how then do we cultivate these gifts of love that I spoke of earlier?  All of the religious traditions of the world say more or less the same things, so let me tell you what they say. 

All speak of meditation or prayer.  I would advise each and every one of you to have some kind of spiritual practice, just to keep you steady, on the mark.  And I say this because the culture at large is neither life-giving nor nurturing of the impulse to love.  It’s not how long you practice each day, but be consistent, even if it’s five minutes a day.  There are many different kinds of spiritual practice—you can meditate, chant, journal, pray, read devotional literature, whatever is right for you.  But each day at the same time, pull aside from your concerns, and focus on what kind of person you want to be  and how you want to spend your time—the precious time that is, after all, your life.

All these various traditions say that you must practice self-love, “love your neighbor as yourself.”  Self-love is not indulgence, though.  It’s self-respect, self-care.  It’s making sure that you have adequate sleep, that you eat properly, that you exercise, that you have time to nurture your spirit as well as your body.  It’s learning to ask for help when you need it and knowing that accepting help is just as much a gift as the giving of help.

And all spiritual traditions mention sacrifice and simplicity—this is not in contradiction to self-love.  When we live lives that are balanced, when we use only what we need and no more, when we share generously of our means, when we sometimes give up something we want because we want to see someone else benefit, or an institution flourish, then we grow spiritually.  We will soon start our Alternative Gift Fair for the holiday season.  This is an opportunity to use our personal resources to really do some good in the world, rather than feed the commercial machine.  And then later in the spring, I’m going to challenge members of the congregation to buy groceries for a week with only the amount of money equivalent to that of a food stamp recipient in Oregon.  Sacrifice helps us get inside the skin of another and experience what their life might be like—it helps us move in solidarity with those whose lives may be very different from our own.

Next week is Celebration Sunday, when you will come down the aisle and make your financial pledges for the new church year.  A story comes to mind.  One day a few years back I was walking downtown, and I ran into a man I had seen at church Sunday after Sunday.  He stopped me and he said, “I just want to tell you how much the church has meant to me.  The church has changed my life.  I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”  And I said, “Well, I’m so glad to hear that—how long have you been a member?”  And he said, kind of sheepishly, “Oh, uh, I’m not a member.”  Surprised, I said, “Why not?”  And he said, “Because I’ve been reluctant to make a financial pledge.”  Now this was not a poor man.  He was the head of a non-profit here in town, at the time—he has moved out of town since then.  I can’t remember where the conversation went after that, but I can imagine that I turned the screws a little bit.  At any rate, he got it—yes, he needed to support this wonderful institution that had turned his life around—and he subsequently did, and supported the church quite well.  To be a part of all that we offer here and yet not to be willing to support it financially puts a person out of balance spiritually, and that’s the important thing:  to be in balance, with everything in its rightful place.

Let’s talk for a moment now about the surprising demands that come with love sometimes—in particular, in personal relationships.  You know, we all long for unconditional love, and of course, there are only two places we’re going to get that:  in the womb of our mothers and from God.  For all the joy they afford, any intense personal relationship has elements which are difficult, because any attachment has disappointments built in—it’s the nature of things.  In a marriage, there are requirements—an investment of time and personal space—and so personal freedom is limited.  We have to restructure our priorities, we have to make compromises, there are sacrifices to consider.  It’s not “my life” anymore, it’s “our life.”  Maybe, we think, it would just be better to stay safely alone, rather than risk answering the claims of love and love’s transforming power.

And love, as necessary as it is, is never free of pain.  You hold your infant, wanting to protect that child from every hurt, and you know you can’t.  Even as you look into your lover’s eyes, you reflect upon the pain of parting.  A grown child is excited about leaving for college, and the parent is happy for him, and at the same time grieving at the loss.  We must be able to be with deep pain in order to love deeply and to enter into the depths of its joy and nourishment. 

In her classic work, Centering,[1] Mary Caroline Richards, puts it like this:  “One gives up all one has for [love].  This is the love that resides in the self, the self-love, out of which all love pours.  The fountain, the source.  At the center.  One gives up all the treasured sorrow and self-mistrust, all the precious loathing and suspicion, all the secret triumphs of withdrawal.  One bends in the wind.  There are many disciplines that strengthen one’s athleticism for love.  It takes all one’s strength.  And yet it takes all one’s weakness, too.  Sometimes it is only by having all one’s so-called strength pulverized that one is weak enough, strong enough, to yield.”

I have mentioned God’s love.  Is there such a thing?  Have you ever experienced this love?  Let me tell you a story recounted by the Rev. Bill Sinkford, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association. 

“In the midst of a crisis, my son Billy, then 15 years old, had overdosed on drugs, and it was unclear whether he would live. . . .  I sat with him in the hospital [and] I found myself praying.  First the selfish prayers for forgiveness . . . for the time not made, for the too many trips, for the many things unsaid, and sadly, for a few things said that should never have passed my lips.  But as the night darkened, I finally found . . . pure prayer.  The prayer that asked only that my son would live.  And late in the evening, I felt the hands of a loving universe reaching out to hold.  The hands of God, the Spirit of Life.  The name was unimportant.  I knew that those hands would be there to hold me whatever the morning brought.  And I knew, though I cannot tell you how, that those hands were holding my son as well.  I knew that I did not have to walk that path alone, that there is a love that has never broken faith with us and never will.  My son survived.  But the experienced stayed with me.”

Bill Sinkford was in my congregation when I served at First Unitarian in Cincinnati, and then he would have identified himself as an “ardent humanist.”  That changed with his broken heart in that hospital room, when he had a direct experience of something that he hadn’t counted on—a kind of mystical experience, as it were.

I don’t much have those experiences myself.  But I do have an intuitive knowing that I’m held by something much larger than myself—to which I’m ultimately accountable—and that something is best described as Love, with a capital L.  I have given myself, in all of my frailty, with many, many missteps along the way, to this Love.

I got a message from the office a couple of days ago from a man who just started coming to church not long ago.  He is a man who has had a difficult life.  The message was that his father had died, and that he wanted me to know.  I picked up the phone and called.  I got him on his cell phone just as he was pulling into his little hometown in Montana, to join the family.  “How are you?” I asked.  He was hesitant.  “I’m OK,” he said.  He paused.  I asked how his father died, and how his relationship was with his dad, and he said, “Oh, it was good.”  And another pause.  “I don’t know what I believe about the afterlife,” he said, “but I hate to see someone die with so much anger.” 

“It’s all right,” I said.  “Things happen, people grow angry.  But God is big enough for your father’s anger.  He’ll be all right.  He’ll be with God.” 

Use whatever language you like.  He’ll be with God, he’ll be with Love.  I believe it is the nature of the universe, and inescapable.  That’s the Universalism in our Unitarian Universalism.  Universal salvation, universal love.

That is the wonderful irony of it:  this inescapable, unstoppable Love will keep pulling at you and pulling at you, will keep making its demands, will keep wanting you to be a more open container for this very Love, and yet at the same time we are loved unconditionally, just as we are.  Our part is only to accept it.  So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

Spirit of Life and Love, we are thankful for the presence of love in our lives.  Help us to protect and keep those loving relationships and not let them slip away with foolish blunders or thoughtlessness.  And help us to be ever ampler vessels of your love and compassion during our time upon this earth.  Amen.

BENEDICTION

Go now and give your love freely, not holding back, for when you ask who needs love, the answer is everyone—even those, maybe especially those, who show their need the least.

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[1]Mary Caroline Richards, Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person.  Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1962.

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Copyright 2007, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  All rights reserved.