"We
are on our own, and we are not alone."
[12-13-08]
This sermon (or something pretty much like it) was
preached in The Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Greensboro,
NC, on Sunday, December 7, 2008 – which was the 2nd Sunday in Advent
(Year B).The preacher, the Rev. Jim Dollar,
describes the setting:
This was a sermon on Sunday morning, but
here's the deal. There are two congregations at Presbyterian
Church of the Covenant. The 9:20 group was created out of
nothing, as all good creations are, 4, or was it 5, years ago,
as a last gasp at survival. Two consultants – Alban Institute
being one – offered direction by the arm load which was
carefully followed, every suggestion was tried, nothing worked.
When that is the case, what do we have to lose, becomes the
question, which opens the way to a future of unpredictable
proportions. With everything on (or off) the table, anything is
possible.
We advertised "No prayers, no hymns, no
scripture, no creeds, no doctrine, no dogma, no offering (Okay,
there will be a basket in the back), no kidding" and had about
40 people at the initial meeting, and average 80 currently. This
is a congregation of church dropouts, Spong's "church alumni
association," or "recovering Christians." They have had it with
traditional, orthodox, theology but are very much interested in
"what's at the bottom of all the fuss." We are on the trail of
"the heart of the matter," guided by that which has always
guided communities of faith through the ages.
This group meets at 9:20. The 11:00 o'clock
service is composed of traditional thinkers about things
Christian, who don't understand the early service and wish it
would be like it is supposed to be, but the people who gather at
9:20 constitute the vitality and the future of the congregation,
so the 11 o'clock folks (who number about 25 on average)
tolerate the way things are.
I preach from the lectionary at 11, but work
in the theme of the day from the early service, and to this
point, so far, so good.
"We are on our own, and we are not alone."
Churches want to grow by increasing the number of
people who think like the people in churches think, not by changing
the way the people in churches think. Churches think of growth and
growing in terms of numbers, not in terms of shifting perspective,
deepening understanding, broadening horizons, enlarging hearts, or
thinking differently. How differently can the people think and still
be "the church"? That depends on how they think about being "the
church." See?
How we think about something has to change if we
are to grow on the level where growth-as-transformation occurs. We
think “outside the box” by getting outside the box. By asking
scandalous questions, by saying outrageous things, by being
heretical, and by changing our own minds about the things we think
there, outside the box.
No one has the corner on “right thinking.” No one
knows how we should think, how we are supposed to think, what we can
and cannot think. But, we can’t think this way and be the church.
Churches can’t change the way they think because one of the things
they think is that the way they think is the only way
to think. Churches clutch their doctrines and catechisms
proclaiming, “This isn’t how we see things—this is how things
ARE!” No one who thinks that way can be talked into thinking
differently.
We change the way the church thinks by changing
the way we think, and letting that be that. Insofar as we are the
church, we are changing the way the church thinks as we change the
way we think. Even if we could change the way THE church thinks, by
the time the process was complete, we would have changed the way we
thought when the process started, and would have to start all over
to get THE church caught up. We can only think the way we think and
let the outcome be the outcome.
Changing the way we think changes the way we live
(and, of course, vice versa), changes the way we assess what is
important, the way we determine what to do, and transforms our
lives. We can’t do that kind of thing in a willy-nilly sort of way,
just because it’s Tuesday morning and someone thinks we should.
Before we can change the way we think, the way we think has to come
up against it. Against what, you ask. The end of the line. We have
to be dangling at the end of the rope before we can change our mind
about what’s important. And, even then, we resist. Better to die, we
say, than to change the way we think.
Changing the way we think is like dying. And, not
changing the way we think is like dying. To die or not to die is not
the question. What form will our dying take is the question. There
is the death that leads to death and the death that leads to life.
How would you like to die is the question, and the church, which
likes to avoid questions, doesn’t know it is answering the question
by refusing to answer the question.
It’s like this: The things I have to say can only
be heard by those who can hear them. I don’t say them to be heard. I
say them because they are the things I have to say. I have to say
them. They are not mine to say or not say. I don’t have them and can
say them or not. I must say them. I am compelled to say them. I HAVE
TO say them. Whether anyone hears them or not. Even if when they
hear them they respond with, “Why don’t you go fly a kite?”
This isn’t to say I just blurt things out without
filtering them through silence, conversation, and reflection. It
takes a while to know what I have to say and to say it and to gauge
whether it was, or is, worth saying. And all of that is part of the
experience of participation in the right kind of community. But, the
point here is that the saying is not conditional upon the hearing.
If we only said what could be heard, we would say only the things
that have always been said, which is what keeps the church in
business.
The thing about hearing, seeing, and understanding
is that once you begin to get it, you can’t give it away. You have
to live with having it and being unable to do anything with it
beyond implementing it in your own life. You get it, you live it.
That’s that. The benefit, such as it is, is living well, living with
integrity and authenticity. There is no advantage to you or to
anyone else to your living well. You just live well, with integrity
and authenticity. And the whole world is blessed, you included, but
in a way that it doesn’t know it’s blessed. You, of course,
recognize that you are blessed, because you get it, and getting it
means that you get not being able to do anything with it, except
live well, and you know what a blessing and a joy living well is for
itself alone. It’s like flying a kite. You don’t fly a kite to
accomplish anything thereby. You fly a kite to fly a kite. Not to do
anything with it. So, you are already flying a kite when they tell
you to go fly a kite.
This is the crucial point where the matter of
changing the way we think is concerned. I can't give you anything.
You can't give me anything. We can't give anyone else anything. What
do we pay a preacher (teacher, guru, advisor, spiritual director,
guide) for? They are paid to say "I can't give you anything.” Not
giving you anything means giving you everything you need, like their
trust in your ability to find your way, their confidence that you
have what you need, their reassuring, caring, presence when it seems
impossibly difficult, their questions for clarification and
understanding, and an environment in which you can sound out your
ideas about the way for you, and gain greater clarity than you could
ever achieve on your own, and know that while you are on your own,
you are not alone. This is the stuff life is made of.
We are on our own, but we are not alone. We are
not alone in the work of being alive. Being alive has nothing to do
with the realization of our dreams and desires, with our goals and
ambition. It has to do only with being alive in the moment we are
living and living there with integrity and authenticity. Waking up,
enlightenment, realization, satori, and the like are not about
getting, having, owning, possessing, acquiring, amassing, avoiding.
They are not about pleasure and prosperity and wealth and power and
control. They are not about fortune and glory. They are about being
alive, here and now, genuinely being ourselves in the time and
place, context and circumstances of our living.
The path we hear so much about is not a way from
here to there but a way from here to here. We don't GO anywhere. We
don't go ANYWHERE. We just wake up to where we are. See it for what
it is. Understand how things are and what is being asked of us, and
let it be as it is, how it is, where it is, when it is, why it is,
because it is, with equanimity, peace, and acceptance, and do what
needs to be done there as only we can do it. That's where the path
leads. To doing what needs to be done, offering what we have to give
as only we can give it, and doing it with the right spirit, in the
right frame of mind. This is Christ-like-ness. Buddha-hood. The way
of the True Human Being. Zen living. Life in the fullest, deepest,
richest sense of the word.
We are on our own, and we are not alone. The
assistance we get is assistance with bringing life to life, with
bringing ourselves to life. It has nothing to do with our dreams and
desires, unless our dreams and desires are about coming to life,
being alive wherever and whenever and however we are. Joseph
Campbell says, “We know when we are on the beam and when we are off
of it.” There is That Which Knows. We are not alone, but listening,
know something of what That Which Knows knows. It isn’t what we have
in mind.
What we get from God is not what we want. We want
“fortune and glory kid, fortune and glory.” We get life (“as a prize
of war”). We get to be alive in the time and place of our living. We
want a different time and place, a better time and place. Who can be
alive in this old time and place? How come other people get the good
times and places? How come we get stuck with these old times and
places and this old God? Oh, for a God that is God the way we want
God to be! “Won’t you rend the heavens and come down!” “Are you the
one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
We throw God away in the search for God the way we
want God to be. We run past the treasure in search of the treasure.
We throw life away in the effort to have life as we want life to be.
We spend our time coming up with explanations for life being the way
it is (sin, you know). We spend our time devising formulas for
making life into the way we want life to be (mortification,
repentance, penitence, obedience and faithfulness, you know). We
spend our time not-living and then we die. We have to take a chance
on life.
Faith has no content. It is attitude, orientation,
perspective—an orientation toward life. Faith is about trusting
ourselves to our lives. We are on our own AND we are not alone! The
heart, the ground, of life is cognition, awareness, knowing,
comprehending, getting it and being okay with it, and responding to
it out of what it is asking of us with what we have to offer. What
is “it”? “It” is That Which Knows. It is the unnamable drift, or
urge, or inclination toward “the good,” toward “what needs to happen
now,” toward whatever is being asked for in “the situation as it
arises.” What are we trying to do with the situation, achieve in it,
accomplish in it? Where does that desire come from? That’s “it”!
That’s what is in charge of our lives, directing us to life,
bringing life to life within us and in the moment of our living.
The formula for successful living is simple: Be
aware of the situation and what is being asked of us, and offer to
it what we have to give. To do this, we have to take up the
practice, work the program. The terms are interchangeable. The
practice, the program, is developing eyes that see, ears that hear
and a heart that understands. The program, the practice, involves
looking, listening, inquiring, asking, seeking knocking, paying
attention, being awake, aware, alive. The practice, the program is
being curious, heretical, experimenting, exploring, investigating,
relishing the freedom to fail, to look stupid, to not know. But,
this is not a practice to take up alone.
We are on our own, you know, but we are not alone,
and we must not be any more alone than we have to be. The practice,
the program, is taken up, conducted, within the company of those who
themselves are taking up the practice, working the program. We call
this “the community of faith” because it is a community of those who
trust themselves to their lives. It is a community of those who know
we cannot trust ourselves to find the way alone because, while we
are capable of self-direction (following the urge to the good), we
are also capable of self-deception (thinking the urge we are
following is to the good). We all know by this point in our lives
that shooting ourselves in the foot is what we do best. No, telling
ourselves what we want to hear is what we do best. No, fooling
ourselves is what we do best. No, wanting what we have no business
having is what we do best. You don’t want to leave it up to us to
know which of the inner voices to follow.
The church is a part of the conversation and the
atmosphere in which the conversation takes place. We talk over our
sense of the next step with those who are the church, the community
of faith, with us, and together we find the way. Together we help
one another in the work of clarification, which reduces the risk of
being wrong about the next step, but does not eliminate it. “All
synods and councils,” you know, “may err, and many (Nay! All!) have
erred.” We can always be wrong about what we think is right. And,
so, the constant need to see, and hear, and understand, and change
the way we think! Amen! May it be so!
What do you think of this outside-the-box
approach to the life of faith?
We invite you to share your thoughts here.
Just
send a note!
