2018.10.14 A Teaspoon of Honey Rev. Laura Bogle
Foothills UU Fellowship
Wisdom Story: The parable of the Unexpected Guest in Luke
11
5-6 Then he said,
“Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night
and said, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. An old friend traveling
through just showed up, and I don’t have a thing on hand.’
7 “The friend answers from his bed,
‘Don’t bother me. The door’s locked; my children are all down for the night; I
can’t get up to give you anything.’
8 “But let me tell you, even if he
won’t get up because he’s a friend, if you stand your ground, knocking and
waking all the neighbors, he’ll finally get up and get you whatever you need.
9 “Here’s what I’m saying:
Ask and you’ll get;
Seek and you’ll find;
Knock and the door will open.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“If
at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
“The
best way out is always through.” (Robert
Frost)
“The three great essentials to achieve anything
worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common
sense.” (Thomas A. Edison)
Ask, and you shall receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door
will open. (Luke 11)
Pull yourself up by your
bootstraps.
I could go on…
These sayings are everywhere in our
culture. Especially in places like
Forbes magazine in the stories of entrepreneurs – almost invariably white men—who
failed a gazillion times before they finally succeeded and struck it rich. Persistence is seen as an individual
virtue. Just keep trying, just keep
trying and eventually you’ll win and be able to say “I did it!”
All those inspirational persistence quotes and proverbs we so blithely
post up in offices and waiting rooms—they are almost all about individual effort and individual success.
The ones who work the hardest, who aren’t afraid to fail and keep
trying—they are lifted up out of the pack as the paragons of virtue. Just keep at it until you win or get your
book published or climb that mountain or make a load of money. While, truth be told, there are lots of
others who tried just as hard, just as many times, and didn’t quite make
it.
Today, I want to pull out a couple
good lessons from these cultural proverbs, and
I also want to question them and propose some important additions for these political times.
The two good persistence lessons I
see from the “waiting room” proverbs, and the story of the Unexpected Guest in
Luke:
--defining a purpose bigger than
yourself
--acting, using your agency; not
letting others define you or your purpose
In the story of the Unexpected
Guest in Luke 11, the neighbor wants to feed his friend who arrived
unexpectedly—so he persists at knocking at the door until he gets what he needs
– some bread. He has a purpose bigger
than himself – feeding his friend. He
acts persistently until he gets his neighbor to wake up. I like this story,
I think it can be an empowering
story.
But even this Gospel story has so
often become sanitized in our culture – becoming a metaphorical story about
individual piety and prayer: just ask God and God will deliver-- rather than a
story about how we all need to be actually knocking on the doors of those
with bread so that everyone can be
fed.
If you are one who is marginalized,
if you aren’t starting with the same resources and power as others, then your
individual persistent efforts may not put you at the top of the stack, may not
lift you above the pack. You may not get
the bread you need when you knock on your neighbors door in the middle of the
night—you might just ignored or perhaps even get arrested.
The other day I called my Senators,
again. Like I have many times over the
last 20 months. I had a purpose bigger
than myself. I used my agency and I
acted. And frankly, I just felt
defeated.
If individual persistence is all it
takes to succeed then clearly I and many of you just haven’t been trying hard
enough or often enough.
Since November of 2016 I have heard
from many of you who are asking “What can I do?
I don’t feel like anything I can do makes a difference. Why keep trying, why persist?”
My question back to us is: how do
you define “success” and “making a difference”?
We are coming upon another
important election and it will be very easy to feel despair or elation based on
who wins or loses. I’m not saying those
outcomes don’t matter, but the vote tally is not the whole picture my friends.
Rather than an individual actor
going to knock on a door in the middle of the night, or one individual voter
making phone calls or going into the polls, I invite you to think of yourself
as just one part of a hive. I want you
to think of yourself as a honeybee.
Did you know that in its whole
lifetime one honeybee only makes about 1/12 a teaspoon of honey? 1/12!! That honey bee works and works its
whole life and doesn’t even make enough honey to sweeten my cup of tea. Looked at this way, I find the life of a
honeybee rather depressing!
But look at it another way: every teaspoon of
honey is the life of 12 honeybees. A
whole jar of honey, the lives of so many more.
How precious that one teaspoon of honey is, let alone a whole jar.
The honey bee’s purpose is not to
make the whole jar of honey by themselves. In fact, it is impossible.
Each honey bee’s persistent work
over a lifetime is insignificant by itself, but entirely essential when seen as
part of the hive, in relationship to others.
“The honey bee colony is a super-organism - a
closely co-operating unit of thousands of individuals, which maintains its
efficiency through being extremely well organised. There may be 50,000 workers
busily foraging, regulating the temperature in the hive, guarding the colony or
tending to the brood, as well as feeding each other, cleaning, creating wax,
comb and honey.” (from https://www.buzzaboutbees.net/swarmingbees.html
)
So, some lessons for collective persistence in these times from
the honeybees:
·
Find your piece of the work and connect it to the work of others. It might feel small and insignificant by
itself. But when part of a larger effort
it is essential.
·
Trust that others have their part
to do and will do it. We don’t all have
to be doing the same thing, in the same way.
·
Know that you can pause to take
care of yourself—making a jar of honey is a long-term project, and takes so
many of us. But also know that if you
just totally check out, if you stop showing up altogether, if you don’t do your
part – it matters, the hive is weakened.
We have lost an important contribution to the whole.
·
Know that each individual’s work is
reflected in the larger group. Ask
yourself—when I engage in this work, am I producing joy and sweetness or gloom
and bitterness? Am I making honey with
other people, or am I disrupting our organization? Are we building each other up and taking care
of each other? Are we fertilizing
flowers and creating new possibilities along the way?
·
Remember that perhaps the wisdom of
the group is far greater than any one individual. In his book “Honeybee Democracy” Thomas
Seeley describes the process a hive goes through when deciding to move. Even though there is a queen, it is the whole
hive’s problem and process to come to a decision.
{Give example of Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo}
How
do I see this kind of hive persistence showing up in our local community?
Well,
Emily’s description of the postcard group is one example – success there has
been redefined – the relationships that have been created, the process of their gathering is just as
important as the product. They are a
hive, with many people coming in and out, doing their part, taking care of each
other.
If
you were here last Sunday you got to hear the story of Jose– it took a whole
network of people – a hive of relationships – many individuals doing their
small part, just to help one person in immigration detention reunite with his
family here in Blount County.
And
I think about an organization like PFLAG Maryville, which was started to
support members of the LGBT community and their families. The local chapter here recently decided to close
up for now. One might look at that
decision and think, well that was a failure, they just didn’t persist
enough. But here’s what I think—I think
about all the relationships that group created over the years. I think about who I know now because of that
group. I think about the life-saving
impact they have had directly on people, and the ripples of possibility and
change they opened up in this community.
Persistence
isn’t just keeping something going to keep it going. Persistence can also mean getting real clear,
together, about when and where to do the work—and knowing, together when to let
it go.
And,
of course, here in this congregation – I think we have persisted to see this
day because we have done it together.
Our service of installation two weeks ago celebrated this interconnected
hive of relationships we have – with each other, with the earth, with the
ancestors, with members of the wider community.
We keep at it, sometimes wondering if it matters, wondering if we are
making a difference, if we are “succeeding.”
We come here to be reminded we are part of something bigger than
ourselves. Our lives and what we do with
them are insignificant alone, but absolutely essential as part of the greater
whole.
May
the measure of our success be the love we are creating. May we work with humility, doing our part. May knowing we are not alone give us the
trust, the faith, and the strength to continue our persistent efforts—until the
doors open, until the bread is received, until the jar is full to overflowing
with honey. May it be so. Amen.
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