2019.8.11
Faithful Wondering
Intro:
Whoever
you are, however you are this morning, wherever you are on your spiritual
journey, you are welcome here to this community, this time and place we make
sacred by simply bringing ourselves as gifts to one another.
Our
monthly worship theme continues to be “Wonder” this month.
Wonder
is a core spiritual practice for us as Unitarian Universalists.
We
“wonder” a lot, as in questioning, as in being curious, as in not taking
someone else’s word for it, but needing to seek ourselves for the truth.
And
we also believe the experience of “wonder” --as in standing in awe before the
mysteries of life-- is a source of deep spiritual meaning.
Today
we’re considering what it means to be faithful in the midst of our wondering
and questions. Do you consider yourself
a person of faith?
Wisdom
Story: “Answer Mountain”
Reading:
From
“Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience” by Sharon Salzburg – Buddhist teacher,
also rooted in her Jewish upbringing
“…the tendency to equate faith with
doctrine, and then argue about terminology and concepts, distracts us from what
faith is actually about. In my
understanding, whether faith is connected to a deity or not, its essence lies
in trusting ourselves to discover the deepest truths on which we can rely.”
(xiii)
“No matter what we encounter in life, it
is faith that enables us to try again, to trust again, to love again. Even in times of immense suffering, it is
faith that enables us to relate to the present moment in such a way that we can
go on, we can move forward, instead of becoming lost in resignation or despair.
Faith links our present-day experience,
whether wonderful or terrible, to the underlying pulse of life.” (xiv)
When I was in high school I got labelled
an atheist. By which folks meant I wasn’t
a person of faith, by which they meant I didn’t believe, by which they
meant I didn’t believe in their definition of God, that is I did not subscribe
to their theology, their God-talk.
Now, I did not call myself an
atheist but I didn’t do a whole lot to argue about it and decided to let people
think what they wanted to think.
The truth is, even then, I did not
believe in a supreme supernatural being.
But I also wondered. I wondered a
lot. How is it that we are here? Why am I here?
What is life supposed to be about?
Why is there such incredible beauty and goodness and also such pain and
suffering and inequality? How do we make
things better?
I still wonder a lot, which is why I am
a Unitarian Universalist, and these days consider myself essentially an
agnostic!
Now, some of you might be wondering, “but
Laura, you talk about God sometimes.
What’s that about?”
I
have heard a magic teacher once said that “moments of jaw-dropping wonder
(whatever their source) force us to suspend soul-numbing disbelief and open to
Possibility!” (from Stephanie Etzbach-Dale)
I have lived long enough to have
experienced enough moments of jaw-dropping wonder, that I need some powerful
language to contain that mystery, I need language that opens me to possibility.
The moments of jaw-dropping wonder I am
talking about are not just beautiful and nice experiences, like looking at the
stars or seeing a beautiful landscape, though I include those.
But also things like – being present
when my father died, accompanying a friend over years of varying degrees of mental
illness, watching children struggle and grow, the mysterious and ever-changing
kind of challenging love that happens in a long term relationship, witnessing
people rise up in the midst of terrible catastrophe to save each other.
I think you all know this, but when I
say the word “God” I am not pointing to man in the sky who judges or saves. I am not pointing to any being in any
particular place. I, personally, am
pointing more to an action, a movement of love, the energy of life that is in
all and that we are always in. I am
pointing to the tiniest seed of possibility for new life that is within even
moments of great devastation.
I can’t prove God, but I want to
be awake to the something bigger than any one of us. And so, I simply choose to use that language,
that old powerful metaphorical language that all the great wisdom teachers have
said never can really contain the meaning.
You might use different language.
The mystery of life on this earth, in
this galaxy, in this universe is too great to be held by any one word, or any final
human answers. As mystical priest
Richard Rohr says, a mystery isn’t something that can never be understood, it’s
something you can endlessly understand. There’s always more to be known. As a whole, Unitarian Universalism is an
agnostic faith in this way.
We understand that as soon as human
beings make a final pronouncement – whether it is a theological one or a
scientific one – very often something else happens that shifts that
understanding. There is no one answer
that fits every question, every circumstance.
We are essentially “un-fundamentalist.”
And yet, we are most definitely a people
of faith.
And our language of faith has changed
over time.
We are rooted and grew from the radical
reformation and liberal Christian protestant tradition. In the 18th and 19th
centuries, for a long time Unitarians and Universalists in this country used
Protestant language of faith, a basis in Biblical scripture, and plenty of God
talk—though we were still considered heretical.
The Unitarians for believing Jesus was an important moral teacher but
not God. The Universalists for daring to
believe that God will save everyone, no exceptions.
The transcendentalists in the 19th
century moved us away from traditional faith language and a reliance on
Biblical authority– folks like:
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, who read the Hindu
scriptures and was partial to the word OverSoul instead of God.
--and Theodore Parker who preached a famous
sermon called “The transient and the permanent in Christianity”—separating the
historical forms of the church and its doctrine from the core ethical teachings
of Jesus.
Humanists in our movement in the 20th
century steadily broadened us further with their focus on scientific discovery
and ethical human action. They helped us
open even further to a way of being religious that wasn’t dependent on a traditional
belief in God at all.
And in the latter part of the 20th
century and on in to the 21st we’ve been influenced by those among
us who find faith and meaning in neo-pagan and Buddhist practices.
So here we are today, with this
diversity of theological perspective coexisting in one place. Sometimes well, sometimes uncomfortably.
Debating
language and belief very often disconnects us.
Ask, “Do you believe in God or not?”
and the room pretty quickly divides.
Asking
each other to describe our faith, what it is we rely on, what comforts us in
times of trouble and what lifts us out of despair—that can send the
conversation in a very different direction.
Our opening words today were statements of faith members of this
congregation wrote several years ago.
How did those statements sound to you this morning? Does yours need updating, or is it still serving
the flourishing of your life and the life of others around you?
We don’t simply claim that the answer is
yes or no. Instead, we build communities
of practice, where we covenant with one another, walking together to discover
the “deepest truths on which we can rely.”
This is a place where the answers are always under construction.
From
Faith Without Certainty: Liberal Theology in the 21st Century By Paul Rasor
“Liberal
theology is not for the faint of heart. It points us in a general direction
without telling us the specific destination. It refuses to make our commitments
for us, but holds us accountable for the commitments we make. The liberal
religious tradition is an invitation, not a mandate.
It
invites us: -to live with ambiguity without giving in to facile compromise;
-to engage in dialogue without trying to
control the conversation;
-to
be open to change without accepting change too casually;
-to
take commitment seriously, but not blindly;
-and
to be engaged in the culture without succumbing to the culture’s values.
Liberal
religion calls us to: - strength without rigidity; -conviction without
ideology, -openness without laziness. It asks us to pay attention. It is an
eyes-wide-open faith, a faith without certainty.”
Ours
is a faith that does not offer any easy answers, but challenges us to grow, to
change, to respond to the movements of our spirits--
It
challenges us to do some work and to be in conversation with one another—three specific
opportunities right now:
Sign-up
now for Circles of Trust where you can reflect on your own life experiences and
values in supportive community.
Class
offering this fall – Faith for the Unbeliever by UU minister Daniel Kanter—small
book. He writes in the introduction: “More
than an adherence to a belief system, faith is an orientation to life. It is loolking out at the world from a
particular perspective, and using that perspective to consider the meaning of
our existence.” We’ll have four
sessions, each one focused on one chapter of the book – considering Belief,
Trust, Loyalty, and Worldview.
Worship
service in two weeks – a response to your questions, your wonderings. What are the questions you are asking right
now? What are you wondering about? Could be big meaning of life questions, or
could be questions related to understanding Unitarian Universalism, or could
questions about me or questions about this congregation. It’s not that I have the answers to all the
questions – but this is a chance to be conversation about our wonderings.
We can have a faith without certainty,
one that embraces the questions, and yet still be deeply convicted. This kind of faith without dead certainties
is alive, able to breathe and change! Our faith is called a living tradition because
it can be transformed by our own experiences, and by the experiences of those
around us, opening us to new possibilities.
This congregation testifies every day to
the power of a deeply convicted faith without certainty, a kind of faithfulness
that shows up ready for the unknown, a kind of faithful wondering that is eyes-wide-open
and present to the truth of our lives.
It’s less about belief and more about
acting faithfully. As UU Rev. Marilyn Sewell puts it:
For Unitarian Universalists, the question is never "What do you
believe?" but rather "What kind of person have you become? What are
the fruits of your living?" (in The
Theology of Unitarian Universalists)
I know
many of us in this room have come from other religious traditions where we
might have rejected the doctrine and the creeds. But I also know that showing up here, with
one another, is an act of faith. Showing
up beyond Sunday morning to put our values into action is also an act of faith.
We are
trusting that there is something more to life, something bigger than ourselves,
that we can discover together. May our
lives be an answer to the questions we ask, may our lives be a worthy response
to the wonders of this life.
Blessed be and Amen.
