C3/CCC Sermon Transcript for November 4, 2007 Many years ago I was part of a Sunday morning breakfast for homeless people in the inner suburbs of Sydney. We had a crew of about 20 middle-class churchgoing people who provided breakfast for about 100 homeless men and women and a handful of children. It was a fairly classic church hall- very wooden and sparse, tables with wonky legs, and we all gathered around one long table. I was standing next to a particularly scruffy homeless man, clutching on to his bowl and plastic spoon, waiting for his baked beans. As was the custom, someone from the church group would say grace before the meal began. So I am standing next to this man while a very pious Christian is saying grace. It went something like this- “Dear Lord and Father, we thank you for your bounteous goodness and grace to us in all things…………….” Now, get this- right in the middle of grace, the scruffy man says under his breath, “Yeah, real good!” It was a priceless moment that I will never forget. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. The moment was so poignant and perfect, as the homeless man had pierced through the pretence of piety. It was beautifully honest. He had cut through our Christian need to believe that all is good, in order to justify the goodness of God. This very limited understanding of God and life was completely cut through by those few muttered words, “Yeah, real good!” I guarantee there wasn’t a person present in that room that day, churchgoer or not, homeless or not, or in this building today, who hasn’t at some point pierced the pretence of piety either deep within or out loud with those mumbled words, “Yeah, real good!” Jesus the Curmudgeon When did Christianity become so polite? Who took the “protest” out of Protestant? Who took the “wild cat” out of Catholic? Who domesticated Jesus and made him a meek and mild figure, always well mannered and even tempered. Jesus was a curmudgeon. Jesus was the scruffy homeless man who muttered sarcastic comments under his breath. Jesus lost his temper from time to time. Jesus became discouraged and questioned whether there is any point to any of it. Ultimately, at the brink of death, Jesus questioned everything, even his god. When did Jesus become domesticated, and Christianity so polite? Whenever that was, it was a sad day. Whenever that was, Christianity became a little less human. I wonder whether some of you are uncomfortable hearing me speak of Jesus in this way. Are some of you surprised to hear this aspect of the character of Jesus expressed in a church? I wonder whether some of you have expectations of spiritual leaders as being pious or perfect in some way, as being people who never speak out of turn, never lose their temper, and always feel completely happy and well-adjusted. I hope I’ve been around long enough for you to have shattered any of those pious expectations! Life Is Mystery Let me tell you a beautiful story out of the Jewish tradition: A very wise rabbi was on his deathbed. All of his students gathered around for his last moments. The students were so large in number that they crowded around the bed and went right out the door of the room. The students were arranged with the top students up close to the bed. They gathered around waiting for any last words of wisdom that their Rebbe might offer. Suddenly, the Rabbi grabbed his head student and pulled him close to his face. Everyone went silent and waited with baited breath for words of inspiration. The Rabbi said, “Life is like a river.” The student stood up, a little mystified, and turned to the student next to him and said, “He said that life is like a river.” The words spread down the line all the way to the last student, way out the door of the room. “Life is like a river.” That student, being very honest said, “What does that mean? Ask him what that means.” The words spread back up the line to the head student who leaned over the bed and said, “Rebbi, we all want to know what that means.” The Rabbi pulled the student even closer and said, “Well maybe life is NOT like a river, then.” He breathed his last breath and died. That is more like what it is to be in spiritual community together. If you have expectations that a spiritual leader rests in some glory of certainty, then you’ve got it wrong. Life is like a river, and it’s not like a river at the same time. Life is mystery which is lived one moment at a time, and we do the best we can, and that is all that is ever asked of us. Wrestling with Life I wonder what expectations you have of me as the leader of this community. Let me bring you in on a little secret about my life. I have it all. I have the world at my feet. I have the most supportive and beautiful wife that a person could ever hope for. I have three of the most amazing children that this world has ever produced. (a little biased, but anyway) I have my health and I am young. I’m leading the most exciting, progressive, dynamic, open, passionate community in the world, (and that is not biased) I have the most talented staff that a person could ever hope for. I have everything going for me. I have the world at my feet. You would think that I would be the happiest person on the planet. Well, I am….. some days. Other days, I wrestle. Some days I get caught in an existential crisis of meaning. Circumstances haven’t changed, everything is still in place and rationally I know everything in my life is still going for me, and yet I can find myself wrestling with life. Sometimes that wrestling is related to the state of the world; the world is all wrong, and needs to change. Sometimes it goes even deeper than that, and it has nothing to do with the state of the world. It has nothing to do with outside circumstances. I’m just wrestling with my inner demons. What is the meaning of life. What’s the point of it all? Where is it all heading? You know what that’s like? You do, don’t you? You know what it is like to wrestle with your demons, to have your own dark night of the soul. Well, we’re wrestlers, you and I. And we come in a long tradition of wrestlers. Jacob and Esau There is a very famous story in the Hebrew tradition, the story of Jacob. Jacob and Esau were brothers. They emerged out of the womb, already wrestling. There began one of history’s most famous cases of sibling rivalry. Esau was hairy. Jacob had smooth skin. What a strange detail to include in the story! The hairy one was restless and anxious, prone to wild emotional swings. The smooth one was calm and accepting. And I can’t help wondering whether there is a Jacob and an Esau in every one of us. There is a hairy restless side to every one of us, and a smooth accepting side as well. The rivalry between Jacob and Esau got so intense that Jacob had to run for his life and go into exile. He was in exile for a long time, and finally decided that he couldn’t live that way anymore. He came back to face Esau. So he traveled back, and arrived at the river Jabock. When he got to the river, he was engaged in a wrestling match through the whole night. The story doesn’t say with whom he was wrestling. Could it have been Esau in disguise? Could it have been some unknown stranger? Could it have been a hallucination? Could it have been some non human force? Or, could it have been a wrestling match within? In any case, whomever he was wrestling, he was there for the whole evening, in deep struggle. I want to point out three details in this story. The first is that resolution comes just before daybreak. Remember that these were superstitious times. According to their magical world view, dark forces could not survive in the light of day. So whatever forces were wrestling within Jacob they had to resolve the battle before daybreak. It’s a beautiful detail to include in the story, because it is true for us as well. Darkness cannot survive light. Darkness is overcome by light. The second detail in the story is that when the wrestling match comes to resolution, Jacob is given a new name, Israel, meaning, “I wrestled God and prevailed.” This set the tone of the whole Hebrew history of struggling and prevailing. The third detail was the place where Jacob wrestled was given the name Penuel, which means, “I stood face-to-face with God and survived.” Mother Teresa Mother Teresa, like Jacob, knew what it meant to wrestle. She was a great inspiration to so many of us for her compassion and activism to the poor and oppressed of the world. Now it emerges that she struggled through decades of self-doubt and doubt of her concept of god. The tragedy is not that Mother Teresa doubted, but rather that she lived, and we live, in a world where we are not free to express doubt. That’s the tragedy. The tragedy is that Mother Teresa could have inspired even more people with the reality that she lived, which was that everything was not right in her world. She was indeed a human being. She had her own dark night of the soul, when many times in the quiet of her own heart she would have cried out, “Yeah, real good!” Mother Teresa knew the dark night of the soul. Because she knew the darkness of this place, she was able to resource her compassion. She had been to the pit of Hell, and therefore, she could offer support and help to those who still lived in the pit of Hell. That’s the point. It was because Mother Teresa knew darkness that she could stand so effectively alongside those who knew darkness, in whatever form it manifested. It’s not just okay to wrestle with God; it’s necessary. It’s not just okay to express doubts; it’s necessary. You have had your own dark night of the soul, and some of you may be going through it right now. Some of you are in the pit of despair even as we gather here this morning. I want to say to you that it is not only okay to be there, but somehow, and you may not feel it right now, but somehow, this moment will become a source for you to live more fully. This moment right now will be a source, a place that will build your passion, compassion, activism, and your desire to make a difference in the world. Somehow, sometime, your wrestling with God will be the source out of which you will bring great joy to the world. You may not believe it right now, but it will happen. Carl Jung, the great psychoanalyst, described his relationship with God like this, “To this day, God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my path violently and recklessly. All things which upset my subjective views, plans, and intentions, and change the course of my life for better or worse.” That’s a definition of God that I can relate to. That’s a definition of being human that resonates for me. I wonder if it resonates for you? Can you be Good Without God? I’ve asked a question this morning, “Can you be good without God?” On one level it is a pointless question. I could say, “Well, there’s a whole long history of atheists who have been very good people, and there is a long history of religious people who have not been good or ethical, and there is a long history of religious people who have only been good because they have been trying to save themselves from eternal damnation and receive the rewards of God.” That’s not really goodness, is it? So on one level I could say that it’s not possible to be good WITH God. But I want to shift the question a little and parallel it with another set of questions, “Can you have faith without doubt? Can you be a source of light if you have never been in darkness? Can you make a difference, if you have never gone deep within and wrestled with your own demons? At Mother Teresa’s funeral there were many people present. One of them was holding a sign that said, “Mother, you were a source of light in the darkness.” That person understood so well that Mother Teresa could only be a source of light because she knew the experience of darkness. Can you make a difference in the world? Can you stand in solidarity with those who are poor and oppressed, losing all semblance of hope, unless you source your compassion out of the well of your own experience of struggle? If we shift the question like this, it becomes clear that you cannot be good without God, because God is the wrestling. God is the dark night of the soul. God is those moments of deep despair and anxiety, and existential wondering. Without those moments, and access to that experience, we can’t have as profound an impact in the world as we would want. Let me give you one last example. Harold Kushner is a progressive Rabbi. One of his books is called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He wrote this book in memory of his son Aaron, who was born with a terminal illness. "Are you capable of forgiving and accepting in love a world which has disappointed you by not being perfect, a world in which there is so much unfairness and cruelty? Can you forgive [the world's] imperfections and love it because it is capable of containing great beauty and goodness, and because it is the only world we have? Are you capable of forgiving and loving the people around you, even if they have hurt you and let you down by not being perfect? Can you forgive and love them, because there aren't any perfect people around, and because the penalty for not being able to love imperfect people is . . . loneliness? Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when . . . [God] has let you down and disappointed you? And will you be able to recognize that the ability to forgive and the ability to love are the [instruments] God has given us to enable us to live fully, bravely, and meaningfully in this less-than-perfect world?" His last words about his son capture the point beautifully. I think of Aaron and all that his life taught me, and I realize how much I have lost and how much I have gained. Yesterday seems less painful, and I am not afraid of tomorrow (ibid. pg. 148). And so it is for you. The lines on your faces tell the stories of your life experience. These lines are blessed scars. Your tears of sadness are holy water. Out of that living and surviving, loving and forgiving, you source a passion for a world made new- awakened and awake to the possibilities for a more humane and just planet.
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