Fear Not!
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
October 15, 2017
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
What are the chances you are here this morning? I don’t mean that you came to church today, but rather, that you were born…and in human form? It may surprise you to learn you’ve beaten some pretty staggering odds.
Dr. Ali Binazir, puts it this way, The probability of you existing is “the probability of 2 million people getting together – about the population of San Diego – each to play a game of dice with trillion-sided dice. They each roll the dice, and they all come up the exact same number.” And the Buddhist version goes something like this (as retold by Dr. Binazir), “Imagine there was one life preserver thrown somewhere in some ocean and there is exactly one turtle in all of these oceans, swimming underwater somewhere. The probability that you came about and exist today is the same as that turtle sticking its head out of the water — in the middle of that life preserver. On one try.”
That makes you and me…and everyone we encounter, incredible rare and precious. Indeed, given the incredibly unlikely sequence of events that would have to occur for any one of us to be born, you might say we, or more accurately, life, is a miracle. Indeed, in his book, “Wishful Thinking”, minister and author Frederick Buechner writes, “After lecturing learnedly on miracles, a great theologian was asked to give a specific example of one. "There is only one miracle," he answered. "It is life."
Some miracles are greeted with amazement, new or renewed devotion and personal transformation. Others are greeted with skepticism, cynicism and stubborn resistance. Unfortunately the miracle of life is frequently met with the latter.
Science and religion both tell us we are rare, precious beings and yet we so often treat ourselves and others like disposable trash. A harsh charge to be sure. But how else do we explain chronic personal and social ills and evils, for which we have no reasonable, morally defensible excuse…things like food insecurity and poverty, racism, xenophobia, homophobia and heterosexism, misogyny, and nationalism, not to mention the idolatrous identification of firearms as the supreme symbol of personal liberty and security, a nearly uniquely American fetish.
And no, it is not solely or even mostly the fault of Trump, as morally bankrupt as he is, or Obama, or Bush, or Clinton… all of whom had their own flaws and shortcomings… Try as we might, we can’t pin all that is wrong or inexcusable in our society on our favorite political boogiemen or women of the past or present. To be sure, our politics are a symptom, not the cause of our malaise. And just as surely, politics will not be the cure either. Indeed, to delegate the address and resolution of our gravest social sins to our elected officials alone is to naively seek a political solution to a spiritual problem.
That’s not to say we should abandon whatever political activism or legislative advocacy to which we feel called, personally and by our faith, as the late Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “In a free society some are guilty, but all are responsible.” But as Heschel himself also knew, we should not assume changes in the law equate to changes in the heart. Remember, Justice wears a blindfold. And so do we much of the time. And that’s a problem.
For whereas the law’s aim is impartiality. Our faith’s aim is transformation. And transformation requires vision, the ability to see beyond what is, has been, or believed possible, rational or both.
Indeed, our Unitarian Universalist principles and sources, that vast and deep well of religious, philosophical, scientific, and moral aspirations and teachings drawn from the world’s great spiritual traditions, constantly call us to side with the disenfranchised. To welcome the stranger, care for the sick, provide for the poor, visit the imprisoned. To stand with the powerless, the marginalized and oppressed. To speak truth to power. And to do all this without succumbing to the temptation to exact revenge or delight in the humiliation of opponents. This is radical stuff in a world that tells us in order to gain someone else must lose, that we are what we own, and that the purpose and meaning of life is consumption. This is spiritual stuff that transcends any one tradition no matter how vehemently religious adherents or opponents try to deny, politicize or secularize it. And it cannot find fulfillment, let alone, be sustained, if we are spiritually weak.
You may be wondering, what do I mean by spiritually weak? Quite plainly, I mean unpracticed. Our faith, this faith…however ennobling its ideals or thought it inspires, is nothing if we don’t practice it.
Jonipher Kwong puts it this way, “They say faith without works is dead. So I worked for equality next to my queer friends who wanted to get married. And I worked for religious freedom next to my Muslim friends who are accused of being terrorists. And I worked for racial justice next to my Black friends whose lives were affected by police brutality. Yet I didn’t feel fully alive even after working myself to death. Until I let my work become a spiritual practice. Until I let go of my attachment to outcome. Until I stopped chasing after political issues, one after another. I still still believe faith without works in dead. But works without faith is just as lifeless.” (in “To Wake, To Rise: Meditations on Justice and Resilience”)
Practicing it means grounding ourselves in our faith. And living into it…by moving beyond a conception dwelling within our mind that it may permeate the rest of our body and being where it may find expression in both everyday and extraordinary decisions and actions. To be sure people of various faiths (and none at all) are practicing something, but, given the state of the world, what is being practiced is, by and large, not what the world’s great religious and philosophical traditions, at their core, teach. Why is that?
Could it be, as Marianne Williamson suggests, we are afraid? Afraid, “…not that we are inadequate….” but that…”we are powerful beyond measure.” That, “it is our light, not our darkness that frightens us most.” To be honest, when I first encountered William’s piece years ago, I initially dismissed it as self-serving nonsense, a feel good piece intended to stroke the ego. More generously, I conceded this insight might be applicable to some of humanity’s greatest leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example.
But then I noticed something, particularly after I made the decision to attend seminary. A colleague at the auction house where I worked at the time, mentioned how he admired me for risking something he had often talked about doing himself, but never did…changing careers. And a good friend told me she found observing me on the path toward ordained ministry and all it entailed, inspiring. Some years later, the Director of Pastoral Care where I worked as a chaplain pulled me aside after our first department meeting and commented on how he found the unapologetic ease with which I introduced myself as a married gay man to a room full of new colleagues of various faiths, including some quite conservative, very powerful.
Even though these, by some measures, are small, seemingly insignificant actions, the truth is none of them were particularly easy, nor as smooth or comfortable for me as they might have seemed to observers. I am, I readily admit, a shy and introverted person.
But, when I pause to reflect, I can recall people, shy and outgoing, famous and unknown, introverted and extroverted, people I’ve known personally and others I have not, who all seemed to refuse to “play small.” Not in an arrogant or self-serving way, but in a way that invited or gave me, “permission to do the same.” These are the people Albert Schweitzer reminded us to thank in our chalice lighting this morning…those people who have unconsciously lighted the flame within us when it had died, as it sometimes (I would say usually) does.
Thus, I have come to realize even as I wrestle with its execution, the veracity, of Williamson’s assertion, “We are all meant to shine…born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.” Now, if that doesn’t, at least initially, scare the hell of of you, then something’s amiss.
That fear is not unfounded because it means things…how we see, understand and relate to ourselves, others and our world will change if we accept this. And change is scary. Further, whether you call that animating power within you God or something else, Williamson reminds us of something equally important, and scary, “It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.” If we knew this deeply and lived it, that is, practiced it, the world would be completely different from what we experience today.
This is precisely the point at that the heart of the Hindu festival of Diwali, which falls on October 19th this year. As the story we heard as our first reading noted, “people light lamps at Diwali to remember light triumphs over dark and good over evil.” A familiar spiritual theme. More fully, though, Hinduism teaches the fulfillment of human life is the realization of divine light in one’s own heart and the heart of everyone. According to Professor Anantanand Rambachan, “It is this wisdom that frees us from greed and fear and blesses us with peace, self-acceptance, and joy.” All things we say we want and which the practice of our faith can lead us toward if we dared let our little light shine.
Perhaps that is why, in so many stories of the Bible, when an angel appears to make an announcement before something happens, the first words they utter is, “Fear Not!” “Do not be afraid.”
And still we tremble…afraid not so much that we can’t or are incapable of doing what we’re called to, but that if we actually do, we just might succeed in ushering in a world our mind can’t comprehend, but our hearts long to call home. Fear not!
Amen and Blessed Be
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
October 15, 2017
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
What are the chances you are here this morning? I don’t mean that you came to church today, but rather, that you were born…and in human form? It may surprise you to learn you’ve beaten some pretty staggering odds.
Dr. Ali Binazir, puts it this way, The probability of you existing is “the probability of 2 million people getting together – about the population of San Diego – each to play a game of dice with trillion-sided dice. They each roll the dice, and they all come up the exact same number.” And the Buddhist version goes something like this (as retold by Dr. Binazir), “Imagine there was one life preserver thrown somewhere in some ocean and there is exactly one turtle in all of these oceans, swimming underwater somewhere. The probability that you came about and exist today is the same as that turtle sticking its head out of the water — in the middle of that life preserver. On one try.”
That makes you and me…and everyone we encounter, incredible rare and precious. Indeed, given the incredibly unlikely sequence of events that would have to occur for any one of us to be born, you might say we, or more accurately, life, is a miracle. Indeed, in his book, “Wishful Thinking”, minister and author Frederick Buechner writes, “After lecturing learnedly on miracles, a great theologian was asked to give a specific example of one. "There is only one miracle," he answered. "It is life."
Some miracles are greeted with amazement, new or renewed devotion and personal transformation. Others are greeted with skepticism, cynicism and stubborn resistance. Unfortunately the miracle of life is frequently met with the latter.
Science and religion both tell us we are rare, precious beings and yet we so often treat ourselves and others like disposable trash. A harsh charge to be sure. But how else do we explain chronic personal and social ills and evils, for which we have no reasonable, morally defensible excuse…things like food insecurity and poverty, racism, xenophobia, homophobia and heterosexism, misogyny, and nationalism, not to mention the idolatrous identification of firearms as the supreme symbol of personal liberty and security, a nearly uniquely American fetish.
And no, it is not solely or even mostly the fault of Trump, as morally bankrupt as he is, or Obama, or Bush, or Clinton… all of whom had their own flaws and shortcomings… Try as we might, we can’t pin all that is wrong or inexcusable in our society on our favorite political boogiemen or women of the past or present. To be sure, our politics are a symptom, not the cause of our malaise. And just as surely, politics will not be the cure either. Indeed, to delegate the address and resolution of our gravest social sins to our elected officials alone is to naively seek a political solution to a spiritual problem.
That’s not to say we should abandon whatever political activism or legislative advocacy to which we feel called, personally and by our faith, as the late Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “In a free society some are guilty, but all are responsible.” But as Heschel himself also knew, we should not assume changes in the law equate to changes in the heart. Remember, Justice wears a blindfold. And so do we much of the time. And that’s a problem.
For whereas the law’s aim is impartiality. Our faith’s aim is transformation. And transformation requires vision, the ability to see beyond what is, has been, or believed possible, rational or both.
Indeed, our Unitarian Universalist principles and sources, that vast and deep well of religious, philosophical, scientific, and moral aspirations and teachings drawn from the world’s great spiritual traditions, constantly call us to side with the disenfranchised. To welcome the stranger, care for the sick, provide for the poor, visit the imprisoned. To stand with the powerless, the marginalized and oppressed. To speak truth to power. And to do all this without succumbing to the temptation to exact revenge or delight in the humiliation of opponents. This is radical stuff in a world that tells us in order to gain someone else must lose, that we are what we own, and that the purpose and meaning of life is consumption. This is spiritual stuff that transcends any one tradition no matter how vehemently religious adherents or opponents try to deny, politicize or secularize it. And it cannot find fulfillment, let alone, be sustained, if we are spiritually weak.
You may be wondering, what do I mean by spiritually weak? Quite plainly, I mean unpracticed. Our faith, this faith…however ennobling its ideals or thought it inspires, is nothing if we don’t practice it.
Jonipher Kwong puts it this way, “They say faith without works is dead. So I worked for equality next to my queer friends who wanted to get married. And I worked for religious freedom next to my Muslim friends who are accused of being terrorists. And I worked for racial justice next to my Black friends whose lives were affected by police brutality. Yet I didn’t feel fully alive even after working myself to death. Until I let my work become a spiritual practice. Until I let go of my attachment to outcome. Until I stopped chasing after political issues, one after another. I still still believe faith without works in dead. But works without faith is just as lifeless.” (in “To Wake, To Rise: Meditations on Justice and Resilience”)
Practicing it means grounding ourselves in our faith. And living into it…by moving beyond a conception dwelling within our mind that it may permeate the rest of our body and being where it may find expression in both everyday and extraordinary decisions and actions. To be sure people of various faiths (and none at all) are practicing something, but, given the state of the world, what is being practiced is, by and large, not what the world’s great religious and philosophical traditions, at their core, teach. Why is that?
Could it be, as Marianne Williamson suggests, we are afraid? Afraid, “…not that we are inadequate….” but that…”we are powerful beyond measure.” That, “it is our light, not our darkness that frightens us most.” To be honest, when I first encountered William’s piece years ago, I initially dismissed it as self-serving nonsense, a feel good piece intended to stroke the ego. More generously, I conceded this insight might be applicable to some of humanity’s greatest leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example.
But then I noticed something, particularly after I made the decision to attend seminary. A colleague at the auction house where I worked at the time, mentioned how he admired me for risking something he had often talked about doing himself, but never did…changing careers. And a good friend told me she found observing me on the path toward ordained ministry and all it entailed, inspiring. Some years later, the Director of Pastoral Care where I worked as a chaplain pulled me aside after our first department meeting and commented on how he found the unapologetic ease with which I introduced myself as a married gay man to a room full of new colleagues of various faiths, including some quite conservative, very powerful.
Even though these, by some measures, are small, seemingly insignificant actions, the truth is none of them were particularly easy, nor as smooth or comfortable for me as they might have seemed to observers. I am, I readily admit, a shy and introverted person.
But, when I pause to reflect, I can recall people, shy and outgoing, famous and unknown, introverted and extroverted, people I’ve known personally and others I have not, who all seemed to refuse to “play small.” Not in an arrogant or self-serving way, but in a way that invited or gave me, “permission to do the same.” These are the people Albert Schweitzer reminded us to thank in our chalice lighting this morning…those people who have unconsciously lighted the flame within us when it had died, as it sometimes (I would say usually) does.
Thus, I have come to realize even as I wrestle with its execution, the veracity, of Williamson’s assertion, “We are all meant to shine…born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.” Now, if that doesn’t, at least initially, scare the hell of of you, then something’s amiss.
That fear is not unfounded because it means things…how we see, understand and relate to ourselves, others and our world will change if we accept this. And change is scary. Further, whether you call that animating power within you God or something else, Williamson reminds us of something equally important, and scary, “It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.” If we knew this deeply and lived it, that is, practiced it, the world would be completely different from what we experience today.
This is precisely the point at that the heart of the Hindu festival of Diwali, which falls on October 19th this year. As the story we heard as our first reading noted, “people light lamps at Diwali to remember light triumphs over dark and good over evil.” A familiar spiritual theme. More fully, though, Hinduism teaches the fulfillment of human life is the realization of divine light in one’s own heart and the heart of everyone. According to Professor Anantanand Rambachan, “It is this wisdom that frees us from greed and fear and blesses us with peace, self-acceptance, and joy.” All things we say we want and which the practice of our faith can lead us toward if we dared let our little light shine.
Perhaps that is why, in so many stories of the Bible, when an angel appears to make an announcement before something happens, the first words they utter is, “Fear Not!” “Do not be afraid.”
And still we tremble…afraid not so much that we can’t or are incapable of doing what we’re called to, but that if we actually do, we just might succeed in ushering in a world our mind can’t comprehend, but our hearts long to call home. Fear not!
Amen and Blessed Be
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