Meeting Grace
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
November 5, 2017
by Rev. Craig M. Nowak
“Can we talk?”
Just to be clear, this is not the start of the worst Joan Rivers impression ever. Rather those three words marked the start of a profoundly honest and meaningful conversation I had some years ago with a person who was attending a program on immigration I was facilitating at the church I served in Concord, MA. The program, developed following a trip to Southern Arizona and several towns in Northern Mexico I made as part of a delegation of religious leaders, sought to address the causes of migration and complexity of immigration policy and enforcement and to encourage participants to discern a moral response within the framework of our faith.
Three or four sessions in it seemed most, if not all, of the participants were aligned in their thinking on the issues raised in the program. All that is, except one woman, who following one of the sessions, approached me and asked, “Can we talk?”
And so we sat down and she proceeded to explain her concern that she was not where the others in the group were on the issue of immigration. She expressed compassion for migrants but added she had a lot more questions. She wondered what that meant for her as a Unitarian Universalist (UU)…did it mean she was a “bad” UU or not really a UU at all? A nagging question had seized her, “What’s wrong with me?”
It is a question surely most of us in this room have or will ask ourselves at one time or another in our lives. Sometimes we ask a variant of “What’s wrong we me?”, such as, “What’s wrong with others?” or the world, for example. Either way, it indicates a deep sense of alienation from ourselves, others or the world.
I assured the woman my group that there was nothing wrong with her or that she was not where the others in the group or where she thought a UU should be on the issue at hand. Indeed, I told her the only place she needed to be at the moment was right where she was.
In retrospect, what I was trying to do with my response was introduce her to grace. Grace who? You might be wondering.
Not who? But what?
If you were raised in the Christian tradition you may recall grace described as God’s unmerited favor or love toward God’s creation.
Minister and author Frederick Buechner writes, “A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace.” Robbie Walsh, a UU minister, once offered J.S. Bach’s Second Brandenburg Concerto as an example of grace and indeed, we could say Neely Bruce’s “Bill of Rights” from which the choir sang the “Ninth Amendment” today, is an example of grace. What examples of grace do you recognize from your own life as you hear these?
In her book, “Amazing Grace”, Kathleen Norris describes grace this way, “One morning this past spring I noticed a young couple with an infant at an airport departure gate. The baby was staring intently at other people, and as soon as he recognized a human face, not matter whose it was, not matter if it was young or old, pretty or ugly, bored or happy or worried looking he would respond with absolute delight….and as I watched that baby play with any adult who would allow it, I felt awe-struck, because I realized that this is how God looks at us, staring into our faces in order to be delighted, to see the creature he made and called good, along with the rest of creation.” A God who, she adds, “can look right through whatever evil we’ve done in our lives to the creature made in the divine image.”
Although Norris describes grace through the lens of a theist our concern here need not be who, what or even is this God, nor the establishment of a precise definition of grace. But rather, what lies at the heart of grace, which Norris’ words seek to capture, and what is its effect on our lives?
In her poem, “Wild Geese”, Mary Oliver points toward an answer, noting, “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”
At the heart of grace then, is the experience of belonging. Moments of grace remind us we belong, that we are connected to something larger than ourselves and our current situation. As Frederick Buechner, describes grace, “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.”
And pointing toward the effect of grace in our lives, Buechner adds, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.”
As Buechner notes, grace does not imply or promise protection from life’s ups and downs, but instead helps us discern and experience the truth of our interconnectedness and to delight in it.
Of course, as my conversation with the woman from Concord, the record of our own lives, and the state of the world attests, we can and in fact do experience a sense of separation, a profound and often painful estrangement from any sense of belonging or beloved-ness which can cause us to deny, resist or even curse our interconnectedness.
This estrangement is manifest in our relationship to self and others and in the biases we adopt, defend or refuse to let go of. It is manifest in our increasingly zero sum game approach to politics, economics and even civil rights. It is manifest in our abuse of our own bodies, the planet and other forms of life which inhabit it.
All of which grow into the despair for the world of which the poet Wendell Berry speaks. Despair which causes him, like us, to awaken “at the least sound” in the middle of the night… or have stirred within us throughout the day, worry…fear of what our lives or that of our children may be.
Berry’s response to his worries or fear is different than what our culture generally prescribes and rewards. He doesn’t go shopping. He doesn’t get on social media and rail against muslims or jews or christian evangelicals..or gays or immigrants, the press, liberals, republicans or whatever one’s favorite scapegoat might be. He doesn’t comb the internet looking for news stories, regardless of source, that seem to confirm or deny his worst fears or hopes, nor does he flip on the tv and switch between CNN, FOX News and MSNBC for the same purpose. Nor does he reach for chocolate cake, a bottle, cigarette or other distractions and diversions.
Instead turns to nature. First to observe. To go down where the wood drake and heron are. And then to greet. To come into the peace of wild things and the presence of still water. Which is really to say, he gets spiritual. And not because he is morally superior or is not tempted by the other options…speaking from my own experience, chocolate cake or some other confectionery indulgence has led me astray many times.
I suspect Berry gets spiritual because it is only option where we are offered a radical, unequivocally authentic welcome and genuine acceptance as we are, where we are and for no other reason than that we are. And indeed that is what Berry describes when he writes, “For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
Now, when I talk about Berry getting spiritual concerning grace, I don’t mean there’s some formula or ritual that Berry or any of us needs to do or even can be done to earn grace. Grace does not appear on demand nor is it available exclusively to religious or socially “worthy” people. As Mary Oliver writes, “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Like so many spiritual teachings and concepts grace is radically egalitarian, neither conforming to nor easily reconciled with conventional wisdom or thinking. Which may be why some of us resist or have a hard time with it.
Indeed, grace is a gift offered to the deserving and undeserving alike. As such, “there’s only one catch”, according to Frederick Buechner, “Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.” And as we all know when our hands, hearts and minds are grasping or filled with other distractions and diversions, we are ill prepared to accept anything else…let alone grace.
Getting spiritual then, simply means keeping our hands, hearts and minds free enough to notice and accept grace whether it show up as self acceptance, a strain of music, in a baby’s smile, under the stars or any number of countless ways in which we experience life, “harsh and exciting- over and over announcing our place in the family of things.”
In the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammed in the Muslim tradition, it is written, “Allah says, "Take one step towards Me, I will take ten steps towards you.” How are you keeping your hands, heart and mind free enough to notice and accept grace?
Friends, time and again grace appears at the threshold of our lives, no matter who we are, where we are or what we’ve done…. with arms wide open, inviting us in, inviting us to love and be loved. And awaiting only our attention and greeting.
Amen and Blessed Be
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
November 5, 2017
by Rev. Craig M. Nowak
“Can we talk?”
Just to be clear, this is not the start of the worst Joan Rivers impression ever. Rather those three words marked the start of a profoundly honest and meaningful conversation I had some years ago with a person who was attending a program on immigration I was facilitating at the church I served in Concord, MA. The program, developed following a trip to Southern Arizona and several towns in Northern Mexico I made as part of a delegation of religious leaders, sought to address the causes of migration and complexity of immigration policy and enforcement and to encourage participants to discern a moral response within the framework of our faith.
Three or four sessions in it seemed most, if not all, of the participants were aligned in their thinking on the issues raised in the program. All that is, except one woman, who following one of the sessions, approached me and asked, “Can we talk?”
And so we sat down and she proceeded to explain her concern that she was not where the others in the group were on the issue of immigration. She expressed compassion for migrants but added she had a lot more questions. She wondered what that meant for her as a Unitarian Universalist (UU)…did it mean she was a “bad” UU or not really a UU at all? A nagging question had seized her, “What’s wrong with me?”
It is a question surely most of us in this room have or will ask ourselves at one time or another in our lives. Sometimes we ask a variant of “What’s wrong we me?”, such as, “What’s wrong with others?” or the world, for example. Either way, it indicates a deep sense of alienation from ourselves, others or the world.
I assured the woman my group that there was nothing wrong with her or that she was not where the others in the group or where she thought a UU should be on the issue at hand. Indeed, I told her the only place she needed to be at the moment was right where she was.
In retrospect, what I was trying to do with my response was introduce her to grace. Grace who? You might be wondering.
Not who? But what?
If you were raised in the Christian tradition you may recall grace described as God’s unmerited favor or love toward God’s creation.
Minister and author Frederick Buechner writes, “A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace.” Robbie Walsh, a UU minister, once offered J.S. Bach’s Second Brandenburg Concerto as an example of grace and indeed, we could say Neely Bruce’s “Bill of Rights” from which the choir sang the “Ninth Amendment” today, is an example of grace. What examples of grace do you recognize from your own life as you hear these?
In her book, “Amazing Grace”, Kathleen Norris describes grace this way, “One morning this past spring I noticed a young couple with an infant at an airport departure gate. The baby was staring intently at other people, and as soon as he recognized a human face, not matter whose it was, not matter if it was young or old, pretty or ugly, bored or happy or worried looking he would respond with absolute delight….and as I watched that baby play with any adult who would allow it, I felt awe-struck, because I realized that this is how God looks at us, staring into our faces in order to be delighted, to see the creature he made and called good, along with the rest of creation.” A God who, she adds, “can look right through whatever evil we’ve done in our lives to the creature made in the divine image.”
Although Norris describes grace through the lens of a theist our concern here need not be who, what or even is this God, nor the establishment of a precise definition of grace. But rather, what lies at the heart of grace, which Norris’ words seek to capture, and what is its effect on our lives?
In her poem, “Wild Geese”, Mary Oliver points toward an answer, noting, “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”
At the heart of grace then, is the experience of belonging. Moments of grace remind us we belong, that we are connected to something larger than ourselves and our current situation. As Frederick Buechner, describes grace, “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.”
And pointing toward the effect of grace in our lives, Buechner adds, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.”
As Buechner notes, grace does not imply or promise protection from life’s ups and downs, but instead helps us discern and experience the truth of our interconnectedness and to delight in it.
Of course, as my conversation with the woman from Concord, the record of our own lives, and the state of the world attests, we can and in fact do experience a sense of separation, a profound and often painful estrangement from any sense of belonging or beloved-ness which can cause us to deny, resist or even curse our interconnectedness.
This estrangement is manifest in our relationship to self and others and in the biases we adopt, defend or refuse to let go of. It is manifest in our increasingly zero sum game approach to politics, economics and even civil rights. It is manifest in our abuse of our own bodies, the planet and other forms of life which inhabit it.
All of which grow into the despair for the world of which the poet Wendell Berry speaks. Despair which causes him, like us, to awaken “at the least sound” in the middle of the night… or have stirred within us throughout the day, worry…fear of what our lives or that of our children may be.
Berry’s response to his worries or fear is different than what our culture generally prescribes and rewards. He doesn’t go shopping. He doesn’t get on social media and rail against muslims or jews or christian evangelicals..or gays or immigrants, the press, liberals, republicans or whatever one’s favorite scapegoat might be. He doesn’t comb the internet looking for news stories, regardless of source, that seem to confirm or deny his worst fears or hopes, nor does he flip on the tv and switch between CNN, FOX News and MSNBC for the same purpose. Nor does he reach for chocolate cake, a bottle, cigarette or other distractions and diversions.
Instead turns to nature. First to observe. To go down where the wood drake and heron are. And then to greet. To come into the peace of wild things and the presence of still water. Which is really to say, he gets spiritual. And not because he is morally superior or is not tempted by the other options…speaking from my own experience, chocolate cake or some other confectionery indulgence has led me astray many times.
I suspect Berry gets spiritual because it is only option where we are offered a radical, unequivocally authentic welcome and genuine acceptance as we are, where we are and for no other reason than that we are. And indeed that is what Berry describes when he writes, “For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
Now, when I talk about Berry getting spiritual concerning grace, I don’t mean there’s some formula or ritual that Berry or any of us needs to do or even can be done to earn grace. Grace does not appear on demand nor is it available exclusively to religious or socially “worthy” people. As Mary Oliver writes, “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Like so many spiritual teachings and concepts grace is radically egalitarian, neither conforming to nor easily reconciled with conventional wisdom or thinking. Which may be why some of us resist or have a hard time with it.
Indeed, grace is a gift offered to the deserving and undeserving alike. As such, “there’s only one catch”, according to Frederick Buechner, “Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.” And as we all know when our hands, hearts and minds are grasping or filled with other distractions and diversions, we are ill prepared to accept anything else…let alone grace.
Getting spiritual then, simply means keeping our hands, hearts and minds free enough to notice and accept grace whether it show up as self acceptance, a strain of music, in a baby’s smile, under the stars or any number of countless ways in which we experience life, “harsh and exciting- over and over announcing our place in the family of things.”
In the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammed in the Muslim tradition, it is written, “Allah says, "Take one step towards Me, I will take ten steps towards you.” How are you keeping your hands, heart and mind free enough to notice and accept grace?
Friends, time and again grace appears at the threshold of our lives, no matter who we are, where we are or what we’ve done…. with arms wide open, inviting us in, inviting us to love and be loved. And awaiting only our attention and greeting.
Amen and Blessed Be
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