R & R
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
October 23, 2016
by The Reverend Craig M. Nowak
“Can you buy your way into heaven?” At first it seemed like a trick question. Partly because I knew the man asking the question. Jim (not his real name) had faithfully attended nearly all the services I had led at a church where I used to guest preach frequently and often made a point of telling me afterward, “That was good, but I disagree with you.” Though it could have been a tense relationship, it wasn’t. We sometimes talked about meeting for coffee to, in his words, “debate” ideas.
We never got around to that and now, here I was, a hospital chaplain, visiting this very wealthy, dying man. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of years but when I walked into his hospital room but he recognized me right away. We exchanged the typical niceties people do before they feel comfortable enough to risk showing their vulnerability. Jim didn’t wait too long. He seemed anxious to get down to business.
I soon realized his question about buying one’s way into heaven was serious. Jim was scared. Without going into great detail, he shared some of his life story with me. He said he was ashamed and regretted much of what he had done, even as he also admitted that he enjoyed some of it at the time. Now faced with the reality of his own mortality, Jim, it seemed, was taking some much needed time out for spiritual R & R. No, not rest and relaxation, but remorse and redemption.
Now, it has been said…or joked…that Unitarians are too good for God to punish them and God is to good to punish Universalists. And indeed, publicly, a lot of Unitarian Universalists I know don’t talk much about remorse or redemption. After all, what’s the point given the claim of our and God’s goodness?
Privately however, remorse and redemption come up a lot among us. The words remorse and redemption themselves aren’t necessary used, but they arise with great frequency as larger themes in conversation…conversations about regrets, difficult decisions, self-loathing, resentment, uncertainty and fear…burdens which weigh us down. The fact is, all of us need a little spiritual R & R now and then, that we might lay our burden down.
Jim, knew he needed it. Indeed, Jim was engaged in what our Jewish friends call atonement. I say engaged in, because atonement is a process. Traditionally, it is a process by which transgressions are pardoned or forgiven. Yet another way to think of atonement is at-one-ment, in which atonement is a process of being restored or reconnected to a state of wholeness.
Jim wasn’t feeling very connected to his wholeness the day I visited him. Of course, we don’t need to be terminally ill to know how that feels. If the state of the world is any indication of the state of our spiritual health, most of us aren’t feeling connected to our wholeness most of the time.
To connect or reconnect to our wholeness we must first be able to recognize or see it.
We see by taking some time to reflect…by taking our lives off auto-pilot for a little while - or as Robert Frost might say, “stopping by woods on a snowy evening.”
It’s not an easy thing to do. For one thing, contemporary American culture, like the poet’s horse, “think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near.” Plugged in anywhere and everywhere all the time is what its all about today. You want or need to be unplugged? Well that’s just weird - or so we’re told.
This means taking time for reflection requires an intentional effort on our part. No one is going to do it for us. Finding and taking that time takes steady resistance to the erroneous notion that time for reflection is a selfish luxury or an unproductive endeavor.
Once past the social barriers to reflection, we soon discover there’s a more personal risk to it as well. Sooner or later we’re going to see something we don’t like about ourselves, by which I don’t mean things like our eye or hair color (or for some of us, how much hair we have) but the habits and attitudes we carry, the desires and drives, that have influenced or shaped what we have said or done (or didn’t say or do) that have harmed others and ourselves physically, emotionally and spiritually. They are part of who we are, like it or not.
When we see these, it is crucial we not try and push them away.
Jim had a litany of things he didn’t like about himself. Some things he named directly, others were discernible in the way he told stories from from his life and his understanding the effects of his words and deeds had on others and himself.
Our own list of things we don’t like about ourselves may be shorter than Jim’s or it may be longer. Regardless, reconnecting to our wholeness includes seeing and, in fact, accepting the most objectionable parts of ourselves.
Now, maybe you’re on board with the seeing part, difficult as it might be. But accepting? Well, let’s first consider what accepting is not.
Accepting what is difficult to see or admit to about ourselves is not shrugging our shoulders and saying, “Oh well, that’s just who I am.” and continuing on our way with life. It is not about taking on or embracing a singular trait or adopting a partial identity. This is how people get stuck believing they are a bad person…a mean person…a selfish person. And it is how people seek to justify their harmful words and actions.
Accepting what is difficult to see or admit to about ourselves means coming to terms with our capacity to think, speak and act in harmful ways. For our wholeness is comprised of both our capacity to think, speak and act in beneficial as well as harmful ways.
A story from the Native American tradition describes wholeness this way:
An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life…"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. "One is destructive - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego. "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. "This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?” The old chief simply replied, "The one you feed."
In reflection we come to see not only that these destructive and beneficial energies coexist in each of us, but which we’ve been feeding… which capacity within ourselves we have invested the most time and effort. Jim knew which wolf he’d fed throughout much of his life and it haunted him.
“Real passion for change,” according to contemporary philosopher Jacob Needleman, “is rooted in remorse.” Remorse is a gnawing feeling we experience in the present that nonetheless shows us a way forward by revealing the mistakes of the past. It reminds us the words of our first reading, “There are none on earth so righteous that they never sin.” apply to us too. When we experience remorse, we realize our heart of stone has been replaced with a new heart…a heart that feels…and inspires change.
Living that change becomes the bridge between remorse and redemption. Absent a commitment to change, remorse descends into defensiveness that tries to justify, or leaves us wallowing in, the past.
How many times have you found yourself feeling remorse for something, inspired to change, only to retreat at the command of your ego? The ego that makes excuses, puts up defenses, and peddles in illusions.
Jim had remorse down. He had done some reflecting. More than some, I’d guess. He knew he had done wrong and hurt others. He even came to see that he hurt himself. And clearly he was very concerned that he had greatly offended God, however he understood God. Jim knew the gnawing pain that inevitably comes with a heart that feels. And it’s precisely when that pain is most intense that we are at greatest risk of slipping into defensiveness- of being seduced by woods “so lovely, dark and deep” as our path toward wholeness vanishes beneath “easy wind and downy flake.”
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Jim had fallen for this trap before. But not this time. Somewhere along the way, Jim realized he had, in the poet’s words, “promises to keep” but no longer miles to go before he slept. There was no more time for excuses, no more time to mount defenses, no more time, period. It was now or never. Indeed, when I met up with him in the hospital, Jim truly didn’t have much time left. He died not long after my visit with him.
Out of remorse, Jim spent the last several years of his life giving away large sums of money to charity and other non-profits. When he asked, “Can you buy your way into heaven?” he really meant it…and he didn’t seem at all confident my response would be what he was hoping to hear. I remember three possible answers coming to mind in the moment. No. Yes. And I don’t know. No, if I were relying solely on certain understandings of the Christian scriptures. Yes, if I was trying to make a scared dying man - and myself - feel better. And “I don’t know” if I were to offer the most honest response in the moment.
Thankfully, a fourth possible response emerged before I opened my mouth. “Jim”, I asked him, “What are you afraid of?” I don’t remember his answer verbatim, but I recall him expressing deep concern that he hadn’t done enough good to make up for all the bad he had done in his life. When I asked him why that was important to him, he didn’t mention his own fear of hellfire, but the pain he had caused others. As we continued to talk, it became clear, Jim desperately sought redemption. More than anything he needed to know he was whole.
All these years later, Jim’s story reminds me of a line from a poem by Galway Kinnell, “The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don’t flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.”
Many of us struggle to see and accept the parts of ourselves we don’t like and this keeps us from seeing and accepting our wholeness. But some, like Jim, struggle to see and accept the parts of themselves that are admirable and thus remain unable to see and accept their wholeness. And a whole lot of us will find ourselves struggling with both at different times in our lives.
Indeed, the spiritual journey is a wild road, not a paved highway. Alone, we can easily get lost. Together, we stand a better chance of finding our way in difficult times. I suspect that’s why Jim, even though he claimed to often disagree with me, still wanted to talk about heaven that day. And that is, in part, why we are here- why we gather in community. To encourage and support at-one-ment by providing one another the space for spiritual R & R…opportunities for remorse and redemption…to reteach and reconnect to our wholeness… and lay our burden down.
Amen and Blessed Be
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
October 23, 2016
by The Reverend Craig M. Nowak
“Can you buy your way into heaven?” At first it seemed like a trick question. Partly because I knew the man asking the question. Jim (not his real name) had faithfully attended nearly all the services I had led at a church where I used to guest preach frequently and often made a point of telling me afterward, “That was good, but I disagree with you.” Though it could have been a tense relationship, it wasn’t. We sometimes talked about meeting for coffee to, in his words, “debate” ideas.
We never got around to that and now, here I was, a hospital chaplain, visiting this very wealthy, dying man. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of years but when I walked into his hospital room but he recognized me right away. We exchanged the typical niceties people do before they feel comfortable enough to risk showing their vulnerability. Jim didn’t wait too long. He seemed anxious to get down to business.
I soon realized his question about buying one’s way into heaven was serious. Jim was scared. Without going into great detail, he shared some of his life story with me. He said he was ashamed and regretted much of what he had done, even as he also admitted that he enjoyed some of it at the time. Now faced with the reality of his own mortality, Jim, it seemed, was taking some much needed time out for spiritual R & R. No, not rest and relaxation, but remorse and redemption.
Now, it has been said…or joked…that Unitarians are too good for God to punish them and God is to good to punish Universalists. And indeed, publicly, a lot of Unitarian Universalists I know don’t talk much about remorse or redemption. After all, what’s the point given the claim of our and God’s goodness?
Privately however, remorse and redemption come up a lot among us. The words remorse and redemption themselves aren’t necessary used, but they arise with great frequency as larger themes in conversation…conversations about regrets, difficult decisions, self-loathing, resentment, uncertainty and fear…burdens which weigh us down. The fact is, all of us need a little spiritual R & R now and then, that we might lay our burden down.
Jim, knew he needed it. Indeed, Jim was engaged in what our Jewish friends call atonement. I say engaged in, because atonement is a process. Traditionally, it is a process by which transgressions are pardoned or forgiven. Yet another way to think of atonement is at-one-ment, in which atonement is a process of being restored or reconnected to a state of wholeness.
Jim wasn’t feeling very connected to his wholeness the day I visited him. Of course, we don’t need to be terminally ill to know how that feels. If the state of the world is any indication of the state of our spiritual health, most of us aren’t feeling connected to our wholeness most of the time.
To connect or reconnect to our wholeness we must first be able to recognize or see it.
We see by taking some time to reflect…by taking our lives off auto-pilot for a little while - or as Robert Frost might say, “stopping by woods on a snowy evening.”
It’s not an easy thing to do. For one thing, contemporary American culture, like the poet’s horse, “think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near.” Plugged in anywhere and everywhere all the time is what its all about today. You want or need to be unplugged? Well that’s just weird - or so we’re told.
This means taking time for reflection requires an intentional effort on our part. No one is going to do it for us. Finding and taking that time takes steady resistance to the erroneous notion that time for reflection is a selfish luxury or an unproductive endeavor.
Once past the social barriers to reflection, we soon discover there’s a more personal risk to it as well. Sooner or later we’re going to see something we don’t like about ourselves, by which I don’t mean things like our eye or hair color (or for some of us, how much hair we have) but the habits and attitudes we carry, the desires and drives, that have influenced or shaped what we have said or done (or didn’t say or do) that have harmed others and ourselves physically, emotionally and spiritually. They are part of who we are, like it or not.
When we see these, it is crucial we not try and push them away.
Jim had a litany of things he didn’t like about himself. Some things he named directly, others were discernible in the way he told stories from from his life and his understanding the effects of his words and deeds had on others and himself.
Our own list of things we don’t like about ourselves may be shorter than Jim’s or it may be longer. Regardless, reconnecting to our wholeness includes seeing and, in fact, accepting the most objectionable parts of ourselves.
Now, maybe you’re on board with the seeing part, difficult as it might be. But accepting? Well, let’s first consider what accepting is not.
Accepting what is difficult to see or admit to about ourselves is not shrugging our shoulders and saying, “Oh well, that’s just who I am.” and continuing on our way with life. It is not about taking on or embracing a singular trait or adopting a partial identity. This is how people get stuck believing they are a bad person…a mean person…a selfish person. And it is how people seek to justify their harmful words and actions.
Accepting what is difficult to see or admit to about ourselves means coming to terms with our capacity to think, speak and act in harmful ways. For our wholeness is comprised of both our capacity to think, speak and act in beneficial as well as harmful ways.
A story from the Native American tradition describes wholeness this way:
An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life…"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. "One is destructive - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego. "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. "This same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?” The old chief simply replied, "The one you feed."
In reflection we come to see not only that these destructive and beneficial energies coexist in each of us, but which we’ve been feeding… which capacity within ourselves we have invested the most time and effort. Jim knew which wolf he’d fed throughout much of his life and it haunted him.
“Real passion for change,” according to contemporary philosopher Jacob Needleman, “is rooted in remorse.” Remorse is a gnawing feeling we experience in the present that nonetheless shows us a way forward by revealing the mistakes of the past. It reminds us the words of our first reading, “There are none on earth so righteous that they never sin.” apply to us too. When we experience remorse, we realize our heart of stone has been replaced with a new heart…a heart that feels…and inspires change.
Living that change becomes the bridge between remorse and redemption. Absent a commitment to change, remorse descends into defensiveness that tries to justify, or leaves us wallowing in, the past.
How many times have you found yourself feeling remorse for something, inspired to change, only to retreat at the command of your ego? The ego that makes excuses, puts up defenses, and peddles in illusions.
Jim had remorse down. He had done some reflecting. More than some, I’d guess. He knew he had done wrong and hurt others. He even came to see that he hurt himself. And clearly he was very concerned that he had greatly offended God, however he understood God. Jim knew the gnawing pain that inevitably comes with a heart that feels. And it’s precisely when that pain is most intense that we are at greatest risk of slipping into defensiveness- of being seduced by woods “so lovely, dark and deep” as our path toward wholeness vanishes beneath “easy wind and downy flake.”
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Jim had fallen for this trap before. But not this time. Somewhere along the way, Jim realized he had, in the poet’s words, “promises to keep” but no longer miles to go before he slept. There was no more time for excuses, no more time to mount defenses, no more time, period. It was now or never. Indeed, when I met up with him in the hospital, Jim truly didn’t have much time left. He died not long after my visit with him.
Out of remorse, Jim spent the last several years of his life giving away large sums of money to charity and other non-profits. When he asked, “Can you buy your way into heaven?” he really meant it…and he didn’t seem at all confident my response would be what he was hoping to hear. I remember three possible answers coming to mind in the moment. No. Yes. And I don’t know. No, if I were relying solely on certain understandings of the Christian scriptures. Yes, if I was trying to make a scared dying man - and myself - feel better. And “I don’t know” if I were to offer the most honest response in the moment.
Thankfully, a fourth possible response emerged before I opened my mouth. “Jim”, I asked him, “What are you afraid of?” I don’t remember his answer verbatim, but I recall him expressing deep concern that he hadn’t done enough good to make up for all the bad he had done in his life. When I asked him why that was important to him, he didn’t mention his own fear of hellfire, but the pain he had caused others. As we continued to talk, it became clear, Jim desperately sought redemption. More than anything he needed to know he was whole.
All these years later, Jim’s story reminds me of a line from a poem by Galway Kinnell, “The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don’t flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.”
Many of us struggle to see and accept the parts of ourselves we don’t like and this keeps us from seeing and accepting our wholeness. But some, like Jim, struggle to see and accept the parts of themselves that are admirable and thus remain unable to see and accept their wholeness. And a whole lot of us will find ourselves struggling with both at different times in our lives.
Indeed, the spiritual journey is a wild road, not a paved highway. Alone, we can easily get lost. Together, we stand a better chance of finding our way in difficult times. I suspect that’s why Jim, even though he claimed to often disagree with me, still wanted to talk about heaven that day. And that is, in part, why we are here- why we gather in community. To encourage and support at-one-ment by providing one another the space for spiritual R & R…opportunities for remorse and redemption…to reteach and reconnect to our wholeness… and lay our burden down.
Amen and Blessed Be
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