The Best Sermon Ever!
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
September 13, 2020
The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
The other day my phone rang. I glanced at the screen and since it was displaying
a 508 number, I answered it. It was not however, as I thought it might be,
someone from BUUC (Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church), but a person
seeking help who got my number from the church website.
I asked the person what they needed and a long explanation of their situation
ensued. I had trouble following the story and asked some follow up questions, the
answers to which now made the story seem more suspicious than unclear. As the
person became more irritable and insistent, even offering me a very detailed way
I could provide what they wanted immediately, I became less inclined to believe
their story.
By the time the person hung up on me, I was well past the sense their story was
highly suspect, and had come to assume it to be altogether bogus. After all, this
wasn’t the first time someone had made up a story to play on my sympathies to
get money. Nor was it the first time I turned someone down because their story
seemed suspect. Still, for much of the rest of the day I was plagued by the
thought, “What if my assumption is wrong?”
What if, indeed?
Oscar Wilde famously quipped, "When you assume you make an ass out of you
and me.” And most of us can likely think of situations where our assumptions
have indeed done just that. And yet we live our lives by assumptions every day.
I mean, most of us assume the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening.
And that when we go to bed at night we will wake up the next morning.
We assume the company we work for will pay us at reliable intervals.
And we drive, fly, and sail, assuming we’ll get where we’re going safely.
More broadly, lots of people assume if they more or less play by society’s rules
that life will generally follow a certain predictable trajectory…school, career,
maybe kids, retirement…
And many of them assume that this is true for everyone.
And I assume most of you assumed this was not really going to be the best
sermon ever, but showed up anyway. Thank you for that.
What I’m getting at is this, despite Oscar Wilde’s humorous admonishment about
making assumptions, to assume is human. For better or worse, we assume things
all the time. We have to. Were we to cease all assumptions, we would render
ourselves immobile, unable to function as individuals or a society.
The problem is not so much that we assume, but that our assumptions,
unexamined, can become unshakable convictions, personal or collective “truths”.
“Truths” that limit our imagination, responsiveness, and resiliency as individuals,
communities, nations, and as a species in a world where, as the philosopher
Herakleitos observed, “Change alone is unchanging.”
Climate change, systemic racism, police brutality, income inequality, political
strife….a global pandemic…there’s not a major issue confronting us today that is
not linked to tension arising from people either doubling down on or reexamining
assumptions.
And there’s another, very close to home for our community. Religion.
Countless studies and surveys reveal religious affiliation and attendance is in
decline in the United States and has been for some time. Indeed, echoing the
sentiment expressed by my friend and colleague The Rev. Kate Landis in the most
recent issue of “UU World”, it may very well be that the most countercultural
thing about us here today, is that we go to church.
It is clear to even most casual observers of social trends, religious affiliation and
going to church are not as popular, socially necessary, or as central to people’s
lives as they once were. And part of this is rooted in widely held assumptions
about religion and church. Assumptions like,
Religion is anti-science.
Churches preach and promote intolerance and hatred, especially toward LBGTQ
people.
Religion is for people who don’t want to think for themselves.
Churches require belief in a supernatural deity and assent to a common creed.
Religion is the root of most of the world’s problems.
Churches are always asking for money.
Looking at a screen, or, if you’re reading this at home, it is hard to tell, but I can
imagine some of you nodding in agreement as I listed some of those assumptions
about religion and church. And I’m the first to admit, yeah, we could likely find
enough examples throughout history to solidify those assumptions into firmly
held convictions even as we are gathered here, as members of a religion and a
church.
Yet a lot of what people, including many of you, have said you like about this
religion and this church is that it isn’t all these things people seem to commonly
assume about religion and church.
Clearly assumptions can be examined, challenged, softened, even changed.
But how?
A favorite tool or our time is fact checking, which we hear about mostly through
its application to assertions made by politicians. And indeed for every
assumption about religion and church I stated and for which you or I could
gather supporting data, I could also gather data which counters those
assumptions. Now, that might help some of the time, but as Heraklietos states in
our first reading, “Knowledge is not intelligence.”
In the examination of assumptions we need a different tool.
For this we can again turn to Herakietos, who advised, “In searching for the
truth, be ready for the unexpected.”
When I was in seminary, one of my peers offered a prayer in which she asked, “To
be surprised.” Those words struck me then and have stayed with me since. It’s a
bold request. Sure, a lot of people pray or meditate to effect or inspire change,
sometimes with startling specificity, but the aim often seems to be a return to, or
establishment of, some comfortable, settled state. A state which, the Buddha
observed and taught, does not exist, but that we nevertheless keep grasping for.
But to pray to be surprised feels different. To pray to be surprised is to offer
oneself to Life and say, “I have much to learn. Show me; Guide me. Teach me.”
Indeed, it seems not so much a prayer asking to be visited by unceasing
challenges, but a plea to remain open to and aware of life’s one constant. Change.
A plea to be ready for the unexpected…like sobbing mourners arriving ten
minutes late at a funeral.
In “Surprised By Love”, our second reading, Robbie Walsh paints a powerful
portrait that illustrates how quickly and easily assumptions accumulate to create
a world enclosed in a rigid frame of limited imagination and how the unexpected
can and does break through at times.
We may not all be familiar with the challenges of planning and officiating a
memorial service for someone we didn’t know, but most of us can relate to the
experience of creating a narrative about someone or something based on
assumptions we’ve acquired but not examined.
In preparing for Melvin’s memorial, Walsh couldn’t find anyone who knew much
about Melvin. The descriptions and memories he did manage to get was that of
what some might call a “lost soul.” A person who never got his life together and
sort of drifted aimlessly from cradle to grave, establishing few, if any, meaningful
connections with others along the way. Walsh, taking what information he had
been able to gather, crafted a narrative of a man who would not be missed and
from there planned a memorial not for Melvin, but Walsh’s story about Melvin, a
man he assumed lived and died unloved. How wrong he was.
Surprised by love in the form of sobbing mourners, Walsh makes a vow, “I am
going to try never again to assume that any person is not loved. I am going to try
to prepare for love.” And just to be sure we know he means it, he adds, “Maybe
today I will notice a spark of love in someone’s heart. Maybe this time I will not
be surprised.”
Walsh, it seems had learned the surest way to not be surprised by something is to
prepare…or pray… for it. To seek and notice its spark glowing beneath the future
ash of our assumptions.
And that’s why, the day after my tense phone call with the person seeking help, I
made a referral to an agency that could help the person. Maybe his need was
genuine. Maybe I will be surprised and learn to be less so the next time.
Such is the nature of the spiritual journey, as T.S. Eliot observed,
“We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
For years now, whenever a newcomer or visitor has asked me what Unitarian
Universalists believe, I have responded by noting we’re a faith where church
members hold a diversity of theological beliefs and that because of this our
community is bound by covenant rather than creed. In other words, what unites
and holds us together is a solemn promise to support one another’s spiritual and
religious journey rather than define it.
The purpose of our gathering then is not to distribute the truth in finished form,
but to seek it and be open to its unfolding before us. By exploring, if you will,
both far and wide in places ancient and new, from sources familiar and foreign,
through experiences common and extraordinary, and within people past and
present…saints, sinners and everyone in between.
This is how we, as individual members and friends and as a community examine,
challenge, soften, and even change our assumptions. It is how we foster spiritual
intelligence rather than simply acquire and impart information in response to life
and its challenges. It is how WE pray to be surprised, that at the end of the day or
our lives, we will not be so surprised to find things like love or truth where we
once assumed there was none.
Amen and Blessed Be
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
September 13, 2020
The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
The other day my phone rang. I glanced at the screen and since it was displaying
a 508 number, I answered it. It was not however, as I thought it might be,
someone from BUUC (Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church), but a person
seeking help who got my number from the church website.
I asked the person what they needed and a long explanation of their situation
ensued. I had trouble following the story and asked some follow up questions, the
answers to which now made the story seem more suspicious than unclear. As the
person became more irritable and insistent, even offering me a very detailed way
I could provide what they wanted immediately, I became less inclined to believe
their story.
By the time the person hung up on me, I was well past the sense their story was
highly suspect, and had come to assume it to be altogether bogus. After all, this
wasn’t the first time someone had made up a story to play on my sympathies to
get money. Nor was it the first time I turned someone down because their story
seemed suspect. Still, for much of the rest of the day I was plagued by the
thought, “What if my assumption is wrong?”
What if, indeed?
Oscar Wilde famously quipped, "When you assume you make an ass out of you
and me.” And most of us can likely think of situations where our assumptions
have indeed done just that. And yet we live our lives by assumptions every day.
I mean, most of us assume the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening.
And that when we go to bed at night we will wake up the next morning.
We assume the company we work for will pay us at reliable intervals.
And we drive, fly, and sail, assuming we’ll get where we’re going safely.
More broadly, lots of people assume if they more or less play by society’s rules
that life will generally follow a certain predictable trajectory…school, career,
maybe kids, retirement…
And many of them assume that this is true for everyone.
And I assume most of you assumed this was not really going to be the best
sermon ever, but showed up anyway. Thank you for that.
What I’m getting at is this, despite Oscar Wilde’s humorous admonishment about
making assumptions, to assume is human. For better or worse, we assume things
all the time. We have to. Were we to cease all assumptions, we would render
ourselves immobile, unable to function as individuals or a society.
The problem is not so much that we assume, but that our assumptions,
unexamined, can become unshakable convictions, personal or collective “truths”.
“Truths” that limit our imagination, responsiveness, and resiliency as individuals,
communities, nations, and as a species in a world where, as the philosopher
Herakleitos observed, “Change alone is unchanging.”
Climate change, systemic racism, police brutality, income inequality, political
strife….a global pandemic…there’s not a major issue confronting us today that is
not linked to tension arising from people either doubling down on or reexamining
assumptions.
And there’s another, very close to home for our community. Religion.
Countless studies and surveys reveal religious affiliation and attendance is in
decline in the United States and has been for some time. Indeed, echoing the
sentiment expressed by my friend and colleague The Rev. Kate Landis in the most
recent issue of “UU World”, it may very well be that the most countercultural
thing about us here today, is that we go to church.
It is clear to even most casual observers of social trends, religious affiliation and
going to church are not as popular, socially necessary, or as central to people’s
lives as they once were. And part of this is rooted in widely held assumptions
about religion and church. Assumptions like,
Religion is anti-science.
Churches preach and promote intolerance and hatred, especially toward LBGTQ
people.
Religion is for people who don’t want to think for themselves.
Churches require belief in a supernatural deity and assent to a common creed.
Religion is the root of most of the world’s problems.
Churches are always asking for money.
Looking at a screen, or, if you’re reading this at home, it is hard to tell, but I can
imagine some of you nodding in agreement as I listed some of those assumptions
about religion and church. And I’m the first to admit, yeah, we could likely find
enough examples throughout history to solidify those assumptions into firmly
held convictions even as we are gathered here, as members of a religion and a
church.
Yet a lot of what people, including many of you, have said you like about this
religion and this church is that it isn’t all these things people seem to commonly
assume about religion and church.
Clearly assumptions can be examined, challenged, softened, even changed.
But how?
A favorite tool or our time is fact checking, which we hear about mostly through
its application to assertions made by politicians. And indeed for every
assumption about religion and church I stated and for which you or I could
gather supporting data, I could also gather data which counters those
assumptions. Now, that might help some of the time, but as Heraklietos states in
our first reading, “Knowledge is not intelligence.”
In the examination of assumptions we need a different tool.
For this we can again turn to Herakietos, who advised, “In searching for the
truth, be ready for the unexpected.”
When I was in seminary, one of my peers offered a prayer in which she asked, “To
be surprised.” Those words struck me then and have stayed with me since. It’s a
bold request. Sure, a lot of people pray or meditate to effect or inspire change,
sometimes with startling specificity, but the aim often seems to be a return to, or
establishment of, some comfortable, settled state. A state which, the Buddha
observed and taught, does not exist, but that we nevertheless keep grasping for.
But to pray to be surprised feels different. To pray to be surprised is to offer
oneself to Life and say, “I have much to learn. Show me; Guide me. Teach me.”
Indeed, it seems not so much a prayer asking to be visited by unceasing
challenges, but a plea to remain open to and aware of life’s one constant. Change.
A plea to be ready for the unexpected…like sobbing mourners arriving ten
minutes late at a funeral.
In “Surprised By Love”, our second reading, Robbie Walsh paints a powerful
portrait that illustrates how quickly and easily assumptions accumulate to create
a world enclosed in a rigid frame of limited imagination and how the unexpected
can and does break through at times.
We may not all be familiar with the challenges of planning and officiating a
memorial service for someone we didn’t know, but most of us can relate to the
experience of creating a narrative about someone or something based on
assumptions we’ve acquired but not examined.
In preparing for Melvin’s memorial, Walsh couldn’t find anyone who knew much
about Melvin. The descriptions and memories he did manage to get was that of
what some might call a “lost soul.” A person who never got his life together and
sort of drifted aimlessly from cradle to grave, establishing few, if any, meaningful
connections with others along the way. Walsh, taking what information he had
been able to gather, crafted a narrative of a man who would not be missed and
from there planned a memorial not for Melvin, but Walsh’s story about Melvin, a
man he assumed lived and died unloved. How wrong he was.
Surprised by love in the form of sobbing mourners, Walsh makes a vow, “I am
going to try never again to assume that any person is not loved. I am going to try
to prepare for love.” And just to be sure we know he means it, he adds, “Maybe
today I will notice a spark of love in someone’s heart. Maybe this time I will not
be surprised.”
Walsh, it seems had learned the surest way to not be surprised by something is to
prepare…or pray… for it. To seek and notice its spark glowing beneath the future
ash of our assumptions.
And that’s why, the day after my tense phone call with the person seeking help, I
made a referral to an agency that could help the person. Maybe his need was
genuine. Maybe I will be surprised and learn to be less so the next time.
Such is the nature of the spiritual journey, as T.S. Eliot observed,
“We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
For years now, whenever a newcomer or visitor has asked me what Unitarian
Universalists believe, I have responded by noting we’re a faith where church
members hold a diversity of theological beliefs and that because of this our
community is bound by covenant rather than creed. In other words, what unites
and holds us together is a solemn promise to support one another’s spiritual and
religious journey rather than define it.
The purpose of our gathering then is not to distribute the truth in finished form,
but to seek it and be open to its unfolding before us. By exploring, if you will,
both far and wide in places ancient and new, from sources familiar and foreign,
through experiences common and extraordinary, and within people past and
present…saints, sinners and everyone in between.
This is how we, as individual members and friends and as a community examine,
challenge, soften, and even change our assumptions. It is how we foster spiritual
intelligence rather than simply acquire and impart information in response to life
and its challenges. It is how WE pray to be surprised, that at the end of the day or
our lives, we will not be so surprised to find things like love or truth where we
once assumed there was none.
Amen and Blessed Be
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