When the Going Gets Tough

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Meditation: by Rebecca Parker

Your gifts - whatever you discover them to be - 

can be used to bless or curse the world.

The mind’s power,

the strength of the hands

the reaches of the heart,

the gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing,

waiting

.

Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,

bind up wounds,

welcome the stranger,

praise what is sacred,

do the work of justice

or offer love.

Any of these can draw down the prison door,

hoard bread,

abandon the poor,

obscure what is holy,

comply with injustice

or withhold love.

You must answer this question:

What will you do with your gifts?

Choose to bless the world.

Reading: by William Murry from A Faith for All Seasons (p. 58)

We tend to believe the world is just and orderly, and if that is the case, then there must be a good reason why we suffer. Hence we try to blame someone or something, and often we can think of reasons to blame ourselves. “If only I had gotten him to a doctor sooner…” “If only I had been there at the time…”

In my first parish, a couple active in the church had lost their only son at the age of fourteen in an auto accident. As I talked with them about it, it became clear that to some degree at least they felt that something they had done had been responsible for their son’s death, and nothing I said could dissuade them from that view. It was as though they needed to believe their son’s death was punishment for their sins.

I now know there are both psychological and theological reasons for the persistence of the view of suffering as punishment. Psychologically it is a way of dealing with the guilt every person feels; for if suffering is punishment for sin, then it becomes a way to atone for sin.

Theologically, the persistence of the idea that suffering is a divine punishment involves the whole concept of a just universe. If goodness is not rewarded and evil is not punished, it is difficult to maintain that we live in just, fair, and orderly cosmos. And if the universe is not just, then what does that do to belief in God?

Reading: by Kathy McTigue from a piece entitled “How to give a blessing” (UU World, Winter 2011)

The morning after my father died, following three days and nights of an around-the-clock vigil with my siblings, I had to go to the grocery store to buy a few things for dinner. When I arrived at the check-out counter and the clerk distractedly said, “How are you?” my brain went blank. I couldn’t say “fine,” or even “okay.” I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t even in my right mind. I was numb, sleep-deprived, and saturated with the mystery of our mortality. That’s the only explanation I have, because to my horror I found myself blurting out a real and honest answer. “I’m not so good,” I said. “My Dad died last night.”

With his hands filled with the apples, chicken, and bread, the poor clerk turned red and started to stammer. The people behind me looked longingly at the check-out lines they should have chosen, the ones that would not have placed them in earshot of the too-much-information lady. I was mortified at having revealed to an unprepared stranger just how not-fine I was. Everyone froze in this moment of uncomfortable paralysis—except the young man bagging the groceries, who had Down syndrome. He stopped moving completely, looked straight at me, and with a little slur and great emphasis said,

“I bet you feel really sad about that.”

The simplicity of that little expression of kindness and solidarity allowed both the clerk and me to escape. “Yes, I do. Thank you,” I said to him, and then I was able to walk out with my groceries… I thought about that encounter for a long time. The young man bagging groceries would be considered disabled, in thought, speech, and movement. Yet he was the only one able to offer what counted in that particular moment: He knew how to give a blessing.

When the Going Gets Tough

A Sermon Delivered on April 22, 2012

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

You will probably not be surprised to know, that I like coming here to worship on Sunday mornings. I like the music and the meditation, the singing and the stories. I like to take time to ponder big issues of meaning and morality, and to be in the presence of others with questions and concerns similar to my own. But one of the things I like best, is our tradition of silently lighting candles of joy and concern. 

It is a simple ritual: we are simply invited to reflect on what has been happening in our lives this past week, on good things and troubling things. Of course much more has happened than we could ever expect to remember in the space of a few moments during a worship service. And yet, for me, these few moments serve as a crucial reminder that there is a lot going on in my life. A lot more than I often realize. A lot of experiences I have yet to come to terms with. 

More often than not, it seems my weeks are rushed, and I am speeding from one thing to the next. Moments when I have been frustrated or sad, or anxious or glad. Moments when I let tiny, trivial things tip my mood from good to bad. Or moments that were more profound than I realized – something important was said, a connection was made, something beautiful and deeply moving occurred. 

I can’t recall every important experience, but even so, it is good to take a breath and acknowledge that a lot is going on. And because the full meaning of it all can’t be put into words, it is good to honor the significance of events with a simple symbolic act of lighting a candle. The flame is bright and warm, ephemeral and mysterious, but unmistakably real.

On some Sundays, a few of us offer small insights into what has been going on, writing a few words on a card that I read. A grandchild was born. An aunt died unexpectedly. An anniversary was celebrated. A parent entered hospice. Someone had a heart attack. Someone had a tumor removed. Someone fell and broke five ribs. Recovery is slow and trying.

On other Sundays, all candles are lit in silence, and as I watch the quiet procession of those lining up in our center aisle, I am reminded that there is a lot going on in each of our lives. That every single person in our pews carries within them a world of experience just as profound and challenging, and wonderful and overwhelming, as my own. Each of us struggling. Each of us doing the best we can.

And as a congregation, we try to respond, offering support or advice, or delivering a home-cooked meal. Or when tragedy strikes, sometimes simply acknowledging, “I bet you feel really sad about that.”

* * *

Pain is an unavoidable part of living. Sometimes bad things happen. Those we love may die. We ourselves may find ourselves victims of illness or accident. Our friends may disappoint us. It is in times of sorrow and suffering, that we humans are most likely to ask “why?” Why is this happening to me? 

Few people have written as eloquently and insightfully on the human search for answers to the question “why?” as the Austrian psychiatrist Victor Frankl.

Frankl was born in 1905. As a young man he worked at Vienna General Hospital in suicide prevention, before establishing a private practice, and later heading a neurology department and working as a brain surgeon. Frankl was a brilliant doctor. But his insights into the human psyche were profoundly deepened by his experiences after being deported to a Nazi concentration camp in 1942.

Maintaining a focus on his own scholarship in the midst of increasingly horrendous conditions helped him preserve hope even in bleakest times. Observing the fate of his fellow inmates, he came to identify certain mental attitudes that tended to foster a spirit of resilience and endurance. The most essential of which is a sense of meaning and purpose.

Our human longing for meaning is not merely a frivolous intellectual exercise we are privileged to pursue when our essential needs for food and shelter have been met. Our need for meaning goes much deeper. Without it we can’t survive.

Frankl agreed with Nietzsche, who wrote, a person “who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Life is potentially meaningful under any conditions, even the most miserable. We each have the capacity to creatively turn life’s negative aspects into something positive. Even the most destructive events hold a potential for something constructive. 

In the concentration camps, every day contained a multitude of hardships and dangers. Frankl believed that each of them could yield some subtle benefit – even if only the satisfaction of having overcome them. In this way we can transform senseless suffering into human achievement and accomplishment.

Frankl was inspired by people like Jerry Long. Jerry Long was paralyzed from the neck down at age seventeen after a car accident left him quadriplegic. Within a few years, Jerry learned to type using a stick in his mouth. He attended classes at a community college by phone. In a letter to Frankl, Long writes, 

“I view my life as being abundant with meaning and purpose. The attitude I adopted on that fateful day has become my personal credo for life: I broke my neck, it didn’t break me. I am currently enrolled in my first psychology course in college. I believe my handicap will only enhance my ability to help others. I know that without the suffering, the growth that I have achieved would have been impossible.” (Man’s Search for Meaning, p. 172)

Of course this is not to say that suffering is desirable. Whenever possible, we should determine the source of suffering and remove the cause. But when we can’t remove the cause, when pain is unavoidable, still we have the power to determine our own attitude toward the situation in which we find ourselves.

In this way, the meaning of our lives is not something we discover, it is something we create. We create meaning by engaging in work that serves a greater good. We create meaning in how we engage with others people and world. And we create meaning in the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.

In this way, the meaning of our lives is not something we determine once and for all. It is rather a creative dimension of our every deed. It is continually shaped and re-shaped. The meaning of life is different for every person, and changes from day to day, and from hour to hour. Meaning cannot be found in general and abstract terms. It is always specific and concrete.

As Frankl puts it, 

“To put the question in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: “Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?” There is simply no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game and the particular personality of one’s opponent. The same holds true for human existence.” (p. 131)

* * *

This is the same point Leo Tolstoy makes in a story that was first published in 1885 called “The Three Questions.” It’s the story of a king, for whom the personal search for meaning boiled down to three questions: When is the right time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do?

The king calls on all his advisors and counselors, his scientists and philosophers, to offer answers to his questions. But all the answers he receives are contradictory and unsatisfying. So the king decides to visit an old hermit who lives in the woods, and who is renowned for his wisdom. The king knows the hermit only welcomes common folk, so he dresses in peasant’s clothes, and leaves his guards behind as he approaches the hermit’s hut.

The old hermit is digging in his garden when the king steps up and poses his questions. The hermit doesn’t respond, immersed as he is in his exhausting work. So the king offers to help. He says, “Give me your spade, let me dig.” The hermit thanks him, and sits down to rest. Though the king asks his questions again, the hermit won’t answer while there is still more work in the garden to be done. So the king keeps on shoveling, hour after hour. 

Just as the sun is starting to set, a stranger comes running out of the woods, with his hands pressed to his stomach. When he collapses in the garden, the king and hermit see that he has a deep gash in his stomach, and is bleeding profusely.  The king does his best to stop the bleeding and bandage the wound. Then he carries the stranger into the hut, and lays him on the bed to sleep. Exhausted from the day’s labors the king himself falls asleep on the ground.

The next morning when he wakes up, he is surprised to see the wounded man sitting up in bed looking at him. Grateful for the king’s help and compassion, the stranger confesses that the reason he was there was that he had intended to kill the king, because the king had executed the stranger’s brother and taken his property. But the king’s guards saw him and wounded him on his way to the hermit’s hut.

Now that the king had saved his life, the stranger pledges his allegiance to him, and asks to be his servant. The king, in turn, restores the stranger’s property, and counts himself fortunate to have turned an enemy into a friend. After the stranger leaves, the king again turns to the hermit with his questions:  When is the right time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do?

The hermit replies that his questions are already answered. The king is puzzled, so the hermit explains: When the king approached the hermit a day earlier the most important time was when he helped dig in the garden. If the king had simply turned around and left, he may well have been killed by the would-be assassin. So, the most important person was the hermit, and the most important thing to do was help him. Then, when the stranger came running out of the woods, at that time, the most important person was the stranger, and the most important thing to do was to help him by tending his wounds, and making a friend.

So the answers to the three questions are: Now. Now is the most important time, the only time we can act. And the person you are with, whoever that may be, that is the most important person. And the most important thing to do, is to help and to heal – to do good in whatever way you can.

* * *

The meaning of life is created moment by moment. And yet the moments of our lives do not exist in isolation. As one experience follows another, ever greater dimensions of meaning are created. 

Frankl imagined our life is like a story told in a movie. The movie is made up of “thousands of individual pictures, and each of them makes sense and carries meaning, yet the meaning of the whole film cannot be seen before its last sequence is shown. However, we cannot understand the whole film without having first understood each of its components, each of the individual pictures. Isn’t it the same with life?” Frankl asks. “Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too, reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death?” (p. 168) 

* * *

Our lives are filled with joys and concerns. Blessings beyond our knowledge and sorrows beyond our understanding. When bad things happen, we may be deeply shaken. We want to believe in a world that is just and orderly, and so we desperately search for a good reason tragedy has struck. Someone or something must be responsible. Are we being punished for wrongs we have done? Who can we blame? Should we blame ourselves or others? Or should we blame God?

We will never find satisfactory answers, as long as we dwell on the past, which we cannot change. The meaning we seek can only be found in the future, in our own actions, in our own attitude. We create it.

The world does not single us out, to bless or curse us. It’s the other way around. We have the choice to either bless or curse the world. 

Life is a gift: the mind’s power, the strength of our hands, the reaches of our heart. 

May we use our gifts to bless the world.

Amen.

Searching for Saviors

"There has been a widespread wish for and belief in Saviors who will step into our lives [...and] cut the Gordian knots which we have been too lazy to untie."

-- Aldous Huxley

Reading: a story called “The Rabbi’s Gift” as told by Scott Peck (The Different Drum, p. 13)

[Once upon a time there was] a monastery that had fallen on hard times. Once a great order… it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others. Clearly it was a dying order.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used as a hermitage…. [As the abbot] agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to [him…] to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. “I now how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years,” the abbot said, “but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?”

“No, I am sorry,” the rabbi responded. “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”

When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, “Well, what did the rabbi say?”

“He couldn’t help,” the abbot answered. “We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving – it was something cryptic – was that the Messiah is one of us. I don’t know what he meant.”

In the …weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi’s words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he have possibly meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people’s sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody. But then, almost mysteriously, he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me….

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed an aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling about it…

Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi’s gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm.

Searching for Saviors

A Sermon Delivered on April 8, 2012

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

I have another story for you: Once upon a time there was a man who traveled the country comforting the sick, helping the poor, extending kindness to the outcast. He did all this, teaching, preaching and practicing love, because he believed God is love. He died a tragic death. But his death was not the end of the story. It was really only the beginning. The end.

This story has fascinated men and women for two thousand years now. It has been told and retold countless times. Over the centuries it is has morphed and merged with other stories, old and new, gathering ever-new dimensions of meaning. Each Easter story is like a colorful gem inside a kaleidoscope. And if we pick up this kaleidoscope, and peer through its little hole, and if we hold it up to the light, we will each see a new variation, a new colorful combination of shapes and shadows, and pretty patterns. And as we turn the kaleidoscope, even just a little bit, the pieces inside will shift, and a new picture will appear. And if we each take turns looking through the very same kaleidoscope, passing it through the pews, we will each see something different within it.

This year, “Piggy Bunny” (which I read for our children earlier in the service) is a new Easter story for me – the story of a piglet named Liam who desperately wants to be the Easter Bunny. Despite the skeptics surrounding him, he is not dissuaded. He keeps at it, he practices, and does everything it takes to serve as Easter Bunny. And despite appearances, despite looking like a pig in a rabbit suit, in the end everybody believes in him. He is a savior of sorts, spreading Easter egg blessings to all.

* * *

Easter stories are spring stories, stories of new life and new hope. When the days of our lives are cold and dark, our natural impulse is to withdraw into a tiny den, where we hope to find shelter and preserve warmth. Through long winter months we may grow sleepy and stiff, and the shelter that was meant to protect us can become a tomb in which we are trapped. Spring itself is a savior, awaking us from our winter slumber, pulling us out of hibernation, showing us new life bursting forth within us and around us.

* * *

The Easter story of Jesus is set in the ancient Near East. The Israelites are suffering under the yoke of Roman rule, their country occupied and taxed by a foreign power. The Jewish people long for a Messiah, a divine messenger who will deliver them from their hardships. A savior who will mark the beginning of a new age – an age of political and spiritual liberation.

Jesus is one of the countless teachers and preachers traveling through the land, trying to put his faith into practice – to love God with all is heart and soul and strength, and to love his neighbors as he loves himself. He has a small band of followers. Some of them believe he may actually be the Messiah. But there is no consensus. People are still puzzled over who Jesus was, and what his life meant, for years after he had died.

About a century later, a Jewish author named Josephus writes: “[Jesus] was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher… He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. When Pilate, …had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”

Twenty-some years later, a Roman author named Cornelius Tacitus describes the emerging faith of Christians a “pernicious superstition [that] was checked for the moment [when the death penalty was imposed upon its founder], only to break out once more, not merely in Judea… but in the capital [Rome] itself.”

Whether followers of Jesus or not, what was puzzling to these non-Christian observers was that the stories of Jesus continued to inspire men and women, and his teachings continued to attract. The resurrection story is one attempt to express this ongoing puzzling power.

As Christian theologian John Dominic Crossan sees it, the miracle of Easter is not something that happened three days after Jesus was killed. But rather something that unfolded in the years afterwards. He writes, “What happened historically is that those who believed in Jesus before his execution continued to do so afterward. Easter is not about the start of a new faith but about the continuation of an old one. That is the only miracle and the only mystery, and it is more than enough of both.” (A Revolutionary Biography, p.190)

The authors of the Christian gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, offer four distinct perspectives on the meaning of Jesus, each of them written several generations after Jesus had lived and died. Their stories are evocative and at times contradictory. None of them were meant as literal accounts.

The biblical scholar Marcus Borg gets right to the heart of one issue that rankles the modern mind, namely the story of the empty tomb. What if some folks had set up a video camera outside the tomb in which Jesus was buried? Would they have been able to make a videotape of the resurrection? Borg’s answer is “no,” they wouldn’t have. Questions of whether or not the tomb was empty and whatever happened to the corpse of Jesus is “ultimately irrelevant to the truth of Easter.” (The Meaning of Jesus, p. 130)

For Borg, the historical facts of Easter are very simple: “the followers of Jesus, both then and now, continued to experience Jesus as a living reality after his death.” They experienced visions and apparitions of Jesus.

The resurrection is not the resuscitation of a corpse, but a kind of transformation. There are stories that say Jesus could appear or disappear at will, could walk through solid objects, like doors, and could be heard by one person, but not others in the same place.

The stories I like best, are the ones that talk about how Jesus could be right in front of you, but you wouldn’t know it. In the Gospel of John, there’s a story of Mary Magdalene striking up a conversation with the gardener, after Jesus died. And only after talking for a while, only when the gardener addresses her by name does she realize that he was actually Jesus.

In the Gospel of Luke, there’s a story of two men who are walking on the road to a village called Emmaus. They are joined by another traveler with whom they carry on a lengthy conversation, and who they invite in for dinner that evening. It is only when they sit down together for the meal that they realize the stranger is actually Jesus. Once their eyes are opened, he suddenly vanishes.

The moral of these stories is that the spirit the early Christians associated with Jesus, the spirit of God, the spirit of love, can be present in places and among people we would never have imagined.

It is the same lesson I learn reading the poetry of Walt Whitman, who writes,

“Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass…”

* * *

Do Unitarian Universalists believe in Easter? Do we believe in Jesus? I think most of us do. But we are generally less concerned with the divinity, and more interested in the humanity of Jesus – a prophet and teacher, whose life embodied a radical vision of love and justice.

Another way to say it is that we don’t consider Jesus God’s only begotten son, but rather all people are God’s children. The spirit of life and of love works within all of us. All of us have access to the divine. Each of us can be a conduit of sacred power. Each of us can serve as savior. Each of us has the capacity to save ourselves.

The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s thoughts on this are very close to my own. He writes, “the Holy Spirit is not just for Jesus alone; it is for all of us. From a Buddhist perspective, who is not the son or daughter of God? …[The Buddha] was human, but, at the same time, he became an expression of the highest spirit of humanity. When we are in touch with the highest spirit in ourselves, we too are a Buddha, filled with the Holy Spirit, and we become very tolerant, very open, very deep, and very understanding.” (Living Buddha, Living Christ, p. 37)

* * *

Sometimes we may be tempted to look at the timeless stories of spring with the attitude of a sober scholar, the historian working to separate fact from fiction, or the scientist who looks at life through a microscope to get every tiny detail right, or who looks through a telescope to clearly see the world both near and far.

And there is a place for all of this. But when it comes to religious truths, my preferred tool of research is neither a microscope nor a telescope, but a kaleidoscope. No single story can convey all there is to say. But a multitude of stories – old and new – can create a mosaic of meaning, that is forever changing as we ourselves are changing, forever offering insight into new truth.

Looking through my kaleidoscope this morning, I am reminded that the Messiah is among us. The person who perfectly embodies the holy spirit of life and love, at this particular moment in your life, may be sitting right next to you, or right in front of you. And so we should treat each other with extraordinary respect.

Looking through my kaleidoscope this morning, I believe in the Easter Bunny. How could I not? Early this morning, as I was putting the final touches on my sermon, she poked her nose into my study, and carefully placed a tiny Easter basket on my desk: a custard cup with a dozen chocolate eggs, and an iTunes gift card. She didn’t have long ears and a bushy tail. But there is no doubt it was her. I have the candy to prove it. And the blessings of love I feel are just as unmistakable.

We are surrounded by saviors. We are surrounded by signs of the sacred. The blossoms of spring, the sun’s warmth, the gentle breeze. All are harbingers of hope and new life.

And perhaps most important of all – the savior may be you. The smile you share, your thoughtful word, your understanding ear, may be the expression of sacred love that transforms someone’s life.

On the off, off chance that you are the Messiah, you should treat yourself with extraordinary respect. Do this, and you may find, the first life you save will be your own.

Amen.

A Foolish Faith

"'Tis wisdom sometimes to seem a fool."

-- Thomas Fuller

Reading: by Harvey Cox from The Feast of Fools (p. 1)

During the medieval era there flourished in parts of Europe a holiday known as the Feast of Fools. On that colorful occasion… even ordinarily pious priests and serious townsfolk donned bawdy masks, sang outrageous ditties, and generally kept the whole world awake with revelry and satire. Minor clerics painted their faces, strutted about in the robes of their superiors, and mocked the stately rituals of church and court… During the Feast of Fools, no custom or convention was immune to ridicule and even the highest personages of the realm could expect to be lampooned.

The Feast of Fools was never popular with the higher-ups. It was constantly condemned and criticized. But despite the efforts of fidgety ecclesiastics and an outright condemnation by the Council of Basel in 1431, the Feast of Fools survived until the sixteenth century. Then in the age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation it gradually died out.

Reading: by Wes Nisker from Crazy Wisdom (p. 36)

The holy fools arise from the spiritual subcultures, the esoteric and mystical underground of the world’s great religious traditions. They know a different reality than the rest of us and live every moment in accordance with their understanding, no matter what the cost. They are divine madmen. Among the better known are Lao Tzu, Buddha, and Christ – all challengers of conventional truth, all masters.

Although today it may seem inappropriate to label these holy men “fools,” they were probably called that in their own time. Certainly more people thought them foolish than wise.

Reading: from the Sufi tradition, a story about the learned Mulla Nasrudin, who was considered both wise man and fool. (Crazy Wisdom, p. 32)

When Nasrudin was asked to speak to the congregation at the mosque, he went up to the front and asked, “Oh people, do you know what I have come to tell you?” The crowd answered, “No.” Nasrudin then said, “If you don’t know what I have come to tell you, then you are too ignorant to understand what I was going to say.” And he left the mosque. But the people knew he had great wisdom, so they invited him back the next week. This time when Nasrudin asked the congregation if they knew what he was going to tell them, the crowd answered, “Yes.” “Fine,” said Nasrudin, “then I don’t need to waste your time.” And once again he left the mosque. But once again the people invited him back, thinking the next time they could convince him to talk. When he arrived on the following week, Nasrudin again asked the congregation if they knew what he was going to tell them. This time, half of the people answered back “Yes,” and half of them answered back “No.” “Fine,” said Nasrudin, “then those who know should tell those who don’t know, and I will be on my way.”

A Foolish Faith

A Sermon Delivered on April 1, 2012

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

Back when I was in seminary, in the 1980s, at Starr King School in Berkeley, CA, I was one of the few students who approached ministry as a first carrier, charting a straight path from high school, through college, to theological school. Most of my fellow students were older, and had already tried their hand in some line of work or another, maybe as teacher or lawyer, as scientist or social worker. They had realized that these jobs were not actually for them, but that their true calling was to be a UU minister. Nevertheless, the professions they had each already practiced continued to shape the kind of skills they brought to their unique ministries. So the student body was a colorful crowd.

One of the more colorful among them was a woman named Kay Jorgenson. Before she decided to become a Unitarian Universalist minster she had been a clown. And her clownish nature was apparent in much of what she contributed at school – often dressed in clownish costumes, and working with colorful props, she brought a circus atmosphere to otherwise conventional classes and gatherings. Before entering seminary, she had spent a years doing street theater.

Whereas most of my fellow students seemed to inch closer and closer toward a more conventional pastoral persona in the course of their studies – you know, thoughtful, soft-spoken, low-key – Kay’s clown persona always seemed pretty apparent to me, peeking out in her mannerisms, or in a light-hearted or silly gesture that always seemed to come easily to her, bringing some levity to conversations that were in danger of becoming bogged-down.

I appreciated her distinct approach, and how, in playing the fool, she was able to sometimes relax situations that seemed too tense, or how she was able to gently poke fun at herself and others, showing how we were perhaps taking ourselves a bit too seriously.

But quietly I wondered how she would do in a parish setting. Most UU churches, even in California, expect a more straight-laced kind of preacher in their pulpits. You know, clerical robes with tasteful stoles, or dark suits and ties .

* * *

Today is April 1^st, April Fool’s Day. It’s a good day to be mindful of the ways someone or other may be playing a trick on us, a prank that may surprise us or embarrass us. Or we may be making a fool of ourselves.

Some historians say today’s April Fool’s observances can be traced back to the medieval customs surrounding the Feast of Fools. This can serve as a reminder that there is more to this day than simply pulling a few pranks. There is a religious dimension to playing the fool. This is the point Harvey Cox makes.

The Feast of Fools allowed us to imagine, at least once in a while, a wholly different kind of world – a world in which “the last were first, accepted values were inverted, fools became kings...” It showed that a culture could periodically poke fun at itself, even its most sacred and royal practices.

The fact that the custom died out – or that it has been reduced to pranks and punch lines - is a real loss to Western society.

Somewhere in the course of the last few centuries, Harvey Cox tells us, we have been taught to divide the world in to two separate spheres: the world of fact and the world of fantasy. “As the true heirs of our Puritan forebears, we [were] taught to turn our backs on the world of fantasy… to diligently labor in the world of facts.”

Today we draw a solid line between fact and fantasy. And we allow the term “reality” to be applied only to the former, the world of facts. And yet, as Cox points out,

““reality” is hardly a clear and distinct idea. What is “reality” for one society is illusion for another. “Reality” is not a fixed or changeless category. It is what a particular culture decides it will be. Thus, in some [eastern] cultures, much of what we call the “factual world” is viewed as unreal, at the same time some societies find reality in the dreams, visions, and fantasies that we mark down as illusory. There is no final arbiter of what is “really real.” Science is not designed to demonstrate what is real, but to investigate that portion of reality for which its methods are appropriate.

Our present Western definition of reality is unfortunately a narrow one…” (p. 70)

The wise fool tries to blur the boundary between fact and fantasy – not in order to deceive us – but in order to broaden our understanding of reality. Too often we see only what we want to see.

The stories of Mulla Nasrudin provide many fine examples of just this. Once, for instance, Mulla Nasrudin is outside his house on his hands and knees below a street lantern when a friend walks up. “What are you doing, Mulla?” his friend asks. “I’m looking for my key. I’ve lost it.” So his friend gets down on his hands and knees too and they both search for a long time in the dirt beneath the lantern. Finding nothing, his friend finally turns to him and asked, “Where exactly did you lose it?” Nasrudin replies, “I lost it in the house, but there is more light out here.”

I also like the story, where one day Mulla Nasrudin is in his garden sprinkling bread crumbs around the flowerbeds. A neighbor comes by and asks, “Mulla, why are you doing that?” Nasrudin answers, “Oh, I do it to keep the tigers away.” The neighbor says, “But there aren’t any tigers within thousands of miles of here.” Nasrudin replies, “Effective, isn’t it?”

Nasrudin plays the fool, committing obvious blunders, in order to remind us of our own blunders, that are usually much less obvious to us. We are reminded the worldview we thoughtlessly take for granted is not the only way to see the world.

* * *

Wes Nisker makes the case that the world’s greatest religious figures were often considered fools by their peers. “In his own time, Jesus was considered a kook. He became a hero among the poor because he ministered to them and dared to challenge the authority of church and state, but respectable people probably saw him simply as a scruffy, wandering street person.”

As Wes Nisker sees it, Lao Tzu “was a crazy visionary poet who reputedly turned down good jobs with the king in order to live secluded in the mountains. In the important circles of court and city life they probably laughed when Lao Tzu’s name or ideas were mentioned.”

The Buddha set up communal dwellings in the woods and teach his followers to reject ordinary worldly pursuits and replace them with an odd-sounding doctrine called “the middle path.” Nisker says, “If the Buddha were alive and teaching today, any parents would certainly arrange to have their children kidnapped from his community and deprogrammed.”

* * *

There is something inherently foolish about the religious enterprise. It is foolish, because religious people believe in things that can’t be seen. Foolish, because we believe in gods and goddesses, who embody our highest ideals, our deepest fears, and the mysteries of existence. Foolish, because we believe in paradise or the possibility of a better world.

And with this possibility in mind, religious people challenge the world as it is. They say we can do better. We can break down the boundaries that divide us. We can see that we are all brothers and sisters, all members of one human family, every person worthy of compassion and respect.

As Harvey Cox sees it, the Feast of Fools wasn’t only about festivity and fantasy. It was also a significant form of social criticism. He says,

“the Feast of Fools had an implicitly radical dimension. It exposed the arbitrary quality of social rank and enabled people to see that things need not always be as they are… Unmasking the pretense of the powerful always makes their power seem less irresistible. That is why tyrants tremble before fools and dictators ban political cabarets… From the oppressors point of view satire can always get out of hand or give people ideas, so it is better not to have it at all.” (p.4)

* * *

There is a religious and a social dimension to the fool. The fool has a unique power to uncover connections, and overcome boundaries that too easily divide us.

My fellow Starr King graduate Kay Jorgensen knew this. This is why, rather than toning down her foolishness for a moderate congregational setting, she chose to carefully cultivate her understanding of the religious fool, putting it to work in the world, and inviting church members to leave the safety of their sanctuaries, and to join her in the streets.

In the late 1990s she co-founded an interfaith organization in San Francisco called “The Faithful Fools.” Building on her experience in street theater, she sought to serve people who live on the streets of San Francisco, particularly in the Tenderloin district, which is marked by a high concentration of homeless people, prostitution and poverty.

Kay and her colleagues use the word “faithful” in their name, because they find spiritual power in building relationships between the privileged and the poor. They use the word “fool” harkening back to the jester of medieval times, who was a truth teller in the king’s court, who lived at the edge of society, and who acquired the ability to cross the boundaries society creates. These are the ideas that provide the foundation for Kay’s work, for instance, when once, fully dressed in clown character, Kay led a procession of homeless men and women to San Francisco city hall to protest a ban on shopping carts on city streets.

The founding practice of Faithful Fools was a one-day Street Retreat in the Tenderloin. Since 1998 more than 3500 youth and adults have joined such retreats. They provide opportunity both for religious reflection and for participants to intentionally walk in places and relate to people of whom they are afraid, or are generally advised to stay away from.

The Faithful Fools describe it this way:

“Most people enter into the street retreat not knowing what they will encounter – but with a lot of apprehension about what it will be. From that place of not knowing, we ask people to allow themselves to discover what there is for them to know. This makes it possible for us to begin to “discover on the streets our common humanity”... Myths are shattered. Our own stories are revealed to us. We begin to see the light, courage, strength and creativity in the people we encounter.” (www.faithfulfools.org)

* * *

The fool teaches us to laugh at ourselves, to laugh at our limitations. Rather than approaching the trials and tribulations of our lives as weighty tragedies, we are sometimes better off lightening up.

Laughter can help us take a step back, and realize that sometimes our perspective is unduly narrow, sometimes our fears are unfounded. And sometimes even the world’s most serious problems need not be approached dead seriously.

Blurring the line dividing fact and fantasy wisely can free up our imagination, and provide the inspiration we need to envision a better world.

I would like to close with a final favorite story of Mulla Nasrudin:

When Nasrudin was an old man, he was sitting in a tea shop with friends, looking back on his life, telling his story. “When I was young I was fiery – I wanted to awaken everyone. I prayed to Allah to give me the strength to change the world.”

“In midlife I awoke one day and realized my life was half over and I had changed no one. So I prayed to Allah to give me the strength to change those close around me who so much needed it.”

“Alas, now I am old and my prayer is simpler. “Allah,” I ask, “please give me the strength to at least change myself.””

May we each be wise enough, or foolish enough,

To change the world beginning with ourselves.

Amen.