Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, October 17, 2021

In the early weeks and months of the pandemic, I started getting emails from our wider  Unitarian Universalist network; from the ministers’ association, from our regional staff, and even from national leaders, trying to be helpful and supportive in that uncertain time. And though I appreciate the effort, and the good intentions behind those emails, it didn’t take long before they started to sound pretty much the same: “We know you’re carrying a lot these days, your probably stressed, trying to figure out how to do church in a new way…. but we want to remind you, to just breathe!” At some point, I said out loud, “If I get another email with the subject line, “Just breathe,” I am going to scream!

Do you know what I’m talking about? Have you ever been worked up or stressed out, and someone tells you, in a soft voice, “Calm down.” And does that help? It’s well-meaning, but not always what you want or need to hear right then, is it?

We all get stressed, and we need ways to come back to ourselves, to feel grounded and remember that we are here, breathing in and breathing out. Sometimes we need to blow off steam. And hopefully we do that in healthy and life-affirming ways. Doing something physical can be good: splitting wood and pounding nails, are, to my mind, particularly satisfying. As can be expressing your frustration, maybe even loudly and with spicy language, to someone who’s able to receive it. I’ve told some of you that I am here, that I can be someone to whom you can blow off steam, when you need to.

The other day I got an email from a church consultant named Susan Beaumont, writing about how overwhelming these days can be, when we’re still having to learn to do things in new ways, when things are still so uncertain. Wearing masks, wondering if it’s safe to do this or that; if you’re like me, feeling annoyed that some people who haven’t gotten with the program. It’s a lot, isn’t it?

Susan wrote something that grabbed me; she said to move out of overwhelm you need to make “a spiritual shift—from striving to surrender.” That word “surrender” keeps popping up for me. Does this ever happen to you? You keep hearing about the same book or movie, or a word or image keeps showing up in front of you? Like the universe is trying to tell you something? 

Well, surrender keeps popping up for me. The trouble is, surrender feels vulnerable to me. I like feeling in control! Don’t you? We live in a culture that tells, in a bunch of ways, that we should be in control. That teaches us this from an early age. I remember a poem from my childhood, called “Invictus,” that ends with these lines: “I am the captain of my fate, I am the master of my soul.” That’s what we’re supposed to be, right? Were any of us taught to embrace the idea of surrender? Were any of us encouraged to wave the white flag?

On a national level, you see our love of control reflected in politicians who win because they’re going to be tough on crime, who assure us we can buy safety by spending billions on the military and on homeland security. 

We like the illusion of being in control. But as we get older, we learn otherwise, don’t we? Life teaches us, and our bodies tell us, that there is so much beyond our control. Our invitation this month, to open up to our vulnerability, that’s letting go of control. And I wonder: how that’s landing with you?

If you’re feeling resistance, you’re not alone. It’s in our DNA to seek safety and security. But it’s not always in our best interest. Despite what the headlines would have us believe, we live in a time and place where we are less physically vulnerable than at almost any time in history. Thanks to vaccines and the lack of wars in our land, and that we have something of a social safety net, and that we have made social progress over the years, people are living longer and better lives.

The greater risk, for us in these days, is to imagine danger where there is none. To hold back in fear of what we imagine, and in doing so cut ourselves off from the love and goodness and grace that is all around, just waiting to be noticed. To wrap ourselves in some kind of armor, and insulate ourselves from what is here to heal and bless us, like the bright October sun that shone so warmly this week.

The way of vulnerability is an invitation to a deeper and richer spiritual life. But it requires letting go of some control; it asks you to trust that you will be held and supported, that it’s okay, and even good, to surrender. 

When I was five or six years old, I took swimming lessons at the YMCA in downtown Charlotte. I can still picture that big pool with its blue gray tile; can remember that pungent chlorine smell. The swimming teacher was an older man named Jack Morrow, and I can see his face like it was yesterday. I have a visceral memory of holding on to the edge of that pool, hanging on for dear life, my feet unable to touch the bottom. When it was my turn to try to swim, Jack stretched his arms out to me, and beckoned me to let go of the wall and swim out, into his arms—he was just a few feet away.

So I did finally push away from that safe spot, paddling hard to keep myself from sinking. And Jack started to get closer! I was swimming, kind of! But then, he started to back away from me! And he was grinning while he did it! And this made me mad, and scared, and I felt hurt, betrayed even. Tears welled up in my eyes. This wasn’t the deal! I was only supposed to swim to that first line where Jack was standing, not out into the middle of the pool! Eventually I did get to Jack’s arms, and he held me, and laughed and said something like, “You did it!”

But I didn’t feel glad or safe in those arms. Maybe relived, I guess. But also less trusting of that man. So if I struggle to let go, maybe I come by it honestly. What about you? Are there lessons from way back it would help you to unlearn, or let go of?

The God I pray to, the Spirit in which I try to put my trust, is not like my swimming teacher from long ago, who was always backing up, not feeling safe. No, I trust that the God of our Universalist faith, whose other name is Love, is more like the water in that pool, which, if you stretch out your arms and lie on your back, if you remember to keep breathing, so your lungs fill with air, that water will hold you, support you, caress you, bless you.

Who among us needs to make a spiritual shift—from paddling fearfully and furiously, to floating freely? Who here wants to move from striving to surrender? 

I do. I am sensing in these days the invitation, and the necessity, of moving slower, of letting go of some things, so I can make a deeper dive into that space where I’ll be more vulnerable, and more alive. This shift, from striving to surrender, means letting down your guard. Opening up to what is, slowing down and dropping down enough to notice what is going on, in us and around us.

When I was down on the Jersey shore recently, most days I did my morning prayer and meditation out on the porch. One day I did this with my eyes open, looking up at the clear blue sky, punctuated by the yellow clouds of early morning. I felt held and comforted by that wide expanse of blue, by the daily miracle of the rising sun. And it came to me, in that moment, that I didn’t have to do anything. That God is already and always holding the space, and anything we do is just an echo and acknowledgment of that reality. The invitation is to let go and let God, or the Universe, or whatever you want to call it, hold it all. To surrender the illusion that that we are in charge or control!

Give up the fight
For some other moment (Gretchen Haley reminds us)
Some other life.
Than here, and now…

Surrender only to this life,
this day, this hour,
not because it does not
constantly break your heart,
but because it also beckons
with beauty
startles with delight
if only we keep
waking up.

If only we keep waking up. This, my friends, is what we are trying to do here, and what it means to be a person of faith: to keep waking up to these lives we have been given, and to the Mystery around us, and to these companions, and these opportunities we have to share the love and good we have known. 

You don’t have to do anything. Just be. As they say, “Just breathe.” The invitation is to relax a little, to let down your guard a bit, so that the goodness and the grace can come on in. So they can find you, can hold you up, and remind you that you are beloved on this earth. That you are beloved on this earth.

Now and forever,
Amen.