Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, November 20, 2022.
I love that hymn, and isn’t this a good week to sing it, on this Sunday before Thanksgiving?:
For all this is our life, we sing our thanks and praise,
For all life is a gift, which we are called to use
To build the common good, and make our own days glad.
These days I’m struck by what a generous world we live in; how, whatever I am feeling, whether I’m happy or sad, the sun rises every morning. The sky is still there, overhead, keeping watch, as are the stars. The earth is still here, under our feet. As are the trees, and the birds, and these human companions…
As Frederick Buechner wrote, that if you’re paying attention, even a limited life opens onto “extraordinary vistas. Taking your children to school and kissing your wife goodbye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day’s work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that (the Spirit) is present within it.”
Isn’t Thanksgiving a lovely invitation to look up and around and appreciate the goodness that’s around us, these simple gifts that can be so easy to miss or take for granted? I need this reminder, and I imagine you do too: to slow down, to wake up to the wonder of this moment, and this day. To seek and find the Holy in the common, everyday places we inhabit. To see that, even with its pain and brokenness, it is still a beautiful world.
Last Sunday Tori quoted Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar whose deep spirituality has made him a widely respected teacher. Some words of his are resonating with me these days, and I hope they will resonate with you too. Richard Rohr writes:
“I believe in mystery and multiplicity… My very belief and experience of a loving and endlessly creative God has led me to trust in both.
“I’ve had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world. This life journey has led me to love mystery and not feel the need to change it or make it un-mysterious. This has put me at odds with many other believers I know who seem to need explanations for everything…
“When I was young, I couldn’t tolerate such ambiguity. My education had trained me to have a lust for answers and explanations. Now, at age 63, it’s all quite different. I no longer believe this is a quid pro quo universe — I’ve counseled too many prisoners, worked with too many failed marriages, faced my own dilemmas too many times and been loved gratuitously after too many failures.”
We live in a culture that is hyper-focused on work and achievement; that tells us we can have it all, and that people who are better off have worked harder and are more virtuous, and more deserving. But Richard Rohr pushes back against this so-called prosperity gospel, he says, “I no longer believe this is a quid pro quo universe.” Because he as seen so much redemption and reconciliation; so many times when he and others received more than they expected or thought they deserved.
At this time of year, when as the days are shorter and colder, when most of the leaves are down and the branches are bare against the November sky, I feel a quietness falling upon the land, and on my heart. I feel an invitation to slow down, and look around, and look inside. I remember a lovely book called The Earth is Enough, and that’s how I feel these days. That this good earth is enough. And isn’t this a good week to court our blessings and acknowledge that yes, all these gifts, they are more than enough?
These days I feel the invitation, as we sang earlier, to return to the home of your soul. To see that we do each have a home there, that is always there, waiting for us. To trust that it is a generous world. That it’s good to take time to cherish and enjoy it. To slow down, and breathe in the presence of that generous spirit of life and love.
I wonder, are you getting enough of this? Time at home in yourself, and with your own soul? Time at home on this beautiful earth? The good news is that you can find this anywhere. It may help to have some quiet, and a place where you feel at peace, but with practice, you can access the home of your soul most anywhere. And when you do, it opens you up to the kind of spacious and expansive faith that I sense people are hungry for these days.
It makes me sad that so many people still equate religion with certainty and with answers. That being faithful means you’re got it all figured out. The spiritual leaders I am drawn to, and want to learn from, are people like Richard Rohr, whose life experience and faith experience has made him more open to ambiguity and mystery, not less. I want to be around mystics and poets, who are interested asking questions and inviting wonder; wanting to open up a conversation, rather than rushing to find an answer.
And I’m grateful that this is our orientation in this church and this tradition; that we’re open to multiple ways of perceiving and understanding. I’m loving being part of several different groups here, in which we listen deeply to one another, and spend time in silence together, and are open to the Spirit moving in our midst, and the wisdom that arises when our hearts are open. I love the generosity of spirit that exists in these gatherings, and in this community, and varied ways you give of yourselves, and help others, and find food for your souls.
I was touched last Sunday, when several of you lit candles of gratitude for people had reached out to you, when you were suffering. And how much those simple calls or cards meant. This is something we are really good at here—caring for one another.
Our culture tends to say, “Look out for number one. Take care of your own needs and let others fend for themselves.” But that’s not how we are made! This week I spent some time online at the Global Joy Summit, which came out of a meeting several years ago between Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dali Lama, when they got together to talk about finding joy in a suffering and troubled world. One thing they kept returning to is that we are made to care for each other, that being compassionate is central to being human. Archbishop Tutu said, “I’ve sometimes joked that God doesn’t know very much math, because when you give to others, it should be that you are subtracting from yourself. But in this incredible kind of way—I’ve certainly found that to be the case so many times—you gave and it seems like in fact you are making space for more to be given to you.”
It’s not a quid pro quo universe. It’s not a transactional world, where you only get what you earn or deserve. We are here for a time on this generous earth, we are here to receive and enjoy these gifts, and to care for others. We are invited, every day, to be open to wonder and mystery, to cherish and celebrate the interconnectedness of life.
“Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood,” Mary Oliver wrote.
“How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.”
My spiritual companions, let us be open, in these days, to the mystery and multiplicity all around. May we have the grace to see that life is not so much to be achieved as it is to be received. That we are here to sing our songs of thanks and praise: for the beauty of this earth, for the joy of human care, for the marvelous complexity of creation, for the wonder of these days: Source of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.
Amen.