Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, March 27, 2022.

We’re living in a challenging time, with lots of polarization and plenty of uncertainty. These days it’s easy to feel anxious and afraid. What’s needed is to be able to hold the complexity of this time; to be grounded enough that you live more in a both/and space rather than seeing things as either/or. This is something we are doing pretty well here, and I’m grateful for all you bring to this church and our world, the openhearted ways you are showing up for life. 

This feels like a threshold time, and I’m cautiously hopeful about what lies ahead. But who knows? I’ve found this month’s worship theme helpful, and hope you have too.  The way of acceptance invites us to see and embrace things as they are. As Tori preached so beautifully last Sunday, to make a practice of taking a long, loving look at what is real. Isn’t that what’s needed these days? Rather than escaping into daydreams or wishful thinking, to be in touch with what is real, in us and around us.

We just sang a hymn about giving thanks and praise “for all that is our life.” But this isn’t easy! It’s one thing to be thankful for the happy times, the successes and triumphs. Did you notice the words we just sang?:

For sorrow we must bear, for failures, pain, and loss,
for each new thing we learn, for fearful hours that pass:
we come with praise and thanks for all that is our life.

It takes some amount of spiritual maturity to be grateful for your failures, pain, and loss. I’m still working on that, and maybe you are too. The invitation is to be open to all of life, as best as we can. This is what the way of acceptance is about, and it’s not easy, but it does offer a freer, more abundant life.

Real life is messy. We ourselves are unfinished and incomplete. What if we saw that as a good and hopeful thing? What if we saw ourselves as works in progress, with so much potential for good? My hunch is that when we face reality, we start to see that things are actually better than we feared. 

Some of us here are reading a book about living in times like these, by a church consultant named Susan Beaumont. It’s about the challenges and opportunities of living in what she calls “a liminal season.” That word “liminal” comes from the Latin word for threshold, and it describes a place or time of transition, of in-between. Like these days.

Susan Beaumont wrote her book (How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going) before the pandemic, and addressed it to church leaders, because for churches this is a liminal season, and has been for a while—our culture has changed, and religious institutions are no longer at the center the way they once were. 

But I’m finding her work helpful for looking at life these days, which are like liminality on steroids! There are times, like this one, when we find ourselves in a threshold place together. And there are more individual experiences of liminality: you move to a new community, or become a parent or find a partner. Your children grow up and move away, your spouse gets a serious illness, or dies. You start a new job, or decide to retire. Over and over, we each will find ourselves in these transition times.

So how do you face these in-between times? Our patriarchal culture tells us to do something, anything! You know, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going!” And I’m sure that works sometimes. But jumping into action can close off other ways of responding, that needed more time to emerge. 

Susan Beaumont offers a different way; she says a liminal time invites us to make a spiritual shift: from striving to surrender. You may hear surrender as a sign of weakness, that’s what we’re taught to think, but surrender can be a sign of strength and spiritual depth. I have my own resistance to surrender. But in the last year, I’ve come to see surrender not as an escape, or a cowardly way out, but rather as a courageous and faithful way through.

You remember the parable of the prodigal son, which is pictured in our stained glass windows over there? It’s a story Jesus told about a man who had two sons, and one stayed home and the other set off to find a new life. And things didn’t go so well for him. A turning point comes when one day, he looks at the mess he’s made of his life, and the text says, “He came to his senses.” And he returns home, asking for forgiveness, and is welcomed with open arms. 

I love that story, because it reminds me of what I can too often forget: that I don’t need to do anything to earn or deserve God’s love. That it is freely given. That I can’t do anything to separate myself from that Love. I think of these lines from Psalm 139:

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast (Psalm 139:7-10).

This is the spiritual shift from striving to surrender. The shift from thinking, “I can do it all on my own,” to knowing we’re all in this together, that we need one another. The shift from “I’m moving as fast as I can!” to adopting a humane pace. The shift from putting your head down and powering through to slowing down, looking up, asking, “What is called for in this moment?” The shift from thinking you are in control to letting go and letting God.

Susan Beaumont tells the story of her sister-in-law who was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, which she says was devastating for their entire family. Some family members wanted to aggressively fight the disease, to seek new doctors and other opinions, to argue over protocols and strive for more positive outcomes.

Susan writes, “My brother and sister-in-law chose a different route. They chose the route of surrender, and it was beautiful and inspiring. Relatively quickly, they accepted the reality that (she) had the disease. In many ways it was actually a relief for them to finally receive a diagnosis, because the daily symptoms had become quite alarming. Some might view this as a sign of weakness on their part. It wasn’t. Their surrender was an act of incredible bravery.”

Susan says that their surrender wan’t passive; that yielding to the reality of the situation actually empowered them to make decisions while they still could, and allowed them to participate in positive ways of dealing with that hard reality, and be open to what that illness, and their new circumstances, could teach them. 

This is the shift from striving to surrender. And we heard it earlier from the poet David Whyte: 

It is Moses in the desert
Fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
As if to enter heaven
And finding himself astonished,
Opened at last,
Fallen in love with solid ground.

Isn’t that the invitation of these lives we have been given? To fall in love with the solid ground right under our feet? To look inside ourselves and see that we are good enough already. To understand that this moment, and this day, are gifts and miracles. To come to our senses and remember that we don’t have to go anywhere or do anything to be in the presence of that which is Holy and good. That it is right here, where we are. 

May this be our prayer: for all that is this life, we give our thanks and praise.

Blessed Be, and Amen.