Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, December 3, 2023.
A few weeks ago, I saw a short video on Instagram, of the sun going down in Alaska. The person narrating said something like, “There it goes. This far north, we won’t see it again for two and a half months.”
She paused, and I looked at that image of purple sky, fringed with yellow and orange at the horizon, the dark ruffled water, the small houses with light shining from their windows. I felt the ache of two and a half months of no sun; at the most, some twilight. But then she said, “And it’s lovely.”
I wondered if I would have the depth and fortitude to embrace that long darkness, and see possibility in it; to say, “and it’s lovely.” Some of us can really struggle at this time of year, when there’s a lot less light. And if this is you, we honor that struggle and hope you know you don’t have to suffer alone. You have companions here.
Our worship theme for December is “Mystery,” which feels like such a rich invitation in this month that holds the shortest day, and the holy days of Christmas and Hanukkah, which are about light and life and freedom and resistance; spring forth, of course, in times of darkness and danger. Showing up in the most unexpected places and ways.
I love this purple season of Advent, which comes just at the moment when our consumer-driven culture is saying “Shop!” and “Buy!” and “Hurry up!” And Advent quietly says, “Wait. Be still. Look for the possibilities right here, in the dark.” That woman in Alaska would add, “And it’s lovely.”
That quiet dark loveliness is what we offer in our Advent Vespers services, here on Wednesdays at 6 pm. Candles in the darkness, a few words, some quiet music and prayer. A simple meal afterwards. What else do you need?
Richard Rohr, a contemporary theologian and modern mystic, invites us into the mystery.
“I believe in mystery and multiplicity…,” he says. “Religious belief has made me comfortable with ambiguity. ‘Hints and guesses,’ as T.S. Eliot would say.
“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.
“People who've had any genuine spiritual experience always know they don't know. They are utterly humbled before mystery… My belief and comfort is in the depths of Mystery, which should be the very task of religion.”
Here in this church, where we don’t take the old stores literally, but rather, symbolically; we should be well-equipped to do this, to enter into these depths. But it does take a kind of release, a letting go.
I’m mindful that there is in our country a growing bias against facts and learning and truth; you actually hear people say they don’t want leaders who are too smart, they’d rather elect one they’d be comfortable having a beer with. As if those two things are mutually exclusive! I’d love to have a beer with Martin Luther King, Jr. or Albert Einstein or Abraham Lincoln!
So as I invite you to enter Advent as a time of going beyond the answers, please don’t hear me as advocating against thinking or intelligence. These days we need all the smarts we can get, to tackle the problems we are facing.
I’m just saying that when it comes to these holy mysteries, answers will only take us so far. Religion is more like poetry than science. It invites you to turn down the rational side of your brain a bit, to trust there are other ways of knowing. “Be still and know,” the psalmist wrote. This kind of knowing is not about facts, or answers. It’s deeper than that.
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood. (the poet 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.
Can we let this be a month of exploration and wonder and joy? A time to look and laugh and bow our heads? How might you, in this season, enter more deeply into these mysteries, and this joy?
Some years ago, I head a person on the radio talking about how they’d joined a community chorus to sing Handel’s magnificent work, Messiah, which gets sung a lot at this time of year. But she ran into a problem, wondering, “Do I believe these words I’m singing? Are they true?” She wondered about quitting, but something in her said, “Stay.” She kept on signing, and that music, and singing it with others, took her out of her head and into her heart and body, where she touched something deeper than words. And it was transformative.
I get this. In a couple of weeks I’ll be going to hear Handel’s Messiah, and I’ll find it hard not to sing along! I find it so moving. There’s one that comes to mind today, when the bass solo sings:
“Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be chang’d in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.”
Now you could switch on your brain, and ask, who is saying this (it’s Paul from his first letter to the Corinthians), and what does it mean? Changed? Trumpet? And there’s a time for those questions, I guess. But how often does our skepticism hold us back, keep us from being open to wonder? We Unitarian Universalists can be more comfortable deconstructing these mysteries than we are at living into them.
In this season, I don’t want or need to analyze or defend, I just want to close my eyes and feel the magic of that music: “Behold, I tell you a mystery…” I wish I had a magic wand I could wave right now so you could hear that voice, and that trumpet…
(this part of Messiah plays)
Maybe this kind of music isn’t your cup of tea, but I’ll be just as glad, and just as moved, next Sunday, when we gather after the service for a potluck lunch and Christmas carol sing. I hope you can come, because you’ll be moved too. We won’t worry whether there really were angels sweetly singing o’er the plains, we’ll just join in singing their gloria’s.
What do you need, this month, in order to more wholeheartedly enter into the mysteries of Christmas? What would help you, in these weeks of Advent, to prepare some room in your heart for more hope, and more joy? Will you let me know? I’d love to hear your stories, and your struggles, and how your church can better serve this central task of religion, helping you enter into these depths.
When Advent comes, I think of Jan Richardson, a poet and visual artist who’s website is called “The Painted Prayerbook.” Her husband Gary died a few years ago in this season, and this has made it an even more poignant time for Jan, mixing light and shadow, love and loss. Listen to her blessing for Advent:
Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness
to its persistence
when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.
Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes—
your heart
a chapel
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.
My spiritual companions, this is why we are here: for the mysterious and transformative and liberating work of being made into chapels—our hearts stretched and strengthened so that we can hold more disappointment, and more joy; more hope and more faith, than we thought possible. So we can bear the light in unbearable times. So we can be in touch with that mysterious and life-affirming river of Spirit moving in us, and among us, now and forever,
Amen.