A sermon delivered by The Rev. Kathy Schmitz on September 30, 2007
At Pathways Church, A Unitarian Universalist Community in Southlake, Texas
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
Maya Angelou (American Poet, b.1928)
Drama before the sermon: based on God Has Many Names from Hide-and-Seek with God by Mary Ann Moore
In the fall of my second year of seminary someone dear to me was diagnosed with cancer. The news hit me very hard. I went numb. I would even say I went into a depression.
About 5 days after the diagnosis, when we were still waiting for test results that would tell us the true magnitude of the situation, I was talking to a classmate and friend on campus. She asked me how I felt. I felt confused I told her. She told me that confusion was a state of mind not an emotion, and she asked me again how I felt. I found this irritating and to this day have yet to completely determine whether there is an emotion that we might label confusion. However, the interaction did the trick. It made me have a feeling. It made me mad. And it caused me to start processing the depression, the numbness, that lack of feeling that I was having.
Later that evening, I was on the highway driving home, still angry. I started thinking about some of my classmates. My seminary, Andover Newton Theological School, is a main stream Christian seminary. Most of my classmates were liberal Christians. However, the idea of a personal god was not part of my personal theology. I turned my anger on my classmates. They could just give their problems to God. But not me. I had to deal with my problems myself. This increased my irritation. But then I thought. Well, fine. I’ll just give my problem away too. (Keep in mind that I am driving highway speed at night.) Suddenly, I looked up at a point in the sky, and said (defiantly), “OK FINE! It’s yours!”
Here is what I experienced next. It was a sensation, a physical sensation, of 2 large hands enveloping me, as if they had reached down from that point in the sky. It started at my toes, and moved up my body, and out.
And then it was gone. And so was my depression – that heaviness I had felt for days.
I started laughing. Right out loud. And I was flooded with feeling. Right there at 65 miles per hour.
What I knew at the moment was that I had been carrying things, heavy things, that were not mine to carry. I thought somehow I was supposed to fix something. Understand that situation. Know how to feel. What to do.
But I couldn’t. There are some things I am not responsible for – not in charge of. Death is one of those things.
And so I focused instead on the things I am responsible for. Like my love for the person involved. Like my care and concern for the family and the things that needed doing – even though we did not yet know the answers. And I was grateful, joyful, for the love that I had in my life.
I must admit that at one point my laughter turned to the fact that I now had a significant theological problem on my hands – but I chose not to let that bother me just then. I just laughed… and loved.
I went from being in a state of depression, to a state of joy. Nothing outside that car was different. Reality still existed. Yet, it was an experience that changed my life.
The person I was worried about that week is now a healthy cancer survivor. However, in the years since that time, I have had a number of other people I cared about receive difficult medical news. They did not all become healthy survivors. Still, my experience of their diagnoses and eventual deaths has been much gentler and deeper for me because of that encounter, now so many years ago.
This could be the beginning of a sermon about how I came to know god… but it isn’t… because that is not how I experienced it.
This could be the beginning of a sermon about how I understand seemingly mystical experiences through a psychological lens... it could be… because that would be a truthful telling of my perspective… but that isn’t what this sermon is about… because I have no need to convince you of my perspective on this… it’s not point.
This could be the beginning of a sermon about letting go... because that is what I learned, and goodness knows that lots of us need to get better at letting go of the things that are not ours to control. And maybe someday we’ll come back to that. But that is not my purpose in sharing this story today.
No, my reason for sharing this experience with you this morning has to do with why I am a Unitarian Universalist. It has do with why I value being in a theologically diverse community. It’s about why I am a humanist who likes to hang around with theists, and mystics, and the metaphysical folks, the pagans and all the other wonderful people who find their way to our doors and are willing to share their perspectives with me.
It’s been over a dozen years since I was touched by the hands of god. In the end, it didn’t change my theology. A fact that was bewildering to some of my Christian classmates.
It didn’t change my theology, but it did change me.
Just last week someone dear to me received alarming medical test results. Within 24 hours, we knew that the results were a mistake, the results of a lab mix up. It could have been a very long 24 hours. It was not. Because now my reaction, not always but usually, is to go to love. I don’t try to take care of things that aren’t mine. I just go to love.
Some people go to God. I go to love. And while this is different, I am grateful to my god loving friends for the experience that taught me to do that.
Might I have learned this lesson another way? Absolutely. But I didn’t.
This is why I like to hang out with people who are different from me. This is why I want to be in community with people that do not think and feel the same as I do – who do not see and experience that world the same as I do.
Because, I can learn things from their perspectives that I haven’t yet learned from my own.
There is something about looking at our own lives through someone else’s eyes that sheds new light on our stuck places and our growing edges.
Engaging with the diversity around me didn’t change my theology. It changed my life.
Because in spite of our different ways of thinking and feeling and seeing and experiencing we have some things in common.
We experience pain, and fear, and anger as well as joy and peace and hope. We share the common experience of being human. This, I believe, is our common ground.
And while I expect I will always have my own unique way of being human, it is made richer and deeper when I have the opportunity to know what the world is like for others – what the world is like for you.
You don’t have to change my theology to change my life.
When I come to church, I don’t want to be just a label that gets segregated into my own little group. There are plenty of places to do that in the wider world.
I don’t come to church to find more of the divisions I experience elsewhere I life. I come to heal them. I come to find the common ground of our human experience and to do my little part to make it richer and deeper.
I also find it a relief to be in a community where, if I did change my beliefs, I wouldn’t have to find a new home. Because, in fact my beliefs and perspectives are shifting and changing in subtle ways all the time. How liberating to know that I am free to do this and still be welcome in this place.
What we are doing here is trying, in our own humble and sometimes messy way, is to figure out better ways for people to be together. For me this is deeply spiritual work – by which I mean work which connects me to something beyond myself and gives me meaning.
It is humble and messy work this search for common ground. It asks us to dig our hands into the dirt and into the compost of life, into the ground that is rich and deep and nourishes us and out of which we are created.
Our experiences are different. The ways that we express ourselves vary greatly. We bloom in different ways.
And yet we are all challenged and nourished by the common experience of being human.
This is why the themes that I choose for worship tend to be universal human themes:
Beginnings and endings. Connection and community. Hospitality and generosity. Choice and diversity. Forgiveness and gratitude. I look for the common ground out of which we grow. Together, I hope we will till the soil so that it is nourishing and hospitable for all of our roots.
We each bloom in different ways. The fact that you bloom differently than me does not negate what we share.
As Unitarian Universalists, we tend to be proud of our theological diversity. Unfortunately, too often we simply talk about fact that we have it, but we don’t use it. We don’t engage it. We have a great gift and it is of no use because we leave it in the package unwrapped.
Several years back, a study was done by the Unitarian Universalist Association Commission on Appraisals. This is a group that is elected to do independent studies of issues of importance to our movement. They took up the question of our theological diversity. Their findings were shared in a report titled: Engaging our Theological Diversity.
They found that we are indeed a theologically diverse group. This is true of our movement and it true of this congregation. There are no theological majorities. Not in our movement. Not in this congregation. In deciding to be part of a Unitarian Universalist congregation each of us has chosen, has chosen, to be part of a theological minority.
The Commission’s Report also suggested that we could do a better job engaging our diversity.
Our diversity is not a trophy to put on display in the front lobby or packed away with the fine china.
Our diversity is a great gift for us to use… In our communities… in worship, and classes, and small groups.
We need to do better, in the words of the Commission, at Engaging our Theological Diversity.
That was their recommendation: Engage.
Personally I think it is a good recommendation. I hope you do to.
It would be good for our movement. It would be good for this congregation.
If we can learn to engage our differences well… what a difference that could make.
Not just to us… but to the world… a world too torn and segregated.
If we can learn to engage our differences well… what a difference that could make.
And I would like to invite you to that with me.
Right now.
On your order of service you should find 5 little sticky notes. If for some reason you do not, raise your hand and ….)
Scattered about the room are black pens. I would like to invite you to find a black pen and your sticky notes and, on each sticky note write one word that you would be likely to use if you were describing your religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs or orientation.
5 sticky notes. 5 words. 5 words that you would use to describe your religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs or orientation.
While you tend to that, we will be graced with an extra musical offering. You will have about 2 minutes.
(music)
If you have not yet finished you may continue now, or during the postlude.
On the side wall you will see a long strip of newsprint. If you look closely, you will see that contains a drawing of ground, our common ground if you will. There are flower stems growing out of it. Sadly, the flower stems are without blossoms. That’s where you come in. As you leave the sanctuary later, I invite you to grace our garden with the blossoms of your sticky notes – y’all have noticed that they are flowers – yes?!
Help to create a Pathways garden by sharing what blooms in your heart. And take time to notice what else blossoms forth from our common ground as well.
And, later, I invite you to share one of your words with someone. It might be after worship, or on the ride home, or at a friend’s house later. But sometime, somewhere, share what is important to you.
And if someone chooses to share with you, I invite you to simply think of this as an opportunity to learn something new about them. You may resonate with what they say or you may not. For now, just appreciate knowing more about another person. Thank them for trusting you enough to share what is of importance to them.
We are part of a long tradition in which people have searched to find ways that are right for them to explore and express their spiritual longings. We make no claim to having the only way or even the best way to be religious.
But one of the gifts of the way we have chosen is rich theological diversity. Let us celebrate that gift, and do it honor, by respecting and trusting each other enough to use it fully.
Toward the end of time at All Souls, the congregation I served until last year, I spoke one Sunday on the challenges of theological diversity. I talked about some of the feedback I had been receiving on worship. One person, from a different religious background, came up to me afterwards and said, “You know, I didn’t know we were allowed to critique the sermon.”
In our tradition we have freedom of the pulpit. This means that as long as you are asking me to fill your pulpit, you cannot tell me what to say. To maintain integrity, my words must be dictated by my conscience. That’s what freedom of the pulpit means.
However, we also have to freedom of the pew. While you can’t tell me what to say, you do have the right to an opinion and the right to share it with me. In fact, I would encourage you to let me know about your experience of worship here at Pathways. It is helpful for me to know what feeds you. It is helpful for me to know what does not.
I encourage your respectful and constructive feedback.
I also encourage you to realize that worship in a diverse community is not always going to be right on the mark for you. I could talk at length about the challenges of creating worship for a diverse community. It is something I take very seriously. But there are two truths: I and others need your feedback and both I and the community need your flexibility. Feedback and flexibility.
In all communication there are two halves. What is said and what is received.
A story:
When I was a student, I often preached in congregations in need of a guest worship leader. One Sunday, I was leading worship at a small fellowship in NH. The sermon was on choice using the story of a friend who had faced an unwanted pregnancy. After worship, I was approached by an older gentleman who greeted me enthusiastically and told me how completely relevant the sermon had been.
I was a little taken aback. This man had to 85 years old. I wondered with what he was resonating.
As his wife walked up to join him, he explained. They were facing the decision of whether or not to move into a retirement community and were having a difficult time with the choice. You see, although at one level the sermon was pro-choice, at another level it was about the complexity of the choices we face.
Some people would have the dismissed the surface topic as irrelevant to them personally and would have gotten nothing out of the sermon. However, this couple had listened generously. As a result, they had found a real connection to the life issue they were facing.
Some of us are more naturally predisposed to listening generously. These people are lucky because they will get something out of nearly every encounter in life, not just in the sanctuary, but in life. Others of us have to work a little harder. But I believe that this can be cultivated. We can learn to listen not for the overt message but rather for the sub-themes and deeper connections to which we might relate.
Of course, that won’t always work. Sometimes, try as you might, you won’t personally resonate with what is going on in worship or a class or a conversation. Then, may I suggest that you use the opportunity for an experience of wonder and curiosity. This is an opportunity to wonder why these other people, who you care about, do seem to be moved by this topic. You can be curious about just what it is that they are resonating with. This opening of our hearts to others is, in itself, an opportunity for spiritual deepening.
For me, one of the greatest gifts of Unitarian Universalism is the opportunity to be in community with people who hold beliefs different than my own.
It saddens me to think that someone, recognizing that they have different beliefs from me, might dismiss me or feel compelled to fix me.
This is important in this community but also in the world.
I do not want to be dismissed. I doubt many of you do either. I want to be in relationship.
I do not want to be fixed. I doubt many of you do either. I want to be accepted.
I encourage you to watch out for the impulse to either dismiss or to fix the lovely people sitting with you in this room today.
They, like you, may long to be accepted. They, like you, may yearn to be in relationship.
When you open yourself to connection with others you need not be afraid.
They don’t have to change your theology to your life.
You will, I expect, always have your own unique way of being human.
I hope that is made richer and deeper when you have the opportunity to know what the world is like for others, to meet with others on common ground, to engage with others in this amazing human adventure we call life.
May it be so!
Guidelines for use: Here are Rev. Kathy's wishes for the material offered here. The main purpose for making these sermons available is for the use of members and friends of Pathways Church and for those interested in Pathways Church. In this capacity, it is expected that they will be read in place by interested individuals. Should they come to the attention of others, with attribution they may be quoted freely, without permission. With attribution they may be used in whole in the context of worship or religious education without advance permission though Rev. Kathy would be interested to know how they are used and by who. She asks that the text not be used in whole in print press or on another web site without advance permission. Thanks!