Sermon

INTRODUCTION: Several years ago in his book, When all you ever wanted isn't enough, Rabbi Harold Kushner introduced the concept of The Instant Coffee Jar Theory of Life. Basically, it goes like this:

When things are going well – namely, when the coffee jar of life is full – we really don't worry that much about our resources. After all, life's jar is full. Build a McMansion, drive a Hummer, super-size our hamburger order, and don't worry – the coffee jar of life is more than half full!

But when things take a downturn – that is, when life's coffee jar has much less – then another pattern develops: Each spoonful is carefully measured out so as to insure that as many spoons full as possible will be left.

I would submit that throughout America, and especially in SW Florida, we’re seeing and experiencing a giant recognition that the coffee jar of life is not nearly as full as we thought it was. Consequently, in arena after arena, we’re pulling back and more carefully spooning out the resources which we possess – or thought we possessed.

I would suggest that in such times, our self-confidence – our ego emissions have also taken a hit. We are seriously tempted to measure the future by the constraints of the present. It’s not simply that we recognize the McMansion, the Hummer, and the super-sizer approach to life are not only obscene but out of reach. Their demise also seeps over into our attitudes about life in general. We don’t realize the other assets we really have.

As an example: Guess who is the richest class of people in the world? Whether you realize it or not, it’s the elderly of America. Guess which denomination in America is not only the most highly educated, but the most affluent in America? Unitarian Universalists. Guess which of two religious congregations in Ft. Myers has a significant segment of elderly Unitarian Universalists? All Faiths. That does not mean we are not experiencing the downturn just like everyone else, but it does mean we should keep in perspective that because of your generosity, and because of the leadership of this congregation, we have paid every bill on time, and we have money in the bank. We also know that it will not continue if we don’t make some serious changes. But let’s keep things in perspective.

(And while we’re at it, let’s say, “Thanks, Joyce Ramay for your leadership of our congregation during these troubled times. Thanks, Finance Committee – its chair Ed Kleinow, Treasurer Doug Cartwright, members Steve Fisher, Pat and Lloyd Fish, and CPA Lyle Olsen, who does our audits free – thanks for keeping us in budget and directing us through the shoals. And thanks to our crackerjack office manager, Sarah Hanna, who administers their financial decisions. In fact, let’s say it out loud: Thanks, Joyce. Finance Committee, please stand: thanks, Finance Committee. Thanks, Sarah. Board of Governors, please stand: Thanks, Board. Now turn to the person next to you who may be giving or doing more than any of us knows, and say to them, “All Faiths thanks you.”)

What the economic downturn has taught us, part of which was already in the making, is this:

In 1960, what would an ideal and fully equipped office have consisted of? I was still in school in 1960, but I often saw the offices of others. Think with me for a moment: For sure, there was an IBM Selectric typewriter, reams of 8½ x 11 paper, a black rotary-dial telephone, and if it were an especially large office, there would be a Hi-Fidelity, mahogany console stereo, filing cabinets filled with copies of correspondence filed alphabetically – there were even file clerks whose only job was to file things – and many times there might be a photo album of family and friends on display, and if it were an office related to media, there might be a Leica camera, a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and a television set.

What more could anyone want…in their office…in 1960?
But today, almost 40 years later, all of those items mentioned and their functions – which comprised almost a roomful of furniture in 1960 – have now been compressed into one tiny gadget which I can hold in the palm of my hand. It’s a computer, typewriter, camera, including still and video with sound, file cabinets, picture storage, there’s no paper needed, and music and movies are available as well if you have good vision. From a room full of big stuff, to all in my hand – in just 40 years. That’s small!

But, that’s not only true about offices. Our vision of what constitutes the “good life” is also changing. McMansions are out. In fact, it is absolutely not “in” to build a house so big it straddles two time zones. The Hummer is exhibit number one for the failure of General Motors. Bigger is not only not better, it’s proven disastrous. Super-size and extra large fries at McDonald’s are being blamed as part of the cause of the obesity epidemic we’re currently realizing.

So one of the gifts of the downturn is to help us realize…in not so gentle a fashion…that small is better…in fact, small is the new big. But that’s not only true in our external lives, with cars and houses and hamburgers. It’s also true about our inner lives.

J.B. Phillips wrote a book many years ago, entitled, Your god is too small. I would like to suggest just the opposite: Our religion, like our Hummers and McMansions and super-sizers, has been too big.

We’ve thought of religion in cosmic terms. The world’s largest religion, Christianity, said that humankind, not just individual people, has made fatal choices and as a result has fallen from its exalted status in creation, and we’re now, low-down, dirty, rotten, son-of-a-gunning sinners headed for hell. In fact, we are standing on a banana peel, teetering over the hot fiery flames of hell, and hopelessly reaching up to grab a spider’s web to hold on to. Jesus came, so they say, to “save” a whole world of such sinners. Evangelical Christianity and Islam speak in cosmic terms of an ultimate day of judgment in which a final and eternal reckoning will take place of who goes where. Cosmic dimensions…Planet size proportions…even a Universe.

You know what? That sounds so much like the religion of a Hummer…like super-sizing…like a McMansion. It’s the religion of the past, not the spirituality of the present…intimate…individual…

Nearly three centuries ago, Soren Kierkegaard said that if he were a physician and were allowed to prescribe just one remedy for the ills of the modern world, here is what he would prescribe: silence.

There is too much noise and busyness in our world. How many times have we been waiting at a traffic signal and then have to listen to the heavy bass boom of a car nearby; or as we pull away, be enveloped in the noise of a motorcycle with mufflers intentionally designed to make extra loud noise?

Our souls long for silence of the moment…but even more for the mental strength to close out that which intrudes. But we find it so difficult. Many of us are 24/7 with our cell phones, so much so that in church, theaters, and the movies, we have to be requested to turn them off. You know, we’re not that important…and it’s not that necessary…but we’re addicted to the possibility of constant access.

It’s become an invasion that eats away at the language of faith. Because, silence is the language of faith. When we’re in the midst of silence, we can let go of the noise of the past, and the fear of the future. We can concentrate on hearing the silence and its messages.

In the silence we can listen in on the conversation that’s going on around us. The birds are singing to each other…the insects are chirping to one another…listen to the wind sweeping through the trees…hear the raindrops falling…or the gentle waves rolling in on the beach.

And when we listen to the silence, we are reminded from deep within, that these are really who we are and from where we came…the rain, the sun, the wind, the earth. We can touch the earth, or smell a flower, and remember our roots, our original flight and travel destination.

Sometimes it’s necessary to close our eyes so that our other senses do not overcome our listening capabilities. But as we listen, we can be gentle to ourselves and we can let whatever we hear, be the voice of God speaking to us in that moment…it’s a bird…it’s a thought…it’s a memory…spoken by the silence to our soul.

But if silence is the language of faith, then silence has to be translated. How does that happen?

Last summer, I spent my study retreat at St. Francis of the Woods in Coyle, Oklahoma. There are times I miss the quiet, the meditation paths, the reflection pools, the gorgeous tiny chapel. And spread throughout the 360 acres in unexpected places are quotes from St. Francis.

Here’s one that I carried away: “Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.” In other words, action is the translation of the silence of faith.

In 1981, a story appeared in the Chicago Tribune in which the late Mother Teresa and Dr. Eugene Pickett, then president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, were interviewed together. The reporter asked Mother Teresa her answer to life’s final meaning. She said, “To be holy, and to go to heaven.”

Dr. Pickett’s reply to the question of life’s final meaning was very different, and yet I wonder if it was not much the same. He said: “To become whole and to create as much of heaven on earth as possible.”

Translation of silence into action is always an echo of our inner peace. We don’t pray to be at peace in our beliefs; rather, that they will be given peaceful outlets.

Faith is not a new life; it is the old life newly seen. Many times, the task to which we are called is simply to show kindness to an irritating person, or to be gracious in a restaurant to the hardworking wait staff, or to touch tenderly the face of a love from whom we have been absent. And what does that mean for these times?

One of the demonic dimensions of the current recession is the 24/7 headlining of it by the media. Rather than seeing life as a whole, we’re seeing the whole through one part – the recession. Rather than recognizing very real financial factors, the recession is seeping over into our personal relationships, our attitude, and our faith. It affects everything, not just finances.

When we go to bed at night, we wonder how things will be when we awaken. Will we be okay and will those for whom we love and care be provided for? Sometimes we long simply for a sense of divine presence that will help us get out of bed in the morning…that will help us to face the new week with hope. We search for a source within that will help us to live life with the pain that’s invaded our body. We want a sense of divinity that will enable us at the day’s end to say it was worth the effort, and the time was well spent.

Addressing those questions is what faith is about. Providing those answers is where faith is always headed. Silence…action… silence…action. That's where spiritual formation begins.

When my little granddaughter Ella was just learning to walk, she loved the newfound ability it gave her at her level down close to the floor to reach things on shelves. She especially loved to go to her maternal grandfather’s home, because Phil and his wife had so many attractive things that were all in reach.

That urge of hers was so strong that Phil found himself constantly saying, “No, no, Ella. No, no.” So much so, that as Ella learned to talk, she associated Phil with the words she kept hearing from him and began to call him, “No, no.” It’s now actually the name she and her family use when referring to: “No, no.” When I’m there, I’ve even heard her mother and father say, “Let’s go see ‘No, no.’”

It’s cute with my 3½-year-old granddaughter, but in life, when the negative “no” begins to be the way we see the world, it can have disastrous consequences. In fact, what Ella experienced in her world, has a genuine parallel to what’s going on in our society today. We’re tempted to name our nation and world in negative terms, no matter what good is happening. Whatever the subject, we name it “no-no.”

But I tell you: There are plenty of good things happening and plenty of good people like you making them happen. The antidote for “no-no” is not to bring the ship to a stop, but it’s to find ways to say, “Yes, we can.” And when we reject “no-no” and instead say, “Yes” to new ways of thinking and doing, we become a part of the effort to turn around both ourselves, and the larger good of which we are a part.

[1] A sermon presented on February 22, 2009, as the fourth in a series focusing on “The Earth Charter (IV). Ego Emissions and Unitarian Faith,” at All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1904 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL, with the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.

[2] There was a book by the title a couple of years ago by Seth Godin.